OK so as far as gameplay goes, it took me abt 20 minutes to beat this early demo. First and foremost, I like big numbers. This is a big numbers game. YAY! Obviously there isn't much to do, YET, in this game. And the lower cost cards are straight up useless at the moment due to how the only multiplier card being a *2 multiplier also adds 4 effective cost. Why would you take anything but the highest cost card, farm the multiplied energy with Parrot (which is the best card in the game at the moment but i'm sure that's obvious), and then clear your entire field once you've farmed ~800 energy in ~4-5 turns.. since energy CARRIES OVER BETWEEN BATTLES, whether this is a bug or a design flaw i'm not sure, it means you can build early, farm effectively infinite energy, then hard pivot to only take damaging cards for the rest of the run and never look back. I'm sure you already know this stuff in terms of "balancing of the first demo of a game" so i'll shut up about balance, and talk about the overall game idea itself. I like this game idea, ALOT. However, I'm unsure if being able to take every path will be a good thing or not, and the game has no punishment of any sort for fattening your deck to your heart's content.. meaning why is there any reason, logically, to not just take the best cards and spam them out in the same order every fight? Either every fight later on needs to have a unique gimmick against certain cards/strategies (think of the Boss Blinds in Balatro outright stopping entire decks bc they've built too hard into a single thing), OR, circumventing this by somehow having a hand system that doesn't break the game. I know Energy is supposed to be the limiter here, but there is no reason to not just farm it crazy hard early as i've stated before. Perhaps if you want to remove energy carrying over (given it breaks the game lol), add in some sort of card draw that actually makes the game feel not repetitive could be nice? In its current philosophy there is 0 reason not to just take the best cards, use the same strategy every fight, then move on. A side deck for 0 energy bannanas or something could really help this. Could even have more side decks to pick from of various 0 energy cards in the game, assuming that'd be an idea to even look into.
REGARDLESS; the game is fun. Simple demo obviously and broken atm, obviously, but its fun. A single boss that has a lasting effect on the run will go a LONG way though, and i'm sure you know that. Again I think this is visually inspired by Inscryption to some extent which makes me crazy excited to watch the game develop further, but don't stray too far down the same path- obviously that game is successful because it did.. basically everything right? So it'll be hard to stray FROM said path, but you never want a clone on your hands. I believe you can do this, and i believe you have something very nice on your hands- Best of luck and will happily continue to give whatever feedback possible!
Thanks a ton for the detailed feedback and the kind words. It really means a lot.
You pointed out some really important balance issues and I agree with most of what you said the "Parrot strategy" (first strategy on the game yay !) and energy carryover clearly break the game right now (even if energy keeping between fights is intentional).
I also totally see your point about low cost cards being useless the lack of punishment for deck size and the repetitive gameplay loop. These are things I plan to address soon especially by adding more meaningful choices during runs and mechanics that force the player to adapt instead of repeating the same setup every time. I like the idea of a side deck or maybe a more dynamic hand system too. Definitely going to explore that...
And yes this demo is super basic for now but I am really glad you found it fun despite all the rough edges. I appreciate you believing in the project and I am taking all your suggestions seriously.
Thanks again and feel free to share more thoughts anytime, it really helps a lot!!
I should ask before I play that I see this is, to some degree, inspired by Inscryption. This is one of my favorite games of all time. I know i'm going to go into this with higher hopes than I should physically have for a demo, but highly recommend making a Discord server for this as well if you haven't made one already- likely a link to said server on this page, and on in-game as well. Discord servers can REALLY help a game grow by simply inviting friends every now and then and showing them the server, dev updates, and obviously the game itself. And yes, I got here from your YT channel Demo Trailer, which seemed good! A bit bland and it didn't show off any specific cards though, which I suggest doing to help show off specific key mecahnics of the game in any future trailers! A bunch of cards shaking from far away can REALLY put a hinderance on one's ability to read and interpet things on a surface level without knowing much about the game, which means people might not check out the demo. But that is PURELY marketing side stuff before i've played the game, will give game feedback soon, going into it with an open mind and a bit of hope bc it does look like a great idea!
Thanks a lot for the kind words and thoughtful feedback! I really appreciate you taking the time to check out the demo and share your thoughts. It means a lot especially as I am working on this game alone I am glad the idea caught your interest and I will definitely keep your suggestions in mind especially about the Discord and the trailer. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts once you have played the demo !
The game seems pretty good so far, for a demo that is. the current state shows how strategic that later gameplay can be and the potential for high damage builds that can be swapped out in the middle of combat for a high energy build, or just an all around strategy to create and use energy at the same time. There is a huge amount of potential that i can feel, and even though the current state of the demo doesn't have the most content and doesn't really provide much replayability, there is still heaps of passion and potential. The pirate theming is also quite fun, and would love to see the future cards based around this theme (Would love to wield a cannon but maybe thats a bit too much) overall I did enjoy the time I spent on this game and will be looking forward to the future of its development, I can't believe I found this because youtube recommended me the demo trailer out of nowhere.
Also, remember to take your time creating this game and to not lose that spark of passion, rushing yourself and getting burnt out wouldn't be good, so take your time and swab the deck, don't get too many power hungry ideas now, mutiny is punishable by death!
Thank you so much for your feedback! I'll definitely keep your wise advice in mind as I continue to develop the game. Your insights are incredibly valuable and will help shape the future of the project. Stay tuned for more updates, and thank you for your support!
