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Hi! I only played for a little while, but I hope I'll have time to continue.

I'll share my impressions from the perspective of someone who's sleep-deprived and has spent the last 16 hours traveling around. So this might actually give you an idea of how the game feels to someone who has absolutely no mental energy left :)

I hope you won't take this as nothing but criticism. I promise I'll give it another try with a fresh mind and share some more constructive feedback. First of all, I really liked the atmosphere and lore. The game has a very interesting vibe.

• The sounds at the beginning, during the tree tutorial, felt a bit too heavy on the reverb. Listening to them for a while became somewhat mentally exhausting.
• I also ran into quite a few difficulties right away, most of which were probably caused by me not reading the tutorial instructions carefully enough.
• The controls in the tree menu felt counterintuitive to me. There were moments when I clicked on things expecting something to happen, but nothing did. I'd need to record another playthrough to explain exactly what I mean.
• I liked the locations and objects. Everything feels very authentic. Although after running back and forth to the bedroom a few times, the corridor leading there started to feel unnecessarily long.
• On the second day, I went to the tree, but it wasn't interactive until I triggered a dialogue. That makes sense in principle, but it did confuse me a little at first.
• Then, when I finally opened the tree menu, I accidentally clicked a button in the top-right corner, which closed the interface. And apparently, there was no way to access it again that day.
• The tree menu also contains a lot of inactive buttons and question marks. I understand that these probably unlock as you progress, but at that moment they added to the feeling of being overwhelmed.
• After finishing the tutorial, I went to try processing some fruit, only to discover that the fruit was somehow already gone, but I hadn't produced any food boxes either.
• I also missed having tooltips when hovering over certain UI elements. For example, there's a bar that I assumed represents energy or the time of day, but I wasn't entirely sure.
• After spending the night, I discovered that I had no seeds left.
• And once again, I want to emphasize that the atmosphere of the game genuinely caught my attention. My biggest difficulty was understanding the whole growing process and how everything connects together.

And yes, I realize that the tutorial probably explains all of this in detail. It might simply have been too much information for my exhausted brain to process at the time.

Hopefully, even these somewhat chaotic first impressions will be useful!

Thank you so much for such detailed feedback and for taking the time to describe both your playthrough and the issues you encountered. This is really valuable information for me!

And it's great that you managed to complete both campaigns!

I won't go into too much detail about the bugs or planned changes here. I'll take your feedback into account and work on fixing and improving things.

Thanks again! :)

Well, I finally managed to finish the demo! :)

And I discovered that Romanian and Ukrainian apparently have more in common than I thought, because I managed to understand about 70% of the text.

Would it be useful if I answered some specific questions or shared my impressions about particular aspects of the game?

Since this is actually the first Game Boy-style game I've ever played, I'm not quite sure how to give meaningful feedback on it.

Hi! I did a bit more testing and wanted to share a few observations.

In fullscreen mode, even at maximum zoom, the board takes up less than 30% of the screen. I wish I could zoom in further.

As for the shooting mechanics, the power percentage indicator on the left makes it easier to understand how different power levels actually feel.

And I think I've finally figured out what's been making aiming so difficult for me. Just to clarify, I'm testing the web version on a laptop, using a mouse.

The entire range of shot power, from "the piece barely moves" to "the piece flies into outer space," is covered by just 80 pixels of mouse movement.

And when aiming at around 30% power, changing the direction of the shot by 45 degrees requires moving the cursor by only about 12 pixels.

This makes aiming feel unnecessarily demanding in terms of precision, at least for me. Every single pixel has a noticeable impact on either the shot power or its direction, so even small mouse movements can significantly change the result.

I think I've finally managed to put into words, at least for myself, why the controls have felt so difficult to me.

I played for a little while. I'm really not a fan of this genre, so my experience was pretty limited.

Technically, everything seemed to work well, and I had no trouble understanding the mechanics or figuring out what to do. I think fans of the genre will probably enjoy it.

