I found this game a bit late, and I'm not sure if you have plans to develop it any further. But jsyk, every time I've played it (in-browser each time so far) I've had the knight automatically corrupt at the end of the first round, with no text explaining anything. I tried intentionally letting her die during the first round to see if anything different happened, but after multiple textboxes she ended up just leaving for good.
Some smaller notes:
-I find it really fun overall! I've played quite a few games of it today and will probably do a few more tomorrow (still haven't gotten to fight the final boss, although I did get the fully corrupted ending)
-the big exception to it being fun is that it can be a bit grueling at times especially early on with the enemies that add x4 shields to themselves. since it stacks it can easily get to like 16 or more for me which can get frustrating when you don't have much options for damage yet
-"heal all" doesn't seem to work for me? it just seems to be acting as a regular +1 heart
so the third fight alot of weird things were happening 1 I couldn't kill any enemies I hit the armourd ghoul thing for 5 (3 hp and no shield) and it didn't die 2 during the same fight the dice got stuck and I was soft locked constantly in the "player turn roll"
Yep, that all checks out with the bug reports I’ve gotten so far - I can’t update the game right now, but fixes for that are all ready to go once I can.
Thank you, I’m so glad you enjoyed the game. :D The intro really does seem to be a winner!
Definitely planning to include some better in-game instructions, and make the boss immune to being stunned by the Druid! Thanks for catching the fact the boss music doesn’t loop either - added to the current known bugs list.
All things considered, this game is very fun! I'm a big fan of dice-based games, and the level of risk-reward gameplay they provoke (especially dice-builders like this one), and making your dice actual physics-based objects was a nice touch, too. However, I feel like that mechanic might've needed a bit more work, since the faces seemed... less than random at times. I have had at least two instances where the die just... bounced into the air and spun around, without the top face changing at all. It's fun and all, but the dice being in such a small area restricted your ability to really "fling" them, and thus reduced their randomness (or, at least it felt like that sometimes).
I also liked how combats often ran very close to the wire, and you had to use your health as a resource to take out as may enemies as you could before going on the defensive, although the range of difficulty that produced close enough combats to leave some team members knocked out, but not totally destroying your party and making you lose, was a bit thin. But all in all, that's a minor complaint.
I wish the Corruption mechanic wasn't as much of an "insta-win" button; as is, it feels like you have to corrupt a party member to win (which, yes, I get that was the idea), but, once you do, it feels way too drastically easier. Like, I lasted as long as I could without corrupting a party member (to the black minotaur fight, in case you're wondering) and only then corrupted two of them. But I can imagine, if I corrupted earlier on, or corrupted more of my party, I'd have a lot more time to build their strength, and it would've been really easy. Having that as an option available, and expected of you, takes away from the accomplishment of beating the game otherwise. Unless corrupting earlier on makes their movesets weaker and healthpools lower.
Furthermore, this is mostly a personal preference, but I don't like smut games where you have to lose to see the smut. I get that it fits thematically, but it feels like it's rewarding the player for failing, and punishing them for succeeding. That sort of thing only works for me if the game at its core is difficult enough that you will be failing a lot, and it thus acts as a way to cheer the player up. Something like a roguelike/lite or bullet hell, for instance. As applied to this game, this would only really work if: 1. the game was hard enough where you're expected to lose multiple times, each time only corrupting one or two party members, OR, 2. the game was hard enough that you'd need to corrupt all 4 party members to win the game. It feels less satisfying to play another round just to see the other party members' transformations, than to experience them naturally in gameplay, especially when the combats aren't even randomized, reducing the replay value somewhat. But, again, take this with a grain of salt, as I might be bothered more by this than other people.
Anyways, moving on from my rant/very coherent game critique. I liked the art and the art style a lot. Each of the 4 main characters has a lot of personality, in their base and transformed states, and I can't complain about art quality at all, really. The only complaint I might have is giving some of them different "attack" sprites for different moves (ie. the Druid's base attack vs heal vs stun, or the Warrior's base attack vs shieldbash/block). And I also would've loved to see some sort of "epilogue" feature, showing how the characters lived out their lives after being corrupted or not corrupted by the dungeon. Honestly, I was 100% expecting something like that at the end, and was surprised to see there wasn't one, or at least some variance in the end screen art showing the characters' silhouettes changed.
