Very interesting twist on minesweeper! Art is very pleasing and the gameplay is simple and easy to understand.
couple things I'll suggest:
Introduce the same mechanic as minesweeper while exploring, letting the player know if enemies are nearby, making it easier to decide when to explore versus when to fight
adding an equipment system and treasures or drops to be found to spice things up
maybe make your odds of hitting an enemy in combat more obvious, same as odds of an enemy hitting you.
I guess the big thing I'd like to see is giving more information to the player, since this is a kind of puzzle/strategy game, as a player I'd want as much information as possible to decide what my next move is going to be, instead of trying something and then finding out the result. like when I went to fight the reaper, I wondered if I was strong enough to beat him. I think if I knew my odds right from the start it would have made the fight more exciting knowing, for example, I only had 20% chance of beating him without dying.
In conclusion, very elegant twist on minesweeper and the game has definitely potential. It's simple, fun and easy to pickup. Looking forwards to the next updates!
First time playing it (version 4), beat the reaper once
+++Game has a good look to it, visually
-So far the only strategy I can think of is choosing when to pick fights and when to explore, but I could see that changing if you ever add different tiles or actions
-first time I started the game it closed and reopened on its own, not sure if it was a crash but was weird
I think the combat rng is too much; like the previous comment says, I don't feel like I'm doing anything in turns of combat. It's all RNG besides how much health I decide to go in with and when I want to bail out of it.
I like the art and the overheal mechanic where you're encouraged to explore unexplored tiles.
Fun time, nice art. Roll system is absolutely merciless, makes me feel like I'm not doing much of anything. I've had 10+ turns end with no hits, had a 2HP ogre slaughter a 24hp run, and murdered the Reaper at 8hp without taking a scratch. But that the luck of the dice, baby.
1. It would be easy to put in intro blurbs explaining that if you hit two damage rolls adjacently you unlock the other slots that are in that column/row and moving to unexplored areas increases your health even beyond max health but you won't retain that health once you lose it beyond max health which increases when you level up.
2. There's a bug where if you click too fast on next spin, the slots won't show up.
3. Do you have plans of making damage rolls actually multiplicative or should they by +(number) instead of x(number)?
Very fun and addictive. Like minesweeper and gambling is fun and addictive. Just needs some RPG mechanics sprinkled in like different ways of traversing the map, equipment/skills that alter your slot machine and how you do minesweeper. Things I bet you're planning on implementing. Is minesweeper copy written at all?
- It seems like the prompts get skipped when there's a lot of text, I might relegate a lot of them to on death "tips". - I either can't reproduce the next spin bug or am misunderstanding where it's meant to be -- the combat spins are all purely automated, you can only click things after it's over. - Yeah, the "x" notation seems to catch people off guard, I wanted it to connect to the "x" in hits, might be better off switching to "+", but now I'm used to it and it's not that easy, hah - mechanics are typically safe to lift from games, even Tetris owners, notorious for litigation, have to resort to technicalities like board size and shape types - I'm hoping to make this more dungeon crawly with items that modify the rng (placeholder slots under your hp bar) and more tuned levels that don't devolve to fighting all enemies in order
Thanks for playing the half baked potato that this is.
Here's the bug I'm talking about. Happens for me when I hammer the left mouse button on the (gorgeous) enemy portrait to get to the next spin as fast as possible.
Karapath: the tutorial Text should scroll upwards, downwards sets off my tendency to skip things, because I associate things scrolling down with going backwards (phone culture and English writing style)
Ok, probably not fair, but a speed up button would be nice, or maybe some bing bang wahoo sounds and graphical effects (juice) on the spinning, because this seems almost like I don’t need to be here, I am even typing this during a combat, perhaps it changes further in.
HP seems to go beyond max, if you want it to stop definitively, just add a check every frame on the entities you want to control (their max health) and say something like ‘if health > maxhealth { health = max health }’ not that I’m complaining, I like this as a mechanic if it is intentional, and the idea of being overcharged with power/mana/health etc.
Minesweeper as a saving roll is interesting and kinda cool, but I won and then ‘accepted death’ which restarted me, couldn’t see how to submit my victory.
