He-Who-Is-Beyond-The-Sun

lereveur 2018-12-04 07:30

I got stucked somewhere without anyone to fight with (don't remember the point name, but it was on the second circle, on the top left, and it was presented with something about heroes or monsters and wondering if there where allies or ennemies). Appart that, it was surprisingly fun to play cards against souls and others perverted creatures, I don't got all the clues to understand how to play well but I gave it a try for some minutes. Maybe a little indication about the use and name of the counts in colors at the right of the map screen (and I lose, one time, because I was caught, the secret was down to 0 - but I didn't understood how to watch that while playing). Effects and the choice of the sounds are way more than expected on a card game. Well done, even if I didn't get all the idea ^^

remco 2018-12-05 14:24

Hey Joror!

First off, the atmosphere is incredibly effective. So much is done with the ominous backround noise/music, a bit of creative texturing, and a few lines of text! (It reminds me of the Arkam Horror boardgame, except without the tedius arbitrariness of that game.) The main idea of having 3 outcomes for each slain opponent (which you know beforehand) is also a nice evolution of the Slay the Spire concept.

I think there are two issues with this one (besides some annoying bugs). (Although both of those have positive sides as well.)

The most important one is that nothing is explained. You just launch into this game and are supposed to figure it out. This may be intentional, since it fits with the darkly occult/mystic vibe of the game, but... well. This will be escpecially vexing for people that've not seen Slay the Spire (I've only seen parts of playthroughs myself).

Here are things which might not be clear (_most_ but not all of those are sort-of like Slay the Spire, but not all of them!): **Also for anyone reading along who misses a description, here's an attempt**

- Your cards are at the bottom, the top cards represent the enemies. - The drop down menu those show on hover over, are things you can get if you defeat them (I missed the white text at first). - They're playing with open hands, and those attacks don't all go off, only the one they selected, and this happens after your turn. - You don't just click cards, you have to drag them. - Your attack is for _one_ enemy specifically, so don't just drag the card into the void. - Your turn isn't immediately over, but you have a 'Precence' each turn with which you buy the cards. It's the purple-ish number (both on your dash and on the cards). - 'Secret' is basically your health meter. It's the blue number (both on your dash and on the cards). - But some cards also cost Secrecy, making it you mana as well. - Precence resets each turn, secrecy doesn't (which would be somewhat clearer if the names where less thematic). - Each opponent has 3 healt stats., which is different from the one you have. Each of those _individually_ is enough to defeat an enemy. (Which plays into the choices you have to make.) - On the map screen... which colors/shapes are which? It doesn't say. (This one's also pretty easy to figure out for the obvious ones, and I get that you might not want to get into the others' immediately...)

Which is a lot to learn for a Jam-game! No help-screen, no tutorial, no epxlanation. As an experiment, as something thats 'fun to play', and as a game, that may still work. As a Jam-game? It'll be difficult.

_ < reached max content count appearantly?: continued in the next comment ... > _

remco 2018-12-05 14:29

_ < ... continued from last comment > _

That's the other thing. Difficulty. It's _very_ easy to lose Secrecy. (Especially to those darn HQ cultists...) This is also something that may be intentional, since, again, it enforces the vibe you're going for. Also, it's explicitly designed for replayability (and to die the first X times), with the same enounters and somehwat predictable enemies.

The crux of the matter (I think) is that it's quite hard to _gain_ Secrecy if you're low, making it a negative feedback loop. This is nasty, since (and this is a very fitting idea in and of itself) Secrecy combines hour health _and_ your mana. I get that you'd like the 'mists' card to be +4, so playing it against the typical 'publish' 1-on-1 will be a losing prosepect, so...: I'd up the 'Secrecy' rewards you get, because now, if you can choose the option that gives you 'Secrecy', it's mostly +5 or +6 or so. When a single attack sets you back about as much it doens't really feel like a lot.

All in all a very solid entry, with an excelent atmosphere. But you, as a player, have to work for it. The game will give you no quarter. I also like the world-map quite a lot, like the rest of the game, it gives you lots of choices, as does the main gimmick, having 3 ways to attack, and 3 possible rewards, that you know beforehand.

There's a lot of content. That some players won't get to experience; but I guess sacrifices must be made.

Then some more minor issues:

- Sometimes gets into a state where you can't pick your next upgrade (it does seem to select the button, but only if the mouse is clicked somewhere entirely else.. and then it doesn't do anything.) Luckily this only seems to happen either after start-up, or if I switch windows often. In case that it doesn't effect you at the first opponent, and you keep to the window I haven't seen it happen. - Cards you can't play aren't greyed out. I mean, it's pretty obvious once you know the rules and pay attention, but it would've been nice. - Sometimes a card attaches itself to another one you want to play and you cant because it combines their costs? Like I got witless cultist attached to cult-leader, even though I didn't have that card at that point. (I think sometimes other cards as well, like non-negative once that have been attached.) - The one time I played the Night Court it was bugged? I just kept dragging cards into the void... but that was on an already bugged playtrhough, where I weirdly could continue after having 0 secrecy. - Maybe I just didn't get there, but I'd like a way to remove cards as well (even if it's rare, it's a nice extra possibility space to tap into). - I think ran into some other stuff too, but with the drag mechanics it was hard to tell if some things where my fault (or what actually happened in those instances...)

[ here endeth the lesson :-p ]

darn 2018-12-15 15:10

As a lover of card games, I'm pleased to see an entry of the genre in the jam.

