itch.io

I haven't been paying attention to Itch, so I only noticed this just now.  Thank you!

Planet was reserved, but no points were stockpiled.  I don't know if this is a problem with the building itself or an interaction with the planet's passive ability to stay in hand when reserved.

[edit] On a related note, it's really hard to test if the buildings are working if I have to properly earn them every single game.  Would it be possible to get a Debug Mode on the Production Panel that allows testers to build locked buildings for free? [/edit]

The text for "Acquire a new moon for one of your planets" needs to be resized.

Version Alpha 0.8.2 is now live.

1) In the civilization and faction selection screen, the introductory texts for two of the factions (rebels and core) are cut off at the end.

2) Playing for the rebels, the Crisis system is missing in action.  I haven't tested the other factions, yet.

3) Faction-specific unlock buildings do NOT appear in the Production panel and cannot be built.

When I woke up today, I thought of a couple of things.

1) I realized that I'm dominating a LOT of the conversation in this forum.  We (that is, you, me, and anyone else who shows up) have to keep in mind that "what Seamus likes" and "what makes for an interesting game" are two non-identical sets.

2) Similarly, "What makes for an interesting game to experienced players" and "what makes for an interesting game for new players" are also two different sets.  At some point down the line, it might be worth implementing a difficulty setting so that new players don't get frustrated and quit early.  For example, whether Threats can be attacked using any Defense points or only Defense points generated this turn, whether nodes on the Technology Tree are hidden at the start of the game, whether end-of-turn Wellness decay drops in response to generating a Crisis Point or drops when the relevant branch is no longer active, whether the player needs to achieve one victory condition or all five victory conditions to win the game, and so on.

Of course, having two different sets of rules, either of which MIGHT be active during one particular game, will increase the risk of bugs, so this is definitely a low-priority idea.

Regarding 2) A special panel to select both planet and asteroid at the same time wold be ideal, but if this entails too much development time, then just displaying one asteroid on the side and having three planets to pick from probably makes the most narrative sense.

Regarding 4) "Cross-Disciplinary Research" - "Completing any Technology allows Science points to be spent in the closest Technologies directly above and below in the same column".  So, the player can choose between jumping the branches on the technology tree OR whatever the other Wellness Bonus is (like reducing the cost of Tier 2 buildings, if I remember correctly).

This happened again in my most recent playthrough.  I think it's some sort of interplay between Combat and Science upgrades.  I had to win the game quickly (in terms of real time) before the game lagged out completely.

I no longer have my choices of upgrades in front of me, but I think the relevant upgrades are as follows:

COMBAT > 2 random points per kill

COMBAT > "Beam Splitter"

COMBAT > -1 Defense needed per laser shot

SCIENCE > Destroying an enemy damages all other enemies (I think the Technology name used the word "Shrapnel", but I forget the entire name)

I was shooting only the Mothership, leaving the second shot from "Beam Splitter" to hit Local Threats.

Based on what was being animated, the points being awarded were arising from a recursive killing of Local Threats.  The Local Threats "died" but weren't actually removed, damaged other Local Threats via Shrapnel, which then "died" (but weren't actually removed), then got "killed" by those other Local Threats via Shrapnel (but wasn't removed), damaged other Local Threats via Shrapnel, AD INFINITUM.

I'm covering multiple points in this post.

[edit] Note that I can't seem to master formatting in these posts.  That's why the post looks a little weird. [/edit]

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The one and only time I picked this option, the game forced me to choose between three of my best planets.  This is probably bad luck, but still,unless the Strategic Resources gained scale with how good the planet is, I can't see this being worthwhile in the vast majority of cases.  This is a malus, not a bonus.

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It would be really helpful if I could see which three planets I can choose from to apply the asteroid to at the same time as I'm choosing the asteroid.  If, for some reason, you want to keep this a gamble, then it would at least be helpful if I could review all of my planets so that I could consider the most likely scenarios.  This brings me to my next point....

