itch.io

So, I’ve done some strategy refining and I am pretty sure the opponents can’t buy towers during the play phase, which is a huge issue. When you cut off a route mid-fight, that forces the units to backtrack through your maze and take an alternate route. This can effectively double the output of the central section of your map (warriors track from their current position so doing more than this will be very hard), which is a huge player-only power boost, especially for aura towers. I haven’t actually done much grinding with it, because the tower selling system has to be used extensively between rounds and that is boring on account of being slow, but I am pretty sure the AI doesn’t keep up

Had not heard about that article before, but it sounds very cool, I will look it up!

The multiplayer is interesting. Replays will be weird because if you get past where a player won they will presumably just stop buying stuff, but that should be fine for now. More concerning is that my purchasing decisions are often made in clumps, so a replay where I had 1200 gold so I plopped an aura tower and levelled it up and only then built the surrounding chaos towers and only after that the wall means on an ordinary playthrough when the replay gets to that point it will sit upgrading an aura tower that does nothing for a long, long time.

PbtA games really need playbooks for their DMs (here the Mother) to function properly. The blurb provided is a cool start, but I think it needs the aforementioned GM playbook, Cryomancy skill tree, and racialized glitter differences (though given the player pool is herein limited to elves, the differences should probably be star-sign-based) to really function.

Still, you released this for free, so that’s cool.

Fun so far. Would like to see a reason to buy things other than portals and packs that might have portals.

Accidentally beat the game, getting what I assume is the bad ending. Tried repeating the melody on the scored piano keys but that didn’t seem to work… maybe the scoring is just a visual effect.

binary on the computer up north when trying to hack reads:

let mein 123 password admin\nh ackebs1995

Oh, yeah, I guess you don’t have to fight every enemy, that would make other builds more possible. The blood vial has absolutely saved me– having more than 15 max hp means you don’t die if you mess up and the last region betrayers get an attack off on you. I haven’t seen the pike, yet; high movement speed is certainly good but I think you max out at the same four dv per turn that the final enemies get, which means unless you get lucky they can corner you. Admittedly you are pretty likely to get lucky, though, and, like you pointed out, you can just leave.

Fun game. I can’t imagine builds without the beartrap or vial of blood being consistent, though. The 4-move enemies in the final area are just too dangerous without either a huge hp pool or beartrap’s crazy boss-killing ability.

Hint: It’s hidden in 12, not m12

I haven’t done P yet besides learning Aria’s trick, but I will look now. Thank you.

Edit: HOW DID I MISS THAT!?!?!?!?!? ;_;

I even tried talking with Aria outside the field to see if it was different (you can’t talk to her there) and stuff but I somehow thought I hope it helps on adventures was the last line of text. Well, that explains a lot >.<

I realized the hint in the hints didn’t refer to what I thought it did, so it’s possible now, but the game explicitly tells me this isn’t necessary so I really wanna know how else it could be possible. There’s definitely no way to grapple through the solid ball wall without the unneeded spell, so I must be missing something else

If you want additional hints I can hint some of those, but I’m stuck on S (even after all hints)

I have confirmed level-end warping also resets stars.

After being stuck on how to move S past certain barriers for a long time, I gave in and looked at the hints. None of the hints were things I was stuck on, which is too bad, because solving all those parts was fun but I guess I am missing something obvious :( I can get the star to rise past the balls, but I can’t follow it the second time because only the first time the trick gets you past it, and there’s no way back where you came from, since dying resets the position (otherwise Lucky+Cabin would work) The solid wall that’s a problem is a centered circle, so Mireor can’t help and Qerfect resets the star. I was thinking maybe I could enter a moon and complete the level, then leave 12 or 13 but I am pretty sure that resets the star, too ( I haven’t tried it completely with the star from 8, but I tried the star from 9 and then warped from 8 via level completion and it had reset but maybe I should try that again because I might have warped or something). I am pretty much out of ideas so if anyone has any hints, I’ll take them.

Today I learned from computer message we are the same age! That is funny XD I don’t know how to do the computer room the normal way, but at least I got a cool secret. Aging is difficult, but I find that still doing things is possible as long as I remember to rest regularly and eat healthy. I hope you get to make a great many more games even if they are more difficult each time, and it seems to me they often benefit from your prior work in ways, too, so it’s not all bad.

