Grim Grimoire

Deck Building Game where you loose cards when you acquire new ones or play one card from your hand · By Biim_Games

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A topic by Krak3rs created 16 days ago Views: 35 Replies: 3

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Krak3rs16 days ago(+1)

I like the mechanics and I'll be waiting for the updates.

I know it's a jam entry, but would like to share my thoughts. Maybe there's something obvious that you haven't noticed yet:

Starting characters are pretty random. My first run was a total disaster. I've got orc, rat and goblin. You know how it ended... :D
Picking characters should not be obligatory. I've started with strong starting set but eventually ended up with nerfed version as I had to choose some weaker characters.
Missing attacks is so annoying! I feel it's 50% or more. Very frustrating. Especially when I've managed to play two big guys and they couldn't take orc and rat (because of misses).
Late battle stages seem to be pretty boring. I have to finish my oponent (with annoying hit chance) or wait until he finishes me (with same annoying hit chance) :D
I've tried to use the "escape" button but it didn't work. Maybe I understand it wrong?
Would be nice to skip/speed up some battle phases/animations. They become repetitive very quickly and break the fun.
I think characters should not be able to pass other characters. With weak avatars there's no brainer strategy. Just rush forward and hit / shoot. Luckily the AI is not that smart :)

Please don't feel overwhelmed with these. The concept is pretty cool. Just would like to play more polished version ^^

Biim_GamesDeveloper15 days ago

Hi Krak3rs,

Thank you very much for playing Grim Grimoire and for your feedback! :-)

I'm glad you like the game idea and you are interested in see future development :-)

About your points:

Starting characters are pretty random. My first run was a total disaster. I've got orc, rat and goblin. You know how it ended... :D

Yes, it's true, but it's part of the jam theme "Though Choice", so you must choose knowing that bad things will happen. Of course for the first time it's already difficult because you need to get into the game idea and there are no so much detailed instructions inside the game yet, then you got also a bad combination, so I totally understand your feeling. I am not sure about changing this part yet, because still the game need to have lots of additions, once those are in place, it will be easier to decide if touching this part of not. For example, there will be other cards that are not just creatures and some of them will benefit only some particular other cards, so having a Goblin + the card Ambush or Hit & Run, might make the Goblin a nice card to keep. Also, for the first battle the enemy would have probably easier cards, if taking for example what's available now, Ogre and Trolls will not be part of its Grimoire, however I could still add those strong cards, but give them a very low percentage to come out, just to add that little randomness that makes every play a different experience and let you want to have one more go.

At least I hope you enjoyed the Orc and Goblin voices in your first game :-P

Picking characters should not be obligatory. I've started with strong starting set but eventually ended up with nerfed version as I had to choose some weaker characters.

This point has more or less the same reply of the previous one, it's mainly part of the theme and I would probably keep it as it is as part of a different game. You can mitigate the loss with a trick, leave out the best cards on the Available section and pick them as last choices. So if you have 2 cards that are good on your hand and they are "stolen", take them back at the very end with the last 2 choices, you will probably get both and if not, you will get the last one for sure ;-)

Missing attacks is so annoying! I feel it's 50% or more. Very frustrating. Especially when I've managed to play two big guys and they couldn't take orc and rat (because of misses).

That's a die roll for both attacker and defender. You can calculate the odds before choosing the attack icon. Select a Creature and hold the mouse button/finger to see their stats. You will see the range including the dice roll. So for example, if you have a Troll, the Melee Attack is 6~11 while the Target Orc has Defence 3~8. So even if you roll a 1 you get 6 at minimum, letting the roll with the only options to get 4+ to save himself. In this case yes, it's 50%, but only after you roll a 1 that is already only a 16.7% of chance that it happens to you.

I have just created a detailed instruction section in the game page, you can check it out to see how many things in the game works. Aside for that, there will be more cards in the future that will boost you creatures like magic and equipment, that will give you more chance to change the odds in your favour :-)

Late battle stages seem to be pretty boring. I have to finish my oponent (with annoying hit chance) or wait until he finishes me (with same annoying hit chance) :D

I totally agree with you, I went through this so many times during the test I was making in development phase. Unfortunately I cut a lot already due to the lack of time, so I postponed the option sections that will have an automatic victory or defeat in those cases.

I've tried to use the "escape" button but it didn't work. Maybe I understand it wrong?

No, you did understand well, I just left the button there to show that there will be that option. Since I had to cut out the exploration part, there was nowhere where to escape, so I left the thing behind. I should have add at least a text saying that it's a future feature, but again, time restrictions.

Would be nice to skip/speed up some battle phases/animations. They become repetitive very quickly and break the fun.

Yes, you are right and actually in the game I was already implementing that. There is a variable for the maximum waiting time for the "dialogue", now it's set to 3 seconds. You can notice that when the Skeleton and Goblin sometimes still talk and the action start anyway. I will also have options to skip the waiting time for the dice roll and disable the talk of your creatures. Again, time restriction meant cut out all the non-urgent features. Like for example, I cut out the save system since without exploration and proper progress, there was no point in wasting time setting it up.