One small thing I couldn't figure out was how to reposition a hired fighter on the battlefield (farmer). The only way I found was to move my main character onto his tile, which would force him to change position.

Anyway, good luck with the development!

I played for about an hour. The basic mechanics were simple and easy to understand, and overall I enjoyed the experience. I liked the visual style.

A few things I noticed:

• Too many pop-ups and dialogues. Personally, I felt there were too many of them. After a while, I started just clicking through them without reading, even when they might have contained something useful.
• Map progression felt a bit strange at times. There were moments when I moved three or four times in a row and only encountered upgrades, cards, and other non-combat events, without a single battle. I understand this is probably just a result of randomness, but maybe it would be worth adding some limits to make the distribution of events feel more balanced.
• Card deck interactions were the most frustrating part for me. Sometimes cards would start jittering up and down when I hovered over them, and occasionally there was other strange behavior. Also, when picking up a card from the deck and trying to place it in the middle slot of the bottom row, I basically had to release the mouse in almost the same spot where I picked up the card, because the slot was hidden underneath the cards.

These card interaction issues were small individually, but together they became a bit annoying. That part of the game felt like it could use some more polish.

Overall, though, I enjoyed my time with the game. The core mechanics are solid, and most of my complaints are about the interface and how certain interactions feel rather than the gameplay itself.

Thanks for the feedback and the suggestion! I'll implement it :)

I got to the point where I had a coin, a pickaxe, and a key in my inventory.

The path to the left was a dead end, I couldn't go downstairs in the house without a light source, and the gate at the church was locked.

I couldn't figure out what to do next

How run it?

I made it through the first night. To be honest, this game isn't really my thing.

A few things I noticed:

• Some objects seem to appear in the exact same position on multiple floors, but can only be interacted with on one specific floor. Or maybe I just misunderstood what I was seeing.
• Since the game is controlled entirely with the keyboard, having to use the mouse to select a floor feels inconvenient.
• You can approach the elevator/stairs, leave without selecting a floor, and then activate the floor selection later when you're already somewhere else in the level.

Just a few observations from my short playthrough. Hopefully, some of them will be useful!

One thing that frustrated me was that simply clicking on a piece counts as a turn, even if the piece doesn't actually move. I think it would help to add a minimum drag distance threshold, so that a shot doesn't count if the player hasn't pulled back far enough.

As for the game feel, maybe you've already experimented with this, but I wonder if adjusting the weight of the pieces and the maximum shot power could make the gameplay more satisfying. Right now, the physics feel quite similar to how real physical pieces would behave, which is cool. But I'm not sure realism is necessarily the best choice here. Maybe sacrificing a bit of realism could make the game more enjoyable.

Another small issue: with pieces near the bottom of the screen, it's impossible to shoot at full power because the cursor goes beyond the edge of the screen.

screenshot

I tested this and found that, in this situation, if you aim to the left or right, the shot is fully charged; but if you aim forward, the cursor enters the "shot release" zone.

Regarding shot power feedback, maybe you could use not only color changes but also the length of the waves around the piece to indicate power, similar to the mobile game shown in the screenshots below (which I won't name here).

By the way, I'm curious: is the relationship between dragging distance and shot power currently linear? For example, does dragging 10 pixels give you 10 units of power, and 100 pixels give you 100?

If not, this might be another thing worth experimenting with. A non-linear power curve could potentially make aiming more comfortable and precise.

Another idea would be to reserve the last 20% of power for a hold mechanic. For example, dragging to the maximum distance would give you 80% power, and holding it there would gradually increase it to 100%. That way, the normal aiming range would cover 0–80%, giving players more room for precise adjustments. (But maybe I'm just projecting the physics from my own game onto yours.)

These are just some ideas, of course. I imagine a lot of this comes down to personal preference and would need quite a bit of playtesting to find what feels best.

The game has a pretty cool vibe! For some reason, it reminded me of Bad Times at the El Royale, even though the atmosphere is actually much closer to a lo-fi hip-hop mood. And(but) I could easily imagine myself as a concierge in Tarantino's Four Rooms or The Grand Budapest Hotel.