So yeah, that's my thoughts. Overall, I liked the game a lot, as the amount of critique I've written on it should probably make you assume. So, don't confuse my amount of critique as me not liking the game, quite the opposite. I'd be glad to see wherever you take this game, if you decide to update it further, or to see whatever sort of game you come up with next!
(Going to discuss the game completely spoiled in the reply below!)
Firstly: Thank you so much for the in-depth comment! Between this and the bug report comment I can 100% tell that the critique is coming from a place of enjoyment - getting to the black minotaur uncorrupted tells me as much, god damn - and it really means a lot you’ve put the time into the dissection. A lot of the issues you’ve described (and the bugs from your previous comment) are a result of the time constraints of the jam I was participating in, amplified by it being a solo project, so fair warning that’s going to come up a bit!
The dice is definitely a prime example of that - I definitely noticed early on the fact that sometimes they dont re-roll properly, but it ended up being a “better done than perfect” situation. Now I’m out of the jam’s crunch I have a much better idea of how to make that feel more random, and it’s definitely something I want to implement to make things feel more fair going forward. Different sprites for monster/player attacks also falls in there, as well as matching sound effects.
I’m glad the battle felt as close to the wire as they do! The difficulty balance was something I didn’t have a lot of time to perfect, but riding the line of using health as a resource was absolutely where I wanted it to land. The black minotaur level was where I suspected it might get dicey, since it was intended as a damage check that ended up a bit overpowered - that lines up with how far you got uncorrupted.
Definitely understand that the corruption mechanic feels like an inta-win. That’s honestly intentional: rogue-like gameplay is notoriously unapproachable to people who don’t play it, and with the jam not centered around roguelike behaviour I wanted something that auto balanced for people who aren’t as good/familiar with the genre. It’s a big reason why the cleric has the lowest health - if she goes down first, players have access to the “Heal All” mechanic early, which is handy coming up against the Unearthly/Spirit battles (which is a level that stumped a good few other people, especially with the unintended difficulty hike).
There are punishments for corruption - there’s a 50/50 shot of corrupted members leaving for good if they go down again, and you get a unique bad ending with a fully corrupted party - but they’re honestly pretty small penalties for the power even one corrupted memeber bring to the table. Knowing that power jump is there does also incentivise players to funnel towards seeing the smut content, since the transformations are the only place that features NSFW content besides the sprites in the current game.
Re: not losing to see the smut - 100% agree! So many games require you to game over completely to see anything good. I was trying to aim for a “fail forward” mechanic where players are incentivised to corrupt one or two members as part of the gameplay but not lose entirely (see why the game over screen is bare bones) with a virgin run being the hard mode. Definitely can see how it feels like you’re punished for not “giving into” that content though.
Typing this out now, I think there might be a sweet spot in making the corrupted members powerful early on, but weakening them in high levels as players get towards the final boss - a lot of their power comes from being able to tank hits, and making them more glass cannon-y and dangerously low health in the boss could be a good way to go. Pairing that with smut/worldbuilding passages between levels only accesiable uncorrupted also could help make a uncorrupted run feel more rewarding. 🤔 Options, for sure.
Re: the battles, since you mentioned it not feeling like a roguelike: The battles were absolutely intended to be more randomised than they are. You might of seen the number of enemies in some of the battles shifts a bit - 1-2 gargoyles in the second level, sometimes a tentacle in level 6. With the deadline looming I figured that a solid 10 levels + boss would be better for player experience than full randomisation with the fights, especially when I was worried that the game wasn’t beatable at points!
100% agree with the lack of detail in the epilogue as well - I really wanted to include an adaptive ending that shows how the four different party members end up post game. To say I ran out of time is an understatement though - everything from the pre-boss passage through to that final “you win!” screen, art included, was created in the last 12 hours before submission. Frankly I was more worried about being able to even get to the final screen at that point!
Definitely intending on doing a post-jam update - currently the game is locked while the submissions are rated - but at the very least I want to address the bugs that people have come across since its release. So happy that you enjoyed playing this and you’re interested to see what comes next! :D
Yeah, I assumed most of what I said was because of jam time constraints, but it never hurts to point things like that out, either for future updates or just for your practice as a game designer. I think the main sticking point for this game for me, at least, is that doing a pure run feels so close to possible, but it just isn't, and that honestly frustrates me more than if it was impossible by far.
