Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
Tags

Strategems

A deckbuilding strategy adventure with a few surprises · By Playcebo

Feedback Sticky

A topic by Playcebo created Aug 23, 2022 Views: 833 Replies: 37
Viewing posts 1 to 11
Developer (1 edit)

Post any feedback on the game here! I plan to change the game and add more polish over time.

Although this game is great, i did have a couple of problems.
1. some of the cost balancing is strange. for example, 77 and 79 do the exact same thing except 77 is strictly better (immune) and 41 might be slightly strong. never found a good way to use 67.
2. i only played on the easier difficulty, so this next section applies to that - 53 is absurdly difficult, it took me a good 40 tries due to the fact that the opponent starts with 12 while you start with one - maybe make them start with 8 instead? alongside this, 97 and 100 were a smidge too easy for the finale.
3. The tournament is supposed to be the mode you play once done, correct? if so, it should definitely have more than one board. even though that is quite nicely balanced, having more board variety in the tournament would go a long way.

Developer

Thanks for the feedback! I've released a new update.

1. I swapped the numbers of 41 and 61, so covering stones is more expensive.

2. I re-balanced the fights for 53, 97, and 100. The last fights are the hardest for me to balance, so let me know if they still feel off. (Hopefully nerfing 41 made them harder.)

3. I'm planning to add a new post-game tournament eventually, with more variety and difficulty. For now, the intended post-game is to collect all 30 stones. Or start a new file and reach the tournament in 20 battles or less (excluding puzzle battles).

Hey! I already gave you feedback in my review- and I should also thank you for finding my stream and letting me know! Sorry I didn't acknowledge your message, I think my CTS (Comments/chat to speech) was bugged or off. 
Also, just curious, How did you find my twitch? Did I link it to my itch? 

Developer (1 edit)

You're welcome! Glad you liked my game.

Yep your twitch was linked in your itch account. I sent my message while you were on break, figuring you could just read it whenever you had a break to read chat. I don't know much about how streaming works. 😅

Eh, I'm new to it (relatively, I've been streaming for almost a year now...) but it's cool that you put so much effort into finding an easier way to contact me! I'd love to stream itch games but I currently don't have a proper setup for streaming on my PC.
Your also welcome to join stream as a viewer, I'm extremely lonely cause nobody uses chat- or at least not often enough for me to have consistant interactions to keep new viewers interested.

yes, this is kinda for me, but at the same time (prolly not true) you could have some entertainment from my inevitable screaming and running away from a terrifying entity in Subnautica (I'm a clown, I know...).
Then again, it's up to you. Your more than likely extremely busy with developing your game and what-not, but you are welcome to drop in if you have a chance or want to. 

-Doggo/AJ

enjoying the game, but interface with the lab is eluding me, i click on the hings but all it says is invalid sum.  i have puzzle 2 & 3 unlocked (puzzle 1 is still got me stumped) do i need to have all 3 unlocked before i can do anything with lab?

Developer

Oh no! I had accidentally broken Puzzle 1 when updating the AI. I just released an update to fix it.

All the lab puzzles can all be solved immediately. If you want an additional hint: Gur znpuvar fpnaf lbhe qrpx. Lbh arrq gur evtug pneq va gur evtug cynpr. (Rot 13 encoding.)

that makes me feel a bit better, i was bashing my head against that puzzle for a few days

i should have seen how the lab worked, i just didn't think those areas interacted.

i have yet to beat 83, that one is a tough one.  other than that your lab and puzzles added a nice layer onto the game

keep up the good work :D

Developer

Thanks! I'm glad 83 is challenging; I had hoped it would be one of the toughest levels. Don't forget to try out the stones from the lab, they should be... interesting.

Good look finding all 30 stones. : )

jura v hfr gur frperg fgbar vafvqr gur ehyrf gno, v pna fryrpg vg, v pna cynpr vg ba gur obneq.  vg frgf sverf va nyy qverpgvbaf gura yrgf bhg juvgr yvtug gung oynaxf gur fperra.  guvf crefvfgf hagvy v erybnq gur tnzr. 