I first played it yesterday or the day before. During one run, I misunderstood the objective, put $160 into the stash, and lost because I got caught. Another time, I lost when my sanity dropped to zero.

One thing I noticed is that if you actually read the event descriptions and make decisions based on what feels right, ignoring the labels showing how each choice affects your stats, it seems like a pretty reliable way to lose.

This time, I mostly focused on keeping all my stats balanced, and things started going much better. The downside is that the gameplay then became a fairly simple, repetitive routine. Instead of thinking about the situations themselves, I was just managing numbers.

A small personal note: as a pet owner, I didn't particularly like the "No pets" rule, even though I understand it makes sense in the context of the hotel :)

I liked the graphics overall. Some details, like characters' heads being cut off at the top or bits of green background still visible between their arms and bodies, make the visuals feel a little less polished.

Overall, I enjoyed it! It's a fun little experience with a nice atmosphere. But I still feel like something is missing, although I can't quite put my finger on what exactly.

Oh, and I lost again today! This time I put just $20 into the stash, and a few seconds later it was game over. :)

Hi! I'm using Windows 11 Pro. I downloaded Explosive Chasers - Pre-Alpha 2, but I keep getting error 0x8096002A when trying to open the archive or extract its contents.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to launch the game, so I couldn't test it.

White opened the cage with the CODE and won the Crown!

Turns: White 48 · Robot 49

I gave the game another try

The doors are definitely much easier to distinguish now. At first, they grabbed a lot of my attention because they're so bright and stand out quite a bit from the rest of the environment, but I got used to them after a while.

The preview of the possible movement path is also a useful addition.

I still haven't fully figured out how the keys work, but maybe I just need to read the instructions more carefully. At one point, I had around 13 keys but still couldn't open either the yellow or red doors.

It's also hard for me to tell which things have actually become clearer and which ones I simply remember from my previous playthrough, so keep in mind that my feedback is pretty subjective.

A few minor bugs and observations:

• The Restart button opens a browser confirmation dialog in Greek, even though I have English selected in the game's UI.

• When playing in windowed mode, I occasionally noticed brief layout glitches during dice rolls or turns. Some menus seemed to shift, and the entire screen would briefly resize or rearrange itself before returning to normal.
• Personally, I feel there's a bit too much text information constantly displayed on the screen. For example, I'd consider making the move history a collapsible panel that opens when clicked, rather than keeping it visible all the time.

This time I actually won, although I'm not entirely sure how! The bot had 3 out of 4 passwords, and I entered its side of the board. I triggered a bomb in one of the chests, and somehow its keys ended up in my possession, and I won.

I'm probably not the most skilled player when it comes to figuring out all the mechanics, but I hope some of these observations will still be useful!

I found it pretty easy to knock opponents out using full power (more through chaotic energy than precise aiming), but it was much harder to knock out an opponent while keeping my own piece on the board.

By the way, is it just me, or have you already updated the game?

Hi, thanks for such detailed feedback and for playing through the entire game! Your comments about the difficulty balance are especially useful to me.

The screen shake is supposed to happen during cavalry charges, but sometimes it triggers when it shouldn't. I'll fix that and the tooltip issues. Thanks for pointing them out.

Hi, thanks a lot for the feedback! It seems like playing on a phone is a bit harder than on a computer. I'm already working on improving the UI. Thank you

Hi! Thanks for the detailed feedback!

I'll think about how I could introduce upgrades earlier, add more upgrade options, and give the game a bit more story and context. Thanks for the ideas!

I'd also appreciate it if you could tell me at which point in the game you started struggling and eventually stopped playing.

Well, I finally made it to this point. Is this one of the game's endings, or not quite?

A few things worth mentioning: I didn't have any more trouble with the monsters later on. I also got used to the jump scares, although they were a bit annoying at first.

It took me a while to understand the concept of replacing memories with useful items. At one point, I even thought I'd made a mistake when I replaced my own name with a torch.