Hey, I have a minor complaint about the haunted armor enemies: The trait that they have makes you initially think that it's only effect is that they take damage from healing abilities, but it also prevents them taking damage any other way. I managed to get through their armor one time, since I was getting horribly unlucky with rolling heals, and realized this. I figured that they wouldn't necessarily need to be immune to physical damage, because having to get through 5 shield would be deterrent enough. Not sure how you'd go about "fixing" this, but, I guess make the tool tip a bit more clear? Assuming it does need fixing, that is, this might entirely be a me issue.
Ack yeah - that’s a bug that was 100% unintended (I was playing with them being resistant to physical, thought that was too unfair… And made it worse instead, whoops.) Sorry about that - I’m hoping to fix it after the jam voting period!
Alrighty, good to know! I spotted some other bugs while I was playing, so here they are:
The Shield Bash die face for the warrior (or maybe just her transformation?) doesn't seem to actually give any shield.
Also, Thyraxias has the "charge" attack that's supposed to hit two enemies, but it actually just hits one enemy.
I'll put my actual feelings on the game in another comment.
Edit: just realized this might also be a bug: I noticed that you can attack Flying enemies while there are ghostly ones still on the field. This doesn't really fit with the "flight" trait's description, but I figured it could also be a mechanic to make attackers not be useless when there's only flyers and ghosts on the field.
Thanks so much for the bug reports! SUPER helpful for cleaning things up post jam.
The shield bash not shielding on the corrupted warrior specifically (weird!) and the Thyraxias gore attack are 100% bugs.
The spirits/ghostly ones being attackable with the flying enemies is intentional (their tool tip calling them “flighty” is supposed to reference that) - I figured with them being depicted as hovering that them not flying would be more confusing, but without the status icon it definitely looks unintentional!
No problem! And that thing about the ghost enemies makes perfect sense. I assumed it was probably intended, but I figured I should point it out, just in case.
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I found this game a bit late, and I'm not sure if you have plans to develop it any further. But jsyk, every time I've played it (in-browser each time so far) I've had the knight automatically corrupt at the end of the first round, with no text explaining anything. I tried intentionally letting her die during the first round to see if anything different happened, but after multiple textboxes she ended up just leaving for good.
Some smaller notes:
-I find it really fun overall! I've played quite a few games of it today and will probably do a few more tomorrow (still haven't gotten to fight the final boss, although I did get the fully corrupted ending)
-the big exception to it being fun is that it can be a bit grueling at times especially early on with the enemies that add x4 shields to themselves. since it stacks it can easily get to like 16 or more for me which can get frustrating when you don't have much options for damage yet
-"heal all" doesn't seem to work for me? it just seems to be acting as a regular +1 heart
-the art style is so cute c:
so the third fight alot of weird things were happening
1 I couldn't kill any enemies I hit the armourd ghoul thing for 5 (3 hp and no shield) and it didn't die
2 during the same fight the dice got stuck and I was soft locked constantly in the "player turn roll"
Yep, that all checks out with the bug reports I’ve gotten so far - I can’t update the game right now, but fixes for that are all ready to go once I can.
Thanks for playing!
its really fun though despite all the bugs, I just wish I had more luck to roll good dice XD
Cool game! I like the design and sprites a lot, and the intro also.
The boss music didn't loop and as I easily stunned him (thanks corrupted druid) it was a bit less epic
First time I played it was hard to understand how it works with the steps to use the dice. I think the UI could be much more intuitive
Thank you, I’m so glad you enjoyed the game. :D The intro really does seem to be a winner!
Definitely planning to include some better in-game instructions, and make the boss immune to being stunned by the Druid! Thanks for catching the fact the boss music doesn’t loop either - added to the current known bugs list.
All things considered, this game is very fun! I'm a big fan of dice-based games, and the level of risk-reward gameplay they provoke (especially dice-builders like this one), and making your dice actual physics-based objects was a nice touch, too. However, I feel like that mechanic might've needed a bit more work, since the faces seemed... less than random at times. I have had at least two instances where the die just... bounced into the air and spun around, without the top face changing at all. It's fun and all, but the dice being in such a small area restricted your ability to really "fling" them, and thus reduced their randomness (or, at least it felt like that sometimes).