In my opinion, there is way too much variance in the outcome of the same battles, the first time through, I beat the lvl 1 ogre in one turn, yet on the second play, I am now on the 4th turn, it’s quoting ’58%’ to me, (58% chance to kill I assume). Gambling as a mechanic for combat is inherently frustrating, again this is just my opinion, but I tend to analyze games numerically, and given the numbers presented here (no max health, moving to new tiles heals you, moving through ogres hurts you, and the seemingly random placement of the ogres but the pseudo requirement to fight them in order of level) reduces to attempting the same thing multiple times, simply because of RNG.
In terms of increasing playtime, it’s a reasonable move. And honestly, the idea of gambling as a combat mechanic doesn’t bother me, but I would really appreciate some way to modulate the outcome, and as I said before, some juice on the rolls and high rolls especially.
To specify what I mean by modulate the outcome, as this is the crux of my feedback: (I’m sure you thought of a lot of this already) Add something I can do to influence how frequently I can roll a high attack. Something like, enchanted items, temporary spell buffs, a one time per combat tilt button, some other thing to increase the dynamic behavior of combat. As I have said, the combat seems to play out without my influence.
Damage also happens simultaneously, which is a ‘fair’ choice, in the sense that it doesn’t favor either the player or the enemy, but I implore you to consider, which is more fun? A forgiving experience that grants first strike to the player (logically, someone has to die first unless every simultaneous death is a pyrrhic victory) and therefore lets them win on those close matches, or a system that pushes the player into a death check on a tie? It is up to you, but I’m sure it’s obvious which one I think is better.
Oh I got the accept recovery to work on this round.
I still haven’t won, I’ll let you know if I end up beating it. I got through 1-6 but died to O7 so since it’s kinda gamble-y I’m gonna move to the next game. Good luck!
First move - tried clicking on map, first on empty tiles then on squares and noticed health changing up and down - the "scroll" thing feels like it's being swapped rather than added and then reduced, which I now know
The plus looks like a health thing rather than your character
First fight - I get long explanation of how things work. Feeling pressured to read well since there's no going back to previous tip. Telling how many tips there are going to be is good, forces me to pay attention. The fight plays itself out and I roll nothing, deal no damage and get out of the fight. Feels weird man. Lose 2hp
Lose three fights in a row against Ogre, starting to thing that I shouldn't be fighting it at all or maybe I'm doing something wrong? I guess the x1 that appears while rolling just doesn't appear often enough. I would say enemies and player damage should be scaled in a way that player kills first enemy is mostly guaranteed and not necessarily following enemies.
Explore around, find higher level enemies. Notice that I've regened a lot of HP, feel like I've lost some just because I wasn't at max HP. Go back to Ogre lvl1 with 44% chance to win and try grinding it out. Don't wanna explore the map and lose potential HP gain. Would like to grind for some guaranteed outcome rather than a chance of getting a kill.
Finally get a hit. Now the chance is 69% nice. Second fight gets a lot of x1s and x2s and keeps resetting the spins. wtf is happening, deal like 40 dmg.
Lvl 2, got 4 max hp, go after previously discovered Ogre lvl 2. Kill percent is very low. Deal 1 dmg now. Deal 1 dmg again. Deal 2, get 2, die.
Play deathsweeper lmao, nice one. Get back on my feet. Now lvl 3. I wish I didn't die if my kill was guaranteed.
Explore to regen. Jesus, lvl 3 ogre now has only 8% of win. Fuck it , we're gambling here. Deal 1 dmg. Fight again, get three x2s again, the board keeps growin, dunno why that happens, would have expected it to grow immediately when got first x2. Deal bazingallion of damage, kill the ogre. Feels inconsistent and somewhat potentially allowing to kill anything that doesn't kill me in one shot, since the dmg grows so much.
Don't understand why x2s are now appearing. Is it because I leveled up? What other things rather than my HP have changed?
Being level 4 fight lvl 7 ogre. Chance says 0%, bitch you don't know I can roll 256 dmg with the board if I get luck. Fight two times, first zero, second x6 rolls and deal 6 dmg. I can grind this. Got 2 HP left, go explore to heal. I hope lvl 7 will give me scaled up XP
Fight Ogre7 again. Both times 0 dmg.