Is this intended behavor (rot13 :)

Developer (1 edit)

Yep. And it won't be added to your collection when that happens.

Developer (1 edit)

You were warned about it. : )

Developer

Erfrnepu znl or erdhverq.

Developer

Holy smokes, I seriously misread this. For anyone reading this thread: The rules tab was absolutely not supposed to contain a usable stone! The lab, however, does contain a stone that sometimes does this.

Deleted 44 days ago

isn't 77 just a better 79?

Developer

Yep, pretty much. : )

If 77 is game-breaking I might change it, but IMO it's fine if 79 is bad.

(+2)

so far 77 feels pretty balanced, and 79 likely has some niche uses anyway since you only get 3 7s.

Two of the ribbons require your deck to be composed entirely of primes. In this case, you can't use 77 but can use 79.

(13 edits) (+2)

Wow that's really a fun game. You use the game space so well (using prime numbers, finding all kinds of possible card effects for such simple rules). Right now I'm a bit stuck against prime Master 61 (i might go to the Lab and complete some Rooms since apparently you can get some cheat cards lol? i played the game on challenge mode). I was afraid with the energy number getting so big, the game would suffer from it and becomes less clear. It is sometimes annoying to count numbers together but the game gains depth in deckbuilding.

I'd say the game moves away from being a abstract boardgame (at the beginning you try to place your stones in the middle, occupying space etc, kinda like the game of Go lol), and the more you advance the more the game is just pure card game/deckbuilding lol.
I do like how it really feels like a puzzle game sometimes; where you need to design a deck to counter the opponent's deck. Even when I thought I had a broken deck, I could only use it once before I had to adapt my deck for my next opponents again lol.  (like a deck made of 11-stone eggs, 49-stone to unfreeze, and a bunch of cycle cards). I didn't understand at first there's a 6 card limits in hand, so sometimes i was confused when i played the draw 2.

5/5! great game

edit: after beating level 61

Am I correct in assuming the late levels are very hard (impossible?) without the cards from the lab? I love how you somehow manage to raise the difficulty/challenge every time. The balancing is very good and it's very hard to break the game (maybe impossible, even cards like Draw 2 which usually just break card games, it's pretty hard to exploit it, since it also has anti synergy with negative cards that you can only play once and last), I did notice how for the 97 boss, you only have 85 Energy, which is not enough to play two 43-stones lol (the one that makes you next card free, i guess it would be too easy with the draw-2 stone). Often times I would think I have the strongest combinaison/synergy possible, and the next encounter I get beaten to a pulp. It seems it's highly map dependant which is a good thing.

okay now im stuck at 97 wow lol. I have to praise your AI (i don't know how hard is the decision tree), but it is pretty hard and good lol.

edit: i beat it, holy damn that was really tight lol.

my final deck: https://imgur.com/a/TxamvhQ

I beat the final boss but i'm still missing a stone? I guess i get it from the Mining Battles, but I don't really feel like playing those lol, great game!

Developer

Thanks for playing! I just realized I forgot to push a major update! Refresh the game and re-check the lab... there should be a new piece of equipment to help you find that last stone!

Thanks for making this game! Oooh alright.

Developer (1 edit)

Mining battles unlock a "card" (a mining pick), but not the last stone. That one is up to you to figure out. The lab will be helpful, though the stone can be obtained almost anywhere.

(1 edit) (+2)

My opinion/experience on each card (yea coz im wordy like that):

negative stone: i was perplexed it would break the balance, but i guess it's pretty interesting; you basically have a free very expensive card to play, but you have to play it last and you can't keep your hand (so it's useless on 67-stone Draw 2). I would usually use it early on with -98 or -61, but i think it worked very well with 77-Surround Immune lol.

1-stone: basic, very useful early, sometimes you want to keep some depending on your max energy. (Like against the guy that turn your deck into 37-stone and you had like 40 energy, my deck was just 1-stones). Being able to place a stone is always good.

2-burn: useful in early game. I'm not sure getting a +1 burn for twice the price is worth. 

