itch.io

For a demo there's a lot of game here. Progression was unexpectedly well thought out for a game of its generation. Movement takes some getting used to. A couple of the 'golden pillar' upgrade descriptions were vague.

Well that's interesting. The game's a descendant of the older incremental life sims like ReCycler or Progress Knight, etc. - and as such isn't really an Idle game for the purposes of tags. It's an improvement in that it expands with each playthrough, which leads to my main complaint: Ascension comes out of nowhere, with stats that aren't especially indicative of how they contribute to the final score. (There's some minor incongruities, or maybe I haven't played far enough in, where the prestige bonuses don't quite match what's available in Elder and later; and there should really be a default, toggleable auto-pause on each phase.)

Worth playing though! It's been a while since someone made an incre-sim this playable.

I like the game. But it appears to not be playable at the moment. Railway's saying to let you know I'm stuck at the station.

Nevermind, deleted my account and started over.

So... where's the new shiny post-wipe version I've been looking forward to, and how do I create an account there? My old account from last week is still active on this version, though my name is showing up as Unknown in the chat.

Tags aren't indicative of gameplay, which is more of a top-down twin-stick metroidvania prototype. Grab function seems to have pathfinding issues. It's a fun way to spend a few minutes and could be expanded into something bigger.

The player's first encounter with any enemy is a blind fight, without being able to tell what their attack is and what its effects will be. (I should've said surprise attacks instead of abilities initially.) In my case, I lost to the wind goblin after not being able to tell how its attack worked. It's fine when their difficulty comes from an ability they have, like the big tree, but when it's something like the three mermaids a player has to

A) juggle the enemy's non-indicative, unintuitive attacks with their own positioning and field obstacles,

B) remember how they operate as enemies, and

C) lose however much real-world time it took them to get to that point.

My point is, it's possible to lose time to a UX limitation and this gets frustrating quick. My suggestion is a monster encyclopedia or codex, possibly designed similar to the spellbook, that updates with information about the enemy and their abilities/attacks/etc upon encounter. Something an attentive player can read and use to formulate a strategy, maybe with some flavor text or worldbuilding (something that, like the music, I bet you already have planned out but haven't implemented yet), but does not directly tell the player how to win.

On that note, it's hard to tell how to play the game at first. It's simple enough, at this point at least, that a single image on the game page with the energy and movement icons circled and explained should be enough. I don't think a mid-run checkpoint system is necessary; it would detract from the roguelite feel, and giving the player more knowledge should alleviate the need for one.

Looks good so far. Reminds me of FFT. Could use a quick-select to target enemies behind obstacles or sprites without needing to pixel hunt, and some kind of codex to avoid losing progress to surprise abilities.

UI is bare-bones, though not problematically so. No internal story, or explanation of setting (shouldn't need the description to know what's going on). Kinda small-scale to be playing in fullscreen. A good start, and a good way to pass ten minutes.

I liked it.

The Quest level-up buttons should be clearer. The levels should be titled outside of just the Monster list. It seemed like I had to click the auto-summon and auto-cast buttons twice to actually purchase them.

I also suggest calling them 魔法弾 for simplification. 

Beat it. My best run was three 10s. Liked it.

There should probably be an option to reduce the odds of 1.5s, maybe as a Green purchase.

The top of the game view gets cut off, showing the bottom 2/3 of the quantities, right around getting the Combos.

Straightforward and a pleasant distraction. 

It's not clear at this point if you're reading any of these comments, Pidroh, so I don't know if writing this will do any good. I like the game. But the current iteration make it hard to tell how to play it, or why I'm playing it beyond "number go up".

 Because there's an unexpected puzzle aspect to progress, wiping the log with each reload doesn't help the player

The internet loves cats. Including cats, and then not making befriending them a major path or class is a let-down.

The class system itself is hard to follow. For now classes only seem to exist to open up new options without cutting off old ones, meaning they don't really need to be called "classes" at all. You could call them "decisions" and the effect on gameplay wouldn't change.

There's no story yet beyond the title. That lack of story means you could reskin the game (survival as a student, graduate, programmer, housewife, Stardust Crusader, ship's mate, politician, rideshare driver, etc.) and no one would notice. There needs to be more of a narrative, even if it's just emphasis on making it to the next day (each class advancement is a new week, for example).

...Ah. Beggar -> Cat Beggar.

So is the Cat Master, Master Of The Cats class just not implemented yet? 

Yeah, short and sweet. Can't wait for the post-jam version with prestige and weird micro-transaction/gacha/Gatchaman/DLC additions!

