itch.io

I came in with little to no expectations aside an impression from the colorful visuals you've got going. I didn't expect the depth there would be to the game. I was very surprised in a good way. I played on 0.4.0 Windows. At first, gameplay felt straightforward and simple. I can attack, however I can't defend on the enemy's turn if I do. That makes sense. Turns out Warrior always starts out with a card that has Relentless. I think that is a really good feature for new players since learning when to not attack and when to defend is a tricky thing in the first few runs. Especially since that card also has other abilities such as gaining 1 life and has 4 Resistance power. It's a card I almost always played when I drew it. That's without including all the other card synergies I discovered after playing the Warrior deck. 

I did try out the other decks a few times. Mainly, I tried out Adventurer to try and get a grasp on the stats system. Luck and fortune are still foggy to me. Their influence seems to pale in comparison to whether or not I make keen decisions over the entire run since even without pumping luck, there's still a lot of chance involved with the cards and equipment I got. I never used intelligence since my strategy was to hit up merchants when I could if I had a handy sum of gold. For example, when I did my first few runs I skipped merchants and tried to aim for treasure and luck events. The rewards weren't enough to keep me winning though and I could even lose for messing with treasure and luck events. Merchants on the other hand were at least more consistent in that at worst, I could get something on the side like a card pack or scroll of experience. At best, really good cards since the shop rolls 8 cards for me of varying quality. On that point, the only part I understand from the merchant is that the cards seem to scale with either the amount of events I passed through, my level or perhaps something like the average strength of current cards I have. The one consistent aspect I noticed in each run is that the cards get better the further in I am and are almost never that good on a first merchant. Back to stats, I hard focused strength and dexterity. Strength is awesome for more than one reason. As a beginning player, health is at all times great to have more of. At a more advanced level of play, health points are key to stalling for growing the mana pool or getting the cards that I need to make a comeback.  Dexterity is similar. The ability to go first or second isn't vital to me since it's dependent on the cards and equipment I have that run. However, the more cards I have at the beginning of the round is crucial. I would say it's even crucial for the enemy. One run, I got an equipment called the "Weakness Warhorn." I don't know if equipment names are unique since card names aren't. Anyways, the equipment's effect is "Champions draw 2 fewer cards at the start of every battle." It's a unique equipment, so I know that's a good tier, although I'm not sure if that's higher or lower than legendary. The gist is that this equipment didn't seem that impressive at first sight until I entered combat. There's a certain kind of comedy in watching the enemy not play anything for multiple turns. Especially when the early turns may be where huge plays happen and dominate the rest of the battle. One of my favorite equipment even if I only got it once. For the most part, I picked up the equipment to see what it meant in action and it concluded in something a lot better.

To a large extent, the Warrior deck hits home for me. I got very familiar with every card in the deck. For a moment in the first twenty runs or so, I had a misconception that I might have to stick with the deck because changing out the core cards can be expensive. The truth is more in tune with the idea that every card in the deck acts as a jumping off point. That one minion-beast that is able to Reinforce I on summon and on death is a quick 2 Attack power hitter for only 1 mana or to buff up another card since Reinforce I is not restricted to the end of turn. That is unless there's also the minion-celestial that's able to draw 1 card on summon and give +1/+0 to all Beast minions then it's a quick 3 Attack power for 1 mana cost. Play two or three of the minion-beast with Reinforce I and I can practically one-shot the early game. Sometimes it's even beneficial to buff the minion-celestial with draw 1 card on summon effect considering that minion has 2 Resistance power and anything with Resistance power is more likely to stay on my field. The minion-beast only has a Resistance power of 1 or 2 with Reinforce I and don't have a field buff effect like the minion-celestial for Beast minions. In that sense, the minion-beasts are more like throwaway blocks since even the strongest attack can be blocked if there's no special effects. That plus the persistence of Reinforce I means I can continually buff the minion-celestial to even become an offensive unit or stay as a defensive unit with 3+ Resistance power.  All of that for a 1 mana-cost minion-celestial and 1 mana-cost minion-beast. 

The 2 mana-cost minion-celestial with Relentless and life gain has 4 Resistance power is great later on in a battle when my mana pool is bigger because the minion isn't highly viable on its own.  In the first few turns, gaining life can sometimes turn around a victory. That's not usually the case though. The 2 mana-cost minion-celestial pairs super well with the 3 mana-cost minion-beast with piercing and +2/+2 when it procs continually. This is a mana-cost of 5 for 2 minions whereas the mana-cost of 2 for 2 minions as seen previously works better as a shield to hold off attacks until I can build an offense. All those 0-cost and 1-cost spell-celestials that give life gain in addition to the 1-cost +3/+3 spell-beasts can carry me quite far in runs. Usually this strategy is enough to carry me up to the last champion of the first floor(?). The last card which is the 1 mana-cost no-effect minion-beast with 3 Resistance power is like a low budget Relentless minion-celestial is the best way I can put it. 3 Resistance power is quite strong for early turns since I rarely see anything that can hit that hard until mid-game. 

