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onamint14 days ago(+1)

I've  been playing a lot of Persona lately, so I've been experiencing a lot of randomized dungeon crawling, and I think where this game shines the most is it captures the tension of making dungeon runs and worrying over your resources. I enjoy feeling that pressure and I think Final Element pulls it off ^^

I have  some small quibbles, but the biggest thing I struggled with was I couldn't figure out the right path through the final tower even though I thought I understood the principal behind it. Was worth it to give it the college try though!

I also enjoyed using my first failed swing at a playthrough to inform building a party for the second playthrough, which I contend is stronger than the endgame party so I was sad to see them go. Pour one out for FF1 style Three-Fighters-and-a-Healer (and backpack Sister) XD

I experimented with using sigils inside the final tower to reconstitute them but I reckoned they wouldn't be able to survive. C'est la vie!

Also, I do think the  fog of war effect is really good for this kind of game. The tension of managing your resources works really well when you're hunting for the stairs; it's a classic mechanism of these kinds of games / dungeons so I found it quite effective 👍

It's very late so I am rambling a bit, but thanks for putting this game out for the jam! I'm excited to  check out the other stuff you've made too :3

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Razuth13 days ago(+1)

Thanks for playing and providing some valuable insights!

Yes, the final tower is the hardest stint in the game. The puzzle can be a real stinker coupled with the fact that the endgame party seem to be a bit powderpuff as you alluded to.

My intention was to get people stuck thinking a bit at the puzzle, wandering around and obviously getting into fights to power up but I can well understand if that gets a little frustrating after a while :|

I put a focus on weaving the roguelike elements into the gameplay to provide the bulk of the experience and it makes me happy you appreciated the fog of war, sigil mechanics around the permadeath and careful resource use but ultimately the game is in dire need of a flesh out and tidy up, especially when it comes to narrative, player direction and general balancing overall.

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onamint13 days ago(+1)

There's room for improvement, there always is with all things, but I would like to stress I had a good time with it up until getting stumped at the end. I am not sure if the classic dungeon crawler loop is timelessly charming, and certainly a lot of classic dungeon crawlers do not appeal to me, but the tension of hunting through the dark for progress while slowly growing a party is always endearing to me and the heart of that is here ^^

I feel a little bad about running out of patience with the final puzzle, but the only things I would really want from it are:

1) Feedback on if a chosen teleport is right or not. The hint is pretty direct but applying how I thought it worked to the puzzle didn't seem to work,  and there's enough teleports that trying random combinations of 4 of them wasn't something I wanted to entertain in combination with #2 below. But also, this seemed appropriate to a classic dungeon crawling experience, which would have you in a situation like this at least once if not more, with even more abstract hints (if any!), so I did want to keep at it.

2) The only other thing that stopped me from wandering around and powering up while sorting out the puzzle is the (I think I remember the name  right, I was up late so sorry if my memory is spotty) Antiger + Antiger + Antiger enemy group, which readily seem to outspeed the party at level 30 / 31 and are fond enough of their group earth spell that they just sweep you up and dump you in a bin. I respect and fear them XD

Not to carry on, my intention isn't to bust your chops and I know jabbering on about red ink and tweaks and so on can be tiresome. I enjoyed playing and even grumbling about puzzles and certain random enemy groups being really tough feels authentic to the classic experience? So no sweat! You did a good job and I'll probably be rifling through your library over my vacation XD

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Razuth13 days ago(+1)

Thanks for the feedback I really do appreciate that.

My games are usually on the more difficult bordering on unfair sometimes side of the spectrum (points accusingly at Dark Souls in 2013!). This sometimes doesn't endear my works to more general audiences but I don't think it's in my blood to make my games too easy haha.

But I really do value the feedback I get very highly since I want people to enjoy what I make so I welcome everything, good, bad and indifferent.

Hope you do get some good time to chill and check out some stuff and of course I'll play some things you've made too, very much looking forward to getting to the end of your jam game when I get a minute (got wrecked by the Coo monsters LOL on my last run so I do plan to conquer that!)

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onamint13 days ago

Dark Souls is great! From my perspective it's sort of a really interesting return to adversarial design that was accepted instead of rejected in a time where adversarial design was sort of regarded as a relic of when game design as a craft was in its infancy. It can be brutal but the adrenaline jolt of running into a basilisk is unbeatable XDD

I haven't published too much else of note yet; I spent a lot of time last year working on a collab project that hasn't released yet but I am hoping to get a few more things out this year, including a follow up to AGOT. The Dentata encounter is balanced around level 8 I think, but in playtesting I didn't like how one of my runners ran into it and the encounter kind of dragged so I added a way to beat it early. I haven't really published enough RPGs to get a good feel for the kind of structure I was trying in AGOT, where you're supposed to kind of run into gates and then find the "soft spots" you can get progress in in order to build power to get past other gates, but I am hoping to keep refining my design senses. Not to keep talkin' shop and stuff XD

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