It's alright! A prestige or new game+ mode would be nice though.

Alright, the 6/19 build feels like a separate game from progress knight. The prestige system seems to work well and the setting feels unified. It plays good. Needs a pause button though.

This is a from-scratch rebuild of Progress Knight, apparently. It needs to do more from the first click to NOT feel like the other Progress-style games. My suggestion would be to make the first loop a job WAY OUTSIDE of the city that the character leaves behind. (They go from their old life, with a level-capped job and no skills/shops/etc options, to the city and from there becoming a mage/soldier/whatever with the other options gradually opening up with further progress.)  And maybe expand with some minigames?

"Final Boss"? Ha! I AM the final boss!

There was no challenge at all with this build and it was my first run. Suggest a mechanic that enforces a minimum party size, or more obvious benefits to doing so.

The minion Quirk is overpowered with even a single Bumpster, especially in maps with small alcoves. Suggest heavily nerfing it (quantity cap?) or removing it entirely.

Suggest making it clearer that there are Stat caps, and if the Stat-boosting quirks boost past them. In general, while it works just fine with the short game loop, the game doesn't explain anything internally. Even learning what the Bumpsters' names are requires purchasing them, without the hovertext option Quirks and Stats have.

It was short and really fun though. The chance-based Beyblade battle mechanic is underrated and I think it works great here.

Short and cute and simple. Felt good to play.

Interesting and thoughtful. Hard to understand what role public support plays though.

The commentary on how difficult it actually is to distribute accumulated wealth as charity (without outright cheating) shouldn't be lost on anyone. If there's a later post-Jam release, I suggest making this clearer. The gameplay itself is good and makes the point of the Jam well, but I see two issues that make the game world far more dystopian than was probably intended. I bring them up not to complain, but to suggest leaning into them.

First, the game is still working completely within capitalism and its restraints. Charity is something that mostly only exists as a result of capitalism, after all, and reliance on it as a social necessity is one way of maintaining the economic status quo. There no actual fucking over of billionaires here, and I think that's a missed opportunity for this game. (Charitable organizations also distribute information and - strictly at the on-the-ground face-to-face level for legal and social reasons - can nudge along social change.)

Second, the human(?) distribution workers are unable to distribute charitable assistance faster than the charity founder can, and this has implications. With or without an autoclicker, the founder is someone who can convert and distribute $0.1 trillion, $100 billion, $100,000 million in charity by themselves. This suggests something uncomfortably extraordinary about the founder - superhuman, inhuman, eldritch, mechanical, etc. - as well as that it's not possible for humans to effectively help themselves through charity.

Still pretty rough. Couldn't figure out how to use stairs.

Reminds me of the old Spiderweb Software Exile games.

Nice and chill. 

Lost patience at the Oz guy. His healing and shield wouldn't be insurmountable with three 3~4 attack units in a row, but that doesn't happen so it's pretty much a softlock. What happened to the neat-looking attack pieces I gained?

Otherwise good.

Neat idea, but the game loop's too long to justify the high level of RNG (and crushing difficulty) without some kind of prestige or powerup system from the start menu.

Good premise, I think. Regular and homing rocks feel too powerful in the beginning and for a while after, while the damage field doesn't feel like it scales well. 

Feels odd that hunger drains faster than thirst in the desert during both day and night. Suggest making them day/night dependent (lose thirst faster during day, lose hunger faster during night).

Looks good, works good. I enjoyed it! Cursor's a little slow though.

Okay start, but there's almost nothing to do in the first version. I can't see where you're going to take the concept, nor what the win state is going to be. Needs the option to mute (not that the music's bad).

Looks like the Researcher's Epiphany might not work properly when something's being Published?

Seconded! An art pack where the game's the same but EVERYTHING is crappy MS Paint drawings, definitely including the player somehow. 

(Also a cat pack, where everyone has a photorealistic cat head, lol.)

I'm actually a little disappointed you took the opposing modifiers out. (*clapping* "BOOOOO!") There's room for comedy there, like if the crowd gets into a fistfight and takes each other out if the player triggers a reaction three times that competition or something. With each reaction louder than the last, until a dustball brawl happens, and the player character's all confused (but gets +1 Gain to the muscle in question somehow). 

Workout Draw... might need some re-balancing. (The specific combo is Cutx2 and Vitamin B, followed up with a Red Snule and Creatine. With enough Kettlebells you just keep drawing your stamina boosts from the discard pile. The Back and Chest gains are just from Gain Train.)