I beat the game in 20:11 with 4043 kills in my 3rd run, choosing (for the first time) Dynamite, immediately the game became easier from that point forwards and I never worried again, though, I did get 2 +1 stick upgrades in a row ( ;-) ).
I focus on Fire Rate whenever I can (I figure it lets me switch targets faster = more survivablity).
In my very limited experience, the tommy gun and and especially the Aura that sears are useless, better to either get dynamite or focus on the unlimited raw generic stat upgrades (Hopefully, Fire Rate and Damage and not Max HP, no need for much HP when you kill so much and if you do get hit just grab one of the numerous health packs on the ground)
Picking up the Tommy gun or the Aura is actively bad/suboptimal as their upgrades will enter the pool of possible choices and reduce the chance I get Fire Rate or Dynamite boons. (It's especially bad in this game because weapons come with multiple parallel upgrades instead of sequential level ups)
I'm writing this to provide some feedback, so here it goes:
The palette of the 1st enemy and the hounds matching the ground tiles (Houses map) and wooden tiles(?)(Docks map) feels like artificial difficulty, it's honestly ridiculous.
More on the hounds: I swear I've got charged from off-screen and it was impossible for a human to react/dodge (maybe even a computer), but it happened only once or twice in my 3 runs, I was meaning to record (again) but meh, I think this game does have bad game design.
On bad game design: I don't understand the meaning of Rites, I feel like I'm doing a challenge to get... debuffs? What? I'm pretty fluent in English and based on what I read, they were debuffs, well except for the gems curing sanity but now give half XP (a tradeoff), I saw no positive benefits for giving up dawn's favor or "Lies being believed". Those green "loose" page "boons" were bundled with grey "Deep" pages which did (at least one did) very good upgrades, so the rites give mixed messaging.
Personal Opinion: This game's too cryptic with its messages, half of the time nothing much seemed to happen that I could associate with the "warning".
Back to the game design: I don't like that the way more powerful Dynamite is locked behind meta-progress.
Survivor-like specific feedback: Show us which upgrades/weapons we've got and how upgraded they are. A summary of all stats in the escape menu would also be appreciated.
Also, if I recall correctly, the "totems" for blesses and curses look the same.
Consider adding a minimap with a player marker so players can find their way back to piles of gems dropped by enemies killed and left behind.
Oh yeah, what's the fray line even?
Are the houses, boxes, and other things the player passes right through meant to have collision in the future? It's weird they don't have collision.
TL;DR:
* Enemies matching the same color palette as the ground tiles = Artificial Difficulty.
* Unbalanced weapons.
* Debuffs/tradeoffs being presented the same way as upgrades/actual boons.
* Lack of (UI) information: The game does not show current weapons/boons or stats.
I just read in the changelog (at least some of) the stat upgrades are not in fact unlimited, oops. I assumed they were since the game doesn't tell me how many I've got ("hey, who's counting? Get as much as you want!") I really think there should be a counter attached to cards. And maybe information like "(Max Fire Rate = x)".
I focus on Fire Rate whenever I can (I figure it lets me switch targets faster = more survivablity).
In my very limited experience, the tommy gun and and especially the Aura that sears are useless, better to either get dynamite or focus on the unlimited raw generic stat upgrades (Hopefully, Fire Rate and Damage and not Max HP, no need for much HP when you kill so much and if you do get hit just grab one of the numerous health packs on the ground)
Picking up the Tommy gun or the Aura is actively bad/suboptimal as their upgrades will enter the pool of possible choices and reduce the chance I get Fire Rate or Dynamite boons. (It's especially bad in this game because weapons come with multiple parallel upgrades instead of sequential level ups)
I'm writing this to provide some feedback, so here it goes:
The palette of the 1st enemy and the hounds matching the ground tiles (Houses map) and wooden tiles(?)(Docks map) feels like artificial difficulty, it's honestly ridiculous.
More on the hounds: I swear I've got charged from off-screen and it was impossible for a human to react/dodge (maybe even a computer), but it happened only once or twice in my 3 runs, I was meaning to record (again) but meh, I think this game does have bad game design.
On bad game design: I don't understand the meaning of Rites, I feel like I'm doing a challenge to get... debuffs? What? I'm pretty fluent in English and based on what I read, they were debuffs, well except for the gems curing sanity but now give half XP (a tradeoff), I saw no positive benefits for giving up dawn's favor or "Lies being believed". Those green "loose" page "boons" were bundled with grey "Deep" pages which did (at least one did) very good upgrades, so the rites give mixed messaging.
Personal Opinion: This game's too cryptic with its messages, half of the time nothing much seemed to happen that I could associate with the "warning".
Back to the game design: I don't like that the way more powerful Dynamite is locked behind meta-progress.
Survivor-like specific feedback: Show us which upgrades/weapons we've got and how upgraded they are. A summary of all stats in the escape menu would also be appreciated.
Also, if I recall correctly, the "totems" for blesses and curses look the same.
Consider adding a minimap with a player marker so players can find their way back to piles of gems dropped by enemies killed and left behind.
Oh yeah, what's the fray line even?
Are the houses, boxes, and other things the player passes right through meant to have collision in the future? It's weird they don't have collision.
TL;DR:
* Enemies matching the same color palette as the ground tiles = Artificial Difficulty.
* Unbalanced weapons.
* Debuffs/tradeoffs being presented the same way as upgrades/actual boons.
* Lack of (UI) information: The game does not show current weapons/boons or stats.
I just read in the changelog (at least some of) the stat upgrades are not in fact unlimited, oops. I assumed they were since the game doesn't tell me how many I've got ("hey, who's counting? Get as much as you want!") I really think there should be a counter attached to cards. And maybe information like "(Max Fire Rate = x)".