Overall, it was a pretty interesting experience, and I enjoyed it!

By the way, in our traditions, when someone dies, mirrors are covered, and the 40 days after death are believed to be the period during which the soul can still remain on Earth.

So seeing the covered mirror and the mention of 40 days in the game immediately reminded me of that. I wonder if it was intentional.

played the demo for a little while.

The first thing that stood out to me was the game's distinctive atmosphere and lore. It definitely has its own identity.

The day/night cycle and weather effects felt like both a positive and a negative to me. They add a lot to the atmosphere, but the visuals are already quite dark, and at night it becomes almost impossible to see what's happening. Though I have to admit, that darkness has its own charm.

Another thing I struggled with was telling which parts of the river were passable and which weren't. I couldn't really distinguish them visually.

Overall, the game looks promising and reminds me of a good old-school RTS. The pacing is a bit too slow for my personal taste.

Good luck with the release and sales!

To be honest, the game felt pretty rough and unfinished in its current state.

I played through six levels, and one thing that surprised me was how fast and erratically the ball moves.

And I honestly have no idea how you're supposed to collect all the stars on level 6.

One small visual issue I noticed: the buttons overlap the bottom part of the level (I was playing the web version on a laptop).

On the positive side, I didn't encounter any bugs, and the core gameplay mechanic seems to work as intended.

I understand that the game is probably still in an stage of development, and some of these things might just need a bit more balancing and polish. Hopefully, my observations will be useful. Good luck with the development!

Played the web version, from a laptop, using a mouse.

1. First impressions

The gameplay was pretty clear right from the start. I didn't have any trouble understanding what to do. I actually went back to the tutorial later because I wanted to check if there was a way to adjust the shot power more precisely.

2. Controls

This was my biggest issue with the game. It's easy to understand how to launch at full power, but making a shot with partial power was much harder. Sometimes I got it right, sometimes I didn't.

I even looked through the settings for a way to reduce the sensitivity, hoping that would help.

Maybe a larger area for aiming and adjusting power would make it easier to control. Another option could be some kind of visual indicator showing approximately where the shot will go, although that would obviously make the game easier.

3. Game feel

Yes, the hits and collisions felt satisfying. I also liked how the impact sounds seemed to sync nicely with the background music.

Maybe some additional visual effects could make the impacts feel even better, but I'm not sure they would fit the game's clean, minimalistic visual style.

4. Solo stages

The furthest I managed to reach was level 6.

Most of my losses were actually on the very first level, since you only get one chance to knock the opponent out, and I couldn't consistently get the shot power right. It usually took me around three attempts to get past it.

After that, a significant number of my losses happened on level 5.

5. Upgrades

The descriptions and presentation were clear enough, but I didn't really notice a significant difference in how the game felt after choosing upgrades.

6. UI and readability

Overall, everything was clear and easy to understand.

One tiny thing I noticed: the "Show more" option under an upgrade doesn't actually show much more text than the "Show more" text itself takes up :)

One correction to my earlier point about clarity: I didn't really figure out how matchmaking works beyond joining another player. I only realized there was exist to it when I saw the next question.

7. Online play

I didn't test online play.

8. Replayability

The main thing that kept me playing was the desire to progress further and see the next levels.

What eventually made me stop was how difficult it was to aim and control shot power precisely. I think improving that would have the biggest positive impact on the game, at least from my perspective.

Thanks for the feedback! What did you have in mind when you said you’d like the new enemies and upgrades to be better? Were you hoping for more variety, a bigger impact on gameplay, or better visuals?

Yeah, I completely understand. I started making my own game harder because it felt too easy to me, and I was progressing through it too quickly without any trouble. But now it turns out that for other people, who don't have all the knowledge I have as the developer, it's actually too difficult.

If you need someone to test the game again, feel free to reach out!

I gave the game another try, and I'm glad to say that none of the previous bugs happened again!

The interaction hint near objects now appears, but it looks like "__", while the actual interaction is done with LMB. I couldn't quite figure that out.

