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Thanks a ton for the review!

The difficulty was... not super balanced. lol

I didn't get nearly enough testing in, and it turned out to be much more difficult than I thought- not sure if good or bad tbh though. lol
But in every test I played, I was able to get through levels no issue with the limited HP, all my deaths coming from monsters- specifically a missed green.

Which I don't know if the green was perfectly timed. It seemed like it was when I tried it, but this is why a game like this would have some form of calibration. Things like player reaction time, controller input lag, and some screen/tv interactions would probably throw people off with this game.

But it IS maybe possible to get a starting area with too far-away treasures- I think.
You have roughly 60 steps, and each scan takes away a step (Which is something I wasn't able to tell the player through the tutorial in time).
That was definitely something I wondered if anyone would run into.
But I think you'd have to spawn in like, 1 corner, and all treasures would have to spawn in the opposite corner.

As for the guy at the start, no real references. The artist had control over that and he did kind of remind me of Wesker, or maybe Ocelot, but other than that, maybe something Metal Gear Solid-y? When I was writing his dialogue though, I guess I did have cliche controlling bad guy in games in mind. lol

Also, funny enough. It never occurred to me that pressing down should do a 180. I'll definitely keep that in mind for future stuffs, as this style of game is one I've never touched on before. Like a kind of Grimrock (Which I've never played, but am aware of) or old school dungeon crawler.

Was able to get pretty far, but eventually, it just got too fast! :V

Was pretty fun though, and definitely has room for scalability.

Fun art and simple concept! :D

Although, once I realized you just needed to match their Swords with my Shields, then focus Swords on all my other dice, it became a little bit of a trog- which hit at about the 3rd Level. I didn't need to heal at all with that strat- at least not until the Level before the last because I decided to just focus on 5x Swords and Healing any HP I lost between those attacks.

Despite that, there's plenty of room for expansion- either by adding mechanics like in "Dicey Dungeons" that manipulate rolls, giving abilities to change up the combat, or adding new faces.

Need to connect 2 Runes to make it go away.
Scrolling rotates the Runes.
Though I now realize I forgot to say that in the tutorials. lol

There is no healer. Only the Booster Rune "LIFE".

No, actually. :V
I actually thought of it on accident when I was trying to decide on how to do a timer for the attacks.
Not to say there could be a game out there with a similar thing- but I don't know any that have done it before.

Originally, the abilities were each going to have a cooldown, and you connected Runes in each of the Abilities' own tabs.
Then I thought to give each the same timer, and you just use any ability you want. But then players would focus hard on just one Ability, and I sort of wanted that Ability cycling Vampire Survivors had.

So I asked the questions:
- "How do I auto-make-sure an Ability is selected?" Because I don't want the player constantly selecting the ability. (Tedious)
- "How can it cycle through the Abilities so someone doesn't pick the same Ability?" Variety and "forced-to-use-what-is-given" philosophy.
- "How can the player change the order?" Control on timing and "combos".

Then, when I was testing placing the Runes and put one above the other on the Grid, I was like, "Huh... It's sort of like a calendar."
And that sparked the idea into what it is.

Yeah. They were a bit slow.

I have upgrades that would mitigate that, but they don't come often enough.

Yeah. I actually slowed it down after adding the turn speed upgrade, but the frequency of that upgrade was often enough, so it's slower than I wanted.

Some only spawn in view. It used to be that they spawned outside it, but it was a little annoying.
Now only 1 does, and it disrupts your radar.

You also have to rotate the cam for more gems, so you can be put into a position where they spawn in the opposite end of your view that you want to turn. which I was fine with.

You can apply any bug fixes whenever, so long as you note the changes on the page, and so long as they don't add any new mechanics.

Got my sun! :V

Fun little logistics game!
Just needs music, some polish, and Sfx.

This game also has some legs to it! If you fix it up a bit, and depending on how high of a quality to put it to, I can see this easily selling on Steam!

Resetting in the room you first fall down in after using the ability causes an error, and  it got suuuuper laggy in some rooms for some reason!

Other than that, it was neat! :D

I considered banking the attack a while back, like, you skip it and the next time it pops up, it's stronger, but I really liked the loss of time by waiting and not positioning it well-enough on the grid to fit the timing of the enemies.

But another issue with it was that, in the later game, the enemies come so fast that you sort of have to use the weapon every time it pops up.
So that then counters the idea of skipping or powering up, especially when using it as fast as possible benefits you since every second you wait on using anything, causes a growing backup of timing.

Thought I already commented on this game! :V

Was a fun, though short, puzzle game! I wanted more! :V

The level ups were coming so fast! :V

Also gave me some flashbacks to SimCity back in the day.

Though this sort of game would probably be better if it didn't have a full game over state, but a "failing" state that halts progress and requires demolishing. Not that the fail state is bad. Just that it's a chill game and a fail state punches you in the gut suddenly. lol

This was my original idea before the one I chose for my game! :V
Though, more limits on the connections and more pathing like traditional TDs, but multiple paths.

