For any comments or feedback about the game.
The goal is to survive through 6 boards with as much gold and treasure as you can.
Best thing to aim for starting out is to get 25 gold through tile events, then press START (Enter) and go into ‘Items’ and buy a treasure, to gain a new ability.
At first your input is to just choose directions at intersections, or what to do on certain tiles, but once you’ve got a treasure you can use its ability to help in specific ways (e.g. move a specific number of spaces for a mana cost).
More treasures mean more options, and the game is mostly about strategizing where to go and what to use and when.
I will likely expand on the tutorial in future, so if there’s anything specific that’s unclear or confusing I’ll try and clarify.
Just played a round. I think there's an interesting core here, but I can see why you said what you posted on the discord. I made it to the end, and have some feedback.
I hope this doesn't come off too negative/harsh. I really like the concept, it reminds of a rogue-lite take on board games like "Tales of the Arabian Nights"; I've even tried my own hand at making GameBoy "board games" like this, too, so I'm very excited to see where this goes.
Yeah this is exactly the kind of game I'd like to be playing; I've been on a quest to make/find a good game that gets that "just one more run" feeling like FTL, etc.
I think with some clearer presentation of information and maybe some tweaks to expand immersion/investment in the scene, this could be amazing.
Since your spaces are all themed events, have you considered changing to a scene when the player lands on a space? For example, if I land on the "Wizard" space, maybe change to a scene with a static image of a wizard, and show the text there instead of on the board space. That would do wonders for introducing immersion/feeling like you're actually on a quest.
I know that's a big ask; and I wouldn't want you to change your game if that's not your vision for it, but was thinking about how to address some of the other feedback/concerns I saw.
Yeah, rogue-likes/lites are one of my favourite genres, and FTL is among my favourite games. It's a genre that didn't have a place on the Game Boy back in the day, but one that I think fits really well, and one that I hope more homebrew devs explore.
I've considered the scene change with portraits for events, it's just something that I know would take me forever to do the art for, but definitely something I'd love to implement to an extent. My only concern would be bringing the player out of the gameplay too much if done every turn, so maybe only for certain event tiles.
Alright, this game may be done, but if not...
I feel like some splash screens occasionally would help build the feel of the game. Not for every single event, but for starting the journey, or ending or every 10th turn or only when staying at an inn or finding an ingot or something. The story-telling via text is really really great. The artwork you have is so so good. And the music really adds to the atmosphere as well. Some full art sprinkled in would really be the icing on the already tasty cake.
If the screen would move forward looking ahead more spaces instead of being drug along behind it would smooth the play experience a lot. I find myself having to hit select to look ahead every other turn. If the screen "kept up" with the player a bit better (keeping the player icon in the lower half of the screen by default) you'd hardly have to use the select button to look at the map.
I agree with LDG above about auto-moving until a choice needs to be made or you've reached the end of the roll. Hitting A for every space slows the pace of the game down a bit and makes it less obvious that it's time to do something. I find myself hitting A rapidly to move along and then accidentally selecting the first choice because I was rapid firing to move. This feature sounds small but I think it would make a huge impact on the feel of the game.
I love the gameplay and the achievements.