3-cycle: wasn't useful in early game, but late game I think it becomes a very good card so you can search for a Draw 2 when you need one, or discard a Negative stone when you don't need it. It's pretty cheap so it can just replace the 1-stone when you have enough energy. I tested 9-stone, but 3-stone seemed to work well enough, 27 doesn't seem worth it though.

5-freeze: really good early game, i'd say much better than burn lol, the 5-primeMaster was quite hard early on. It's kinda funny how early in the game, it's important to remember to use your most expensive cards if you can, and keep your 1-stone in hand so you can play them next turn. 

7-immune: good thought that you limited the numbers of stone we had available lol. Otherwise fighting primeMaster 19 would have been much easier. Good stone throughout, it's really what allows you to set in stone something, though I kinda just used -77 late game.

11-surround: MVP lol, I think even early it's quite nice (i tried to unfreeze it with 49-stone, quite fun). It's really useful when you need to quickly gain space and there's a limited amount of turn (like against primeMaster 97). Late game it becomes quite cheap too.

13-bewitch: i was really confused what it did at first, took me quite a few games to actually understand how it worked. It depends on the opponent we're fighting, i think it's mandatory against those last fights where the Prime Master has 300 Energy.

17-diagonal movement: kinda funny, I think I used it for some specific maps, but in the end the 23-stone might be better in general?

19-destroy all surrounding: oh lord when you get this, it's when the stones get really insane. This has nice chemistry with 7-immune, I had some fun trying to destroy everything and putting 7-stones in the empty spaces. Really cool stone and not that much worse than 31-stone or 61.

23-jump: I didn't really it much, but when i started using it late game it was really good, you can really rush down and take a lot of space with 11-stone.

29-stays in hand: mhh didn't use it at all lol, i don't think it's very good? Kinda expensive?

31-remove stone: very fun like 19-stone, but also has a slightly different use case (19-stone can destroy up to 3 enemy stones, 31 always destroy 1 enemy stone but anywhere). So 31-stone doesnt need the 7-stone to work well, but it's quite more expensive.

37-copy: kind of a gimmick lol? I don't think it's very useable either.

41-reverse colors: very weird, didn't use it, don't know how to use it well. But it does beat Immune.

43-next card is free: was always kinda too expensive to be useable? And when you could start using it, you have minus stones for expensive cards instead. Also it's very conditional, it can often become a dead card in hand.

47-discard: it's really just an AI-card, I don't think players will really deckbuild with that.

53-time: looks fun but i didn't use it much. seems too expensive.

59-remove from deck: oh lord, very bold to include this card. You basically have to make sure any 3 card combinaison doesn't insta-win the game. I might have used it a few times to get 61, -61 and 43 in hand or something lol.

61-cover other: very cool idea again, it's highly dependent on turn count. I felt sometimes it was too slow/not worth, 

67-draw2: the long awaited draw2 card lol, man that primeMaste 67 was insane. Really cool card, very useful even this late. 

71-factor: i didnt understand at first. It's very situational? The only use case I found was using it with a 81 (4 * 3-stone cards) to get a really early lead, but even then it's luck dependant. Most of the time you would it, you just get trash in the deck.

79-surround stone: was okay, i used it a bit, but then just used 77 instead lol.

83 to 97: didnt use them lol, 89 is just a card for AI. 97 comes too late (and i guess it's too expensive). 83 might have some potential but didnt test.

X stone: maybe useable, but doesn't seem that good (too random).

Repeat the last card: i think it's a bad card.

Calculator: best card in the game obviously, but actually it's not by too much. I like how the value stays the same throughout a game. It's a nice gameplay balance, you get to choose immediately any card (good short-term) but it might unbalances your deck composition long-term.

(+1)

Damn this game is so so awesome! I love how each challenge and stone is so different, that you really need to reorganise your deck for almost every battle. Really got to try out all of the stones, even that secret stone (which seems cool tho idk how to really use it… is it really that powerful?? The one thing I could think of was negating a negative to earn heaps of free energy, though was a big setup for seemingly marginal reward). I’m really glad that the game saves progress, excited to come back and hopefully beat that stone stealing boss, he’s insanely tough!