But yeah, cool to see it in action! Though, after buying a lot of the upgrades, I was no longer able to see the enemies before they died. Except when I bought the bounce because I had so much money and then saw them bounce the elites enemies closer! :V lol

Beat it all! :V

Fun characters, fun story, fun gameplay -which could definitely be expanded on- and so much content! :V

I wasn't a huge fan of the ending fight though, as it became just tedious and I could have started farming points to infinity, which would just become a tedious venture at that point since I upgraded the pellets to max  and I just had to go from left to right constantly. But I'm also not a huge fan of Horde Survivals for that exact reason! :V Still enjoyed it though!

Had no clue what was happening with the attacks. I rolled both dice and sometimes I'd kill an enemy- which they'd drop things that I don't think I could use! :V

I was also confused on the dragon bit, as there wasn't one at the end of the compass. It just pointed at a spiral thing that sparkled after activating all the cubes.

But I did like the idea of the rolling attack- it just needed feedback on what was going on. Like a "Success!" or "Failure!" if the roll was bad- as well as damage numbers.

The saws are actually one of the strongest abilities later on, but have a higher skill-check to them.

The trade-off with the castle upgrade was intentional, as I didn't want players to keep choosing the castle early for more room.

As for the Rune sizes, there's no real weighting system other than a slight percentage chance for how many connections there are.
And speaking of the connections,  it is possible to trigger an Ability, swap a Rune to another Ability before the Ticker reaches it, and get that benefit. Though that's also a bit of a skill check with planning.

As far as balancing goes, it could use some work, but there's some higher level play and strategies I accidentally discovered while testing it that allowed some of the balancing to be less needed. Which was somewhat beneficial since I didn't have time to balance it as well as I wanted to.

Got so many in a row without a battery that it basically ruined everything! :V

But a great twist on Tetris!

The prequel to the Pac-Man ghosts! :V

Definitely needs some work on the collisions, as I kept dying by moving sideways on an upwards moving block, but it looked pretty trippy! :D

It froze really bad every time I killed an enemy.

But otherwise, fun game! :D

I noticed that you needed to click the pipe itself, rather than the square it was in.
It made clicking a little bothersome, but I still got it done! :V

Was there more planned?

Fun entry! No clue how the balloons worked since they started causing my bridge to rise to the left with the more I added on. lol

Wasn't sure as to how to use the flashlight. Tried using it on the dogs multiple times, but nothing! :V

Really digged the style here though, with the sprites as characters.

I was only able to get to the 469 (688? I forgot. Whichever was before the 900+ one) upgrade (with 964 cost being next) using the keyboard mouse controls. lol

MY ARMS HURT! :V

Had a weird drift constantly turning me right.
I also didn't realize it was a weapon till I hit a dead end. lol
Started pressing every key for some special thing, then clicked.

(I just noticed while writing this, that I had my controller connected, so maybe the drift was from that)

Reminds me of that era of portal games that started using light to obscure things.

Good times! :V

I noticed the gun shot faster the further you got.

Could change it to, similar to how you have it, where holding it down slowly fires faster, but the speed up is MUCH faster, but you also lose speed, so there's a risk/reward.
Then there's the classic roguelike spice of upgrades that affects gameplay, as well as different weapons.

Short, but I really like the ideas.

With more work on the graphics, I think you'd have something here.
Can even give it a light story and you have yourself one of those classic mascot horror games. Without the mascot currently, of course! :V

I basically ended up putting them closer together and playing it like Galaga with a 4 streak attack! :V

Although, if this were more turn-based, or slower paced with some tweaks, it could have some stronger legs.

Zerglings the Game! :V

Fairly bare bones, but it was still enough to keep me going and win!

I wasn't able to tell if I was supposed to do anything more than pick up clothes, despite it saying you were supposed to do other things. But I can see the vision! :V

With some slight changes in pacing and adding other mechanics, I can see this as being pretty cool.

If it's the one I think it is, you might be talking about the "connection" window, which goes away when you connect 2 Runes.

At least, that's the only one I've seen people mention.

You gain attack Runes over time (It's a cycle, so you always get them), and getting the castle too early can screw you over for the exact reason you said- which is intended.
There's also a Rune you can get that will increase the Charge Speed, but it's not needed, just helps.

Really liked some of the characterizations! :V

I'm also not a fan of reading like this, but it was hooking me! :D

I think I got the bad ending because the stick lady smiled at me! D:

It also didn't want to go to the next line at the end and I was spamming on my keyboard to get it to go.

Couldn't figure out the password! :V

I REALLY loved this idea! :V

Honestly surprised I've never ran into a game where you click to move and shoot while it's moving.
Then, combined with the little ship that breaks your focus, it adds a very nice combination of attention-splitting!

You should definitely expand on this idea, because it's really worth something and will make an amazing game people will want to play!

It unfortunately kept crashing for me when I tried to [E] at the first town under the starting spot..