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Would greatly appreciate feedback for my deck building game

A topic by Bleem created Mar 30, 2022 Views: 250 Replies: 3
Viewing posts 1 to 3

Hello!

I recently published an early demo of my current deck building game project to itch, and I would really like some feedback about the balance and mechanics of the game. The game currently has lots of filler artwork which I plan to replace--I would mostly like to hear about the interactions of the cards and how the presentation of the card interactions feel for the player. There are certainly some imbalanced cards in the game right now (some of which I know about), and it would be great to hear how the balance of the cards and enemy armies feel. The special "faction abilities" are also very subject to change, and any ideas on how to improve those would be appreciated. I've included a short video of some of the basic gameplay as well as some card art. 

Here's the page for the game: https://bleem.itch.io/rally


 
(+1)

I did about 2-3 runs of the demo, all as Bob.  

Balance seemed good enough for now, but some cards definitely felt better than others.  Any card that caused a permanent stat change seemed like a much better choice than ones that cause a temporary change.  Post battle, it almost always felt necessary to pick the heal over the other options.  Maybe a few cards that provide some kind of healing can help with that?  Money is spent too fast and picking a random card felt too risky, as you may get ones you don't need.

The different factions didn't really feel all that different.  Possibly because I didn't see many of the higher rarity cards, but the lack of faction-only mechanics and lack of visual marking made the various factions blend together.  The faction skills didn't seem to be too useful due to the fact that several of them rely on random chance, and the interface for using them was not very clear. 

The game's various UI elements seemed a bit too small on my screen (13", 1280x720 I believe) which made it difficult to read information on the cards, even on mouse over.  The interface also felt like it could use more information, something that would be helped by having tooltips.  The non-placeholder graphics looked nice, and I can see a unique and pleasing art style developing so far.  A particularly nice touch is when all the card interactions are shown at the end of your turn, and a "slow" option for it would be really nice.

The biggest issues so far are the lack of goal overall (although I'm guessing this is just due to the fact that it is just an alpha, but more importantly I think the game would benefit from letting the player have more interaction in the battles.  Being able to swap 2 cards is a good start but I personally think both characters should have at least 1 player chosen way to alter the board each turn, on top of their ability.  This may not be the type of game that focuses on mid-battle strategy though, in which case it probably is fine as-is.

The game overall is coming along really well.  Despite my nitpicking I actually liked the game and I think that with more work it would make for a very addicting and fun game.  I can see myself paying $15 for this once it is finished and polished up.  I'm definitely interested in what this game is going, keep us updated on how it progresses!

(+1)

Thank you for the thoughtful feedback! You bring up a lot of good points, and I definitely think there need to be some UI changes. I agree the faction element feels unsteady, and I'll work on having more meaningful faction interactions. I'll certainly post updates and let everyone know when it comes to steam!

Hi, my name is Cody Skahan and I am an aspiring Games User Experience researcher, which entails running usability reviews of games to identify usability and UX issues that prevent players from experiencing your game the way you expect.

I saw your post looking for playtesters for your deck building game, and wondered if you would be interested in a usability review for it. In this capacity, my review would be focused more on behavioral considerations (how players will interact with various aspects of your game) and less about attitudinal factors (how players will like your game). I can, of course, give my personal opinion, but my official report identifying the top issues I find will focus on these usability problems. I see you are very interested in feedback about balance, interaction of cards and presentation of cards feel for the player, and those types of questions are right in my wheelhouse :).

I think your game idea is really interesting, but I am also interested in sharing this as a case study for my portfolio, and perhaps including it on a blog. This might create some extra publicity and interest in your game, so hopefully a positive thing for both of us.

 

Let me know if you have any questions and if there are any other focus areas or deadlines that I should consider.

 

Best,

Cody