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It would really be helpful if I was able to review all of the planets I have to determine which type of points my planets are most likely to produce next turn.  Currently, these displays do NOT function properly while any modal windows are active.  Note that the "Interference" Crisis (which hides out-of-hand planets) is NOT in effect in this example.

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Having played about a dozen games or so, having a hidden tech tree is really an annoyance.  I am NOT a fan of it.  I request that we go back to having an always-visible Tech Tree and eliminating "Futurology" as a Wellness bonus.

The issue is indeed just accidentally ending the turn.  Either of those solutions would also work, yes.

Just now, a Wonder Unlock panel appeared.  I accidentally double-clicked the button to acknowledge it; the End Turn button just so happened to be in the same spot, so the second click ended the turn when I did not intend to do this; I lost the excess Production that I would have used to resolve a Crisis that turn.

I request that the "End Turn" button be returned to it's old spot off to the right.

Maybe put the tooltip tot he upper-right instead of the lower-right.  This would dodge the cursor completely.

In a playthrough several hours ago, this happened:

Overlapping points icons in the modal window AND I somehow have two capitols, here.  :P

Okay, here's an example of what I'm talking about: 

In this case, I definitely picked the Wellness Bonus "Cooperative Endeavors".  So, uncovering an Exploration tile found an event AND ALSO gave 3 Science that completed a Technology at the same time.

Some operating systems allow the user to make cursors bigger.  When this happens, the cursor can overlap the tooltip.  The MacOS screenshot command (Shift-Command-3) did NOT render the cursor in this case, so I had to approximate it here to show the problem.

...

I recommend changing this to read "Gives +3 Science when exploring a tile and +3 Exploration when completing a tech."

"when completing a mission" implies that uncovering a tile MUST find an Exploration event (as opposed to empty space) to get the +3 Science.

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The number of Crisis Points per Crisis seems to alternate between 6 and 8.  Is this intended?

I didn't think to take a screenshot of this, but the following happened.

1) I Selected two planets and played them.

2) While the points were still being moved around, I went to the exploration grid and clicked on a tile.  An Exploration event asking me to pick a reward came up.

3) While I was looking at that event, Science points finally moved into place and a technology was completed.  The technology announcement appeared BEHIND the Exploration event.  The Exploration event was uninteractable; it didn't respond to mouseclicks.

4) A TINY SLIVER of the button acknowledging the Science completion was sticking out from behind the bottom edge of the Exploration event, so I clicked on that.  The Science announcement closed and the Exploration event display worked normally.

It might be worth putting modal windows into a queue if a modal window is already active.  Also, it might be worth allowing the user to select an option that says "I know how the game works, just move the points instantly once I play my planets, please."

I'll need to pay closer attention, but towards the late game I think a Crisis can happen with 5 Crisis Points and takes around 30 Resource Points to resolve, so any trade of 6 Resource Points per Crisis Point is roughly break-even; the ratio needs to be greater to actually be worthwhile (assuming that Crisis Response Centers are not being used).

POSSIBLE SOFTLOCK

The condition for unlocking the next Exploration region uses an == operator instead of a >= operator.

DETAILS:

In my most recent game, I explored enough of Region 1 to unlock Region 2.  I explored part of Region 2, then went back to Region 1 to find all of the events there, then returned to Region 2.

Upon switching my attention back to Region 2, I noticed that my unlock progress to Region 3 was 23/12, as shown in the screenshot, and yet Region 3 was still locked.

I continued the rest of the game looking to achieve a non-Exploration victory with as little additional Exploration progress as possible.  I managed to achieve a Production/Wonder victory with only 1 Exploration tile remaining in Region 1; all other tiles in Region 1 and all tiles in Region 2 were uncovered.

I surmise that (1) the condition for unlocking Region 3 only checks for equality when exploring a tile in Region 2, that (2) the condition for unlocking Region 3 is NOT checked when exploring a tile in Region 1, that (3) exploring a tile in Region 1 nevertheless increments the counter for unlocking Region 3, and that (4) if it had taken me another turn to achieve a victory, then I would have entered a softlock condition where the game would not allow me to end the turn because I have enough Exploration points to send an Exploration mission, but no remaining tiles to send a mission to.

