itch.io

I loved it! Although I don't play tower defense at all.

I avoided the game description on the itch page and started the game without it.

First I learned how to put up towers, and then I learned how upgrade them with a random click :D

A cell highlight when hovering would have been very helpful, so the player could immediately understand the interactivity of clicking without needing to click.

Also, maybe you know, the cells at the top and the cells in the top right corner are hard enough to interact. The pop-up menu is covered by the edge of the screen. And in the corner, the pause and speed up buttons also overlap the purchase/upgrade menu.

Every level I felt that I was on the edge of defeat and could lose, but I managed to beat all the waves. Very pleasant feeling, and a lot of defeated dice, giving me coins, multiplied the pleasant feelings :D

Sometimes I didn't understand which turret was going to fire at which location. And it was a bit odd when turrets covering 2 roads would fire at those dice closer to the turret, rather than those closer to the end of the road (and the potential damage to the main tower).

But other than that, it was an enjoyable game!

It was a very enjoyable game!

Good enemy progression. I also pleased with the mechanics with random enhancements when combining paired dice results. At first I tried to do it on purpose, it didn't really work. However, with a large number of dice, I was trying to just take the dice that weren't outlined already. And recieve good buffs as a nice bonus.

Toward the end of the voting, it's already a little hard to play a lot of games, but this kind of thing makes you enjoy the moment!

Good luck with that!

That kind of golf is pretty interesting!

I like that in addition to the usual rolling into the hole, it makes moving the dice a secondary goal (although for me both are primary) in order to give the next dice more steps.

When I was trying to get through a level with buttons and two bridges, it reminded me of golf on the Nintentdo Wii. I kept getting so many moves that I couldn't put another dice on the button. It reminded me of the perpetual misses past the hole when trying to make the final shot. It was funny :D

I think it's nice to have a simple input to influence some not-so-simple mechanics.

There's no hassle to control, you know which domino to drop to affect a certain thing or several things. The domino principle is really appropriate to mention here, because you're not just hitting enemies or defending yourself, you're also affecting the skills you execute.

It's indirect control, and it's pretty good here.

I'd love to see your game with everything you've learned!

That's a very clever puzzle with smooth animations!

At first I was afraid and tried to solve this fast enough because of cracks in the ice :D

Also, maybe it could be easier to play with camera at some angle. At least I could see 3 faces instead of 2.

Some levels had so many tiles that I just stopped guessing in my mind the first few tries to complete the level and just went at random. I just suggest that smaller levels are better for this game.

All in all, that's a solid puzzle game!

Whew, I'm getting a little sweaty from this game.

This is a great idea. However, I was too nervous when I could already see which face I needed to put the dice on, but even a short press on the directional button would turn the dice away too much. Maybe some kind of slow mode could have been added with holding the ctrl button. The game is similar to golf, so it might lack its putter.

Also, I later found out that the game waits until the cube remains at a 0 angle to the floor. My current angle is wrong, but the face of the dice is the right one. Usually developers wait until the dice stops and then look to see which face is closest to the top. Although you could have avoided this if the answer box was a simple outline rather than a square pressed into the ground. 

However, I would love to play a reworked version of this game.

Nice game!

I really liked the idea of more open to the player fishing mechanics. 

I remember with horror the hours of fishing in Terraria, although it was fun.

Your game isn't particularly big for multiple scenes. Changing the fishing scene to and from the store was a bit laggy in terms of background music. You could have had a short animation and sound stop when you pressed the button, and then do the scene transitions already. 

Or you could have everything in one scene, just off screen. Especially the player can quite often move between scenes. These are just my suggestions.

It would also be cool to see, instead of drag'n'drop cards with fish, how fish flounder, hanging on my cursor :D

I really enjoyed your game! Usually people said that to me about my game, but here I understood why they said that, that the game opened up to them in a new way when they learned new mechanics.

At first I was just picking my offense and defense. After a while, I noticed that the things I choose (in which there is no word) turn out to be abilities in the upper left corner. And I have to choose attack or defense to activate them.

Initially I was just looking and didn't understand why the character was doing some extra action.

Oh, correction. Read it in the comments. Turns out fullscreen takes away the text display. However, for your game, you could call it a plus. I was able to navigate without text :D

So, I interrupted. Perhaps when doing an attack/defense, it would be worth doing some sort of glittering line fly through from left to right in the background of the skill. And if the skill is completely full, you could make that line bigger for the player to notice. You don't have to make the interface stay within its zone. These lines can cover the center of the screen a bit so that the player pays attention to it. However, this is just an example.

