Very much enjoying the demo! You've successfully blended aspects of a game and eroge that so many other V.N.'s don't.
Balancing issues I've encountered:
Can't wait for next updates!
Thanks for the feedback!
1. I've lowered the stats of the wingman guy at the level 2 in the latest balancing update, I think it should be easier to deal with now with all the tools you can have at your disposal by then (damaging cards, boosting your active stat cards, having higher stats to eliminate it in one attack, silencing its effect);
2. Very good point. In the next update, I'll make it impossible for any level to start with 3 Rival cards.
3. I'm not sure if I understand this one. You mean swapping cards from hand with cards from your deck at any time? Being abale to swap any card would be OP, because you'd basically have access to any card in your deck at any time. I don't think any card game does that.
At some point, I thought about giving the option to the player to at least be allowed to discard any useless card from their hand, so they'd at least have a way to free some space for other cards that might be better for the situation. But I ruled out against it. The reason for that was that I want to add more cards in the future with effects/synergies with cards in your discard pile. There are already some effects like that and I want to add more. Giving the option to the player to discard as many cards as they want for free, would make that archetype super easy to achieve. For it to be balance and work properly, there should be a price to use and send cards to the discard pile.
So, I don't think I'll change anything here, for now. If you meant something else on point 3, I'm sorry, I might have misunderstood it.
#More about 3: (Been thinking about cards more generally):
At the end of any level, there's a chance of getting an option to remove any card from your deck, at the expense of EXP. Those cards will be permanently removed from your deck for future levels.
I think that discard mechanic would be too complicated. I think it's simpler as is right now: you just use it and spend the charisma. If you don't want it in your deck for good, you need to take the opportunity to remove it using one of the EXP stores at the end of the levels,
Yeah, right now, a discard card option wouldn't provide much value. But, in future updates, I want to add ways to take more value of discarded cards. Right now, there is a card that takes 2 love * the number of cards in your discard pile from any enemy. If you have 5 cards discarded, that's 10 damage for the cost of 2 charisma, which is quite good. You can imagine more cards/clothes like that. Also, new enemy effects that will be more powerful if you have more cards in the discard pile!
That all makes sense. Now that I've played a few more iterations, I better understand the card mechanics (have never played this kind of game before). My confusion was that I thought once a card was played it was removed from the players deck permanently. (Did I miss it? Was there an explanation in the tutorial that at the end of the level the cards are returned to the player deck for the next round?).
Sort of left-field: but an enemy ability might be the ability to remove a card permanently from the player deck (once played?).
Other balancing issues:
Still loving the game!
"My confusion was that I thought once a card was played it was removed from the players deck permanently. (Did I miss it? Was there an explanation in the tutorial that at the end of the level the cards are returned to the player deck for the next round?). "
That's a good point, I should explain that better in the tutorial. I'll add a line or two about it.
"Does the Genius & Alpha card take all the points from the rival cards immediately? That's a major buff when there are 3 rival cards in play - maybe make it a slower drain?"
Yes, they do take it immediately upon entering the field. All effects that happen at the start of the turn are like that. Maybe I should change that so that all start of the turn effects don't happen in the turn a new rival enters the field and only in the next turn. That actually might make the game more fair because it gives the player time to prepare.
I'll also change the Genius/Alpha effects so that they only take points from 1 other rival card per turn and not from 2. This will not make a huge difference, but it's another way to give the player a little more time to react in certain situations.
"Now that I understand the rules better, there seem to only be a few unwinnable scenarios in later levels."
The goal is to make it as skill based as possible. There will always be some RNG, but the goal is that a good player than understands the mechanics can beat later levels consistently with different strategies, but a less skilled player will lose earlier more often. I think you're already seeing that there are less unwinnable scenarios than you first thought (and they might be even less than that, because you might have made bad plays those times you lost, meaning it was actually possible to win).
My job as game dev is to try to reduce those unwinnable scenarios as much as possible, so that your choices as a player really matter to win or lose!
Thanks again for the feedback, suggestions.