All in all, the early runs were simple and fun. A sense of naivety. I would say everything completely shifts once you begin to understand what effects exist and how the battlefield is dominated after the first floor. A surprise on every corner is the way the real game feels. A whole lot of "Wait, that's a 0 mana-cost card?", "10 Resistance power at 1 mana-cost? I can't break that with attacks on the first turn or even the third turn.", and "Hold up, you can exhaust on main-2 and during an attack?" The enjoyment of the game goes up a multitude here along with the usual roguelike frustration of chance. It's a really good learning experience. Especially with crafting, I wasn't sure what was going to last over time rather than a battle or two then get replaced by card packs or the merchant. By simply being observant of how the enemy plays, I was able to copy and hone their tactics and become one with the card. Perhaps even what you call, a card artisan. 

I'm probably not going to be able to recall all the exciting moments I saw. It is a "short" game in terms of being about a half-hour to an hour in length for me on runs. Of course, it's actually a long game because I'll replay it more times after that. I definitely think there's at least a few hundred more hours to go before I full internalize everything and what the most optimal strategies are. I think I've only scratched the surface and other players are bound to find more creative ways of playing. All the variables from stat choices, event choices, merchant purchase choices, crafting choices (itself which contains many factors like active and passive effects with effects and timing), minion type choices and variant choices. From my point of view, the game has got a nice sense of complexity to it and maybe the game is a lot simpler than I think it is as I have yet to discover it all and see it as a whole. 

A rough rundown of the interesting builds I saw with enemies or did myself would be: 

• Milling me to zero either through spell effects or simply holding such a strong defense that I'm stalled until I draw all my cards
• Getting me stuck in an Exhaust-Repeal loop where I summon a minion, I block from the minion with that Exhaust-Repeal, my minion gets slapped back onto the top of my deck and I can't draw a single other card because I need the minion to defend my health
• Stacking Life like it's boxes in a warehouse against me and I realize that my damage isn't going to outpace how fast I'm drawing cards every turn 
• Being one-shot by +1/+1 for cards in graveyard minions
• Thinking everything is going on my field until the enemy starts blasting me with cost of discarded card direct damage that makes me realize the purpose of those 6+ mana-cost cards
• The chaos that is random effects and understanding to never play such a build ever again and to ensure a quick victory against an enemy that does it too. The Dice of Doom is one thing. Equipment, minion, and more was mind-boggling. 
• The mind game that is stalling for mana pool growth and to not attack, just hold a defensive line
• The annoyance that is Bounce I 
• How useful direct damage to any target cards are. These cards seemed at first to be a waste to pick up, until I get kept getting destroyed by them. Turns out one of the best ways to deal with an annoying minion on the field that I can never block is to carry a ton of direct damage to any target cards that can deal with those pests and hit the enemy's health too.
• The worry that is seeing an Exhume effect and realizing defeating a minion once isn't enough
• Casual wipe of my field with Deal 1 damage to any target 6 times
• Destroy up to x target minions that are the perfect counter spells in a pinch
• x then, x cards where I get a 2-for-1 deal that feels completely ridiculous and too good to be true like Repeal 1, then Repeal 1
• The counter play that is gaining control of target minion
• Underestimating the power of piercing and the enemy's willingness to block, full stack Attack power and I get a home run
• The mistake that is playing an effect that has to target a minion and I inevitably have to target my own field

Some rare things I did see that makes me want to play again were: card packs with 4 cards with a blue outline, Doll of a Dog, Rabbit Rear, the mystery of what Renewed Rucksack is, trying to get 5 Suspicious Scales, the mystery of what the Chromatic Cuirass really does, the difference between average, strong and very strong cards, the secret requirement for the heavy gate, the locked metal door,  the dojo, the throne, the disappearing floor, and the abandoned forge (I presume it has to do with equipment), whether the enemy AI is always playing optimally or if it can play dumb at lower levels, and what difference Artificer's Artifact really makes.  Also a little curious if minion-types actually have some impact on cards. I can't confirm they do, however the starter decks seem to indicate minion-types have some aspects tied to them. I have plans to make more X-tier cards too. That was unexpected after seeing UR and thinking that was the end tier.