The gameplay is very addictive. With very little health, I made it through a few more floors on the shields only. Got to some floors with no background wall, just columns. Again, was without text, don't know which one is which :0

In general, you can seriously try to practice readability of the game with the erasure of the entire text from the game :D

The game is very interesting, addictive strongly.

Thanks for your kind words!

I read it and realized that our action on 6, for example, an attack, won't be maxed out and have 12 damage ever if we defend player from repeating all the dices. But, I realize, in that case I don't have a choice of action at all.

It's a risky decision, I'll think about it. Thanks for your feedback! 

Thank you for your response!

I've dealt with turn-based arithmetic games where you solve an example with non-repeatable answers. Such a problem is familiar.

The rolls are random and can be repeated anyway, but I think I can protect the player from too much repetition of the same values.

The action list tied to the values might also be fixable for a neater and/or more careful distribution. It might be a good idea to make a system of forbidding certain actions for certain positions.

What caused you most frustration? The throws themselves, the complete change in the order of actions, or the instability of the number of different actions on the list? Or maybe you can tell for yourself?

Saw your game on Mark's stream. It's an awesome game, well done!

I really liked it :D Flying body parts, like Rayman, amused me.

The style is cool! The sounds are fun, but I think they should have tied the playback of the hit sound to a single hit instead of each enemy. It sounds scary in a crowd :D

Very well played the theme, and the dice effects are quite good.

Very cool game of the jam!

You have a very interesting idea! 

I really enjoyed collecting these combinations. It would be cool if the game itself displayed what combination the player collected.

You might not have had time to make the sounds, but for shmup you could make some visual indicators of where the boss is coming from.

Also, at first, it's not very obvious that the dice flying out in random directions are added to the player themselves (as far as I understand it myself).

It would be cool if they stopped somewhere in the middle of the screen, and the player would already decide which dice to toss out and which to take.

Also a question. I haven't been able to collect this way, but do you have any combinations that aren't mutually exclusive. How would it work? For example, you could collect all values in ascending order and so that all values are even or odd. There should only be one weapon that applies. Or both at once?

Cool name of the game, by the way. When I opened your game page, I screamed the name. Too epic to pronounce boring :D

That's a cute style and nice palette! I'd call it "Something Undertale-like, only with neat drawings" :D

You have a cool and smooth camera work but I felt betrayed when I jumped off a cliff and landed on an enemy which I didn't see :D

I think you could reposition camera to show upper platforms more to show player that they could reach it with their jump.

Also, you could add some UI with "exiting" from stations and chests. I pressed everything and then I figured out that I needed "Escape".

I suppose gml error in the end at the hitbox_dicer_obj was the opportunity to exit from the game :D

Maybe I was trying to be too practical and trying to minimize the failures by getting the whole dice together, and then I would already roll myself whatever I needed.

I really liked the style and music of the game. Your music was enjoyable and didn't bore me at all, well done!

The concept is interesting, and the juiciness of the game is top notch. 

Except that my interaction with the dice is a bit twitchy. Sometimes it lands somewhere above the dice, sometimes in it. My guess is that I should not have changed the collision according to the image of the dice and leave it as it is.

I really liked the idea of randomized projectiles and the option to choose which types of projectiles to prepare for battle.

Animation of randomizing new projectiles felt too long for me :D At first I didn't think that it was intentionally as reloading in order to stop the player from spamming these projectiles.

It would be lovely if I could swap projectile order in the lower panel, it could fasten player preparation.

The look of the game is very nice, I enjoyed!

This is a very original idea!

The variable strike force is very cool for the strategic component of the game, forcing you to remember your positioning in order to do decent damage.

I really liked it. I wish you could get into Mark's video!

Thanks for the awesome words!

I understand how you feel. The enemy's behavior is, in my opinion, the least thoughtful part. The AI is my weakness, and I tried to play around with it to make a fairly primitive enemy, but able to make some minimal decisions.

Dice control needs to be worked out too, definitely.

Now that's a challenge for me with multiplayer :D I never did such things but we'll think about it!

Thanks for your feedback!

I accidentally pressed N and the level was restarted and I had 4 dices :D I think I found something hidden <_<

Curious story telling here :D I think you could show picking a dice more clear to a player, highlight a chosen dice. Chosen and spent dices looks similar for now. Also, what I miss is that there is no option to choose another dice, so I have to choose another opponent to cast this dice on.

Overall, it's a nice idea, I would wait for your updates!

Amazing presentation of the project! 

Except that I have limited explore time due to failing to hit the timings :D

I wish there was a separate level or just a lighter start to get used to how the game reacts to input.

