As a big fan of card games, I enjoyed this a lot! The gameplay has all the mechanics you would expect from a good TCG. The UI is very nice to look at too.
Like others I noticed some performance issues - my CPU fan would become super loud at random points when playing this game. I don't remember this happening with the last version I played (which was 2 demo days ago I think?) so it might have been due to a change since then?
In regards to card balance, at first glance, raw stats seem pretty overpowered. As a wizard I created a 1 cost 11/11 beatstick and then coasted through the rest of the game with that lol. Effects seem to cost a lot more than stats, like a "destroy target minion" card would still cost 7-10 even after spending all my crafting gems but with the same amount of gems you can easily create a 1 cost 11/11. This is pretty different compared to MTG where a "destroy target minion" would typically cost 2-3 mana.
Hmm, I'll look into implementing a loading screen. It does load most of the resources at the start, hope it doesn't get worse as the game gets more content.
Pressing E essentially makes you wait a turn, and whenever time passes, your hunger meter decreases, but you regenerate HP and MP. You can press E a bunch of times between battles to "rest up." (will change it so you can hold E like another poster suggested)
Thanks for playing! The demo has 5 floors, including 1 floor that's just a boss room. I eventually plan to have a story but need to work out the details.
Hint for the floor with the mechs: Back attacks are very useful against them!
Promising Diablo clone! Not much to complain about other than just minor things. The UI could be bigger, sometimes the doors are hard to see when right behind a wall or in a corner. Encountered some visual glitches in the 2nd floor where light would flash from the ceiling for a split second. Also encountered a bug where an enemy seemed to be dead but it was still standing, not moving, and you couldn't target it. The enemies could move around more, it seems like they stand still until you get close and sometimes they don't do anything until you're literally in their face.
Looking forward to seeing this game expanded with more levels, loot, and enemies!
Thanks for the feedback! Those are nice QoL changes. Actually, older versions had some of these changes already (like the damage number outlines and door sounds) but I didn't have time to re-implement them in Monogame yet. Also, money is useless right now but there will be shops in the future.
That screenshot is indeed a softlock! Enemies are not supposed to spawn in that "hallway" area between rooms. It's one of those annoying bugs that only happens .01% of the time and works the other 99.9%... I just uploaded a new build that SHOULD fix it.
Due to the controversy over Unity, I decided to port over the whole project to Monogame! Most of the code has been ported over, but some minor things are still missing.
Since I had to redo a lot of code, I took the opportunity to make some major gameplay changes. I've revamped a lot of the game mechanics in order to (hopefully) make it more fun. Some changes are:
Characters move a lot faster
Dungeons are smaller (there was too much empty space before)
You now have AOE attacks
You now have consumable items
Your spells now have cooldowns instead of being able to be used once-per-refresh like before.
There is now a hunger system as in many roguelikes. This was added so that there's a cost to waiting for your spells to cooldown.
Unlike other roguelikes, "time" does not pass outside of battle, unless you wait. This means that your hunger doesn't decrease outside of battle, so you aren't punished for taking longer to explore. This ALSO means that health regen, mana regen, and cooldowns stop outside of battle, unless you wait (by pressing enter/spacebar)
(Basically you can choose how much to "rest" by waiting X turns between battles. It makes more sense when you play it...)
Added "monster houses" - large rooms with many more enemies than normal
You can hit enemies from behind for extra damage
You can knock enemies into pits if you hit them adjacent to a pit. (Though some enemies may be immune!)
Love the atmosphere of the game, it's unique and trippy as hell. The game feels like a puzzle where you have figure out what to do next and requires exploring every nook and cranny. The soundtrack is great as well, I especially liked the song in the area with the fishes.
I just finished the Hallowed Mother fight. I beat that one by pure luck because if she spams her hook attack there doesn't seem to be much you can do about it as it can kill your party members in 2-3 hits. I was only able to beat it because she decided not to use it as often and used her status effect spells instead.
I'm surprised you beat the boss while ignoring almost all the skeletons, haha.
I'll try to add more info on the damage calculations. FYI, damage is determined by your ATK - the enemy DEF (which is a hidden value), plus there is some variance (it does between 90%-110% of the calculated damage) which is why it always wasn't always consistent.
This game is off to a great start! Graphics and animation are top-notch. I played with a gamepad, and had no issues with the controls.
The MC's speed seems really, really fast, though I'm more used to movement in games like Castlevania. The flying enemies were a bit annoying to deal with, especially the fairies cause they run away a lot.
As for level design, there were a few places where you had to make blind jumps. Also the area with the water looked like it had no floor.