Not technically a bug, but I'm going to treat it as one:

I only JUST NOW realized that these are buttons that switch between Exploration regions.  This is not obvious.  I only discovered this because I clicked on them by accident while aiming for something else.

Please put a black box behind these things to make them distinguishable from the background, and add the words "Previous Region" and "Next Region".

Somehow, and I do not know how, I managed to get thousands of each kind of points upon firing on Threats.  I was in Mothership phase, with Cargo (I think?), Blockade, and Harvest threats.  Look at the Science, Exploration, and Wellness panels.

The game lagged severely, which was my first clue that something was wrong.  I decided to quickly go to the Science victory before it crashed my browser or something.

I can't tell at a glance how many Wellness points to the next branch above or below.  This is particularly important if I want to spend Wellness points on a Crisis, but don't want to lose the benefits of a branch at the end of the turn.

Version Alpha 0.8.1 is now live.

For the options "Orbital Survey" and "Land a Team", what is the intended use case, here?  Is this to support ride-the-edge strategies that lean heavily on "Crisis Response Center" buildings where the player WANTS to get more crisis points?  (I forget if this is the correct name; it's whichever building type that generates 3 random resource points for each active Crisis when played.)

[edit] Yes, "Crisis Response Center".  Immediately after I posted this, the next Exploration event provided it as an unlock option, so I'm looking at it now. [/edit]

Exploration bug.

As the last event in Region 1, I found an Unknown Ship and was asked what I wanted to do with it.  I chose the option to communicate, which would reveal two tiles in Region 1.  I completely forgot that this was going to be the last event in Region 1, and the game then switched to Region 2 with no revealed tiles.

It was basically a wasted exploration event.

Ideally, what the game should do is reveal however many promised tiles in the next region instead.  However, if this is intended behavior, then the Communicate option should be blocked, leaving only Fight and Trade.

When offering choices like these, it might be worth adding failsafes to make sure that all choices are distinct from each other.  :P

Somehow, and I do not know how, I wound up with negative laser points.

Some sort of event logging might be in order.

A technology and a weapon upgrade were completed at the same time.  I don't know if THIS is how you wanted to handle it.

Tier 1 has an incomplete sentence.

I do NOT understand what Tiers 2 and 3 are trying to tell me.  Is the number of locked buildings going to increase each turn until I can't build anything at all because they're ALL locked?

Version Alpha 0.8.1 is now live.

Incomplete sentence at game start.

It's a map setting.  Only some maps allow this.  In Conquest mode, you want to set the "Mode" to "Occupation".

Alpha 0.7.1 is now live.

Early game defense threats are easier to deal with in this version than Alpha 0.7.  That being said, I still don't like this combat system as it makes it almost impossible to use Combat points against Crises; only 2 to 5 Combat points can be used against a Crisis per turn depending on selected weapon upgrades and whether or not the Subversion Crisis is in effect.  In later stages of the game, Combat points get converted into extra Laser Charges before I have a chance to divert them into Crisis resolution.

Come to think of it, similar restrictions exist with trying to use Science and Exploration points against Crises, as well, but Combat has become even more restrictive in this regard than Science and Exploration.  I do not believe that this restriction should exist for any of these systems.  When planets are played, would it be possible to hold the harvested points until the player has a chance to send some of those points directly to Crises?

Alpha 0.7.1 is now live.

Weapon upgrade "Fragment Collar" - "1 bonus point on hit".

If multiple charges are accumulated in a single turn and the Major Threat is clicked rapidly, only one bonus point is awarded.  Getting the full effect requires shooting only once at a time, waiting for each bonus point to arrive before firing again.

As a stop-gap measure, you could make "Tactical Systems" a guaranteed first-step technology.  +2 Combat per turn makes a HUGE difference in the very early game.

Two issues happening simultaneously, here.

First, it seems that when two Local Threats are present, destroying one of them can turn the other Local Threat into an inert illusion.  It won't do anything and the player can't shoot it.  However, the slot can still be occupied by a functioning Local Threat, making the text hard or impossible to read.

