itch.io

Interesting concept, I could see how this could be expanded on.

Currently, it starts out incredibly difficult and just simply gets easier. You continue to grow stronger, but your enemies don't. The enemies also don't have any sort of passive effects, so they're all just a random healthpool with 1 damage and 80% hit, waiting for you to give them their stats.

Some of the relics could also use some balancing. There's 3 that heal  you, and in order from worst to best... 1 heal when exploring, 1 heal when dealing damage (lose it if you miss), 1 heal per battle turn. The once per battle turn is strictly better than the damage one, since it's 100% chance instead of relying on your hit chance, and then both of those are going to heal you more than the per exploration one. And then there's shield per turn, which is also better than the heal on hit or heal on explore.

Then there's the +2 damage relic. Once you  get one of these, you just start every single battle ahead of your enemy.

I do like the  decision making you have to do during battles though. There's no avoiding bad options, only minimizing them, and sometimes that means trading some value to make sure you don't get hurt too bad. I also like that combat isn't a good thing. It's strictly there to kill you, with exception to the boss being the objective of the game. It makes the game feel especially harsh, which some people (like me) enjoy. I always felt like games that "make things harder" by introducing more enemies, but those enemies reward you, kind of backhanded, like... Ah yes, punishing me with more rewards, thank you. So I'm glad that didn't happen here.

Hi there! Want to add a response to the Stripe part.

Seems like they have issue with LGBTQ content in general, even if it's SFW. They have been responding to calls saying that they simply wish to reject those games, even if they're SFW and legal. You may want to press them about this.

I tried it and the AI mechanics (I didn't know it was AI driven at first) are definitely bad.

I was thinking the spellcrafting would be something more like Noita or such. But instead it's just taking all the vague components, feeding them into a slop machine, and it tries to write code for it, ending up with a disappointing result.

Take for instance... Turret, Rapid, Consecutive, Greater Frost Spike, Trigger, Greater Frost Explosion

You would think in that order it would shoot spikes that trigger an explosion. But I have no idea what  the "trigger" component is trying to do here. All that happened is that it spammed explosions on itself until my MP was empty.

The AI part of it genuinely limits your creativity with spells. You ultimately just toss everything in and hope it turns out okay. If not, too bad.

If we had more concrete and properly programmed mechanics, we would be able to craft the spells we actually want to craft.

Edit: It also means this entirely single-player experience cannot run offline. It relies on the game's server for loading or generating spells that get crafted.

I've managed to beat it without Wrench. But it was with Aquifer. Both of them are probably the best "one ofs" you can have in the deck.

Aquifer helps in the early game and keeps you going in the late game.

Wrench doesn't do a lot in the early game, but is completely explosive in the late game.

lol, lmao

0 tools used would be incredibly difficult. you'd have to hope for an aquifer on your first shop just to be able to scale without prospect

Yeah, most cards are just outright bad. Then some have the illusion of being good, but are actually bad. And then there's Minecart. If you have any amount of payoff already in your deck (Aquafer, Wrench), then Minecart is singlehandedly the best purchase you can ever make going forward.

For instance... Smeltery. 2 Energy for 1, has to be good right? Well, if you consider cards and energy both a resource, then this is net 0 (-1 card +1 energy), with no other effects. So you essentially wasted your ore buying it. Furnace on the other hand, 2 Energy for 4 Energy. This is a net +1 (-1 card, +2 energy), and is crucial for building a "Draw your deck every round" engine. 

Other net 0 cards are fine. Like Ingot (+2 ore), Helmet (+2 score) and isopod (shuffle discard into draw). They don't harm your deck (0 cost, play a card, draw a card), give a small little benefit, and also contribute towards Wrench (great payoff card for engine decks)

But then you got cards like the anvil or whatever. +4 resource and +1 cost? Even for the "play a resource" cards like brush and glove, there's still better options than that.

There's some "okay" early game cards that haven't ever caused me a run failure like Campsite, Bat Cavern, and Salamander, but things like Furnace and Minecart are better than them.

I don't even remember a majority of  the cards because playing a card to get some ore or score while doing nothing else didn't need to be an action card, because we already have resource cards. The +1/+1 cards that only work if you have no resources seem bad, because you just always want resources to play during a round. Would be better if they cost 0, because then you could at least use them after playing all your resources. But again, other options are just outright better for that.

no offline mode?

Might've gotten a surge of players because Itch posted your game on social media!

https://bsky.app/profile/itch.io/post/3ltm7iz3k322o

https://x.com/itchio/status/1943354536384483493

It's definitely where I found out about the game.

So I may have played Dominion

I saw Minecart and Furnace, I saw the line.

Deck:

• 8 res 
• 9 Furnace
• 20 Minecart
• 20 Ingot
• 11 Helmet
• 11 Isopod
• 8 Compass
• 2 Quarry
• 1 Campsite
• 2 Salamander
• 1 Bat Cavern
• 2 Aquifer
• 2 Wrench 

Early Game: Prospect as much as I could, till I got an Aquifer and a Furnace. Goodbye Prospect. Then I was building what parts of the engine I could. Minecart's an auto buy. Bat Cavern helps thin the deck for other draw cards to find action. Campsite and Salamander helped out in res heavy hands. A few 0 en, Draw 1 card (cantrips) when there was nothing else. They don't harm nor benefit the consistency of a deck, but they help out in the early game.

Mid Game: Aquifers are cool, but getting a Wrench means as long as I don't whiff every round, I am guaranteed to win. So now I have two payoffs to my engine. Ore is flooding in.

Late Game: Buying nothing but Minecart, Ingot, Helmet, and Isopod at this point. The more cantrips, the bigger Wrench gets. Added another Aquifer and Wrench later into the run to make number go up.

Yeah, I legit thought I was completely stuck. Then tried just running into something to kill myself and close the game, only to then find out it's a required mechanic.

The amount of times I wanted to hug Moxie in this story ;w;

i may be dehydrated, but at least i can bludgeon the tiny cat now

Seems to softlock for me after beating Tammy and Bucky.

Had some XCOM moments where I died because every single pellet missed my target when the only option was to shoot. At a knights move worth of range.

But other than that, very addicting and fun! Wasn't able to beat stage 10 but just glad I made it there. Got carried away clearing pawns and opened a direct path to myself from a rook.

Would be a lot better if it were official, so they could maybe also include a link in the app itself with an update or something. An unofficial one would be a lot harder for people to find.

Yeah, just messing around with it is pretty fun, and a good way to learn/prototype.

I just wish there was an official discord or something. Would be a much better way for persistent chat because it stores all history, even when you're offline, and a lot more people use it and will be more likely to be running that in the background than superpowers or an IRC client.