Overall though, pretty fun demo. Also the character designs are very cultured.
Interesting take on Into the Breach, with no buildings but a lot more units.
The attack descriptions should show exactly how much damage each attack does. Also the currently selected unit should be highlighted. Other than that the UI seems to convey all the needed information.
3 actions seems a bit low with the number of attacks you have to deal with at once, though for the demo it was barely enough to scrape by. Also I wish your units had more mobility as the battlefield ended up getting pretty cramped. Having flying units or units with more movement would help a lot.
Thanks for playing! I may give the player a new skill later in the dungeon. In the full game, I plan to make it so you can find new skills in treasure chests just like equipment.
It's like I'm playing Diablo 1 again! The atmosphere and feel of combat are pretty much perfect.
Made it to floor 4 but got stuck as I ran out of health potions. Are you planning to add a town or shops where you can buy more consumables?
I like the idea of weapon arts. The shield skills seemed a bit cumbersome to use in the middle of battle though. Maybe I'm used to just clicking on enemies and watching them die instead of having to time blocks/parries. Perhaps the skills would be better as buffs that you can just activate at the start of battle?
Also wish there was a confirm button when increasing attributes, I leveled up the wrong ones by accident.
Game looks promising so far. I beat a couple of easy dungeons but had a hard time continuing after that as I had to bench my starting characters because of lust buildup and wasn't able to beat the dungeons with the new recruits. Those ratgirls are brutal.
I wish there was more info on curio's effects and which item works with which curio. I think there was one time I tried to cross a river and then noticed in the next battle my party's health was almost zero. Also for treasure chests, there's a "visual bug" where it says the chest won't budge but then the graphic shows it as open.
My mage kept moving forward randomly and I think it was because of her crest. Wasn't sure what the "rank" was referring to or how to control it.
Some parts of the UI took a while to figure out, like how to rearrange the party order in dungeons (you have to drag the stats instead of the portrait). Also I'm not sure what the different currencies are in the town, but I expect that to become more fleshed out later.
Also got the same bug that others seem to have gotten where a character suddenly becomes tiny. It didn't seem to be caused by any status effects or quirks.
Will there be h-scenes? If so how will it work with randomly generated characters?
Improved UI graphics, inventory changed to have "slots"
Replaced most sound effects
Added more intro scenes
Janky magical girl transformation animation
Various gameplay changes - SP reworked (now you just gain 1 SP per battle), rooms don't "lock" until an enemy spots you, so you can now sometimes sneak past enemies. Added rooms with more enemies but better rewards.
Some control updates - can click on yourself to skip turns, press enter to talk to NPCs, right click to cancel skills
Fun boomer shooter! The controls were responsive and movement felt good. The shotgun is satisfying to use. Some of the enemies were a bit tough - the "dogs" had a lot of health for how fast they were. The "demon" enemies (the flying ones and the ones that spit lava) do a ton of damage, although I guess these enemies were supposed to be harder than normal. Also WTF is up with those enemies that attack you with their crotch lol. Btw your levels rock. Seriously, the level design is pretty good!
Played through the first dungeon and a bit of the second. Having to get all my megucas' clothes ripped off and then fight naked in order to raise their Exhibitionism levels was amusing lol. Nice integration of porn + gameplay. I liked the conversations after battle too, the dialogue was pretty funny. Getting a yuri h-scene was a nice reward after beating the dungeon.
The game felt a little grindy but not too bad. At least you can restart the dungeon easily so it always feels like you're making progress.
I wish Homura was playable. It would be more fun if she joined in on the action!
I noticed Sayaka learned Fire Spear, can all characters learn each others' moves? Doesn't fit lore-wise but I guess it was for game balance.
As a Madoka enjoyer I give this game a thumbs up! Looking forward to your next one!
This game feels like playing a bizzaro version of Zelda 1 lol. Maybe a bit too much... some of the world map felt identical to Zelda 1's (forest maze to the west, beach area to the north with a dungeon on an island across a bridge etc), it should be changed a bit lest Nintendo sues you lol.
I liked the aesthetics which felt like a children's storybook. The star spell comes out too slowly, I think it should be fast like the boomerang in Zelda. Also the game should pause while you're choosing spells. The NPC dialogue is very bare bones but I assume that will be expanded on. Overall though the game shows promise.
Graphics are top notch! The gameplay felt great too. The floating robot boss seemed a bit tough as he had a lot of HP and it was difficult to hit him without also getting hit by the mines if you didn't have a spread weapon. The weapon you start with seemed weaker than the other ones you can swap to if you press tab. I liked the boss at the end; things got really crazy when she used all her attacks at the same time. Looking forward to seeing this game develop!
