This is a good game overall. It builds up difficulty both with inventory storage (unremovable gems) and with enemy difficulty. I like the addition of black enemies that can't be merged with the reds, on top of the greater enemy variety as the difficulty increases. The turn economy is well-balanced and you can die quite easily if you make the wrong decisions.
The issues I have:
- On my end, there's some kind of memory problem. The longer I play the game, the slower it (and everything else) runs. It gets better when I clear the cache, but I think there's room for optimization here.
- Also, the weapon stack is not worth getting higher than fourth level - I think it may upgrade keys, but besides that, nothing of importance. You can only kill one enemy with each weapon, and each enemy has at most 9 hp. Maybe a weapon durability system for the higher-level weapons that would let you reuse them 2 or 3 times would be good? Though it would also interfere with inventory space.
- The "reduce chest countdown by 7" spell is ridiculous, especially late-game. You basically eat the turn economy for breakfast, and you go back for lunch and dinner with the double spells relics.
- Spells in general are the meta for this game. Build up paper stacks early on, get the free turn-economy eater spell, then focus on potions. Gold gives you the relics, but the spell-doubling relic has way more utility than the other ones. I do wish there were more variety in gameplay options.
- I like that the game removes paper from the board/chest once you've gotten all the spells. However, late-game chests unlocks still include an option to add paper back into the chest. Picking this option is suicidal for late-game scoring, as it adds another non-removable resource.
Overall, though, I had a lot of fun with this game. For something made in a week, it's very good.