Nice job! For a demo, I think you already managed to balance the game very well: the feeling of (almost) always being able to barely save a character is great.
I'm going to play the role of "that tester" that is very frustrating and tell you about a couple of bugs I couldn't duplicate. Just in case it helps track down anything (who knows, maybe they're fixed already)
1. I had a run where the warlock's ability changed from deal 4 damage, if kill deal 1 to everyone else, to - deal 4 damage, if it kills deal 5 damage to all other enemies. I don't know what caused this but it was pretty busted. Maybe it had something to do with the items I had equipped?
2. I had an issue where I was given a second anchor, and somehow in equipping it and moving things around, it disappeared. I counted how many items my party had and I was one short. I closed the app and reopened to redo the fight to verify I didn't count artifacts incorrectly.
Also just a couple of notes after playing the game a bunch more and beating a handful of runs on hard: AoE feels very weak, I rarely take any that aren't spell based. I think their uncommon nature is good enough for balancing having strong effects. I feel the thief's upgrades are definitely the weakest overall, although I love the gambler and ludus. Items that replace the left hand side feel like they should be waaaaaaaaay stronger than what they are, and items that give you a free "right side" seem like they should probably be weaker, as they're covering the chance of losing that persons turn entirely. Items early on that replace sides of a die are nearly unusable as you level, maybe that's intended. Also, the ability that lets you take another action if you save someone from dying are insanely powerful. It might take some tricky order of operations, but when your Adept (I think is the class) can heal 12 nearly every round, it's insanely strong. So, I feel it's too strong, but I also love the mechanic, so I don't know what to change if anything. Also, if the dragon kills your whole party, but poison damage kills the dragon after, it counts as a win? I'm not sure if other fights operate the same way. Also, that 10 skeleton fight is BRUTAL.
All things in the above paragraph are just opinions. Feel free to take or leave any of them =)
Anyways, still really enjoying the game. You've made something pretty awesome!
1) cool bug, I had a theory about what caused it and managed to replicate it.
2) the equipping code needs a look at I think, I'm a bit worried there's maybe a way to duplicate items haha. I will try to figure that one out and also stop you from being offered the same item twice.
Lots of good points in the text wall. I think orange upgrades are worse because I overvalued poison damage a bit, it's quite weak in non-boss fights. Replacey sides getting unusable is sorta intended, I think I need to make it clear that you have them equipped after upgrading though; it's very easy to leave them equipped by mistake. Rescue is overpowered but fun, I'm lucky this isn't a competitive game!
It doesn't even have to be really deep. Stuff like encounters survived and average level of the group at the end might be nice.
It also might just be me, but I have little interest in cumulative stats, like the classic, "You've defeated X baddies in all games so far" unless used to tell averages so we can see how this last run compares to our best or average previous runs.
This game is great, the build variety is immense. After 6 runs I was still seeing new options. The game is definitely challenging, and anyone who places dice games knows a few bad rolls can screw you up, but Ive found that between the mana system, modifying dice, and having a little overlap in the roles there's plenty of consistency for the game to really reward skill based plays. I would love to have some degree of randomness in what battles there are, just for long term replayability. The roguelite nature of party building is so satisfying though, I just completed my first hardmode run with sharp shooter who could potentially deal 24dmg in 1 turn. (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/770874887 end fight :D, was really proud of this build)
Not sure if this was a bug or not but the skills that say "Prevent all damage to this character" also completely cured poison.
2 QoL things I'd love: if the quick dice mode let you view the attack tooltip by holding (and just tapping locked it in). Also being able to select heros with hotkeys such as 1-5, could be context based, so in rolling phase it toggles locking in that characters die, then in the attack phase it selects their attack.
Really loved the game. Would like to definitely echo what other people have said with really liking the planning and decision making you have to do for a run. I felt the leveling up process to be really neat and choosing items to be quite a fun process. Enemies and combats started slow, but really ramped up with what they did, and I liked the difficulty curve a lot.
In regards to feedback, I struggled a bit understanding when an item I could pick could only be equipped on certain heroes (before choosing them, of course.) Also, I had no idea what the one "if this saves an ally, go again" really did. I think it didn't explain on hover text, and didn't specify that it allows use of the exact same action again.