Thanks for playing! Right click to cancel a spell is a good idea; after playing your game I noticed some other roguelikes do it that way too. For moving to the next room with the mouse, the pathfinding algorithm is only coded to handle 1 room at a time right now, so I might have to refactor it so you can go across rooms, but I'll see what I can do. Anyways glad you enjoyed the game!
Neat game, reminds me a bit of the old mobile game Sword and Poker. The rules were a bit hard for me to understand (still not sure what SCR does except for certain characters like Samurai that explicitly mention it) but I got the basics of how to pick cards in sequence and how SP works. There seemed to be a lot of dead turns when the cards on the board got low and neither me or the opponent could match any cards. Also when I used the shield ability for the knight, it didn't seem to have any visual indication, perhaps a shield icon next to the HP could help. The graphics and card animations are done well.
Bonus SP is just a random chance whenever you kill an enemy. I might make it increasable via equipment. Having a sound for SP bonus is a good idea
The equipment is kind of limited right now, there will be more variety in the full game.
The UI needs a massive overhaul, I can experiment with a Shiren-style layout
Will add more keyboard/controller support in the future
One of the games I was inspired by is this an indie game called Aldarix the Battlemage. I wanted to make a roguelike focusing more on tactical combat instead of inventory management and sneaking past/avoiding certain enemies. Also wanted to try a game with roguelike gameplay but an actual story.
The AP-based approach to combat is really interesting. The only complaint I have is that I had to beat a lot of enemies by repeatedly doing attack -> shield block -> wait (if AP is low) which got tiresome after a while. Maybe shield block can auto-target if there is only 1 enemy? Also, having a system where you can avoid all attacks would theoretically lead to a situation where a lv. 1 character can defeat a lv. 99 enemy - curious to see how this will be addressed in the full game.
Dungeon exploration felt pretty good - it felt worth it to go down each "path" to get a chest full of items at the end. New weapons seemed to make a big difference in combat effectiveness. Ranged feels very different than melee.
The game's difficulty is BRUTAL. Especially the goblins at the end. One mistake or misclick and all your health is gone in an instant. I eventually made it to the end but died a bunch of times lol.
As others have mentioned, equipping the skills with the number keys is a bit unintuitive. I also accidentally unequipped my skills a few times - I think it was when I right-clicked to cancel a skill, which somehow unequipped it? Otherwise no real issues with the UI.
The gunplay feels very nice, and the music is great too. The damage feels a bit random (sometimes you take a ton of damage and sometimes very little) but that could be me sucking at FPS games. I wandered the level trying to find the grey keycard only to realize I already had it lol. Also found a bug where when I died, the "death scream" played multiple times at once like an echo.
Made it to the end of the demo. When it showed which girl you were most likely to go to the dance with, I ended up with no one lol. I guess I didn't focus on 1 girl enough, though it seems a bit too soon to be focusing on one when the characters have barely been introduced?
I felt the Christianity parts of the story were a bit disconnected with the monster girl parts. It was like switching between a Sunday School lesson and an anime dating sim lol. Perhaps the girls could mention Christianity more in casual conversation; just something small like saying "I'll pray for you" or something. The Christianity parts also seemed a bit too detailed, for example it might be better to just have Father John say a couple of sentences instead of a whole multiple paragraph sermon. Also perhaps you can tie in Christianity to the characters' personal stories - like one of the girls could be dealing with a family that doesn't accept her faith (though you might've already been planning something like this for later).
The MC did seem like a bit of a Mary Sue to me, since he's brave enough to fight bullies and disciplined enough to maintain a regular exercise schedule and do his morning devotions every day and popular with the ladies (although that last part is expected for the genre).
Overall though I think the game has potential and the setting is interesting. Good luck!
EDIT: I just had an idea. Have a scene where MC is about to have sex with one of the monster girls but then go "Whoops! Can't show this in a Christian VN!" Lulz.
I love the art direction and music of this game! Lots of soul.
I was somehow able to get past the last puzzle in the shrine without the rock; one of the buttons stayed pushed down even when I wasn't standing on it. Not sure what caused it but pretty sure it was a bug.
Very nice game! There aren't too many roguelikes with good tactical combat out there; this game and Hoplite are the only ones I know of. I'm glad more games like this are being made. I found all 18 spells to be well balanced and the different enemies force you to be creative in how you approach the levels. My only gripe is that the level's difficulty can vary a lot depending on randomness. I found that levels were much easier when you start with potions close to your starting location - maybe there could be a way to guarantee that in the level generation?
