First, thanks for taking time to playtest my game, especially since you had to put much more effort than I did in yours.
using the output numbers on the cards rather than engaging with the math.
That’s ok. The intention of the formula is to help player understand what influences given number, and the pre-calculated result is to reduce (not completely avoid, since some effects are interdependent) the need to calculate exact values.
RNG formulas actually confused me even after re-reading. The die icon’s hard to make out.
Do you mean you did not understand that the syntax means ‘random’ when you first saw it, you was it still unclear / confusing even afterwards?
Impale card might be a little crazy; Yes, I should probably nerf it a bit. That being said, the game has lots of overpowered combos, as the Impale it not the craziest one.
point to fear … All it does is reduce sanity, which reads like a weird form of damage?
You correctly identified the fact that fear is slightly “boring” currently. It can be seen as a form of damage, which, unlike HP damage, is cleared up between stages, but is not prevented by defensive statuses.
In the next release, I have already made significant changes to fear / insanity: in particlar, hero sanity is calculated as (HP + Wp), and fear effects of most enemies are scaled up to balance. This way, at least buffing max HP is less universal counter to both fear and damage.
typo on the potion(s)
Thanks, fixed
cuttlefish grinds the game to a halt … as mage
Early Mage has generally hard time against Laguna enemies do to lack of damage in starting deck. I have already added some mitigating factors, in particular more quests with damage-increasing rewards (but you probably did not unlock quests yet).
I am on the fence about what to do. On the one hand, experienced players just know not to enter Laguna without strong damage card / item, which is exactly intended part of skill in the game. On the other hand, beginner players will certainly feel bad in these encounters. Maybe I should lock harder encounters behind some achievement…
The deepest one can get you in a spot where it’s impossible to win, but it still takes ages to actually finish you off.
Weirdly, this can be solved by buffing Deeper One damage and/or adding damage to Deepest One, so that they kill you faster. On the other hand, the game has a lots of “you lose but the game does not know it” situations, and the player is expected to just give up and restart.
This feels unusual, but my analogy is giving up in chess even when you know that by perfectly playing the end game you can drag the game for 20 more moves.
massive prevalence of symbols… stave off certain kinds of players
You are correct, it does. But this seems unavoidable since the core concept is “not being afraid of complexity”.
Thanks again for your feedback!