We need more games that look and play like something from the early 2000s. This game feels like something dug up from a BigFishGames archive.

CONTROLS/INTERACTIONS

I wish there was a way to play the game with mouse only. This type of tactics game seems like it should be able to be navigated with the mouse. Plus for some people it's more intuitive and faster to do everything with the mouse. Having keyboard shortcuts is great to have regardless.

For games like these I think it's better to have infinite move turns when out of combat (meaning a character gets infinite move commands within a single turn), instead of having to move him once and then being forced to switch to the next character because you didn't move far enough.

Not sure if intentional but it's good that the wait command is the default command. If you just spam left click it makes it easier to loop through characters.

The door interactions are nonsense but I'm guessing that's something that's there just as a temporary solution.

Not sure if something is supposed to happen when your party all dies but it just says "The adventurers have perished" and it freezes.

COMBAT

The combat is alright. The class roles are well thought-out to do different things and not have any unnecessary overlap in abilities. It's pretty standard for the genre. I hope it gets more interesting further on with the addition of more enemy variety and maybe more dungeon variety. It's fun to play but a little unintuitive in the beginning. It has a lot of juice because of the sound effects and the strike animation that plays. That's a nice touch.

More character abilities could make it more interesting but keeping a proper clean separation of skills can be a great way to handle it too. Right now it plays more like chess than something like XCOM and I like that.

Obviously there's a complete absence of progression in the game. I think combat is gonna benefit a lot from it once you get to implementing something like that.

CLASSES

I think the three classes could use some more distinction from one another because as it is right now a well-balanced party of all three classes is nice to control but some configurations like having 3 wizards are too op and unbalance the game. As it is right now the only must-have class is a wizard - without one, you're guaranteed to be exterminated -- lacking any of the other classes really doesn't affect things much, since even if all three of your wizards are bleeding out they can just spamheal each other infinitely.

An idea worth exploring more would be the unique species abilities -- maybe some species can move less in a turn but are more damage resistant etc.

BUGS/PROBLEMS

Very often the thing you want to target gets obstructed by a door and your pointer can't reach it. In some of those situations I think the camera couldn't be moved either. I think that clicking actually selects the correct target but mousing over it doesn't display it as a moused-over object in the little window.

A pretty common bug was that initiating an action very often put the point of origin of the pathfinding arrow at the position of a random fly. Not gamebreaking but worth mentioning.

Funny story but this is the second dungeon I got. 4 sectors of 1-3 rooms each completely disconnected from each other.  Deadlocked from beating it (unless wizards can warp across rooms or something).

Some things are pretty great for an early prototype -- the gameplay loop is solid; cool UI; liked the character sprites a lot; the sound effects are fitting; the music is fitting. I think there's a solid foundation here but it's very much just a prototype. Thank you for letting us play it this early though. It was fun.

Really? You have to interact with the space next to the door?

Well after I saw that in the comment below I could actually play it. This is looking really good, I like it a lot already. The 3D menu is pvre sovl. The use of photos, the sounds effects, the species-specific abilities, the big helmets covering the knights’ eyes, I love it.

The control scheme using WASD needs some getting used to, I get the impression you want it to work with a controller so with KB+M it’s really weird.

I read the description for the fireball too fast so I didn’t realize you target a specific square and then it hits everything along the way. Only two squares range seems pretty weaksauce though, is this something that will improve with character progression?

The Quickshot the archers get seems really powerful. Magic having no resource tracking or cooldowns also makes it hard to beat, you can bunch up and have the wizard do the AoE heal to everybody.

Having most attacks only able to go off in a line encourages a lot of conga-lines. But the use of patterns looks like an important part of the design so I’m not sure if it’s that big of a deal.

I like the music, did you make it yourself or is it some royalty-free thing you found somewhere?

EDIT: Played it on Linux with Proton 7, works fine.

VERY unintuitive that right click is leave the recruit screen. Also at this point it's not clear to me if I'm recruiting to an existing party or building a party from scratch. I think the UI should show me what my party is as I build it.

I LOVE photograph textures so this art is right down my alley.

There should be a stronger indication of what I'm selecting on the main menu. When I hover the Adventurer's Guild building, the whole building should shine brightly to let me know what it is. Also the possible elements that are selectable should be noticable at a glance, rather than me hovering my mouse around the menu waiting for something to light up.

God I love the little animal noises too this is fantastic.

Again, very unintuitive that WASD is menu navigation. Why can't I just click with my mouse. The spinning menu is cool but needs to be communicated better how it works and what I'm selecting.

What does roam do? Edit: Ah, I think Roam is like "Inspect", like I can check things out? I think you should call it "Inspect" because Roam implies the character moves.

Why can't I interact with the door? How many moves do I get?

VERY unintuitive that I have to open a door by interacting with the cell next to the door. I should interact with it by clicking the door.

I have a bad memory and I forgot what quest I selected. There should be somewhere I can review my current quest.

I don't understand what Turn: x-y means.

If I move a subset of my available moves that turn, I should be able to move again.

The presentation overall of how the fights progress is very good.

Since I can just spam Lick Wounds out of combat, why not just full heal my party so I'm not wasting my time?

In the room with the farmer, something weird goes on with the gate in the middle of the room. Like it moves when someone attacks. Edit: oh wait, it's above us not in the room. You should remove that from view, it's bizarre looking.

I have 9999 gold after one quest? Time to retire. Edit: oh apparently I don't? I was going to buy every adventurer but I ran out of money quicker than expected. Edit: yeah you have a bug where it shows 9999g after I get out of a quest.

You should probably remove quests after I do them.

I bought adventurers for my party but I still have the same three? Ok yeah it seems like I can't change after I first make my party.

the quest progress pop-up goes away too fast.

Interesting that you allow friendly fire. I'm a fan of that.

Minor Barrier says it only lasts for a turn but it's permenant. Out of combat I can stack it indefinitely. Edit: never mind, it does go away. Maybe after two turns?

Doors should be transparent when I'm behind them.

The combat is pretty simple, I'd love to see more complexity.

When the portuculluses are risen, shouldn't the door be unlocked? But it says the door is locked.

Very charming art. Love the 3d menu too, but it needs to be more obvious what you can interact with I think. Also needs a way other than right mouse button to return from the recruit menu, using ESC and a back button. Didn't see a way to see your current party. The controls felt pretty odd until you got used to them. Unfortunately I didn't get out of the first room, while trying to get the door open (interact doesn't work?) the game locked up and stopped responding, had to ALT-F4 out of it. Here's the player.log: https://files.catbox.moe/wm4fsa.log