I also found myself clicking on the die themselves instead of the hero's portrait to view their die... a lot. It took me awhile to figure out where to go to view the die while in combat.
I also didn't really know about the ? menu at the top, and reading through that is probably something that should also be accessible from the title screen (it might, I didn't notice it.) It helps clear things up a lot, but I can also see how having it while the game is being shown is probably necessary for understanding.
I really liked the +X number when your hero is taking fatal damage. It helps a lot. I found I REALLY liked the "special hearts" enemies have that have a special trigger occur on them taking that damage. I feel that makes fights incredibly unique. I also didn't really know what "retreat to the back" meant, I assumed from the wording it would cancel their ability (although I don't feel it should now that I've played the game through) - so explicitly stating that they just move to the back might be helpful.
Finally the last thing is that I felt each hero's archetype was really unique and well defined. I would almost like to see this taken further and minimizing the amount of overlap of abilities, but so far I think it's done quite well.
Great game! I look forward to the paid version and all the extra content that comes with it!
There’s a whole of replayability packed into this game. I love deciding which heroes to upgrade, where to put the items. And, the combat itself is superb. Being able undo lets you approach each round as a mini-puzzle.
I’ve gotten the best of the Dragon twice now, wish me luck for (hard) run number 3!
The planning you have to do every round after you've seen your dice is so much fun. The new enemies and dice are insane. There are so many combos and outcomes to every dice roll. Every round I wonder how I'm going to keep everybody alive! The game was fun to play years ago when I first played one of the very first demos, and it's only become more engaging since then!
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Nice job! For a demo, I think you already managed to balance the game very well: the feeling of (almost) always being able to barely save a character is great.
Thanks for playing! I really love that feeling too and I try to balance to make it happen.
Do you need help with translating into Russian language?
My favorite roguelike. Even on the old version won several times. But I still don't understand how save works (
I'm a big fan of the first version and pretty sure I will enjoy this. I'm glad it turned into a professional project!
I'm going to play the role of "that tester" that is very frustrating and tell you about a couple of bugs I couldn't duplicate. Just in case it helps track down anything (who knows, maybe they're fixed already)
1. I had a run where the warlock's ability changed from deal 4 damage, if kill deal 1 to everyone else, to - deal 4 damage, if it kills deal 5 damage to all other enemies. I don't know what caused this but it was pretty busted. Maybe it had something to do with the items I had equipped?
2. I had an issue where I was given a second anchor, and somehow in equipping it and moving things around, it disappeared. I counted how many items my party had and I was one short. I closed the app and reopened to redo the fight to verify I didn't count artifacts incorrectly.
Also just a couple of notes after playing the game a bunch more and beating a handful of runs on hard: AoE feels very weak, I rarely take any that aren't spell based. I think their uncommon nature is good enough for balancing having strong effects. I feel the thief's upgrades are definitely the weakest overall, although I love the gambler and ludus. Items that replace the left hand side feel like they should be waaaaaaaaay stronger than what they are, and items that give you a free "right side" seem like they should probably be weaker, as they're covering the chance of losing that persons turn entirely. Items early on that replace sides of a die are nearly unusable as you level, maybe that's intended. Also, the ability that lets you take another action if you save someone from dying are insanely powerful. It might take some tricky order of operations, but when your Adept (I think is the class) can heal 12 nearly every round, it's insanely strong. So, I feel it's too strong, but I also love the mechanic, so I don't know what to change if anything. Also, if the dragon kills your whole party, but poison damage kills the dragon after, it counts as a win? I'm not sure if other fights operate the same way. Also, that 10 skeleton fight is BRUTAL.
All things in the above paragraph are just opinions. Feel free to take or leave any of them =)
Anyways, still really enjoying the game. You've made something pretty awesome!
Sweet, thanks for the in-depth reports and stuff
1) cool bug, I had a theory about what caused it and managed to replicate it.
2) the equipping code needs a look at I think, I'm a bit worried there's maybe a way to duplicate items haha. I will try to figure that one out and also stop you from being offered the same item twice.