A minor bug I did see or I misunderstood is "When this minion blocks, give target minion -3/-3 until the end of the turn." This card didn't block. I blocked against the card with this effect and it weakened my minion. The other stuff is simple things that you probably have on your todo list like the "all all" in text and the blinking cursor behind the "Character Name" text. There might have been another where if I have the exact amount of experience, I don't level. I can't confirm that one as I only saw it once. It's probably a simple < and <= mix up.  Another small issue is that music will stop playing in main phase which might be the result of spending a few minutes in that phase.

Overall, Card Artisan was a really fun experience to the point of mild addiction. I only managed to win the dungeon/castle raid once, so I haven't experienced all there is to in the game. I've barely reached level ten on the meta-progression stuff (I do wonder if I have to do meta-progression or if I can do a zero run all the time too, it's hard for me to know with enemy growth). There might be a bunch of information that flew over my head and I didn't realize it here. It was a bit sad to part ways with my deck after the first win.  I wanted to see how well it could last against more threats. I did have a slight expectation that the dungeon would go endlessly or at least ten floors. I understand that scaling is difficult though (as it does scale tremendously when you get to the second floor), so for what the experience was, the execution was done well. The visuals are nice and clean. The particles look a little weird sometimes like when battle ends and it fades or on health damage. Navigating a large hand of cards (10+) is a slight pain and likely not a common occurrence anyways. I don't know if you have plans for the top UI to be unfolded indefinitely. A couple times, I did want have the timer visible to see what my average time was and I wouldn't mind having it open at all moments for that. On my part, I forgot to look and so there is no record that I have on my times which is fine. I should remind myself more often. Similarly, I know there isn't saves yet, however have you thought about keeping a history of decks from run to run? I'm often curious what I played in different runs. Maybe other players don't care for that kind of thing though. I know it's a minor thing. I enjoyed the bits of writing that you did have with events and choices. They paired well with the art and it did feel immersive like a real dungeon crawl except you're a looter who fights with the power of cards made in a magic forge (or is it really all just an abstraction for bringing in a party?). Whatever it is, I look forward to what's next in terms of development, whether it be new card effects, that adventure mode or something else altogether. 

It wasn't a problem. I figured there might be some issues since the web version isn't fully tested so I know there's some weird behaviors. An example being that if you quit, it does what on a browser when it closes the game as a executable? Other than that, the game functions the same so I'm happy about that. Being compared to The Fellowship of the Ring. I didn't expect that. That's great to hear. I definitely want to push out those fantasy elements sooner into gameplay too. As with combat, there's more choices that I have planned in mind such as talking, item interactions (like throwing or giving), and movement that can cause you to move around the map. I think features like that will help increase the interactive feel. There's abilities and techniques that change the battlefield too similar to what you say. Factors like heightened stealth checking, different kinds of reactions and sword arts. 

In your particular case where you take damage immediately. It's supposed to be indicative of you losing initiative whereas if you spot the other person before they do, you've won initiative. I added some text to hopefully make it more clear. Heh, that is hilarious that you can't talk in the face of another character. Perhaps you're just seeing things... illusions... Yeah, some items have other benefits than healing. I haven't worked out exactly how to describe the effects yet. It should make more sense in the future. I'm glad you noticed. As of the moment, those are the types of characters you'll find. I disabled the others temporarily as I have to rework some aspects of the rooms to account for them. Just typical stuff that makes sense like biomes and habitats. 

With that, there's strange elements that might be to your liking? I suppose it depends on what you look for in high fantasy. I think it'll fit in though as high fantasy. Stuff like hundred-meter tall creatures and a pseudomagitech thing with materials. Right now it's a sort of grounded experience before it ramps up. I'll keep your words in mind about how to finalize that experience. I'm also pleased to hear the map was of use and that you even tried to draw one yourself. I've been thinking about some fun mechanics related to that like map notes and changing the indicators. 

Thanks for playing. I'm glad to hear that you'd like it and that you didn't have any hiccups in your experience. I found the map essential at a certain point too as the map gets a lot bigger. It's quite something to try and travel in blindness. It also made me realize how you really could get lost in the game's world.

I like the drawing kind of style you're going for. The font is pretty cool too. I wonder if the that's all the same font size or if the letters really are that big like S and H. The concept is really nifty. Telepathically wielding a sword while stuck in an ancient codex. I could see an entire story come out of that. Since you have blades thrown at you anyways, it doesn't make much of a difference if the codex had a destination it was going to that once you reached, win something. It's more of a level based format or it could be a continuous based format where as you hit certain points, you get something fun to read in the codex or start to see different patterns of attacks. Might be more simple things like you start off with a plank of wood and gradually get a longer or thicker blade as you go on. The sword looks like it has some kind of gem embedded into it, so could even be magic that activates periodically. It could even have an ending where you free yourself from the inks of the pages. Overall, good presentation and a nice way to pass time. Only question that leaves me curious is what the background is.  I think it's a sandy ground or maybe you're in a basement. We may never know. 

