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This one is just for the fun of experimenting (as I played hundreds of games already :D ) but you can mess a bit with the central UI for turn, speed and victory message, if you buy enough technologies.

Also at some point the opponent ai seems to give up on improving its army.

I wish you the best until the next update and thank you for the game!

Campaign mode could be a succession of islands or regions, each one would be the current game, ending with the enemy defeat. After you win, you go to an other island and grow your army from the start again, caused you create a new outpost.

Not all the troops, troop evolutions and technologies would be available upfront, they would be unlocked progressively after your victories on each island or region. This could serve as an in-game tutorial with progressive difficulty and rewards for players, as they unlock new contents leading to new strategies.

You could even maybe make some choices, like do you good to the desert biome or the jungle biome for your next destination? Each one having different focus for the enemies strategies or advantages, and unlock different troops and technologies.

That also would be an opportunity to make different battle backgrounds based on the biome and to see a map you conquest, one after an other island or region.

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Concerning the UI, my use case is that I would benefit for assessing the current board state at a glance.

For instance, knowing clearly with strong visual cues:

• the age of each troop (to asset overall advancement and strength)
• if they are an evolved version or not (which the indication is very subtle currently)
• their type (to know which ones are affected by a technology or power)
• the overall damage type (currently their is multiple numbers in squares of the same colour, like attack, range and armour are all the same, which was hard to grasp during my first plays and my eyes don't distinguish clearly the difference between the piercing colour and the health colour)

Some QoL improvements, I think could help:

• highlighting all the troops benefiting from a technology when hovering on its icons and reading the tooltip
• in the troops tooltip, decomposing base number from improvements by technologies or powers (like Swordsman: Attack melee 5 (3+2))
• having the possibility to see our current army while choosing a troop evolution or a technology
• knowing how much gold we will earn next round if we survive

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On a side note, there's seems to be a bug when a Scythed Chariot inflict is bonus 1 damage to a Maori Warrior, making the Scythed Chariot losing 1 piercing attack, even if Maori Warrior power should only affect melee troop.

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Finally, if you want to discuss more about the UI of the cards, I could develop my thoughts, which are coming from my experience in the boardgaming and cardgaming space.

There's many way to mitigate the RNG. Using placement, synergies and troops that counter the enemy troops abilities.

I consistently win 90% of my game, after I played a lot and understood the system.

Really good design, I hope you will flesh it out with more content. The thematic tie is strong too.

Do you plan to add things to make it a whole game? With for instance, a campaign mode with a map of the realm to conquer or an encyclopedia with all the units discovered.

UI could be improved I believe, for instance by adding icons to specify the troop type on the card and clarify the damage type and life points better than just colours.

Also, the Elephant Archer description could be explained a bit more too, to make it clear that the troop just before it that benefit from its power.

Overall a promising game!

Nice job! Do you plan to update it and make it a bigger game ?

Hope to see more in future updates :D

Here you are :)

The concept is good.

The game become more interesting as you specialized in one of the 3 skill paths.

I hope to see more in your future updates :)

Some QoL suggestions :

• A way to see what skills you have and on which hand they will trigger.
• Some insight on how skills are evolved versions of previous ones, like shield bash level 1, level 2, etc.

That's a good start for a more fleshed out game! Nice job for a 2 weeks jam.

After many runs, some potential QoL improvements that come to my mind:

-  Having the option to clear the board, putting all the tiles back into the inventory

- Right-clicking on a tile on the board to put it into the inventory

Focusing on heal or/and armour seems currently the easiest way to win.

The game is cool! It feels a bit like a puzzle instead of just only a deckbuilder right now, which is good in my opinion.

I hope you will add to it, as it's a good start :)

Some feedbacks:

- The first round is always strategically the same, with a reward of 6 ore.

- The mineshaft seams too strong, as it gives 10 ores and score for 1 energy, where even a big chuck of ore have a 5 for 1 ratio.

- Some cards are basically free to play while in your hand, like the helmet, the smeltery or the fruit bat, but maybe it's on purpose. They take an hand slots and cost 1 energy, but make you draw 1 and gain 2 energy, so you're in the same situation after playing them than before. They are just no brainier to get.

- And so, if you focus on those cards, the game become easy to beat.

Some ideas:

- Having various starter deck. Usually, deckbuilder have basic cards and one or two more specific.

- Adding trade-off for cards. For instance, reduce the cost of one resource card but increase the cost of an other. Or draw 3 cards then discard 2. Or increase a resource card value but increase is cost too. That way, the choice made will be more meaningful.

Glad you asked :)

So, I was thinking of:

• A way to control the tiles size. Maybe at a cost and surely as a punctual bonus, changing the next or the current tile to be 1, 2, 3 or 4 squares size.
• Special big buildings, like a stadium, a mall, a place with a statue, a nuclear plant, a real estate complex, etc. Each with a specific power, like replacing an existing building by an other tiles, giving  bonus points for a building kind, giving the possibility to seeing the next building size while putting in place the current one, etc. They could be unlock with citizen demands as mini-missions, like build a 9 squares size contiguous park for a place, get a 100 points value shop for the mall, etc.
• A better way to understand why my placements give me those points. Right now, there's many time I don't get why moving a tile just one square on the grid change the score so much.
• And ideally, a deck building system, where you start with some basic buildings tiles, and get new ones to add to your deck each level you pass.

It's a higher difficulty run.

Hey! What are you planning for the next update :D ?

Drop coins in it. Just drag and drop the coins on the fountain card.

Haha, thank you :D

Playing 10 to 20 games per day since a week certainly help!

My latest high score is 2061 on level 11, if it could motivate you to beat it ;)

Thank you ! That was fast ;)

So I beat my previous score with 1990 now.

Currently, the best strategy seems to make a line of factories surrounded by shops. Factories are the only building (with the cafe I guess) that don't suffer penalties for being crowded, and they are the one with the greater bonus, as they give +3 points to each shop around. Placing a Factory double tile easily give me 100+ points, and the maximum I could achieve with one placement was 349 point.

The game is very interesting.  I believe it needs some quality of life improvements (how's scoring happens, movement on the board, etc.) and some more content to expand the experience. But anyway, congrats!

My best score so far is 1976.

But I believe it made the game crashes when I finished the level 10, as the progression bar gone wild :D