The mining section feels great to navigate, and mining upwards to return isn't something I ever saw in these types of games, it's fun! Combat can be a bit frustrating, it doesn't feel like you have a lot of options and sometimes you run into opponents that have armor that blocks all attacks or those who dodge every hit. The cloning is interesting, it definitely gives a reason for players to keep going and experiment with different combinations. Music choice sets the right tone, and I like the very animated menus and presentation. The writing feels right for the type of game this is, but perhaps having much shorter but more varied intimate scenes would work better for how frequent the encounters are? It's a big and ambitious project to tackle in a game jam, I'm impressed you got everything to work so well!
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Thank you, that's very kind of you :) I've heard many ppl complaining about the combat by now, and I understand. I didn't have much time to balance all the mechanics, so some dinos are too strong while others are too weak. You can level up and gain new elemental attacks, but I was afraid it would take a bit too long to grind before ppl would get sick of it.
I hear you about the sex scenes too, I always struggle with keeping my writing short >_> I tried keepng a good balance between context and text length, but it seems I failed in doing so :(
I'm not familiar with the game that inspired this one, so the system you're using is probably based on that one, but I think that the most reliable way to improve the combat would be to prevent no damage situations. You could just reduce everything to hit points and damage and focus on elements for advantage or disadvantage. Alternatively, turn armor into a shield that blocks a set amount of damage in a fight. I usually avoid dodge entirely when I design combat, but the best implementations I've seen are the ones where each attack attempts to land multiple hits. Critical hits are usually a fairer alternative to dodges because something still happens even if you don't crit.
I get what you're saying, but this was way out of the scope I settled on for this jam x) Getting just the basic combat system was a nightmare in a half, and I did plan to get a few more mechanics in (namely, the ability to change the formation of your dinos) but I didn't have the time and I really needed to save as much time as possible for drawing the sprites and making the game as pretty as possible.
Next time maybe? I do intend to push the idea of dino battling further in a future project :)