While healing explore the rest of the map. Last tile that I'm standing on is Ogre5, hit it once, zero. hit it second time - 13dmg. Okay, I thought it will be more when the board was showing many x'es. Second fight zero dmg. Got 2hp left, ohwell.
Died. Deahtsweep. You can mark mines, nice.
Grind down Ogre5. Didn't get a level, huh.
Died to Ogre4. Deathsweep. Even middle mouse button works, good job, makes it fast. Death seems futile.
At this point start paying attention to how damage works. It seems that remaining spins are reset every time I roll a number. Board expands if there are numbers in a line.
The xNumber notation feels like the numbers should multiply eachother, but they actually add up while fighting. Makes sense when there are x1s.
Feel at this point that only a bad click on Deathsweep can end the game. Fighting feels very random.
Deathsweep. Kill ogre something now. Finally only level 7 one is left. There is still some unaccessible map left, maybe I'm missing out on something?
Fuck, died to Deathsweep from clicking 5 numbered tiles without opening more of map, finally clicking on random 6th which was deth. Should have clicked next to uncovered 1s.
Reborn, explore the map to see if I missed anything in previous game. Nope. Wish that far movement was faster.
Kill Ogre1 in one megahit. Lvlup, don't get back HP, come on. Kill Ogre2 in one megahit and die. Very random damage outcome.
OK clicking fast on target tile speeds up movement, nice. Now wish it sped up rolling.
Can't kill Ogre3. quit.
TL;DR:
More guaranteed damage. Rare high damage rolls should stay - maybe reduce number of empty rolls while leveling up. Feels like it needs some progression as health is arbitrary when there's Deathsweeper. Choosing what numbers you get when you level up would be nice too. Do you want to get three x1s? or one x3? etc.
Comments
Very interesting twist on minesweeper! Art is very pleasing and the gameplay is simple and easy to understand.
couple things I'll suggest:
I guess the big thing I'd like to see is giving more information to the player, since this is a kind of puzzle/strategy game, as a player I'd want as much information as possible to decide what my next move is going to be, instead of trying something and then finding out the result. like when I went to fight the reaper, I wondered if I was strong enough to beat him. I think if I knew my odds right from the start it would have made the fight more exciting knowing, for example, I only had 20% chance of beating him without dying.
In conclusion, very elegant twist on minesweeper and the game has definitely potential. It's simple, fun and easy to pickup. Looking forwards to the next updates!
First time playing it (version 4), beat the reaper once
+++Game has a good look to it, visually
-So far the only strategy I can think of is choosing when to pick fights and when to explore, but I could see that changing if you ever add different tiles or actions
-first time I started the game it closed and reopened on its own, not sure if it was a crash but was weird
It's got potential, good luck!
I think the combat rng is too much; like the previous comment says, I don't feel like I'm doing anything in turns of combat. It's all RNG besides how much health I decide to go in with and when I want to bail out of it.
I like the art and the overheal mechanic where you're encouraged to explore unexplored tiles.
Fun time, nice art. Roll system is absolutely merciless, makes me feel like I'm not doing much of anything. I've had 10+ turns end with no hits, had a 2HP ogre slaughter a 24hp run, and murdered the Reaper at 8hp without taking a scratch. But that the luck of the dice, baby.
I like the artwork, and the game looks like it could have potential with more options/control on the players end. Maybe equipment, abilities, etc?
For combat Im confused on how exactly it works. I get you start with 4 squares in the middle, but I dont know whats causing new ones to show up.
I was also thrown off by the 'X'. I assumed it was a multiplayer for something, but look like that is just the actual damage?
Also, not sure what the max health really means, since it looks like you heal past it when moving around?
Seems interesting, wish you luck on making the game!
1. It would be easy to put in intro blurbs explaining that if you hit two damage rolls adjacently you unlock the other slots that are in that column/row and moving to unexplored areas increases your health even beyond max health but you won't retain that health once you lose it beyond max health which increases when you level up.