Remco wrote some pretty comprehensive feedback, but I'll add my own thoughts as well. He hit the spot when mentioning the lack of explanations (even with the edition with overlay text), although I think that could have improved a lot (more on that later). I also like the mechanic where you get a different reward depending on how you defeat an enemy. I didn't see the part about the secrecy, I could just find an enemy that doesn't reduce secrecy and spam the cards that make me gain it. It's a bit weird that some enemies only buff themselves/reduce your mana, meaning they don't actually do anything to you.

Other issues I've found: some cards have so much text on them that they are shrunk, and I can't tell what they do anymore. I feel like the map choice is a bit too overwhelming, with little indication of what to pick. Whenever the enmies have +something, they seem to recover up to their max, but I can't see that max whilst they're damaged. haven't managed to figure out what the souls do. Note that I did not manage to play much of the game, as I kept running into a game-breaking bug where the game would not spawn enemies, disallowing me to progress.

The inspiration from Slay the Spire is obvious, and I'd honestly encourage you to take even more inspiration from it. For example, your early deck should be as simple as possible, creating a natural learning curve (should help with the harsh initial load of information). Early levels could also have fewer enemies to get you used to the mechanics first. You should also treat secrecy more like Slay the Spire treats health, I'd ditch the card that gives you secrecy completely and instead gain it through rewards (tying into what I mentioned about just grinding secrecy). Note how Slay the Spire either lets you gain health through events, or through consumables that can't be used several times per encounter (potion, exhaust cards).

Overall, good job. I'd buy this if it was as polished and well designed as Slay the Spire.

xjcl 2018-12-15 18:49

Wow, this is an amazing game! How much base code did you start out with?

I was gonna play it through to the final boss but unfortunately the game bugged out on one of the reward screens after you kill an enemy =/

I like the sacrificing idea, but can you extend it so you can sacrifice *any* card? Since you're picking up so many new cards I found myself wanting to throw some of my old weak cards away so I'd draw my new stronger cards more often. Definitely has potential!

nekonyo 2018-12-15 20:01

Some graphics for the cards will make a great difference I think, but it requires a huge amount of time

brazmogu 2018-12-21 17:24

This is a very intriguing game. It could use a tutorial of sorts, or at least some tooltips, and the description of some cards seem a bit incomplete. But with a bit of art this game would be very awesome on top of being cool to play.

erkberg 2018-12-27 15:33

A really addictive and mysterious card game. I liked it a lot all around, the texts and music created quite the dense atmosphere for such a type of game. I really had to figure out what was going on for some time at the start, but once I got the hang of it it was quite fun. I faced the boss too early though and got smashed, with not enough souls to revive. This is really intriguing though and I might come back for another round. One thing that was a major issue for me is the slow speed, especially when dragging cards, it all seemed very low fps. Apart from that, I enjoyed this a great deal, good job!

vija02 2018-12-27 17:01

Like others, the game bugged out in the rewards screen. I think there are more depth to the game but I just didn't reach far enough. I felt like i'm just playing cards that reduce either willpower/health/virtue and the round is won.

Cards wise, I think there should be less text, or at least make it less apparent. My first minute was spent trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do with the text.

UI could be better as it felt kinda buggy in certain places. However, I commend the effort with the drag and drop. The atmosphere of the game is nice. I think it'll be amazing if there are good sound effects but that's asking a bit much for a game jam.

Overall, pretty strong submission :)

kettu 2018-12-28 14:23

Nice one! This is an ambitious game for ludumdare because it's probably difficult to balance during a weekend. I liked the atmosphere. Some animations for enemy moves would make it easier to grasp what's going on. The added help overlay was really helpful. Well done!

phi 2018-12-28 18:52

I think you could simplify explanations a lot by giving good and intuitive user feedback. You've got a lot of really nice animations going on, but some of them are just confusing and not where they would actually be useful. For example, you could show exactly where the damage goes, or what it would cost to play a certain card by giving a kind of preview of the changes. This way, you wouldn't need a complicated tutorial overlay that's hard to adapt to every situation (it really helped, but sometimes the annotations were out of place). Otherwise, I think it's really clever and incredibly sophisticated for a jam entry! Once I felt like I got the hang of it, it was really fun to play.

darkfrost 2018-12-28 19:00

Not sure why - I just get an error saying my browser doesn't support webgl? Using latest chrome, and other unity-webgl games seemed to work fine. Bizarre.

joror 2018-12-28 19:21

@darkfrost Weird... just tried and seems to (still) work for with latest chrome. Perhaps a restart could help?

bificommander 2018-12-28 19:48

This is certainly one of the most complete game experiences I've seen this jam. Playing a lovecraftian monster with card battles is orginal and entertaining. I did run into some bugs though. One battle where my secrecy just wouldn't drop below 0 but I couldn't end the combat because I couldn't pick up the reward, and entering combat without an opponent. But this certainly has potential as a full game.

darkfrost 2018-12-29 00:25

@joror - thanks, restarting chrome fixed it. How bizarre!

Awesome entry! Really, really good. Not what I expected! Some unique art for the different cards would really seal the deal, but this is great! Couldn't find any way to quit a battle once I started it but that might've been intentional :D

drkr 2018-12-29 15:09

Interesting concept, but it's a bit overwhelming and kind of repetitive.

negativice 2018-12-31 16:18

I really enjoyed it, but sadly at some point it got stuck when i had to choose a reward from an enemy, when i would click it nothing would happen. Other than that it was very well put together! :thumbsup: