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He did expand on it (Clockwork Cleanup, still free) and it's glorious.

I think there's an element of skill/fun to trying to keep the boss targeted for the full duration of the ability, so making it take a bit longer (via lower damage) seems like a good way to encourage that strategy.  Ignoring a readily-increasing swarm of enemies to focus down the boss can make for a compelling risk-reward strategy.  Of course, right now it's so easy to out-scale the bosses that there there's only minimal actual risk.

In a pinch, a second lever you could use would be for solar beam to deal less damage to bosses than to enemies, or for it not to apply damage until the move ends.  The nuclear option is to intentionally degrade its late-game scaling: Using an over-powered item is fun for a while, so maybe let players have that fun for a while, but no longer.  Worse scaling might be enough to encourage players not to use it forever: Having it ignore meta-progression upgrades is a great way to tell the player it is overpowered in the early game but weaker in the late game.

Solar Beam is way too effective against bosses.  Maybe cut its base damage in half?

Yup.  And if you refresh so that you can play anyways, it wipes your progress.

No modes should offer that as mechanic.

1) There is a mine at the yellow X

2) There is no mine directly above the yellow X

3) There is no mine above and to the left of the yellow X (though there used to be a mine there, before you blew it up).

You can scroll to zoom or right-click to drag.

I found the the handling of moving to and from the rover within the Astrape's vehicle bay very confusing.  The routing is short enough that I muddled through, but I'm still not confident I really understand it.

So i think the dev is fine with it/doesnt care.

I'm not sure how the dev feels about it now.  However, I'd posit that the reason there are a bunch of PK mods is because the dev gave blanket permission (via the unlicense) for people to mod his game, even in closed source commercial games and even if they didn't provide him with attribution.

Groundhog Life is very much a game.  It was named after the movie, but is not really a reference to it beyond the looping mechanic itself.

Even if he was making money, it would be fine.  The author of Progress Knight intentionally licensed his code for use, even in commercial, closed source software without attribution.

I don't get why this game isn't more popular.  It's such an amazing game.  Every element of it is simply delightful.  It makes me feel a bit of despair for the game industry that such an amazing game hasn't found a large player base despite being entirely free.

The quick-and-dirty fix is to switch all your 32bit numbers to 64 bit numbers (assuming your programming language supports it).

The Horde section has far more idle than it seems, especially once you've progressed further.  Micro-managing your ability uses can really only get you through an extra few zones, with the impact and frequency of this dropping as the game progresses.  Prestige time penalty, corrupted flesh, and monster parts all mean that relying on active play only serves to get you to a time wall sooner.  You could instead rely on prestige bonuses for such progress.  

I'm having a ton of fun.  This is an excellent game! 

Below is a list of suggests/complaints/thoughts/etc. Feel free to ignore them; it will still be an excellent game :)

School:

I hate the practice/study/exam mechanic.  I realize it's not necessary to progress, but that doesn't keep me from hating its existence.  Also, it doesn't really fit with the rest of the game.

When a new upgrade is unlocked, it should generate a notification until the player see it.

Horde:

I don't feel like the rainbow staff needs a "/1.15 attack" penalty.  While the staff does a better job of counter-acting the toughness sigil than any previous item, the penalty means it's weaker against everything else.  Absent a toughness-only zone, it's hard ot justify its use (and even then, I'd rather just use a Fire orb, since it provides minor buffs even after exiting such zones).  Maybe it becomes more useful later, but if so it was unlocked too early.

If used when the player is dead, Red staff should still provide the +10% attack bonus.

The loadout menu should have a button to save/copy the current loadout.

Mining:

Once unlocked, the mouseover description for granite should provide instructions (much like the mouseover for "monster part" provides instructions in Horde).  Possibly both should unlock when the note is generated, in case players are ignoring notes.

It would be nice if crafting slots supported drag-and-drop (only really useful due to premium crafting slots).

Cards:

When the player unlocks a new card, that card category should be highlighted, and if expanding any newly unlocked cards should be marked.

Settings:

If "Text Shadows" is set to none, some of the text becomes hard to read (i.e., dark text on dark background).  Mouseovers are better than nothing, but it's not ideal.  I'll note that I disabled "text shadows" because it strains my eyes (as does light text on dark background, so personally I'd rather this not be addressed by changing the text to white).

Gems:

"More green crystals" should probably be under "Gems" instead of "Mining"

When a new upgrade is unlocked, it should generate a notification until the player see it.

Village:

"Miniature Smith" probably should not be marked as "housing."

Somehow one of the times when I prestiged, one of my in-progress buildings continued progressing.  Possibly this is intentional for persistent buildings.

It would be nice if the building queue supported mouseover information (time remaining for all, time remaining for specific building)

Farm:

For some reason I didn't initially realize the gnome had to placed in the garden.  Maybe unlocking it should generate a note? Also, maybe the odds of earning gold should be buffed if the player has never earned any (i.e., because it's easy to wonder if something is going wrong if the player happens to have a bad run of gnome luck prior to their first success).

I feel like the gnome should have a pointy hat.

General:

If capacity is not too low, "Can't afford" should be replaced by "Can't afford (xx seconds), where xx is the time remaining until the player can afford the purchase.

The console log is full of uncaught exceptions from attempting to lock screen orientation.  Maybe catch them so they can be swallowed.

The title/subtitle is a reference to the movie Wagames: "A Strange game.  The only winning move is not to play."

8 seconds is definitely a struggle.  The 200,000X milestone is pretty easy, though.

It's hard, but possible.  A mini guide:

Spoiler warning

Spoiler warning

Spoiler warning

1. The penultimate milestone turns green before it's unlocked.  However, it's only functional if your best transcendence time hits 8 seconds.  This is difficult to unlock and requires both mild token grinding and fast reaction times. You'll have to plan your move sequence and execute them in under 8 seconds.  Don't rely on force transcendence: It's too slow.
2. At this point, you need to drop your transcend time down to ~2.03 seconds real time.  Getting below 1.6seconds is doable, but unnecessary:
   1. Reach 1 rebirth points.
   2. Click the challenge button
   3. Hold the enter key down (for all of steps d,e,f,g).
   4. (Get Ready!) Click the transcend button
   5. (Fast!) Click the challenge 2 button
   6. (Fast!) Click the reset for .1 rebirth points button (note: while clicked, it will say you can't rebirth, because enter key is clicking it faster than it refreshing)
   7. (Timing!) Click the reset for transcendent points button as soon as it appears.  Watch your rebirth points and click immediately after they hit 1.0
3. Grind rebirth power or transcend points for your final token(s).  After completing these steps, my tokens cost 853993^-1 transcend point, 5.380e9 rebirth point, and 1.91 best transcendent time.
4. Optional Repeat step 2 a few more times.  If you didn't do so in step 2, try to get your time below 1.6s .  This will make the final milestone more efficient.
5. Earn 1.0 rebirth points but do NOT transcend.  This will activate the final milestone.
6. Wait until you hit 1.0 transcend points
   1. While you're waiting, make sure to max out Rebirth Loop in the hyper energy settings.  You'll want to be buying time tokens while you wait to speed this phase up.

Pretty fun.  Kept me entertained for a few hours.  I'd suggest adding some sort of explicit, in-game win condition.

Quite a fun game.  Some feedback:

1) At one point while performing dice selection, the game switched the cursor to one of the dice and wouldn't switch back until I was back in the map.

2) Being able to keep dice between turns renders defense resets less relevant.  Though possibly this is a bug; dragging attacks onto enemies stopped working the first time I did this.

3) Most rows of the map are identical.  So, selecting a path feels a bit pointless.  Mind you, maybe I just got a bad run.

4) It should be possible to throw a die even if another die is already being rolled.  As is, waiting for rolls feels a bit slow.

Note that alchemizer's "gold" is named "iron" (i.e., you'll see two resources named "iron" in the left sidebar, one of which is gold)

You have a timer (AKA a hunger meter).  Damaging enemies recovers it a little.  Killing enemies recovers it a lot.

That sounds more like a feature than a bug.

Decided to try playing through a second time.  Was much easier when I knew what I was doing :)

Wow, that was fun!

Bug Report: 

It's possible to reach a state where the enemies are outside the map and refuse to return.  I'm not sure what triggered this, but maybe one of my blueprints had knockback or one of the enemies decided to run away from me due to heavy use of shielding?

Bonus suggestions: 

• Not relevant here (I don't have that blueprint), but having some sort of indicator to make tiny enemies easier to spot would be helpful.  I.e., if all remaining enemies are tiny, have them become a bit more noticeable somehow. 
• Once "camp" becomes available, off-screen attacks should be canceled.  It's a bit obnoxious to have a random enemy shoot spikes 20 seconds after the camp appears (and if you're wondering why I was still around, I was collecting essence from ghost of sparta, who was already more than half-way across the map).
• Provide sort functions for the blueprint shop.

To add insult to injury, Rage of Sparta shields can stack.  Which certainly was great when I later collected a second and third Quick Breath.

Suggestion:

Nerf Rage of Sparta as follows:

• Disable ammo regeneration while ANY shield is in place.
• Increase ammo regeneration speed (i.e., such a base Rage of Sparta with no other blueprints has the same maximum shield time per time period)

I would also suggest reducing the ammo count to 2 and/or dropping the buff time by 25%.

Why:

Currently, it's very easy to get blueprints such that a player is always able to refresh Rage of Sparta on first shield blink (i.e., well before the shield runs out).  For example, by combining Rage of Sparta with Quick Breath.  Similarly, Other shield buffs (Vitamin D, Blessings from the Bronze House) make it very likely that a player can complete a stage without ever letting their shield vanish. 

In contrast to the perpetual spear generator, this combo is not particularly fun, since it basically means the player is immune to all damage.