Oh, and I actually thought I was playing with real people! Didn't even realize they were bots :)

I also tried inviting a friend. Without voice chat, it turned out to be less fun than I expected, but I can confirm that creating a room and inviting friends is really easy.

The only thing I couldn't figure out was how to kick a player. My friend joined from a second browser, but his previous character remained on the map. Maybe we needed to recreate the lobby or something. Not a big deal, though.

As for the visuals, I still feel like the floor draws too much attention on pretty much every map. But that's probably just my personal impression.

Three deaths within the first 30 seconds of playing, before I even had a chance to figure out how the game works. And then a message pops up saying I need to buy the game to continue :)

Not exactly a great first impression.

I just launched the game again and gave it two more tries.

To clarify what I meant by the lack of feedback, I was referring mainly to how little damage the attacks seem to deal. Even on Easy difficulty, I spent over three minutes just running in circles around a lion, repeatedly using my abilities to finally kill it.

Spending three minutes repeating the same actions without much sense of reward felt very slow-paced to me, almost like the gameplay was being artificially stretched out (although I'm sure that wasn't your intention).

Let me explain how it felt from my perspective. You spend a long time running around and using different abilities, while the enemy's health bar decreases only slightly. Meanwhile, the silhouette regularly fills with gray (I'm still not sure what that means) or green (which I assume indicates healing or some kind of ability being cast).

So the health bar is basically your only visible indicator of progress, and even that gets interrupted or seemingly reversed when the green effect appears.

That's what I meant by the lack of feedback. You spend a lot of time attacking, but almost nothing changes on the battlefield, apart from more enemies appearing and more bananas scattered around. After three minutes of running circles around the lion and attacking it, the only noticeable result is that its health bar has gone down.

Maybe if enemies died a bit faster, with some satisfying visual effects to reinforce the feeling of actually achieving something, the combat would feel more rewarding.

But please keep in mind that this is just my subjective experience and personal impression of the game.

I gave the game a try and spent quite a while running around, but nobody was dying, and I couldn't really figure out how to kill anyone, even though I was actively using all the buttons.

Then I played the tutorial and finally understood how health is displayed and what it looks like when enemies heal. But the fact that it took me around 5 minutes just to kill two enemies in the tutorial didn't feel particularly fun.

I liked the visual style, the skill system, and the core mechanics. What I didn't enjoy was how much damage everyone could take. I also felt like I wasn't getting enough feedback from my actions. You run around, shoot at enemies, and keep doing that for a long time without much happening. Eventually, you finally get your first kill, but it takes so long that the process starts to feel frustrating rather than rewarding.

Of course, it's possible that I misunderstood something, missed an important mechanic, or that the pace of the game simply doesn't match my preferences.

But again, I really liked the visuals, the core concept, and pretty much everything else. It's mainly the pacing of combat and the lack of noticeable feedback that didn't work personal for me.

I gave the game a try, and it definitely feels like a lot of care went into making it. It's not really my type of game, though, mostly because there's too little for the player to actually do. Even the general's abilities can't be activated manually during battles - they're used automatically without any player involvement.

I liked the music, and while the graphics have a pretty distinctive style, I think they work well too.

One thing I didn't like was the troop deployment screen. I feel like it makes the game look a bit cheaper compared to everything else. Specifically, the board where you place your troops looks noticeably less polished than the rest of the game.

Another thing I missed was the ability to move the camera using the mouse, like in classic RTS games where moving the cursor to the edge of the screen scrolls the view. Since almost everything in the game is controlled with the mouse, having to reach for the keyboard just to move the camera felt a bit strange. It's a small detail, but it stood out to me.

Anyway, good luck with the development!

I'm not really a fan of this genre, but I played for a while and actually enjoyed it.

I accidentally ended my playthrough when I got curious about the available languages, clicked on ENG, and lost my progress.

What stood out to me the most was the atmosphere and the feeling of wanting to learn more about the story. At times, it almost felt like I was secretly witnessing someone's tragic real-life story.