Glad to see you fall while focusing. I was wrong about how to beat the jungle level but it was still way easier with the quicksave spell. I spent ages wandering the void after getting out leftwards from field 10, eventually finding out that you also know the best pangram, but losing all voidwalking progress because Aria’s trick only works if the bottom isn’t grabbable (unless there’s some way to do it on sides, but if so I couldn’t get it to work). Still very cool and expansive; I always like it when your games turn out to be a lot bigger than you first think.

Gave up and became a wizard. Met some cool people and learned to make quicksaves. The game will be so much less difficult now, but it will still be fun and it will be less annoying so that’s probably good. I hope hovering can’t be solved just by focusing, if so uh… I am a dummy XD

Finally found the beginning of the game. Wow, this is really really hard. I have it on slow mo 20 FPS and it is still grueling. I will figure it out eventually, but it is very unusual for something to be this challenging, and that is cool. Have not completed any spaces besides the starting 13, but I know how to complete one I just need to be allowed to press ‘S’ (it’s not a real level though). Currently stuck on a green grassy level where everything is ungrabbable impassable spikes and you gotta (I am guessing) hover over these green passable spikes for a billion years even though the gap to the grabbable grass is like really big and stuff and every time you mess up you have to redo 3 very tight jump/teleport chains.

Had to look at hints ;.; Turns out momentum important.

By tutorial I apparently mean field 5.

New Sylvie game woo~~~

This one is hard for me so far >.< I am still on the tutorial and just can’t figure out the trick, but I’m not giving up yet!

Very cool game. I am a bit disappointed with the hacking; it seems like you should be able to do more to the laser emitters and security cameras, but at least it’s better than most games. I suppose they do stay disabled longer than when you do it manually, even via outlet hacks, but it’s weird they re-enable automatically when disabled manually. I think it would be more fun if there were employees that had to re-enable disabled security devices, and a broader range of employees that could notice a disabled device and trigger an alert.

I also think it would be cool if you got vision from hacked security cameras (maybe as a Hacker special ability?), and it’s weird you can’t hack the same computer/outlet twice. It would make sense if the green pulse re-emitted periodically, but it’s a one-time thing. I think it would be more fun if either you could re-hack terminals or terminals/outlets continuously sent out hacking pulses once hacked, with like a 10 turn cooldown between pulses for computers and 30 for outlets or something.

Fun, but a bit too easy. Increasing the damage dealt by enemies or lowering the player’s max hp may help.

Ok, finished the tutorial/demo. I think the full game looks good, though hopefully the tutorial process is less laborious there– I don’t like it when tutorials force me to take game actions, especially bad ones.

Overall, I think the sigil drawing is fun, though it will slow down combat too much for some people, but I think that’s okay; a game doesn’t have to be for everyone. Although I think the balance is fine, the language used in the tutorial makes me think that you think reserves are hard to replenish, which is false because you can convert unspent blots to ink by default and there’s no time limit on fights so any weak enemy you can leave alive is a full replenishment of your reserves at the end of a fight provided you can heal at all (one negative healing trait is fine, but two stacks would prevent this).

Also the shield slam sigil doesn’t work currently (it does 0 damage when consuming shield as well)

That has helped, I will give it another try. I hadn’t realized there was a settings menu (accessible via ‘Esc’).

Could be cool, but the lag is atrocious.

“ Something went wrong: error code 3222007” when trying to activate an account

I played to the end of the current content twice. It’s quite fun, but I didn’t wanna burn out before more levels got released. Sad to hear it’s stopping, but you gotta do what you gotta do and I agree this is unlikely to make you enough money to be a career. Good luck on your future endeavors. One suggestion would be to post a link to whatever new thing you make when it’s done here; I have seen other creators have success with that. This game is already complete enough that I am confident you can finish a game– it’s up to you to decide what’s worth putting the time in to finish.

Ok. Hamlets also produce infinite gold in any circumstance they produce infinite prosperity, so that’s probably fine. Hopefully there’s a way to demonstrate a loop so that the high score isn’t just who’s willing to click “grind 5 wheat” the most times.

Theoretically, if you build 5 hamlets and a waterwheel you have infinite prosperity. I haven’t found a map you can do that with, yet, because not building a citadel or mill makes the game basically impossible, but if I find mending scrolls at the right time it may be possible, especially if there’s some kind of special space that gives XP or health or max health or something. Even as is, 4 hamlets and a waterwheel yield ludicrous prosperity so whatever upgrades there are between rounds if they are prosperity-based will make infinite prosperity on hold two possible if not easy.

