Is there a way to see the tutorial again? I used incognito mode b/c I could find one in-game.
My feedback. Some (or all) may be nits. I enjoyed the game, but I think the tutorial and the UI are in need of a lot of polish.
- Do the exclamation marks represent the damage I'll take if I end the turn on that location? In chess, exclamation marks refer to good moves. In a game that's heavily chess-themed, I think it'd be a good idea to not use exclamation marks to mean something bad.
Also, if that is indeed the role of the exclamation marks, the number of exclamation marks not necessarily being the actual amount of damage I'll be taking is also rather misleading, because getting attacked by an enemy piece displaces my piece.
- Tutorials say I gain (glory * remaining health) points when I take a piece. This feels unclear because the calculation, unintuitively, is not done at the point I take a piece. The total score I have is (glory earned in clash * remaining health). This is clearer in the screenshot in the itch page, which seems to have come from a previous version, because it shows round score is 568 x 3 health. The current UI, which separates the total glory from remaining health with the target score, makes this unclear. Tutorial wording and UI should be updated imo.
- Tutorials say recall refreshes my hand, but that's only true if I recall before making the first move. After I make my first move, recall effectively becomes discard/end turn. The text on the button should change after the first move, because what it does changes. I initially thought I'd be able to draw a new hand for my second move even after playing one of the three cards.
- Unclear how spirit is increased/decreased. The torches getting lit seem to lead to spirit increasing, but it's not stated anywhere how that works.
- Unclear how reputation works beyond supposedly affecting what food the merchant sells, and how it increases/decreases.
- Is there a way to know what cards remain in my deck, so that I can try to plan my future turns? Or is there no deck, and is it entirely random which cards I draw each turn?
- Unclear how much glory I get from taking a piece, especially b/c it changes based on glory bonuses I bought in the shop. The old screenshot does show this information. It'd be nice if that was still a thing, and I think that'd be a better use of the left side of the UI.
Alright, I've noticed the Campaign log is in fact a glory ledger. Button text should be changed.
- Why does the enemy take their turn when my orders are depleted? I've lost the game at that point anyway, right? Shouldn't the game just end immediately if I've used up all my orders before reaching the target score?
- Why is the tip about being able to check spirit by hovering over the shield in the tutorial for the shop? Doesn't that belong in the clash tutorial? Does spirit affect the shop in any way?
- Promotions aren't mentioned in the tutorial. It's clear enough to anyone familiar with chess once it triggers, but still, probably worth a note somewhere, because I didn't know the mechanic existed until I saw it trigger.
- I didn't really do the math, but it feels like the target scores are balanced to be more or less unreachable with 1 remaining health even in the earliest stages. Obviously you can get more glory per piece in the later stages, but by then the target scores are even higher.
Not sure what the point of having 3 max health is, then, considering the health multiplier isn't applied at the point a piece is taken. Again, didn't do the math, so this point could very well be moot.
- The gold UI isn't very visible because it's in yellow text on an ochre background.