I’m actually a big fan of Slay the Spire game, but now I’m not sure whether I prefer to play it or Metroplex Zero instead :) It seems to me the game pushed the amount of possible variants of walkthroughs to double-eternity and every run here must be utmost unique :)

Music and sounds are cool and immersive, the atmosphere of a cyberpunk is nicely made. The plot and story are here, but I’m not paying too much attention to them, because in card deck builder games I prefer - you know - build my deck at the first place :) So it was great for me that the main gameplay was about fighting, not about dialogues (but after long start I really had some doubts first). And it’s cool that you can choose whether you want to get story news at all :) Elegant decision, but the label “Main Quest” on the map made me think it’s gonna contain many story-driven fights in a row or a difficult boss fight… So I tried to ignore it as much as I can.

Art is usually the question of finances, and the deck builder game I think does not require it top-high or 3D. So I like the style, the cards are lucid and differs very much one from another, which is important. And most of all I liked cool interesting animations the attack card and other skills have.

The gameplay is just top - the variety of cards, implants, perks and characters with unique stats are amazing. It should be very interesting to collect and build your deck for every new run, but in the beginning…

It was actually a bit boring for me to go through all three themes of educational process. I usually prefer to try first instead of reading, plus I had plenty experience of same gameplay. But I started the tutorial and it was right decision, because some unique features were taught to me. Even so I somehow got the wrong idea, that the 6 of the Resource is the limit. And completely missed the block that the amount of card uses is in left down corner. I thought it refers to the rest cards’ amount in my deck, like in Slay the Spire. So all the 50 minutes I played I haven’t found out it’s about my possible actions per turn. I just found out experimentally the amount of actions I have and then counted in my head after each move I made :)

Well, here’s some of my problems and ideas:

1. I’d like to have the educational process more in-game then before-game, f.e. as first-second-third simple missions instead of mannequin beating or encyclopedia learning. :) Because such an amount of the game features in one place can easily overwhelm the player, which was exactly right for me - after those lessons I remembered at max one third, the other third I get wrong, and the last one I already have known :D Can’t imagine how the complete newbie should feel here after such the lecture… :) So in-game gradual type of education might be better for new players, imho.

2. In educational process you were told: U can shield, U can attack… But when the game starts the main character has absolutely another set of cards! Every three of characters for U to decide whom to choose! And after first fight U got another character to choose from! Whoa, it really escalates quickly! :D I mean, I haven’t yet try even the basics (attack-shield-shield-attack, where’s that gone? :) ), and you make me make some decisions before I try the real gameplay itself :) So that’s why I choose the least complexity character both times - I just want the game to be a little bit easier at the start :D And I remind you - I have plenty of such an experience in the similar games! So since you explain the main mechanics first - you should give the player the chance to use them before the unique ones, I think :)

3. Talking about mechanics, the game also has many features which were new to me. It’s very cool Metroplex Zero has them and they truly work, not to mention their cool synergy and huge variety. But it might be nice for any new player to reveal them little by little, I suppose. First reach the situation where they will be needed and then add them to the list. It can be easily explained as a new augmented tool you get only now to win this exactly fight and henceforth you can use this possibility in the future ones. Thus the player can start with the basics and advance more smoothly, trying and adding to his list all of your features one by one.

4. GUI is useful and informative, but a bit noisy too me - I can’t understand where is significant information, and where is not too much important at this exactly moment. The fight some thieves had the buff they evade all my attacks was representative. The amount of all guys armor (of different types!), attack strength (what does it even mean? We have attack dmg value on cards themselves… :) ), more buffs/debuffs each round from everyone and there are plenty of characters on the screen - all of that is a bit too complicated at the start, I suppose. Add to that, that all of the guys them doing something specific that only that character can, so you should learn it or investigate them every round… Plus some actions are completely harmless, whilst other ones are critically or even deadly! Well, I suppose it maybe worth put the most important things a little bit ahead using GUI tools - at least for the new players - to make better emphasis on the prime things on the screen, not letting all the information exist together, if you ask me :)

I rated the Metroplex Zero very high and gonna play it after Fest as well, to learn more of its gameplay features thoroughly. I think it will be great competitor to Slay the Spire one day! Who knows, maybe since that exactly day, when the beginners’ threshold here became a bit not that high :) I sincerely wish you good luck!

P.S. Youtube claims my video about your game has intellectual property soundtrack from 2:09 - Moonshine & Molly by Wilasco. Please be sure to have all rights to use this track in your game ;)

Just made my let’s play on your game as a regular player (so it’s without voice comments). I hope it will be useful for you to see how fresh players may started your game for the first time :) I’ll provide text comments later, probably after finishing the videos for other projects :)

Love the artstyle and the way things move, reminds me of old flash games. Augments add some really nice build variety, it would be cool to have some sort of turn timer to incentivize quick but strategic decisions.