Nice and chill game. I could see myself playing this some more in the future. Roll applicants for dungeon diving, compare and contrast stats, reroll again for a new batch then watch their skills in action from whatever awaits in the dungeon. I like how the dungeon team comes out from the camp or hiring location and walks around. It's a small thing with a big impact in atmosphere. You could definitely do some fun stuff with that like doing idle animations and interacting with other objects in the scene. It looks like there's seven stats so far and I assume the 100 means health if there is health. The zero above the 100 must be a level or something similar. Definitely curious how the game will develop further. Right now, it's already raising up fun questions like are there different areas to embark to or is it one dungeon that's extremely tough and since the dungeon is tough, does it require multiple embarkments, parties or runs to reach the bottom or anything of interest? Then that raises the question of if since you can return to camp, can you choose to dungeon crawl for a certain amount of levels then come back and if so do you have to heal your dungeon team? If you have to heal your dungeon team, does the team heal passively or is there a cost involved and if there's healing then maybe there's also some kind of preparation system before you embark. That system could be to buff up your dungeon team temporarily for one embarkment at a cost or you need certain kinds of characters to cross certain kinds of areas. Imagine there's a broken bridge, so you need to bring along a wizard who can use levitation to carry the team across it. After checking the area across the bridge, you could see if it's always worth going to or if it was a one-time experience that's fully looted now. I suppose it depends if every dungeon embarkment is different or if it's always the same. If it's the same then you could understand you only need to prepare certain types of characters at certain moments. It's like a limitation that allows for puzzle-like areas where since you always need a wizard with levitation or a ranger with a rope, that you can't always bring some other character you want like a super heavy tank who's really good at defending against a dungeon minotaur. The pathing makes me think there could be a lot of different kinds of pathing later on too like how tower defense games are where they wrap around or come together.  You mention some town management which could be interesting too, since dungeon crawling might be profitable then a town might build itself around a dungeon. That could lead to a variety of scenarios. I'm looking forward to what you get up to with this game.

Nice aesthetic. I really like it. Pressing Z to zoom in and see closer with X to zoom out is a good feature. I don't know if you'll keep that out of the debugging phase. The vending machine details resonate with me too.  The strange almost rune like letters that feels otherworldly while also feeling familiar since I know how it functions. Or do I? Maybe I don't know and it's a magic vending machine. The food vending machine has those kinds of markings that look like there's more meaning to them that I have yet to know. The ones under the question mark and the top right.  Then there's the cute rumbling when you interact with them using E. I wonder if they're run down machines or if that's a shading style you've got going on for the sides. In any case, I'm fond of it. 

The lamp is an enigma. I believe it's either a hint towards housing, puzzles or it's just cool to have a functionality to interact with things. I do know that it gets dark as time goes on and the building to the left stays lit and that the lamp is good for seeing in that darkness too. There's also the mushrooms to the top left that glow. I look forward to seeing what comes out of that. The jump with Slt is pretty fun and so is the one with W that lets you teleport to however high it goes. 

At first, I wasn't sure how to recover energy and I thought I could only use W to attack. I figured it might have to do with using items from the vending machine and it does. Pressing V looks let me see the inventory or equipment and I know that's not fully implemented yet. Then there's that you could only buy two of the items. It looks like the top right drink on the drink machine gives me the "5 Copper coin required" message and the pizza on the food machine gives me the same message when I try to buy using Space so those may be the only two. I do like how they pop out of the machine when you buy them. Since I didn't know how to recover and it was kind of a pain to not have my attack ability available at all times. I used the Home button to level up and refresh my bars. This let me jump with Alt and attack with W as much as I wanted. I also got stats points which is useful. I'm not really sure what the other points do aside from STR which makes damage go up at a moderate pace. I know DEF can't be added to. I tried out VIT, AGI, LCK and INT and I'm sure they do something. It just might be hard for me to see. Back to the recovery point, I eventually realized that when you press Page Down, your character is sleeping which is the recovering state. I thought it was a prone state like when you press down until I realized the eyes of the character close and there's a different animation. It's obviously much more clear if you're not in the snow to see it happening which is how I noticed.  After 1 or 2 seconds, you heal back the red bar and blue bar.  Funny thing is after I found out about Page Down, I figured out how to eat and drink using A and S, so that was useful. 