Really liked the idea of switching tracks. Especially the fact that the other tracks can be seen in the background and in front of you.

There is a bit of difficulty with the jumps when overcoming obstacles. There are sections in the game with very frequent blocks that you have to punch them quickly, and this alternates with spiky obstacles that you have to avoid. Because I'm jumping over it, and the player's block in the jump is slightly ahead of his normal state, my block goes back to where the enemy was, which I sort of dodged, and I lose. This is your vision, but it would be nice to leave the player on one axis and move him along it. Especially since it's a music track. You don't expect to be able to slide forward a bit.

It's cool that you did everything yourself, I would have played more of the friendlier version.

Sadly, appreciate the art and music before anything programmed, because that's the first thing people see. The synchronicity in the rhythm game is a rather expected thing :D

You did a great job, well done!

Thanks for your words and the advice! That's an interesting thought!

Nice style of game! The animations look very nice. It was a pleasure to play.

For me, it's the perfect jam game, fast gameplay, small and very enjoyable.

This is probably the most dynamic game I've tried here! Awesome idea and very interestingly executed!

I'm reminded of some Nintendo game or something like that, where you pick up parts of enemy ships.

I really wanted to play it, but didn't get the chance. Thanks for fulfilling a childhood dream :D It's a hard enough game until you start absorbing others more and building yourself a solid defense. Although in the beginning I really felt like there were too many projectiles flying from the enemies, causing them to be killed almost instantly. However, I realize that in a jam game, smooth and long progression is quite difficult to achieve.

Nevertheless, for me, it's one of the most awesome games here!

The animations of the plane are very smooth and pleasant, and the appearance of the game itself is amazing!

Without description, the game starts a bit abruptly, at the very beginning the dice faces are already displayed on the gate without any prior demonstration of those lights and coins. 

By the way, full screen mode works quite strangely for me. The window is still the same size, it just goes up, and the rest of the screen is black.

It's great that you made short sessions for each roll, rather than defining one roll for the rest of the game, which a lot of people do on the jam.

Great job!

Very nice design!

At first I didn't understand how points are counted at all, only then I realized that it's the face of the dice that is landed on that is multiplied, not the one that will be on top, as it's usually done. After all, one usually reads the dice by the top face. However, I can understand it being done so that you don't have to look at opposite sides of the dice.

Also, as mentioned here in other comments, at first I thought they were talking about the target number of points, not the minimum.

I would also like to point out that it is worth not playing the sound of finished moves when winning, as well as when losing. The "Daiku" label and pronunciation are good, but they are interrupted by this sound and the second panel with "No moves left". At the end of the level after all the animations on the screen, only the "Next Level" label says that you have passed the level. And that "Daiku" label is hidden. And even the number of points in this understanding does not help because of the same label "Target score" rather than "Minimal score".

I really liked the camera work, the nice smoothness of the camera allows you to see all sides without any discomfort.

That's a nice mechanic for choosing from a list of actions. It gaves you a bit of control.

I really liked that there is an ability that allows you to better control the roll of the dice.

By the way, I found one curious bug. I moved the dice to the wall for a very long time, but it did not fall (at 45 degrees or so). Then started to turn the other way, and the activation animation with the icon appeared, the ability activated, enemies attacked, but I could keep moving the dice. And when it stopped the second time, the other side activated and I was attacked again.

Perhaps you made the activation of attacking enemies after the dice fell, you could additionally check the current state of the game, this is very important for turn-based games like you and I have! I'm familiar with this situation.

The music is a bit repetitive after a few minutes of play. 

It's also a little frustrating that our character can't move even a little bit, he's immediately blocked by new enemies. It's as if this distance is not controlled. 

It would be nice to make idle animation for the player, as most of the time he is standing still, not moving. I first thought that he was sweeping the floor, and somehow after a couple of minutes I realized that this is definitely not the appropriate action, and looked more closely animation of our hero :D 

Immediate respect for a separate folder to comfortably unpack your game <3 

1 developer won't take the time to put his game in a separate folder, then dozens/hundreds of people who have other downloaded games will waste their time on this. Thanks for thinking of us!

Very interesting puzzles. Could only solve the last one visually walking backwards from the flag.

Because of the fact that at the beginning we get to the menu, although I thought at first it was a puzzle, and I have to put a dice of the same value as indicated on the cell.

Because of the first short puzzles, it is initially not clear that we have a limited number of moves per level.

However, in spite of that it didn't stop me from enjoying your game, it was really interesting!

It's a very good idea.

I remember a lot of good ideas on the GMTK jam with the "Out of Control" theme, but here the change of control feels really good. Changing one movement button with a demonstration beforehand of what will be replaced is a good approach, reasonably player friendly.