2. There's a bug where if you click too fast on next spin, the slots won't show up.
3. Do you have plans of making damage rolls actually multiplicative or should they by +(number) instead of x(number)?
Very fun and addictive. Like minesweeper and gambling is fun and addictive. Just needs some RPG mechanics sprinkled in like different ways of traversing the map, equipment/skills that alter your slot machine and how you do minesweeper. Things I bet you're planning on implementing. Is minesweeper copy written at all?
- It seems like the prompts get skipped when there's a lot of text, I might relegate a lot of them to on death "tips".
- I either can't reproduce the next spin bug or am misunderstanding where it's meant to be -- the combat spins are all purely automated, you can only click things after it's over.
- Yeah, the "x" notation seems to catch people off guard, I wanted it to connect to the "x" in hits, might be better off switching to "+", but now I'm used to it and it's not that easy, hah
- mechanics are typically safe to lift from games, even Tetris owners, notorious for litigation, have to resort to technicalities like board size and shape types
- I'm hoping to make this more dungeon crawly with items that modify the rng (placeholder slots under your hp bar) and more tuned levels that don't devolve to fighting all enemies in order
Thanks for playing the half baked potato that this is.
Here's the bug I'm talking about. Happens for me when I hammer the left mouse button on the (gorgeous) enemy portrait to get to the next spin as fast as possible.
https://files.catbox.moe/kqgxcr.webm
I see, that makes sense, thanks a lot for reporting it.
Karapath: the tutorial Text should scroll upwards, downwards sets off my tendency to skip things, because I associate things scrolling down with going backwards (phone culture and English writing style)
Ok, probably not fair, but a speed up button would be nice, or maybe some bing bang wahoo sounds and graphical effects (juice) on the spinning, because this seems almost like I don’t need to be here, I am even typing this during a combat, perhaps it changes further in.
HP seems to go beyond max, if you want it to stop definitively, just add a check every frame on the entities you want to control (their max health) and say something like ‘if health > maxhealth { health = max health }’ not that I’m complaining, I like this as a mechanic if it is intentional, and the idea of being overcharged with power/mana/health etc.
Minesweeper as a saving roll is interesting and kinda cool, but I won and then ‘accepted death’ which restarted me, couldn’t see how to submit my victory.
In my opinion, there is way too much variance in the outcome of the same battles, the first time through, I beat the lvl 1 ogre in one turn, yet on the second play, I am now on the 4th turn, it’s quoting ’58%’ to me, (58% chance to kill I assume). Gambling as a mechanic for combat is inherently frustrating, again this is just my opinion, but I tend to analyze games numerically, and given the numbers presented here (no max health, moving to new tiles heals you, moving through ogres hurts you, and the seemingly random placement of the ogres but the pseudo requirement to fight them in order of level) reduces to attempting the same thing multiple times, simply because of RNG.
In terms of increasing playtime, it’s a reasonable move. And honestly, the idea of gambling as a combat mechanic doesn’t bother me, but I would really appreciate some way to modulate the outcome, and as I said before, some juice on the rolls and high rolls especially.
To specify what I mean by modulate the outcome, as this is the crux of my feedback: (I’m sure you thought of a lot of this already) Add something I can do to influence how frequently I can roll a high attack. Something like, enchanted items, temporary spell buffs, a one time per combat tilt button, some other thing to increase the dynamic behavior of combat. As I have said, the combat seems to play out without my influence.
Damage also happens simultaneously, which is a ‘fair’ choice, in the sense that it doesn’t favor either the player or the enemy, but I implore you to consider, which is more fun? A forgiving experience that grants first strike to the player (logically, someone has to die first unless every simultaneous death is a pyrrhic victory) and therefore lets them win on those close matches, or a system that pushes the player into a death check on a tie? It is up to you, but I’m sure it’s obvious which one I think is better.
Oh I got the accept recovery to work on this round.
I still haven’t won, I’ll let you know if I end up beating it. I got through 1-6 but died to O7 so since it’s kinda gamble-y I’m gonna move to the next game. Good luck!
This game gave me gambling addiction.
TL;DR:
More guaranteed damage. Rare high damage rolls should stay - maybe reduce number of empty rolls while leveling up. Feels like it needs some progression as health is arbitrary when there's Deathsweeper. Choosing what numbers you get when you level up would be nice too. Do you want to get three x1s? or one x3? etc.