I think characters should not be able to pass other characters. With weak avatars there's no brainer strategy. Just rush forward and hit / shoot. Luckily the AI is not that smart :)

Well, that's part of the game idea, no? While kill a 100 cards deck when you can just kill the boss? Isn't real life like that too? ;-)
With improved AI, tougher enemies in terms of "Players" (and not only Cards), and spell Cards, that will become a less available option, but if at the beginning of the game you got an Orc, Giant Rat and a Goblin, and your opponent's avatar is a Goblin/Rat/Orc. Would you prefer to feel like your first battle is a disaster or would you still like to give it a go and win anyway that battle? You can then choose a card from your enemy, so maybe you are happy to swap a Goblin and a Giant Rat for a Troll. Isn't it? ;-)

Thank you again for playing the game and taking time to write very good points.
I hope to come back on the project soon, so you can start to experience the whole game idea I have in mind.
Also I was considering to create some sort of polls to decide with players how to create the next Creatures, like how much initiative should have a lizardman? Should it have Range attack or not? And so on. I think that will make everyone happy to be involved in the game development in a more direct way in addition to the always useful feedback.

Again, as reminder, if you now check the game page, you will find the game instructions that should be complete for the current game state.

Thank you!
Simone

Krak3rs11 days ago(+1)

Yes, it's true, but it's part of the jam theme "Though Choice", so you must choose knowing that bad things will happen.

Well, that explains a lot. But for people from the outside (or lazy like me) it will be unintuitive and frustrating. Would be nice if you could somehow introduce player to this in game. Maybe some small storyline?

That's a die roll for both attacker and defender. You can calculate the odds before choosing the attack icon.

Ok. Now I understand why there were those die rolling sounds. You could tweak the description with some better spacing / die icons. Should be much more intuitive for more casual players.

This leads me to another issue - I've seen creatures with blue progress bars. I didn't know what they really are until some creature got damaged. I was suspecting some kind of mana / energy and that damage bar is not yet implemented due to my bad luck and miss mechanic. I think you should stick to the convention and use green bars. I would even argue they should be horizontal.

While kill a 100 cards deck when you can just kill the boss?

I agree. But i still think it should be easier said than done. I think Hearthstone's Taunt mechanic would fit here much better. It should provide very interesting choices and game dynamics. You could put some barricade to protect your weak hero. Oponent could counter that with rats who could still be able to breach it. Some bigger creatures like Troll, Ogre or Bear could have taunt too and maybe only swift/flying units could pass em. Maybe you could make em blind / frozen or apply any other cool counter effect.

Again, as reminder, if you now check the game page, you will find the game instructions that should be complete for the current game state.

Thats cool for me. But for many lazy users it may be a big blocker. You should think about some form of guidance explaining the core concepts - especially those unique for your game. I know it's a lot of work and not for a game jam. But now you have little bit more time I suppose :)

Biim_GamesDeveloper10 days ago

Well, that explains a lot. But for people from the outside (or lazy like me) it will be unintuitive and frustrating. Would be nice if you could somehow introduce player to this in game. Maybe some small storyline?

Yes, definitely, now that the game jam is concluded I can work on the game and improve it, especially adding in-game information about how to play and why of some restrictions. Need to make a brief story around it ;-)

Ok. Now I understand why there were those die rolling sounds. You could tweak the description with some better spacing / die icons. Should be much more intuitive for more casual players.

Yes, I supposed to add a die with the result and show some sort of battle log, but I scrapped the idea for the jam, postponing for later.
There will be an option to show those calculation for players that wants to see them.

This leads me to another issue - I've seen creatures with blue progress bars. I didn't know what they really are until some creature got damaged. I was suspecting some kind of mana / energy and that damage bar is not yet implemented due to my bad luck and miss mechanic. I think you should stick to the convention and use green bars. I would even argue they should be horizontal.

You are right, originally they were green, but the colour was confusing a bit with the background, so to avoid issue for players that might have visual difficulty, I changed it to blue for higher contrast. Will probably go back to green having an outline or such.
I tried to have horizontal bars, but initially that wasn't working because in my first game layout, creatures were overlapping to give a sense of dept, I then discarded the option due to the difficulty of showing the lifebar and understand which one is which, especially on small screens as mobiles, that's why the design changed as it is. I like the idea of overlapping the creatures, so I might find a way to show them in that way, probably another option that players can take advantage of, when playing on computer screens.

As you can see, having the bar horizontally would be confusing if I do the overlapping. I will play around with these options and see what I can do to make it looks nice and at the same time be functional :-)

I agree. But i still think it should be easier said than done. I think Hearthstone's Taunt mechanic would fit here much better. It should provide very interesting choices and game dynamics. You could put some barricade to protect your weak hero. Oponent could counter that with rats who could still be able to breach it. Some bigger creatures like Troll, Ogre or Bear could have taunt too and maybe only swift/flying units could pass em. Maybe you could make em blind / frozen or apply any other cool counter effect.

It sounds a good idea to me, it's similar to some of the additional cards I planned to have. There will be more stuff than just creatures in order to create different combos ;-)

Thats cool for me. But for many lazy users it may be a big blocker. You should think about some form of guidance explaining the core concepts - especially those unique for your game. I know it's a lot of work and not for a game jam. But now you have little bit more time I suppose :)

You are right, and as said at the beginning, in-game info is one of the first things I have to develop to let players understand how the game works. Unfortunately no one wants to read any more manuals :-D

Thank you again for contributing to the development of Grim Grimoire! :-)

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