ok 2nd comment wowzers,,,, I like this game a lot and agree that this is slay the spire tier honestly!! i'm not sure about your plans for the future of this game (if any) and I know promises in an itch comment don't mean much, but if this was on steam and was made into a full game i would 1000% buy it!!!!
I'm not a very good game designer but i have some balancing feedback as well,,; >w<
the VAST majority of my wins are with melee builds. thin dagger, shock axe, twin daggers, and repair piston are some of the strongest items in the game, to the point where they can consistently beat launcher spider with hardly any upgrades (especially considering how early you can find some of them, namely thin dagger). I really enjoy fire and shotgun builds but often feel railroaded into a melee build just because of how strong and easy to put together they are. my word is not gospel (obviously) but here's what i would change:
- randomize the choices of loot categories every run (I assume this isn't the case because of pico-8 technical limitations so it might be more of a nitpick lol)
- buff magazine and ap rounds to boost ranged weapons by +3, on par with rough whetstone.
- give shotguns the [ranged] tag so they can be boosted by the above items! (I feel like this is what makes shotgun builds hard to get going, combined with the fact that short blaster is the only one available in early game pools)
- remove the dull cutter you start with and replace it with a basic weapon choice (so that you aren't skewed towards a melee build at the start)
- balance the way loot items scale to put them more on par with each other. dull cutter, thin dagger, shielding belt, and repair piston get a 100% DPS increase with their first upgrade, while other items like short blaster only get around a 40% DPS increase. I feel like this is especially important for dull cutter (as getting a 12 damage 3.6 cooldown weapon before the first fight is a little insane) and shielding belt (because its scaling makes it almost always superior to its early game 2x2 alternatives, hand cannon and solder gun. hand cannon is good early game and all 3 of them scale pretty well but I find myself almost always going with shielding belt long term.)
- make the early game fire weapons (namely ignition pulser and flimsy torch) not suck so much ass
and thats about all i can think of!!! thank u so much for reading i love your game a lot <333