This game feels like pure luck. The only player input is deciding whether to brew or scrap, but even that has an element of chance to it.
It could be much more fun if there were choices to be made, like if you could pick which treasure you get after a room. If I'm a Trickster, I need attack speed to stack my slow as fast as possible, so I shouldn't be forced to get a Chainmail that slows my attacks.
Just had multiple runs in a row where no higher-tier life support upgrades were offered, making it feel like it was literally impossible to get past a certain points. It feels unfair, and possibly unintended, that these upgrades are so rare when they're so important.
I did have a few runs at first where I got better life support at a decent rate, but after one run where I nearly won (only lost because I didn't understand the Antimatter Drive) they just stopped appearing entirely. I only get upgrades like the Overclock and Emergency bonuses, but no actual base capacity increases.
This is a great concept for a game. The big flaw is that progress can feel a bit slow at first. It's frustrating when whatever you're doing gets interrupted by the demon.
My suggestion? Add achievements for completing certain quest lines, with a large one-time bonus to progress in certain stats. For example, becoming an ally of the elves could make it so on subsequent playthroughs, you can learn elven language much faster along with a bonus to precision; helping the fairy could give you a bonus to alchemy.
This would solve the main point of frustration by giving the player a clear road to progress. Even if you can't beat the demon on this loop, you still accomplished something significant if you get an achievement.
With this information, I managed to finish the game! It was a fun game, I'll give it a good rating in the game jam when voting opens.
There were a lot of typos, but not so many that it was hard to understand what was being said. I get that in a game jam, actually making the game work is a higher priority than having a perfect script.
The main criticism I have is that the rules aren't explained very well. In particular, I didn't realize until I saw your comment that the same skills can stack, and that you need a certain level of some skills to pass some areas (fight power, knowledge for the druids, holy power for the vampire). This should be an easy fix with just a few tweaks to the dialogue, though; if, as you said, the cause of death is made clearer, that would help get this across.
Also, this is just a nitpick, but I don't understand why it's described as a roguelike. I get that it's a very loosely-defined term, but the key defining element of the genre is randomness, whether in terms of level layouts or upgrade selection. I'd categorize this more as a puzzle game instead.
I know that looks like a lot of negativity, but they're really minor issues; just polishing up the writing would make this go from good to great. I truly had a fun time figuring out how to get past each area.
It can be hard to understand how hurtful the use of slurs can be if you've never been part of a minority group that's often dehumanized by such language, but I hope you can eventually learn how to empathize with people whose life situation is different from yours.
Or if you are part of a minority group but haven't been harassed with slurs, I don't wish for you to become the target of such insults, but I hope you can come to understand why certain people might be more sensitive to such language than you are.
The knife is in the first level. The trick is that spikes don't kill you if you touch them from the sides or gently drop down on them (while standing on a ledge next to a spike pit, press down and jump). Once you get it, you can kill Nazi fuckheads by walking into them from behind or dropping from above.
This is a good autobattler. It'll be better when other classes are available.
One thing I've found that's not immediately obvious is that the 1-star and 3-star bonuses for upgrading equipment are permanent, even if you're not currently using that item, so it's worth it to invest into refining multiple items.
That said, I don't understand what the "+3 Weapon/Armor Tree" perks do. EDIT: Figured it out, there's a limit to how many equipment upgrades you can have and this increases it.
One thing I didn't like was the random palette modifier, I thought it'd be a harmless one but some of the color choices actually caused me physical pain IRL. It also seems like it'd cause issues for colorblind players.
Aside from that, it's a very interesting game concept, inverting the formula of picking random upgrades into random downgrades instead.
This is a very well-made game with some clever puzzles.
That said, I don't like the randomized order of the tile types. I get that the point is to make the player adapt and not follow one solution, but some levels feel like they DO have one solution, and you're out of luck if you get the wrong tiles. I'm convinced that 3-13 is impossible unless you get very lucky with the right order of tiles.
Basically, the puzzles need to be much more forgiving if you want them to actually have multiple solutions.
But the graphics and sound are great! It doesn't look or feel like a game jam game at all.