The only time I got lucky was when the W button changed to itself on the move up :D You can also exclude the current assigned one from the set of keys to replace, so it doesn't feel like it's staying the same.

I really like the animations and style. "You can feel like an amoeba in this game". Very cool :D

I get the point!

I should've change dice effect height. I saw that intersection of bars and dices sometimes but didn't fix it, I don't know why <_<

I glad you have noticed that balance of action "price"! 

I made 30/70 percentage of defending/attacking at normal hp, and the reversed version at critical hp. Now I see that mean looking blue gloved dude is more annoying at that state. 

I decided to work more on AI after that game :D

Thanks for showing it, I'll improve that feedback to player! 

I will count this as a compliment :D

Swap action is a cool idea! I'll write that down :0 Perhaps, there could be bonuses or penalties to decrease or increase that swap count between fights <_<

Thanks! 

I see that problem about defence. I just remembered "Slay the Spire" and other card games where we gain armor for one turn until we make our move again. Same for the enemy. 

I really had a thought that defence for now is just a debuffed healing. 

I think about game classes and I think I will definitely change defence action behavior. Thanks for pointing this out! 

Death sound is the only sound we made by ourselves :DDD We'll add something better (and leave previous under some small probability, jk)!

For now, dice panel has 2 attacks, 1 defence, 1 heal as default pool for actions and then adds 2 random actions. Earlier, it was just 1 for each action and 3 random actions. I wanted to make fair livable range of actions.

Thanks for your feedback, I'll tweak that panel randomness, it was really useful to know!

P. S. I have "P.P.S." in the description of the game, I told about not updating music. I'm glad you heard at least some of them! 

This is really awesome!

I love those enemies, rules, main game cycle!

I think you should bring easier control to movement for player. Like "Into the Breach": you can move your dice freely but only 4 times and then you can only cancel your movement and set a dice to previous state. Also, I've got a little trick to move dice to a next cell and keep the same face up (for example, right, up, left), I need to click 3 times on movement icon and 3 times to different cells to do that trick.

You can allow movement with keyboard or assign movement and action to different mouse buttons.

The game lacks of some effects but the gameplay stays very clear.

This is an excellent game for me. This is a solid beginning for something commercial.

Thanks!

I tried a stupid but fun challenge to myself and made the game with no text. Numbers were included in that :D I'll definitely fix that in the future version.

I'll add more motion to healthbars! Maybe shaking when getting damage would be nice for a feedback too.

I wanted to make an animation with moving 2 dices to health and shield, but for me that animation with attacking would be strange. Because our character attacks, not the dices. I should think about it more to show it clearer to player.

Glad you liked it!

Wooow, that's a powerful bug :0 I wonder, how it could have happened.

Well, I have a bug with music anyway, but I wrote it in "P.P.S." in the description. Well, it didn't spoiled player experience so much, I hope.

Glad to hear about 10 minutes :D I didn't plan the game cycle to be that long or at least expected to play by you, players, for so long.

Though, I planned to make several classes with different actions. Thanks for your reminder, I'll definitely do it after refactoring!

I started to make game sounds at 7 hours before the deadline. There were a few surprises for me. I knew of not playing music in the right time (possibly, timers or animation player), so made more confident trigger. I programmed music to start at the beginning of player move (if it is not playing now). I need to make a better triggers for music. My main goal was a self-fixing game :D

I'll definitely do something with blocking. Thanks!

I appreciate your kind words <3

I'm glad you enjoyed the game!

Well, my assumption was as follows: in the game, each dice value represents an action. The cheaper the action, the better, because the other big values will be spent on that action.

This sets our priorities each battle.

I could also color the dice and show icons instead of values. From a gameplay standpoint, it wouldn't change anything. I didn't want to confuse people, so I tried to show everything with familiar things.

It feels like a dice has more than 6 faces :D

After a few minutes of playing, I realized that it's easier to remember the location of the faces than to look at the auxiliary dice card on the left :D That was it for me, at least. Alas, I can't offer my own version of how to do it better.

It's a great memory game!

Fine execution for a theme like this. 

Slo-mo and health regeneration are very good for your game.

It's a little frustrating that all the random explosions of enemies only affect the player and do no damage to other enemies. Although maybe they do, but I have to move farther away to safety. Because of this I can not see the explosion.

As a result, all the randomness is only against you. I wish I could use these explosions against enemies and plan battles tactically and effectively. However, I realize that the name of the game itself says that everything is against you.

The variety of enemies, the small particles were pretty good.