Before all of that recovering stuff, I just used Home to recover or death since that recovers you too without losing stats as restarting the game would. R in particular was good to have because I would have to add my stats back if I wanted to see the content again. I'm not sure about the exact order or if there even is an order for completing the content. I saw all of it if not most of it. Spoilers ahead if anyone else is reading this. The Fire Elemental, the Walrus, the Ice Stones, the Bird Thing, the Giant Stone, the Giant Totem, the Vine Girl,  the Giant Vine Girl, the Log with Vines coming out of its face and with arms and the Totem King. Then there's the items like the Egg, the Bone, the Circular Vine, the Leaf, the Ice Flower, the Stone, the Coal(?), the Pizza,  the Soda(?), the Ice Block(?), the Log, and the Key. The damaged animations for a lot of those enemies were very nice too like the damaged stones. There's also the Gatcha Machine where you can get a Black Fish, Gold Fish, and a Shrimp. I'm honestly not sure where you get silver coins or how I had so much that I could buy all those pets and they just slayed everything. As far as I'm aware, only the Fire Elemental gives you a silver coin. The Vine Girl, who I assume is the Princess, follows you after you talk to her and I don't know if she does anything either aside from being able to jump with you. There is the gold coin from the Totem King. It is possible that a gold coin is worth a hundred silver coins or something like that. In hindsight, those coins might be related.

After finishing all of that content, I stumbled upon the other abilities. The shuriken toss when you jump and use Q. It's a kunai when you go prone and use Q. That can also be used with Alt as that launches you into a jump state. Going prone in the air is still a shuriken on the other hand. Then there's the ultimate D which jets out all kinds of weapons in a circle and uses up your white bar. You have to jump for that one which is why I didn't know it was a thing until the end. Interesting thing about that D ability is that it has the same electrical charge you get when you use Home to level. Not sure if those are related in some way because the electrical charge after your character doesn't seem to go away after a period of time. 

I assume Home just gives you experience as in the beginning, you level up quickly and later it slows down by incrementally increasing the yellow bar. I like the level up effect. I had to see it a lot after all. Same with the wasp you have floating over your character the entire time. Never did figure out what it does as from look really pretty. I also noticed that Home heals you and gives you experience so I suppose I'm not sure if leveling heals you either.

I played with keyboard and on the browser so if there's some unintended things, then maybe that'll help you understand better about what happened with my experience. For example, pressing enter lets me see the message and type messages. Only issue is I can't exit the chat with enter or esc, so I have to refresh the page to play again. I'm actually not sure what esc does aside from freezing the game and exiting full screen. Overall, very fun experience. Best parts being thrown around the map and quick traveling with the bird. Then there's the awesome looking Totem King. I will visit the forest forever stuck between Winter and Spring again.

Thanks for playing.

>there should be a way to indicate what name should be used when trying to interact with an object. (examine note vs examine tiny note)

Yeah that's a minor issue I forgot about, so thanks for reminding me. There's no notes after the first few areas, so it wouldn't be clear until you saw how many different kinds of notes there are that it's always going to be the "adjective + object".

>support for synonyms would be helpful. for example, the beginning prison cell, the "sack" is also referred to as a "bag". but only "sack" works with commands

Yeah, I noticed that after I submitted and thought I might as well go reread the rest of scenes too to make sure I don't make that mistake again. I try to refer to the objects by one identifier in each area. The "sack" one escaped me initially because you can open the sack without reading the text which in testing, I did very often. 

>it would be helpful to show what travel directions are currently available (for example in the beginning prison cell: "to the north you see a path leading to a forest")

That's a good idea. I'll get to implementing that. 

>commands and targets on a single line would be great. (examine sack vs examine. sack.)

I think so too, it's in the works with formatting.

>auto "look" when arriving to an area

I can do that.

>maybe you can refer to monsters in combat by a number? like attack 1 vs attack goblin 1. 

Yeah, that's not a problem. Once I fix the other target bug, I can add this feature.

>i gave up after failing to figure out how to take or wear "copper tipped boots". maybe i'm just smol brain.

Nah, totally reasonable. I thought that might be a bit confusing at first too so I'm glad you mentioned it. It should be "pair of copper tipped boots". This is to differentiate it from possible non-paired items. 

>i think if you work on qol, it would benefit the gameplay significantly. too much friction at the moment.

>i like the aesthetic you have with the font + blueish black background. gives off a sense of elegance.

Thank you! I'll continue to work on those QoL features and hopefully it's more enjoyable in the future for you too.