I wasn't expecting to encounter a monster. I thought the game was leaning more toward psychological drama rather than outright horror. But I interpreted the monster as a representation of the character's mental state, so it still made sense to me.

Overall, I liked the experience, and I think fans of the genre will definitely appreciate it.

Not much to say about this one, honestly. It's a well-made game with cool mechanics and pleasant visuals.

I didn't really pay attention to the rewards or cards, just kept playing through the campaign and made it to chapter 15.

I ended up spending quite a bit of time on it without even noticing, and I'll probably bookmark it to come back to later.

Hi everyone! I'd appreciate any honest feedback, even if you only played for two minutes or didn't like the game. I'm mainly curious how intuitive and engaging it feels to new players. Thanks! :)

I made it to the first boss, but got stuck there.

The first thing I'd like to mention is the lack of explanations for the controls and mechanics. I only figured out that the character probably had a weapon after playing for a while, so I went into the settings to check the controls. Even figuring out how to open the menu took some trial and error.

The graphics and music are pretty nice, though.

As for the boss fight, it feels a bit overwhelming. You're standing on a platform while the boss damages you from below, blue orbs are flying at you from the right, and you barely have enough energy to destroy them. Then, just when you somehow manage to deal with all that, a box falls from the sky in about a second and kills you.

It feels like too many things are happening at once. The falling boxes are especially frustrating because they drop so quickly that there's barely any time to react or make a decision. As a result, dying feels less like a consequence of your mistakes and more like bad luck depending on where a box happens to spawn.

At least, that's how the boss fight felt to me. I think it could benefit from a bit more balance and clearer warnings before certain attacks.

I played until the second day. To be honest, there's not much to say about the game in its current state. The buttons work, the boats move, and money is earned. I reached the second day by mechanically repeating the same sequence of actions over and over again.

I understand that this is probably still an early stage of development. Personally, I feel like the game needs something to spend the earned money on, some kind of upgrades or improvements. This could happen during gameplay or at the end of each day, although in that case, the days should probably be shorter.

For example, building another lock, hiring a worker to automate part of the process, or something along those lines.

Another possible direction would be to introduce more decision-making, where the player has to prioritize tasks, manage resources, or make choices that actually affect the gameplay.

Well, I launched the game just to give it a try and ended up playing for 40 minutes.

Ignoring all the times I got eaten almost immediately, I had three decent runs where I managed to grow pretty big. The first two ended at around 8,000 when I got hit by a projectile that instantly killed me. That was frustrating, but I understand why this mechanic exists. Without it, dealing with much bigger enemies would probably be impossible, so I think it's fair.

On my third attempt, I finally reached 32.2k. I expected this to be the most satisfying part of the game, but surprisingly, that's when I lost interest in continuing.

I guess what's missing for me is some kind of larger-scale events that could really shake things up, beyond the smaller hazards like fans and other obstacles. Something that would make the late game feel less predictable and give players a reason to keep going once they've grown big enough.

And probably the biggest thing I was missing was real players. I think having more people in the game could completely change the experience, especially with a chat or some other way to communicate.

I can imagine a scenario where two huge players team up and eat everything in their path, moving from left to right across the map. Meanwhile, on the other side, a group of smaller players starts working together, collecting projectiles and preparing to take down those giants.

That's just me imagining what the game could become, of course, but I think interactions like these could make things much more interesting, especially in the late game.

Anyway, despite that, I genuinely had fun with it. Those 40 minutes went by pretty quickly!

I played for about 5 minutes and I think I even managed to set a few records.

The core concept works, but I feel like it's missing something to keep players engaged for longer. Maybe some kind of campaign or challenge mode could help. For example, different objects could have different speeds, and the goal would be to accelerate each one to a certain minimum speed and land it successfully. Or there could be challenges where you need to land at specific heights.

One thing that confused me a bit was the visual feedback. No matter when I stopped, the character always seemed to end up floating at roughly the same height above the ground. The numbers were different, but it's pretty hard to visually understand what something like 3724.2473 mm actually means.