(+1)

you can make it where fire from the 2 stones can be used on frozen stones to thaw them out and make it possible to expand on them, but it takes 1 turn to thaw because it would be unfair if your opponent froze one of your stones and you immidiently melted it

(3 edits) (+1)

Some observations/suggestions:

  • Maybe swap the effects of 47 and 53? In the endgame, being able to play 47 twice is very powerful, and a deck built out of 47 and 13 will easily beat the final boss.
  • The fhccerffrq ahyyfgbar says "Immune", but doesn't really seem to have that effect.
  • Since the effect of 7 doesn't stack, 49 has an additional special effect. However, 11*11 and 13*13 don't seem to have any additional effects.
  • 7 is immune to 37-infect, but not 47-discard or 89-steal.
  • If fhccerffrq ahyyfgbar is stolen by 89 or copied by M-stone, it becomes unplayable again.
  • 194 (2*97) doesn't have a similar effect to 34.
  • 94 incorrectly states the order of its actions.
  • This is a great game :)

Edit: I also found a bug: If you win (or tie) a match and then press "Concede", it counts as both a win *and* a loss? I tied and pressed Concede and in my stats it said I had abandoned -1 games

Edit #2: I used 13 and X-stone on the final boss to obtain 323-stone, placed it on the board.. and apparently it doesn't work (17*19).

Developer

Thanks! I did a small update addressing most of these issues:

  • Swapping 47 and 53 is a neat idea (47 might be a fun boss!), but for now I just tweaked the final boss instead. (He now has two 87 (sticky+cycle) and always starts with a 67.)
  • Not immune: Oops! Fixed. (It was immune on-board, but not when played.)
  • I doubled the effects of 11*11 and 13*13, and improved 194. Thanks for the suggestion! (I didn't make 11*11 and 13*13 very strong.)
  • Immune to 47/89: Ah, that's a tricky one. For now, I've kept it as-is. (My logic for excluding them was that 47 and 89 only affect the card, while 37 affects the 7-stone itself (in a sense). Plus, I'm unsure how to make immunity to 47/89 feel right.   I might change it so that attempting to steal or discard a 7-stone simply turns it face-up and plays a sound effect.)
  • 89 unplayed / M unsuppressed: Hopefully fixed... I have total spaghetti code here, because two different stones share the same number.
  • 94: Discarding will now occur before burn, because automatic actions should always go first.
  • Concede bug: Fixed.

omgg you made stones higher than 100? daang gotta play that again sometimes

Developer

FYI, there is not much support for stones 101 - 200. They all have the same sprite, and they're hard to use since you're still capped at 100 Energy. They are unlocked by completing the mining levels M1 - M10. (Composites only. Primes above 100 don't have any effect.)

Completing M10 does give an additional reward, which you might want to use for some of the Ribbon challenges in the tournament (if you haven't done those already).

(+1)

alright, yea i dont think you need stones above 100 lol, your game was already really well tightly designed ( i still love how you used the concepts of primes and composites for mixing up powers together lol )

(+1)

89 unplayed / M unsuppressed: Hopefully fixed... I have total spaghetti code here, because two different stones share the same number.

It's totally broken please help it's not unplayable at all with X

Developer

Thanks! It's fixed now (apart from a visual bug with M-stone).

Deleted 45 days ago
(+1)

I think doubling the effect of 13*13 broke regular 13. It's starting to steal more energy than the opponent has...

Developer

Sorry about that! Fixed now. Turns out it was an order-of-operations issue!

if(  stoneNumber % DRAIN_FACTOR * DRAIN_FACTOR == 0   )
      { drainMultiplier = 2 }
(+1)

I don't see how this is related to these bugfixes, but enemies burning multiple tiles will burn only one.

Developer

Thanks so much for all the bug-finding! Fixed. 

(nerdy details: When improving 194, I added code to abort the tile-burning process early upon failure [i.e. tilesBurned == 0], but it turns out I never coded the AI to increment tilesBurned as it burns tiles. So it burned 1 tile and then said "welp, I burned 0 tiles, so I guess I'll give up now".)

i think that the mining battles shouldn't have a cap on hand size since if your hand gets full of the over 100 stones you can't factor them since you need room in your hand in order to do that