Alternative approach, which is perhaps complicated enough to deserve a custom mode rather than a pick-up:

After picking up Rage of Sparta, immunity (regardless of source) behaves as follows:

• Being hit sets the shield timeout to 0.25s (unless the timeout is already below 0.25s).
• Being hit with a shield turns the shield red.
• If the player attacks while the shield is red, the shield buff immediately ends.
• When a red shield ends (either due to timeout or due to attacking), the player is temporarily buffed with lower melee cooldown, higher attack, and increased defense.  The attack scales logarithmically based on how much damage the player blocked with the shield.  I'll note that this scaling is a bit of a risk-reward payoff, since typically using the shield to soak a ton of damage runs the risk that some of the damage will be soaked without the shield.
• Using the rage of sparta attack just gives the player a shield (which behaves as described above.

Obviously I've provided way too much detail for a proper item description.  So I'd use a description more like this:

"Replaces ranged attack with temporary invincibility.  Player cannot attack during damage immunity, but blocking switches immunity to a massive buff.

Below is a screenshot of my Rage of Sparta setup.

I unintentionally froze the game by creating a perpetual spear generator.  This requires piercing, ricochet, magnetic spear, and a small pile of invulnerable enemies (i.e., shield enemies).  I sent a more detailed description over e-mail.

Note that I was playing 1.2; possibly this was fixed in 1.2.1 .

Another mode idea:

• Vengeance - Start with whatever blueprints you had on last defeat.  Cannot unlock more blueprints .  Cannot play vengeance twice in a row.

Basically, vengeance is for when a player had an especially fun setup and wants just a little more time to enjoy it.  However, probably the player will have trouble getting as far, since they can't get more blueprints (e.g., food).

Other mode suggestions.  Probably some of these should be unlockable:

• Special heroes.  Heroes start with a specific ranged and weapon blueprint (i.e., in inventory, not in shop) and never receive further ranged/weapon blueprints.  Some heroes also start with unique, re-purchasable blueprints, though such blueprints often have a higher cost after each purchase.
• Classic Hero (possibly part of special heroes, described above) - No blueprints are available ever.
  
• Blue spartan: Every kill changes the weapon into one which is based on the enemy's weapon.  Probably a hassle to implement.
• Endless run - Camp is available once before the run starts.  Player starts with a bunch of blueprints and essence.  Timed waves are more frequent (i.e., waves which start even if not all enemies are defeated)
• Last stand - Spartan has only 1 health and cannot earn armor soul points, etc.  Essence gain and blueprint gain are both doubled.
• No ranged - No ranged weapon/blueprints
• No melee - No melee weapon/blueprints.  Ranged weapons with at least two charges hold half as many charges (rounding down), but charge twice as fast.
• Auto-fire - No melee.  Ranged weapons charge faster, but also auto-fires.   Great for those trying to play on a trackpad without dedicated buttons.
• Auto-fire 2 - Same as auto-fire, but every attack simultaneously fires a melee attack and a ranged attack.
• Survival - Killing an enemy causes more enemies to be summoned.  Beating a level is time-based.  Killing more enemies if still a good idea for essence and blueprints.
• Chaos - More/Smaller enemy parties (i.e., more distinct enemy types at once during each level).
• Double - Double enemies, essence, blueprints.
• Poor planner - Blueprint is emptied after every level. 
• Tinder - After each level, two blueprints are available.  Both are free, but player can only pick one (or can skip).  Blueprint-related blueprints do not show up.
• No Healing - No health blueprints (also no armor, no soul points, etc.), but start with 3X health.
• Fun mode - Double essence, double blue prints, double health, heal 20HP between rounds.
• Duel mode - Only one enemy at a time, but enemies are far more dangerous.  All enemies have a couple points of armor and some invincibility frames.

Maybe it's specific to dying in that state via the "kill enemies when taking damage while below 20 health" item?

Every log file is an identical 243 byte file (other than the changing timestamp and version number).  The most recent log file is below:

For Sparta - 1.1.0 - Win32 x64
2021/03/06 22:07:30
Initting DX11 (1920x1080)
Using DXGI Adapter 'AMD Radeon(TM) Graphics'
XInput check_connected_controllers: No controllers found
DirectInput check_connected_controllers: No controllers found

Minor bug in the version launched today: If you die with a campground available, the campground remains when you retry.  The easiest way to cause this to happen is to die via damage while possessing the, "kill all enemies if you take damage with less than 20 health" item.

Feature suggestion: A "catalog" menu which displays a grid of all blueprints.  Obviously, any blueprint that has never been encountered would be filled with a question mark.

Both changes make for a far better experience.  Thank you!

Minor improvement suggestions:

Collecting gold at the end of each round is tedious.  I wish any remaining gold was collecting at the end of each round.

The player's gold collection hitbox is just a little bit smaller than I'd like.  It doesn't feel comfortable. 

I need assist mode :(