Maybe adding a ruler or some kind of height scale near the ground would make the results easier to understand. Another idea would be to leave silhouettes from previous attempts, so players could actually see whether they're improving or doing worse.

I'm not sure if these suggestions fit the direction you're going for with the game, but hopefully some of this feedback will be useful.

Good luck with the development!

I played about 7 runs, and overall, I enjoyed the game.

During my first run, I encountered something strange: no matter how many times I hit an enemy, it just wouldn't die. That confused me quite a bit, but I never ran into that issue again in later runs.

The only thing that bothered me a little was the lack of opportunities to prepare for a possible death. Sometimes the shop takes quite a while to appear, and you can end up going through several battles in a row without a proper chance to recover your health. It can be a bit frustrating to lose a run simply because you couldn't heal.

But that's probably just my personal preference. I understand that the whole point of this kind of game might be to keep trying, dying, learning, and starting over again. So maybe it's working exactly as intended.

Overall, the game kept me hooked, and even though I'm not usually a fan of this genre.

Great job, and best of luck with the game!

The game is genuinely fun! If it weren't for a few technical issues, I think I could easily spend hours playing it. I even caught myself thinking about inviting some friends to play together.

That said, there are a few things I'd like to mention:

Visuals: Some of the color palettes and level compositions are a bit hard on the eyes. It's definitely playable, but not entirely comfortable visually.

Unclear mechanics: Sometimes objects appear on the map with circles highlighting them, but I never figured out what they were or how to interact with them.

Player behavior: During one match, the other players were just waving and dancing around. It felt a bit weird pushing them into the water when they weren't really fighting back 😅

Movement issues: By my third match, my character started stuttering or getting stuck while moving, almost as if it was catching on the platforms. I'm not sure whether this was caused by my internet connection or an actual bug, but it eventually made the game too frustrating to continue playing.

Overall, though, my impression is definitely positive! The core gameplay is really fun, and I can see myself coming back to it, especially with friends.

I played some more to figure out which symbol I was struggling with, and it turned out to be the one used for the second spell in the inventory. For some reason, either ⋉ or Σ was slightly more difficult for me than the other symbols for me (I can't remember which one), even though both look visually very simple.

By the way, I encountered a bug. At the beginning, when we're first introduced to the attack spell, the enemy didn't spawn in the small room. There was just a red orb floating around. The dialogue box told me to draw the alpha symbol. I remembered it was the one that looked like a fish, so I drew it in the small room. The enemy was apparently killed, and the story progressed.

I also tried looking closely at enemies with and without magical shields, but I couldn't spot any visual difference between them.

I managed to complete the parking garage level. Later, the part where I died the most was the narrow passage between buildings where a bunch of enemies spawn. The shotgun enemies kept killing me over and over, even though I was teleporting and trying to dodge their attacks.

At the point where we find knives (???) in the parking garage and enemies appear with some kind of floating square above their heads, I couldn't figure out how the spells were supposed to work at all. I'd draw a symbol, it would just stay on the ground, and nothing would happen. Then, after a while, I'd draw it again, and this time it would activate and kill an enemy. I couldn't understand what made the difference.

So, in the end, the biggest challenge for me (apart from the shotguns, of course) turned out to be not understanding the rules of how spells work and when they actually activate.

I hope you find this feedback helpful and don't take it as harsh criticism.

Hey! Thanks so much for the detailed feedback and for sticking with the game even after the freeze.

The crash looks like an issue with the web build, and I’ll work on a fix. A special thanks for sharing your playtest recordings. Seeing where things got tough and what options you had after a loss is a huge help. Getting the difficulty right is my main focus right now.

Making it all the way to the cavalry was impressive, especially with the trouble you ran into along the way. I’ll be adjusting the difficulty curve and looking at how to make it easier to recover after a loss.

The garbled characters slipped in when I added the English translation right before publishing. I’ll clean those up too. :)

Thanks again! If you’re up for another round once the update is out, I’d love to hear how it feels.