Conclusion: I need a tutorial.
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Yeah, tutorial would be ideal but you can start by putting some simple written instructions into the game, that describe the basics of how to play. This should also reflect in gui. The information should be visually hierarchical: the most important information need to be most prominent. Try to visually design the game in a way that minimizes any possible confusion for the player.
For example I'm totally confused about the ranges. They are somehow color coded and I encountered at least 6 colors: white, yellow, light blue, dark blue, ochre and red. There is no information on what any of those colors represent. I only guessed that the enemy is red.
I really dig the mood of the game and I can sense there is some depth to the gameplay. I'd like to defeat that enemy, but every time I try, the confusion caused by visual clutter sets in and I just lose any track of what's happening with my units.
Try to clean up the gui and add some basic instructions, either just text or a tutorial. It'll make for a much more fluid experience.
I just patched to try and make the board + the resources that determine what actions characters can take clearer.
Actions cost white triangles from the top right (command), and sometime orange inverted "r" shapes on the acting characer's health bars (reactions).
Color coding on the ranges is yeah what kind of thing they target, including like dark blue (don't care, it's aiming or something), and orange (any character). It's kind of a holdover from a previous UI that showed multiple ranges at once, which sucked. I've cut them down to 3 (move, aim threat, affect character), and might cut them further. Maybe instead have a couple different shapes on the symbols that show which positions you can click.
Not going to have time to move the tutorial into the game this jam, though.
Oh, that's what those triangles are. Ok, I think I'm starting to get it. You may want to make those something other than triangles. Triangles look like arrows which suggests direction, creating an unwanted association. I'd just put circles or squares there instead, and maybe write "AP" on the left side of them. Being an important element, they also should be in more contrast towards background. In action cost popups they're white on yellowish background, which is barely visible.
This new version is a bit easier on the eyes. One of the main causes of clutter are orange range markers of your units. They're just too thick, big and eat up all space. Those should be made subtler; perhaps thinner lines or just semi-transparent shapes without lines.
I'm not sure if the action points should be shared though. If they are then each live unit should at least add to the total at the start of turn. Imo it'd be better if each unit had their own.
I managed to bring enemy's hp bar to zero but it just refilled again. I'm at the same time happy and sad about it :D
I did just notice I have to make the triangles more visible on action popups, yeah. Not sure about swapping to semicircles, I feel like the tutorial saying what they are will suffice. They used to be semicircles, I changed them to triangles because it was hard to space out the semicircles in a way that's readable at a glance + looks good.
The orange lines are pretty much the most important piece of UI in the game. I'm still working on exactly how to present them, but no, they can't be subtle. And a sorta soft goal for the game is to have a limited palette, so I'd like to avoid transparency.
The action economy is also a really important part of the design. I want the player to think about actions as ways to manipulate the situation, usually not ways to directly make progress. There's a reason your attacks all deal 1 damage and your reactions deal 3-5.
There's three phases to the boss.
It doesn't have to scale well, the enemy's action economy doesn't scale either. It's a boss rush.
I want number of units you deploy to be mostly a matter of taste. More units are useful because of their reaction attacks, but they get in the way of each others' movements, trigger the protagonista's "Necessary Distance" flaw, and it's hard to protect all of them at once. I figure 4-7 will be best for most bosses.