I also liked how combats often ran very close to the wire, and you had to use your health as a resource to take out as may enemies as you could before going on the defensive, although the range of difficulty that produced close enough combats to leave some team members knocked out, but not totally destroying your party and making you lose, was a bit thin. But all in all, that's a minor complaint.
I wish the Corruption mechanic wasn't as much of an "insta-win" button; as is, it feels like you have to corrupt a party member to win (which, yes, I get that was the idea), but, once you do, it feels way too drastically easier. Like, I lasted as long as I could without corrupting a party member (to the black minotaur fight, in case you're wondering) and only then corrupted two of them. But I can imagine, if I corrupted earlier on, or corrupted more of my party, I'd have a lot more time to build their strength, and it would've been really easy. Having that as an option available, and expected of you, takes away from the accomplishment of beating the game otherwise. Unless corrupting earlier on makes their movesets weaker and healthpools lower.
Furthermore, this is mostly a personal preference, but I don't like smut games where you have to lose to see the smut. I get that it fits thematically, but it feels like it's rewarding the player for failing, and punishing them for succeeding. That sort of thing only works for me if the game at its core is difficult enough that you will be failing a lot, and it thus acts as a way to cheer the player up. Something like a roguelike/lite or bullet hell, for instance. As applied to this game, this would only really work if: 1. the game was hard enough where you're expected to lose multiple times, each time only corrupting one or two party members, OR, 2. the game was hard enough that you'd need to corrupt all 4 party members to win the game. It feels less satisfying to play another round just to see the other party members' transformations, than to experience them naturally in gameplay, especially when the combats aren't even randomized, reducing the replay value somewhat. But, again, take this with a grain of salt, as I might be bothered more by this than other people.
Anyways, moving on from my rant/very coherent game critique. I liked the art and the art style a lot. Each of the 4 main characters has a lot of personality, in their base and transformed states, and I can't complain about art quality at all, really. The only complaint I might have is giving some of them different "attack" sprites for different moves (ie. the Druid's base attack vs heal vs stun, or the Warrior's base attack vs shieldbash/block). And I also would've loved to see some sort of "epilogue" feature, showing how the characters lived out their lives after being corrupted or not corrupted by the dungeon. Honestly, I was 100% expecting something like that at the end, and was surprised to see there wasn't one, or at least some variance in the end screen art showing the characters' silhouettes changed.
So yeah, that's my thoughts. Overall, I liked the game a lot, as the amount of critique I've written on it should probably make you assume. So, don't confuse my amount of critique as me not liking the game, quite the opposite. I'd be glad to see wherever you take this game, if you decide to update it further, or to see whatever sort of game you come up with next!
(Going to discuss the game completely spoiled in the reply below!)
Firstly: Thank you so much for the in-depth comment! Between this and the bug report comment I can 100% tell that the critique is coming from a place of enjoyment - getting to the black minotaur uncorrupted tells me as much, god damn - and it really means a lot you’ve put the time into the dissection. A lot of the issues you’ve described (and the bugs from your previous comment) are a result of the time constraints of the jam I was participating in, amplified by it being a solo project, so fair warning that’s going to come up a bit!
The dice is definitely a prime example of that - I definitely noticed early on the fact that sometimes they dont re-roll properly, but it ended up being a “better done than perfect” situation. Now I’m out of the jam’s crunch I have a much better idea of how to make that feel more random, and it’s definitely something I want to implement to make things feel more fair going forward. Different sprites for monster/player attacks also falls in there, as well as matching sound effects.
I’m glad the battle felt as close to the wire as they do! The difficulty balance was something I didn’t have a lot of time to perfect, but riding the line of using health as a resource was absolutely where I wanted it to land. The black minotaur level was where I suspected it might get dicey, since it was intended as a damage check that ended up a bit overpowered - that lines up with how far you got uncorrupted.
Definitely understand that the corruption mechanic feels like an inta-win. That’s honestly intentional: rogue-like gameplay is notoriously unapproachable to people who don’t play it, and with the jam not centered around roguelike behaviour I wanted something that auto balanced for people who aren’t as good/familiar with the genre. It’s a big reason why the cleric has the lowest health - if she goes down first, players have access to the “Heal All” mechanic early, which is handy coming up against the Unearthly/Spirit battles (which is a level that stumped a good few other people, especially with the unintended difficulty hike).