Second, with the Beam Splitter upgrade, I had accumulated 5 laser charges prior to the Mothership showing up (I'll explain how later because this is a different bug), so I clicked the Mothership 5 times in rapid succession.  The Cargo Ship went from having +1 hitpoint to -4 hitpoints; it completely skipped zero.

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Separate from the screenshot above, it is possible to play more planets than technically allowed by repeatedly clicking various planets in-hand.

I might be overreacting a bit due to external factors.  It has been hot and humid in New York City for some time, now.  I'll give this another try tomorrow.

Alpha 0.7 is now live.

I've played two games, so far, one that I gave up on and one that I won.

Overall, I strongly dislike the new combat system.  It makes combat threats in the early game SO MUCH HARDER to deal with that I don't like playing anymore.  Please consider a rollback to Alpha 0.6.2.

Combat points are really hard to accumulate in the first 20 turns, especially when the tech "Tactical Systems" is NOT an early technology (either buried too deep into the tech tree or absent completely).  Constructing buildings in the early game was already hard enough, but if a Pirate shows up early it's now even harder because I need 5 Combat points to get back any Production points that the Pirate (or Pirates if a second one showed up) stole.

Alpha 0.7 is now live.

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I don't know how, but I somehow wound up with an illusory enemy.  It doesn't do anything and I can't shoot it.

This leads to the problem of overlapping enemies, one of which is illusory.

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You can't see it in this screenshot, but on my screen, the mouse cursor was overlapping the word "Ship" in the tooltip, so I couldn't figure out what the tooltip was describing as "disabled".  It might be relevant that I have my operating system's pointer size to be larger than normal; this carries over automatically to the "gauntleted hand" cursor that Cardalaxy uses.

"Destroyer" - "Destroys all of one type of points"

This took effect when planets were played, not at end of turn as expected.

[edit] Also, the effect isn't clear from the description.  I was under the impression that it would destroy all stockpiled points of a given type rather than the points created that turn from playing planets. [/edit]

As of the time of this writing, the current version of Cardalaxy is Alpha 0.6.2.

Having played the current version about a dozen times, now, I've noticed that the difficulty in the game is somewhat frontloaded into the early game.  By Turn 3, the combat system starts putting pressure on the player to address the combat system.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, but it can be difficult to manage if the "Tactical Systems" technology (+2 Combat if already producing Combat this turn) is 3 or 4 steps deep into the randomly-generated Technology Tree or is missing from the tree completely.

Defeating Combat threats gives bonus points in all areas except Combat; this is a nice touch, but comes with a side-effect: some of these points randomly go into Wellness.  Once the first Wellness bonus is triggered, the Unwellness drain activates and doesn't ever stop.  (This wasn't the case in the previous version of Cardalaxy, so I'm wondering if this is a bug; I've posted on the Bug Report thread about this.)  This now means that the player is getting pressured on two fronts: Combat and Wellness, and the player might not yet have access to the Tier 2 buildings needed to easily address this.

The first Crisis happens around Turn 10 or so, which then means that the player is under pressure from three fronts simultaneously.  This is a little tricky to juggle without the appropriate Tier 2 buildings.

If the player gets past this phase, then the game gets easier.

The only suggestion I have at the moment to take some of the pressure off the early game is to disable the Unwellness drain if all Wellness bonuses are deactivated.

Alpha 0.6.2

Bug #1: I found 8 out of the 7 Exploration events in the first region.

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Bug #2: Once the first Wellness bonus is triggered, Unwellness drain continues even if the first Wellness bonus is lost.

Okay, I just figured it out.

The current actual behavior of "Blockade" is that it reduces the number of planet draws per turn by 1 (uncounterable until Blockade is destroyed) AND prevents constructing buildings on the targeted planet (counterable by shooting the Blockade once per turn).

It's worth noting that Blockade does not prevent the targeted planet from being played.

What is the intended behavior, here, please?

Blockade behavior has changed in a way that doesn't make sense.

Before shooting the Blockade:

After shooting the Blockade: