itch.io

Hi, thanks for playing! You’re not doing anything wrong, we didn’t have time to implement a more straightforward ‘clear state’ transition. If you move right on the chapter select screen you can access the other chapter

I liked the idle movement of the dragoons in the waiting/evolving area, but sometimes they'd move over one another/too close to the incubator and it would become really hard or impossible to select the specific dragoon I was trying to move into my field. I didn't realize there was a tank on the field at all during the first level because click and drag to scroll was a bit finnicky and I thought I was already at the end of the map because of it. I also only realized there was more than four levels on the level select menu because I hit my scroll bar accidentally, I think this menu would be better laid out if no scrolling was required at all to see the other levels (or an arrow indicator to let the player know there's more stuff above the visible area of screen). The art and atmosphere overall was very lovely and the strategy was pretty engaging!

The look and feel of the game and gameplay is really clean and solid!

One thing I wish there was was more motivation/reward for the player. E.g. after playing once the only motivation I have to play more is to beat my previous self or other players, so something like a leaderboard at the end of rounds that would allow me to see how I did this round vs the last rounds would be fun! I was actually hoping other people might be posting their scores in the comments so I would have an idea of a good "score to beat" to get a lil more fun out of it.

A real shooter style minimap would've added just a little bit more fancy touch as well.

The art and designs are absolutely gorgeous, the sound is very spooky, and the atmosphere is on point! 

Unfortunately I found it really difficult to get the final ending. I didn't notice for a very long time that the mint card was just a sliver of turquoise that could be seen behind Doki's head (not sure if this was intentional layout or something with my browser) so it took me a lot of tries to even realize it was there, especially because Doki wouldn't "walk" in or out of the room, when I entered or exited she just teleported in and out of the room so I didn't get a "oh wait was that the card I just passed?" type moment when leaving the room. I also got very confused when I found the "formula" bottle first, because when clicked on it would pop up with something like "i need potions to make the cure", which confused me because I thought the "cure box" from earlier would have a cure in it, I think just renaming the "cure box" to "potion box" would've helped me understand what was intended tremendously.

I felt like I understood what the gameplay was going for but a lot of it ended up just being trial and error and brute forcing, as others have said the layout was confusing, I think a map would probably help but some way of differentiating what the arrows indicated would also help, for example if the arrows that pointed towards the exit were yellow and arrows that just exist to indicate another room in any direction were pink, etc.. I also think slightly more puzzle elements instead of just traveling from room to room could've made the gameplay more engaging.

There were a couple minor issues as well- dialogue issues: one spot where a line is attributed to Doki that I think was meant to be Mint? and a part where the Narrator repeats their dialogue (Both when talking to Mint on the right side of the map IIRC). I got a bug where Doki was stuck running in place infinitely which I believe was caused by clicking two different spots to travel to and Doki getting stuck between them. Agree with other commenters that some kind of effect to indicate interactable would be great. The hitbox for clicking the crowbar felt very small, and the hitbox for the mint card didn't line up with the part of it I could see. Sometimes with the cards especially you didn't have to click them in your inventory to get to the area they were locking, sometimes you did have to click them, not sure what caused the difference, sorry.

Overall I enjoyed the game! I think a few player consideration/accessibility design changes could've made it even better

Big agree with other comments about wanting pathing for the dragoons, objectives pre-declared, and feeling that some cutscene parts were long, but overall really good and well made! I liked the literal use of 'bird's eye view', and the accessibility design and player consideration was very thorough.

I personally wasn't a huge fan of the wisp shooting mechanic because it felt to me like trying to play two minigames at once instead of a fully incorporated element to the main gameplay, but that's personal preference.

Sometimes if I saw I was failing and didn't hit the retry button quick enough I'd get the doki peace sign scene interrupting me, even though I failed/had dragoons escape, then had to pick the retry button again after the cutscene.

I felt bad about shooting the wisps, not sure if I missed whether or not there was a lore reason for us to be killing them, Mints anguished death cry was funny but it made me feel a lil evil lol.

The ending cutscene was cute!! I thought the theme was already obvious/well implemented into the gameplay but the extra little bit from that lore was a really nice touch!

Totally not in my normal genre/style of game preference at all, but found it to be super fun and addicting to keep going as long as I could!

rube goldberg machine mentioned!!

This feels like something I could've played a bunch on coolmathgames, very fun and super impressive scope!

I think my biggest critique isn't even about the game- I think it would be nice if a more standard/readable font was used for important information on the game page.

About the game itself (I have a lot to say because it was very enjoyable and I hope you'll do more game stuff in the future!):

- Would be super beneficial to have a "clear all pieces in level" button

- Depth perception skill issue on my part, but having more visual aids in the tilemaps to distinguish the grid so I know what spots are lining up where I want them to easier would be helpful (e.g. if each diagonal row had slight variation from the next in a stripe-pattern, almost? so you could know "oh this is part of the slightly darker row, so it will line up with the slightly darker row over there")

- Not sure if it was intentional that pieces did not have to be part of the reaction to count towards the gold medal. I liked that it made it easy for me to get gold every time but felt like I was cheesing it (maybe I just lack integrity in games)

- The little bits of humour that allowed the dev's personality to shine through were a delight- I liked the 'lore' and the breakdancing dragoon a lot.

- When I got to the last level I got a little terrified at first glance of the 4million buttons but I think it was absolutely perfect as a final level- not so easy that it feels anticlimactic but not so difficult or frustrating that I didn't feel well rewarded for my time. In general for a first dev project it felt like your grasp on gameplay loop and how to reward the player was brilliant!

same critiques as other commenters about RNG/balancing of elements, but the core gameplay is really interesting! I found the strategy element super engaging for the relatively simple gameplay loop. When I read the description I was pretty confused about what the game is and how it's played but trial and error of playing through the game a few times allowed me to easily and naturally understand the individual systems and how I could improve my own choices for better chances of progression, which I think is a very high-level game design quality to have!