There are punishments for corruption - there’s a 50/50 shot of corrupted members leaving for good if they go down again, and you get a unique bad ending with a fully corrupted party - but they’re honestly pretty small penalties for the power even one corrupted memeber bring to the table. Knowing that power jump is there does also incentivise players to funnel towards seeing the smut content, since the transformations are the only place that features NSFW content besides the sprites in the current game.
Re: not losing to see the smut - 100% agree! So many games require you to game over completely to see anything good. I was trying to aim for a “fail forward” mechanic where players are incentivised to corrupt one or two members as part of the gameplay but not lose entirely (see why the game over screen is bare bones) with a virgin run being the hard mode. Definitely can see how it feels like you’re punished for not “giving into” that content though.
Typing this out now, I think there might be a sweet spot in making the corrupted members powerful early on, but weakening them in high levels as players get towards the final boss - a lot of their power comes from being able to tank hits, and making them more glass cannon-y and dangerously low health in the boss could be a good way to go. Pairing that with smut/worldbuilding passages between levels only accesiable uncorrupted also could help make a uncorrupted run feel more rewarding. 🤔 Options, for sure.
Re: the battles, since you mentioned it not feeling like a roguelike: The battles were absolutely intended to be more randomised than they are. You might of seen the number of enemies in some of the battles shifts a bit - 1-2 gargoyles in the second level, sometimes a tentacle in level 6. With the deadline looming I figured that a solid 10 levels + boss would be better for player experience than full randomisation with the fights, especially when I was worried that the game wasn’t beatable at points!
100% agree with the lack of detail in the epilogue as well - I really wanted to include an adaptive ending that shows how the four different party members end up post game. To say I ran out of time is an understatement though - everything from the pre-boss passage through to that final “you win!” screen, art included, was created in the last 12 hours before submission. Frankly I was more worried about being able to even get to the final screen at that point!
Definitely intending on doing a post-jam update - currently the game is locked while the submissions are rated - but at the very least I want to address the bugs that people have come across since its release. So happy that you enjoyed playing this and you’re interested to see what comes next! :D
Yeah, I assumed most of what I said was because of jam time constraints, but it never hurts to point things like that out, either for future updates or just for your practice as a game designer. I think the main sticking point for this game for me, at least, is that doing a pure run feels so close to possible, but it just isn't, and that honestly frustrates me more than if it was impossible by far.
Hey, I have a minor complaint about the haunted armor enemies: The trait that they have makes you initially think that it's only effect is that they take damage from healing abilities, but it also prevents them taking damage any other way. I managed to get through their armor one time, since I was getting horribly unlucky with rolling heals, and realized this. I figured that they wouldn't necessarily need to be immune to physical damage, because having to get through 5 shield would be deterrent enough. Not sure how you'd go about "fixing" this, but, I guess make the tool tip a bit more clear? Assuming it does need fixing, that is, this might entirely be a me issue.
Ack yeah - that’s a bug that was 100% unintended (I was playing with them being resistant to physical, thought that was too unfair… And made it worse instead, whoops.) Sorry about that - I’m hoping to fix it after the jam voting period!
Alrighty, good to know! I spotted some other bugs while I was playing, so here they are:
The Shield Bash die face for the warrior (or maybe just her transformation?) doesn't seem to actually give any shield.
Also, Thyraxias has the "charge" attack that's supposed to hit two enemies, but it actually just hits one enemy.
I'll put my actual feelings on the game in another comment.
Edit: just realized this might also be a bug: I noticed that you can attack Flying enemies while there are ghostly ones still on the field. This doesn't really fit with the "flight" trait's description, but I figured it could also be a mechanic to make attackers not be useless when there's only flyers and ghosts on the field.
Thanks so much for the bug reports! SUPER helpful for cleaning things up post jam.
The shield bash not shielding on the corrupted warrior specifically (weird!) and the Thyraxias gore attack are 100% bugs.
The spirits/ghostly ones being attackable with the flying enemies is intentional (their tool tip calling them “flighty” is supposed to reference that) - I figured with them being depicted as hovering that them not flying would be more confusing, but without the status icon it definitely looks unintentional!
No problem! And that thing about the ghost enemies makes perfect sense. I assumed it was probably intended, but I figured I should point it out, just in case.
okay so the .exe needs the .pck file as well. Currently this is completely unplayable. But I look forward to the opportunity to actually
play 8P
Well shit, lmao - managed to get all the files up properly now, so hopefully you can play and enjoy!