Lots of good points in the text wall. I think orange upgrades are worse because I overvalued poison damage a bit, it's quite weak in non-boss fights. Replacey sides getting unusable is sorta intended, I think I need to make it clear that you have them equipped after upgrading though; it's very easy to leave them equipped by mistake. Rescue is overpowered but fun, I'm lucky this isn't a competitive game!
Very fun game that I'd happily buy the full version of but hope a commercial release would include:
1) Full screen support.
2) Meta stats recording elements of bets runs ala a Hall of Fame.
Nice, thanks for checking it out!
I'm planning lots of fun stats, I'll see if I can think of a good way to incorporate a hall of fame :)
It doesn't even have to be really deep. Stuff like encounters survived and average level of the group at the end might be nice.
It also might just be me, but I have little interest in cumulative stats, like the classic, "You've defeated X baddies in all games so far" unless used to tell averages so we can see how this last run compares to our best or average previous runs.
This game is great, the build variety is immense. After 6 runs I was still seeing new options. The game is definitely challenging, and anyone who places dice games knows a few bad rolls can screw you up, but Ive found that between the mana system, modifying dice, and having a little overlap in the roles there's plenty of consistency for the game to really reward skill based plays. I would love to have some degree of randomness in what battles there are, just for long term replayability. The roguelite nature of party building is so satisfying though, I just completed my first hardmode run with sharp shooter who could potentially deal 24dmg in 1 turn. (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/770874887 end fight :D, was really proud of this build)
Not sure if this was a bug or not but the skills that say "Prevent all damage to this character" also completely cured poison.
2 QoL things I'd love: if the quick dice mode let you view the attack tooltip by holding (and just tapping locked it in). Also being able to select heros with hotkeys such as 1-5, could be context based, so in rolling phase it toggles locking in that characters die, then in the attack phase it selects their attack.
Great job; I watched your dragon fight and it's clear you understand the game perfectly. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and your run!
I like your QoL ideas, I think I need to optimise for desktop better, I can use mouse-over to display information too.
Really loved the game. Would like to definitely echo what other people have said with really liking the planning and decision making you have to do for a run. I felt the leveling up process to be really neat and choosing items to be quite a fun process. Enemies and combats started slow, but really ramped up with what they did, and I liked the difficulty curve a lot.
In regards to feedback, I struggled a bit understanding when an item I could pick could only be equipped on certain heroes (before choosing them, of course.) Also, I had no idea what the one "if this saves an ally, go again" really did. I think it didn't explain on hover text, and didn't specify that it allows use of the exact same action again.
I also found myself clicking on the die themselves instead of the hero's portrait to view their die... a lot. It took me awhile to figure out where to go to view the die while in combat.
I also didn't really know about the ? menu at the top, and reading through that is probably something that should also be accessible from the title screen (it might, I didn't notice it.) It helps clear things up a lot, but I can also see how having it while the game is being shown is probably necessary for understanding.
I really liked the +X number when your hero is taking fatal damage. It helps a lot. I found I REALLY liked the "special hearts" enemies have that have a special trigger occur on them taking that damage. I feel that makes fights incredibly unique. I also didn't really know what "retreat to the back" meant, I assumed from the wording it would cancel their ability (although I don't feel it should now that I've played the game through) - so explicitly stating that they just move to the back might be helpful.
Finally the last thing is that I felt each hero's archetype was really unique and well defined. I would almost like to see this taken further and minimizing the amount of overlap of abilities, but so far I think it's done quite well.
Great game! I look forward to the paid version and all the extra content that comes with it!
Thanks for playing and writing up your thoughts, Squid! Lots of good points for me to work on :)
There’s a whole of replayability packed into this game. I love deciding which heroes to upgrade, where to put the items. And, the combat itself is superb. Being able undo lets you approach each round as a mini-puzzle.
I’ve gotten the best of the Dragon twice now, wish me luck for (hard) run number 3!
The planning you have to do every round after you've seen your dice is so much fun. The new enemies and dice are insane. There are so many combos and outcomes to every dice roll. Every round I wonder how I'm going to keep everybody alive! The game was fun to play years ago when I first played one of the very first demos, and it's only become more engaging since then!
5/5 from somebody who doesn't play with dice!