Hey! Your game is quite fun!
I randomly met your mother today and I had mentioned I'm making a video game. That's when she mentioned you and yours! So cool! It's not every day that you meet someone who even knows anyone who's attempted to make a game!
I really like the dynamics of the game, like the rules and moves, they are fun! It's approachable and yet had some good depth of strategies I can see already from a few matches. I failed the first 2 while playing it on video chat with a friend. I won the third one, though!
My biggest problem I faced was understanding the rules, particularly with the territories and how they add moves. It took me a while to figure that out. My friend thought it was the extra crystals adding moves, so we tried that and learned the hard way.
The tutorial structure could maybe work with a bit more explanation or practice steps. The movement didn't make much sense and confused me at first with the limited moves. A playable tutorial might allow for a better feel of the game, and is important for that first impression. Once I played an actual game I started to understand more, but was lost in the tutorial. Too limited.
I really love the dynamic of using the crystals to launch orbs, it definitely feels like a game of war! Found myself saying, "Oh, he shot me!" a few times! lol. I really enjoyed it and had an itch to play again after being defeated twice and finally learning the rules. I'll likely play again!
Oh and really great job on the AI decision making! Im actually REALLY curious and would love to nerd out and hear about how you did it! I'm about to start looking into making bots for my game as 'testers' to help balance it, since it's becoming quite complex. AI and machine learning have always been ultra-interesting to me, though feels like an un-touchable mythical dragon at this point.
I'm open to providing more feedback, if you're interested. For myself, feedback is hard to come by most days! The game I'm making is called Mutant Mayhem, it's the only one on my profile here. I made a couple sorta-finished games 20 yrs ago when I was a teenager in GameMaker, and have had a burning passion for it ever since. I only started following it again about 2 years ago! I'd love it if you would check out my game and give some feedback as well! The negative stuff is always the best to me! More problems the better!
Cheers and thanks for making this fun game! Keep at it!
Matt