itch.io

yeah, exactly, i think a lot of it is a UI and UX question

my goal was to keep the game pretty minimal, without too many texts, tooltips or explanations, and make the mechanics understandable through play. from the feedback i got, i think this mostly worked, but the merge system is probably the part that needs clearer communication

the tutorial text at the top was added very late, almost as an emergency layer, so i see it more as extra support than as the ideal way to teach the game

about card merging, i tested a few different versions during development. in the final jam version it ended up more as an optional deeper layer than as the main way to play

right now it is more like a small gimmick and system exploration mechanic: if you dig into it, you can find some extra fun there through combinations and a bit of card tier progression, but the core gameplay is not fully built around merge strategy in this slice

about seeing the deck, good point. for this prototype i did not really see it as a deckbuilder, more like a fast random card flow where you get strange tools during combat and quickly decide what to do with them. but if the game moved more toward strategic planning, showing available cards would make much more sense

casting cost is also an interesting idea, but i think it would be a big design change. it could add strategy, but it could also slow down the flow and make the game feel less immediate. so i would need to look at it in a wider game context, instead of just adding it on top of the current version

thanks again, these are good thoughts