Neat project. Always a fan of hyperbolic tilings, though in this case I haven’t seen the geometry actually affect much yet mechanically– the tight branching paths would seem to make the game similar to a branching network of doors– but the rendering and such is cool. The gameplay was surprisingly serviceable given your disclaimer, and, although the aesthetic is not my cup of tea, I will probably play the rest of the demo some other time; I stopped partway through clearing all the raflesias past Uma.

If drawing triggers burn and burn triggering during the turn draws a fire burst, shouldn’t you draw fire bursts and trigger burn until the enemy has no burn left? Currently only draws that aren’t creating a specific card trigger the on-draw burn, but the relics that create specific cards do call what they do drawing explicitly.

Having some cards be rare is fine, but locking story progression behind acquiring them is only alright if there are multiple stories to progress so I am not, for example, stuck doing a hundred of the same fight over and over waiting for a Wendigo or a T-rexaur if I don’t want to. It would be cool if there was some minimum completion required to advance the main quest, something else to do for at least one side quest per town, and full completion to unlock the boss and additional story stuff.

If it isn’t intended to be occurring, my bet is that drafting the ranger pack unintentionally unlocks the rangers elements for events/ boss fights and for some reason Void is either getting picked every time for the boss event or I just rolled her three times in a row.

Honestly the game has gotten pretty polished. I like the new frame arts on the engine cards– the game-boy aesthetic for the fantasy set was neat.

After playing some more for a bit, I have some thoughts:

1. Elshey seems to be set to always be the boss now. For the demo this makes sense and is fine, but in the full game the boss being chosen only from unlocked elements is, I think, a better idea.

2. The ranger pack is cool, but the implementation is confusing. The rangers appear under their colors’ elements in the banning section, but interact as mixed (I think, it is kind of hard to tell if something else might be going on) in the game proper, except for coin inclusion which is based on the colors again. Regardless, they always cost mixed mana. I think it would make more sense for them to cost mixed mana if their element hasn’t been added to the game yet in a given playthrough but to cost colored mana of their color once their element is unlocked.

Also the black ranger is a ridiculously powerful commander because it returns to hand without commander tax on mutation. With the possibility of it mutating into the blue ranger (which is otherwise basically always banned), in long games it eventually costs close to 0 to play and creates a non-illusionary duplicate card you can use to fill your graveyard. I think the key piece here is that mutation cards giving you your commander back on mutation is very strong, and that it not even taxing hp pushes it over the edge.

1. The rules policies (e.g. New Rule: Freeze) were more fun when they applied to all units forever, not just those in the opening hand. As a balance, maybe just give units that already had that ability +1/+1 (except freeze, that one should probably be cost+1 once the refrigerators are back in the game)

2. I really don’t understand user dissatisfaction and how the banlist affects it. I get that the scalper is mad when I approve user requests to ban a card, but I don’t know why players get angry when I honor their requests to unban stuff, and rebalance the other cards to keep elemental power even.

3. I think elements should only exist in the game after you’ve released them, so seasons shouldn’t be offered for elements that don’t exist and policies except New Rule policies shouldn’t be offered that refer to mechanics that haven’t been implemented or elements that don’t exist. Probably the nameless ones pack, which refers to having at least 3 elements present on the field, should only be offered if there are at least 3 elements in the game and effects that randomize elemental identity should only choose from released elements.

It’s crazy if this still is a thing :/

I hope it’s okay to waste keys because I definitely wasted one ;_;

1) Yes, I was thinking of the Semi-Limited Notice policy.  I usually put a lot of cards at 2 anyways for balance reasons, so it is easy to get a lot back here, but it is not too bad.  The run I had before commenting I got it and also the policy that gives assets when playing limited or semi-limited cards in battle, which was extremely good but probably should be and even having the option to take that meant I had already gotten pretty lucky.

2) Yeah, I misunderstood the eye-markings to have appeared because I took a pack that needed no other Earth packs or something like that and I was wondering why it only appeared over the one mixed pack rather than both.  Now that I understand, it is a cool mechanic but I also think a visual indicator for packs that will break conditions would be neat.

3) You are probably right about the old Normal mechanics.  I imagine this plan is a good change, but you should probably change the dialogue that comments on Normal not really working with other elements and maybe being a bit too separate that one of the characters has a chance to give when considering normal packs.

4) I forgot mixed counts as all types even when not in the graveyard; with the new aura mechanics that makes sense.  By the way, the new coin system makes mill decks a lot less powerful, which is probably a good thing (the AI used to mill itself out quite quickly by playing coins if you let it, and I imagine it still would).