So nice to see an update to the web version (demo)! I bought and finished the steam version, but I more often play the web version in idle moments on my Mac. Great game, love the new look!
I have played this (great) game more than anyone should, and I even learned how to hack Pico-8 games just to see how some rare RNG scenarios would play out. I think I've played enough to say:
The game has a balance problem. Specificially, it is almost impossible to win the game with something other than melee weapons *without getting melee weapons that would win the game faster*. The RNG probability on melee combos is so high, that any other combo only arises if the player intentionally chooses the hard path for fun.
The other balance issue is the launcher spider. It's a very cool design, but it sucks. It is so much weaker than many preceding bosses, setting aside that its flamethrowers could be effectively countered by that anti-flame shield. I think you could double the output of the weapons and add some special boosting item in the middle (all items increase by 1), and it would still be beatable.
Re:Buzzsaw 1. Impressive. I never managed it. 2. Buzzsaw still feels broken, because from what I've seen two daggers (which you get really early in the game) is 100% always better than buzzsaw. By the time buzzsaw is running as fast as 2 daggers,, you could have been dealing 100dmg/s with daggers.
I actually did get the RNG for grenade launcher: 2 upgraded grenades, and grenade launcher. But guess what! That takes up 7 vertical slots, leaving just 1 more slot for other useful stuff. 100 damage every 8(?) seconds isn't that great for taking up the space of 4 weapons. 4 upgraded daggers (with no other melee buffs) deal almost exactly that amount of damage.
I totally forgot about shotguns. There doesn't seem (to me) to be any item that would really seal the deal on them, even with minor buffs.
For cannons, I *think* that if you got that 3x Damage cannon with 3 of those cannon-buff items (and 24 heal, 24 shield), you could probably survive. Unfortunately, any other cannon wasn't good enough for me to beat the final bosses (that you can't avoid).
I'm really surprised about the buzzsaw! I wonder if you had built up a ton of health. I tried swapping the buzzsaw into a melee build, and I just found that it took up too much space. I found I dealt more damage without it than with it.
I'm going to jump on here and say that, even with the RNG, a lot of builds are just...not viable, which is sad. For example, the "Take one second off the pistol to the left/right" pistols are impossible to make into a winning build. That's sad, since they are among the coolest.
I even tried putting those two pistols facing each other with multiple ".5 seconds off pistol charge time" blocks, but no luck.
I think you should consider rebalancing if you have time. Like, if a player gets perfect RNG and draws four pistols (two "left" and two "right") and four "-.5" blocks, they should be easily able to beat the later enemies.
Edit: Welp, I guess it was a skill issue (or a need for luck), because I've won the last few games in a row using fire, pistol, rust, and of course melee. I believe I've done Shock, though it was super hard.
Cannon and Grenades seem impossible right now, and many of the "Unique" and "Exceptional" items seem almost impossible to use, even if you're lucky. The upgraded Superior weapons are generally better than the Unique weapons, I think. Some tinkering might make those cool end-game weapons a bit more usable.
I was in the same boat (and *mostly* still am), but I found that if you get the shock-set (including the "boost all shock items by 2 each time this fires" weapon), you can beat the game.
But, to do that I had to change my enemy selection strategy. I found that, with melee builds, it doesn't really matter what enemy you choose, but with any other build, it's extremely important. You have to memorize the buildouts for later enemies.
Edit: I now think I've cleared it with every major paradigm except Cannon- Shock, Fire, Melee, Rust, and Pistol.
I hit the same soft-lock error. I didn't have a wormhole potion, but I explored the whole map and bumped every wall to see if maybe there was a new type of secret, but no. The game ended there for me.
The newest revision is really hard, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
I think it's pretty broken that "increased exit cost" happens randomly; if that happens Monday night you might as well restart. Personally I think it should be either set to always happen on Wednesday (would create a great game flow) or to never happen before Wednesday (maintains randomness as concept).
Wow, this is so cool. I thought this would just be a goofy toy, now I'm thinking of coming back to beat heroes of sunshine. I was not expecting a full game with music and bosses.
Really nice job! Rare to see such a creative set of mechanics, really required some thinking to create a strategy.
For me, it was somewhat easy (won on first try), but I did lose a few villagers. It *felt* hard, but actually losing was difficult.
It might be worth laying out how the sickness mechanic works. The text was really hard to read (on my browser, the mouse obscures the explanation text no matter how you move, Safari OSX), but also I don't think anywhere explains how the sickness is distributed. Same for disbelief. Even if it's random, it would be nice to know what kind of random. Randomly in the night? Randomly upon losing faith?