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OK so as far as gameplay goes, it took me abt 20 minutes to beat this early demo. First and foremost, I like big numbers. This is a big numbers game. YAY!
Obviously there isn't much to do, YET, in this game. And the lower cost cards are straight up useless at the moment due to how the only multiplier card being a *2 multiplier also adds 4 effective cost. Why would you take anything but the highest cost card, farm the multiplied energy with Parrot (which is the best card in the game at the moment but i'm sure that's obvious), and then clear your entire field once you've farmed ~800 energy in ~4-5 turns.. since energy CARRIES OVER BETWEEN BATTLES, whether this is a bug or a design flaw i'm not sure, it means you can build early, farm effectively infinite energy, then hard pivot to only take damaging cards for the rest of the run and never look back. I'm sure you already know this stuff in terms of "balancing of the first demo of a game" so i'll shut up about balance, and talk about the overall game idea itself.
I like this game idea, ALOT. However, I'm unsure if being able to take every path will be a good thing or not, and the game has no punishment of any sort for fattening your deck to your heart's content.. meaning why is there any reason, logically, to not just take the best cards and spam them out in the same order every fight? Either every fight later on needs to have a unique gimmick against certain cards/strategies (think of the Boss Blinds in Balatro outright stopping entire decks bc they've built too hard into a single thing), OR, circumventing this by somehow having a hand system that doesn't break the game. I know Energy is supposed to be the limiter here, but there is no reason to not just farm it crazy hard early as i've stated before. Perhaps if you want to remove energy carrying over (given it breaks the game lol), add in some sort of card draw that actually makes the game feel not repetitive could be nice? In its current philosophy there is 0 reason not to just take the best cards, use the same strategy every fight, then move on. A side deck for 0 energy bannanas or something could really help this. Could even have more side decks to pick from of various 0 energy cards in the game, assuming that'd be an idea to even look into.
REGARDLESS; the game is fun. Simple demo obviously and broken atm, obviously, but its fun. A single boss that has a lasting effect on the run will go a LONG way though, and i'm sure you know that. Again I think this is visually inspired by Inscryption to some extent which makes me crazy excited to watch the game develop further, but don't stray too far down the same path- obviously that game is successful because it did.. basically everything right? So it'll be hard to stray FROM said path, but you never want a clone on your hands. I believe you can do this, and i believe you have something very nice on your hands- Best of luck and will happily continue to give whatever feedback possible!
Thanks a ton for the detailed feedback and the kind words. It really means a lot.
You pointed out some really important balance issues and I agree with most of what you said the "Parrot strategy" (first strategy on the game yay !) and energy carryover clearly break the game right now (even if energy keeping between fights is intentional).
I also totally see your point about low cost cards being useless the lack of punishment for deck size and the repetitive gameplay loop. These are things I plan to address soon especially by adding more meaningful choices during runs and mechanics that force the player to adapt instead of repeating the same setup every time. I like the idea of a side deck or maybe a more dynamic hand system too. Definitely going to explore that...
And yes this demo is super basic for now but I am really glad you found it fun despite all the rough edges. I appreciate you believing in the project and I am taking all your suggestions seriously.
Thanks again and feel free to share more thoughts anytime, it really helps a lot!!
I should ask before I play that I see this is, to some degree, inspired by Inscryption. This is one of my favorite games of all time. I know i'm going to go into this with higher hopes than I should physically have for a demo, but highly recommend making a Discord server for this as well if you haven't made one already- likely a link to said server on this page, and on in-game as well. Discord servers can REALLY help a game grow by simply inviting friends every now and then and showing them the server, dev updates, and obviously the game itself. And yes, I got here from your YT channel Demo Trailer, which seemed good! A bit bland and it didn't show off any specific cards though, which I suggest doing to help show off specific key mecahnics of the game in any future trailers! A bunch of cards shaking from far away can REALLY put a hinderance on one's ability to read and interpet things on a surface level without knowing much about the game, which means people might not check out the demo. But that is PURELY marketing side stuff before i've played the game, will give game feedback soon, going into it with an open mind and a bit of hope bc it does look like a great idea!
Thanks a lot for the kind words and thoughtful feedback! I really appreciate you taking the time to check out the demo and share your thoughts. It means a lot especially as I am working on this game alone I am glad the idea caught your interest and I will definitely keep your suggestions in mind especially about the Discord and the trailer. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts once you have played the demo !
The game seems pretty good so far, for a demo that is. the current state shows how strategic that later gameplay can be and the potential for high damage builds that can be swapped out in the middle of combat for a high energy build, or just an all around strategy to create and use energy at the same time. There is a huge amount of potential that i can feel, and even though the current state of the demo doesn't have the most content and doesn't really provide much replayability, there is still heaps of passion and potential. The pirate theming is also quite fun, and would love to see the future cards based around this theme (Would love to wield a cannon but maybe thats a bit too much) overall I did enjoy the time I spent on this game and will be looking forward to the future of its development, I can't believe I found this because youtube recommended me the demo trailer out of nowhere.
Also, remember to take your time creating this game and to not lose that spark of passion, rushing yourself and getting burnt out wouldn't be good, so take your time and swab the deck, don't get too many power hungry ideas now, mutiny is punishable by death!
Thank you so much for your feedback! I'll definitely keep your wise advice in mind as I continue to develop the game. Your insights are incredibly valuable and will help shape the future of the project. Stay tuned for more updates, and thank you for your support!