Incredible drawings! a nice consistent and polished look!
The menu wheel is a cool idea too đ
However I think the gameplay idea is inherently kind of flawed.
Either you're good at spinning and you just pick what you want or you can't and then it's completely random.
There isn't any time to do deckbuilding to account for this (Like that you would survive no matter what tile)
So basically the spinning mechanic only adds an barrier of entry (being able to control the specific tile) without adding any depth to the gameplay.
I actually think pure randomness is better since then you're dealing with chances and deckbuilding.
It feels like an added mechanic that is there but doesn't make the game better. It's a completely separate skill
I don't know if there is a way to make controlling the position manually an interesting mechanic that interacts with the rest of the game.
btw I made a board game before with this exact problem. So that's why it jumped out at me...
The important game design question is: "How does the game work at high player skill and at a lower player skill"
Here at high level you either dominate or the game is balanced at this level.
If it's balanced for high level players then controlling it becomes an barrier of entry before new players get to play the actual interesting parts of the game.
If it's balanced for new players then as I said high level players just dominate and the game is trivialized.
The mechanic has toy like satisfaction which is important in games but I'm talking more theoretical here. Hope it makes sense. For a jam game no ones getting 100% perfect at the game of course but I don't see this specific iteration of the idea to be expanded to a full game (it's a game jam it doesn't have to be ofc)
I still enjoyed my time with the game. I hope you won't find the critique too harsh. I just like to think about game design things.
Also feel free to disagree it's just my thoughts and experience. I don't think I would write such a long passage if the rest of the game didn't look and feel amazing.
Good luck with the jam! đ
Thank you for your feedback!!
It's so cool to receive detailed and critical reviews. Indeed, game design about all that you're saying was a big issue for us during this game jam ^^ Nice if you enjoyed playing it and thanks for your time, feedback makes up better!
Thank you so much for this incredibly detailed feedback!
Iâll try to explain why we went with this approach and what we think is missing in terms of gameplay:
Why not just make the wheelâs rotation random?
When I was testing it, I was extremely frustrated by the lack of agency. No matter what I bought, I couldnât protect myself based on my HP, nor could I try to end the battle in a way that benefited me.
So we figured we needed to add a way to choose what to shoot at while also adding some âdifficultyâ to aiming (due to the speed). We also wanted it to vary depending on the enemies, but we couldnât implement that due to time constraints.
And then we wanted to link the gameplay of this bar to tiles weâd obtain, for example : applying a poison effect to the enemy, but the poison damage only activates if you hit a specific area of the bar. And the more poison the enemy has, the larger the zone becomes. That way, you either try to aim for something specific, or you set up the wheel for the next turn to get multiple beneficial effects at the same time, because for this turn, itâs not possible to get exactly what you want.
We also would have liked to have more variety in enemy gameplay, more biomes, and longer levels, but unfortunately we didnât have enough time to implement everything we wanted.
Sorry if my answer isn't thorough enough or misses the point, English isn't my first language, haha
Thanks for answering! đ
I understand wanting agency, it's just on the longer scale that has some game design implications that come out of it. (As I mentioned in the original comment)
"And then we wanted to link the gameplay of this bar to tiles weâd obtain" "or you set up the wheel for the next turn"
Yeah these and that poison example was exactly what my shallow imagination couldn't come up with!
There you have a choice of what you're going for and it's related to the mechanic. That's perfect!
Still (personally) I'd prefer it's either full random or you get to pick the exact one without any hassles. (Or if it's mechanical then it should be like reaaally easy to control so it's essentially just a choice but you get the toy like fun still).
The depth is in the choice (stack poison or hit specific other tile)
Not in the mechanical skill (how precise timing you press the button to get what you want. )
Of course some games can be about physical mechanics like aiming, movement etc.
But those games have a lot of fun and depth in the mechanic itself.
In roguelike deckbuilder type games I personally feel that mechanical execution just takes away from the depth.
These games shine with the interesting non obvious decisions the player has to make. (Like the poison example you explained.)
There's some exceptions I'm sure but I'd bet that their mechanical skill is more in depth than one button timing.
And again this is just "If I designed this game what would I change" and not "This is objectively how this game should be how dare you".
It's actually really cool that you're sharing your perspective on what you'd change if you'd designed the game :D
I get what you mean about mechanical skill versus the depth of the game through deckbuilding.
Since, for me, you figure out pretty quickly what youâre going to choose, itâs rare to really mess up, and I didnât find that messing up was too punishing. I think Iâd rather keep this element than go for pure randomness, haha.
Thanks again for your feedback, itâs really interesting.
I replayed it once again and beat a run. (I didn't before)
For all these thoughts and suggestions I made the game would of course need completely different game balance and effects.
If you did make it random it would need a complete rebalance haha. I was more suggesting maybe having full control but I can understand keeping it like this.
"itâs rare to really mess up" I think that's what I meant with the "barrier of entry". You've passed it so it's trivial but new players haven't so they're playing on random with the game balance for "choose perfectly"
But honestly the barrier isn't as high as I initially thought. Falls a little closer to the "It's easy enough that it's a choice"
I'd still take a look at completely new players trying it of course. I initially gave up quite early so there's something that could be improved in the new player experience I'm sure.
Thanks for the discussion and good luck with your game!