Also, the nights were confusing. Why did some villagers not come to see me during the day? I often had someone die because they did not come to see me (maybe for multiple days in a row? Unclear).
Amazing. “Tiny metroidvania” can mean “almost no playtime” or “plenty of play with all the charge cut away.” This is the latter. Really fun, and simple enough to pick up and put down on the go. A classic.
Dev, this is the best solitaire implementation I've seen since Windows 95. BUT
You fucked up Klondike, the basic solitaire game. Like, game-breaking fucked up.
You're not supposed to be able to play any card but King into a blank space.This is the only reason that it matters that the cards are piled in the 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 pattern. If you take from a lower pile, you make space for a king, but potentially end up with a dead, empty row if you don't need a king. If you take from a higher pile, you keep revealing cards, but you might not have the space you need for a king.
Without this rule, every pile is functionally equivalent to every other pile, and you just start revealing cards from the left every time (because if you empty a row you can always just pull the top card from another row into that empty spot).
The result is that the game is way easier than it should be, and (if the player thinks it through) loses some of the bare-minimum strategy that's part of solitaire. I would humbly request you consider changing this small deviation from standard play, especially since it is in the mode most players prefer.
With that fix, I think you could call this the perfect playdate game, one which should belong on every device.
FYI I had the same bug happen to me, and I’m till in the “doesn’t appear but isn’t inventory” state. If it would be helpful I can dump my memory state or share my save files.
One of the top games on Playdate for people that like the "quick fix" style of play. Very deep, insofar as the game is inherently fair (because it is symmetrical), but very hard!
Dev, why not submit this to the catalogue? It's perfect. Ah, your game is already on the catalogue! I never saw it while browsing. Too bad it isn't included in the "quick plays" or "crank free games" categories.
Also, bumping the request for pass-and-play.
If you added https://pdportal.net/ support, you would be the first game to do so, and I think you would shoot to the top of the charts.
On the last point: yes, the room cards were spaced way to the right. If you didn’t notice this, then I assume it’s likely a browser/pc issue? I’m on apple silicon (forgot to add that).
Hey, I've made a method of linking two playdates together. I'd like to add multi-device multiplayer to your project. Would you object to me forking the repo for this on GitHub?
Hey, would you consider making some of the earlier versions available for download? This version has some cool enhancements, but the earlier version was really minimalist and refined. I imagined it as a genuine replacement for minesweeper in the future.
It's a very fun game, and not a bad implementation. Right now, though, it's bug city. The "new game" function essentially doesn't work, because if you use it your next game will bug in a way that makes it unwinable.
Issues (on Safari, OSX)
1. After starting a new game, unused diamonds frequently refuse to attack cards, especially aces. Occasionally, a diamond will attack, but the monster card will not disappear; the diamond then refuses to attack going forward.
2. There appears to be an "off-by-one" error in the win-condition, as I always win with one card left, sometimes a card that would kill me.
3. The "room" cards are almost exactly four card-lengths to the right of where they should be.
Very well made. More than just a proof-of-concept, it's actually a playable, potentially fun game, and I could imagine people getting really into it.
The name is pretty interesting, since it has nothing to do with Tetris but appears to be a game that requires the same skills as high-level Tetris play (rapid repeated direction clicking in response to brief glances at screen geometry).
Amazing, thanks for typing all that out! That makes perfect sense.
BTW, there appears to be a glitch in the browser version. If you set the rule to "runs on timer" and add the necessary ingredients, it seems to run twice. So setting the first default rule to "timer" and adding a triangle and circle results in two squares instead of one.
I’m going to be honest, I have no idea how to read what you’ve posted in these comments. Is this something that would make sense if I wasn’t in the itch emulator?
Related question: do any of the symbols have inherent meaning or functions? It looks like two of them are the same symbol as as the “run operation” and “undo” buttons, but when I use them they seem to operate exactly like any other symbol.
Edit: I read the longer guide on Pocket Rewriting, and it looks like there are some additional functions I need to play with and understand. Still, some additional clarification on the notation system used here would be appreciated.
I'm shocked! I cleared 90% of the brick and spent all of my money mining metal just to get to the blue square. I can't believe you were that close to getting 2 green squares!
I imagine the dev planned for all the resources to max out there, so you can never find the 2 green square combo.
I would call this a "fake" cannon victory. I was able to beat launcher spider, but I used a melee build to beat every other battle.
