Circle of Life

the-neon-shark 2024-04-16 07:01

First of all, congrats for pulling this cute little game together. The visuals are epic! The first time I played the game (without watching the playthough demo) I was only generating basic rats and didn't understand why -- I thought the game was bugged. Turns out I missing a mechanic about turning the sigils in the summoning circle that wasn't particularly visible. Even after knowing the mechanic, I found it a bit difficult to see the lines and predict if a gem would accomplish what I need.

Continuing on that thread, it was tricky to gain an intuition for why my rats were so weak (when I played the game wrong). When I pick up a gem labeled "+10 health", I think that just means I'm about to make a strong rat for free. To signal more clearly whats going on, maybe each gem has two indicators: one for unpowered and one for powered. If your gemstones is unpowered via a line tether, it will get a small (but clear) benefit such as +1 attack. If the same stone is powered/tethered, it will get +8 attack (also clarly indicated on the card). This also could help build a more versatile set of summoned creatures that don't always show up as "1 damage & 1 attack speed" by default :)

Here's some other random ideas: 1. Show a lineup of the next 3 enemy types and a timer of when they'll be arriving. 2. Your gemstones could have modifiers such as "armor piercing" or "flame" or "ice". These modifiers will change how effective your summoned creature is against an upcoming enemy. 3. Certain summoning circles should have good/bad modifiers (e.g. x2 or x0.5). This will make you decide carefully about how you will spend and position your gems. Do you want a creature with double health but low attack? or high attack but low health? 4. Force the player to use all the summoning circle slots. Don't let them horde their favorite gemstones for the perfect moment. 5. Unlock new gemstone types over time (deck-builder style).

Thanks for sharing your project. Excellent work.

wmute 2024-04-16 07:02

The game has a good idea with cycle, but it's unclear how colors is affecting the result? If I place creature with no connections I getting a rat, with one connection also a rat. How to get more slots?

bulba 2024-04-16 07:23

@the-neon-shark

Thanks for the feedback!

We are very glad that you liked our game.

I contacted you in private messages on Reddit so that we could communicate more easily and discuss the whole issue.

bulba 2024-04-16 07:25

@wmute

Thanks for the feedback!

There are 8 types of summoned creatures in the game. When you cross a certain threshold of characteristics, you get a new type of creature.

>How to get more slots?

You get points for killing monsters (they are displayed at the top of the screen). The more points you have, the stronger the enemies, the more slots and the better the runes.

We made a litte Q&A in description. You can check if you want.

roughskin 2024-04-16 08:41

Very good game! The amount of work in 72 hours is astonishing! I feel like the rune mechanic is still a little rough but it has A LOT of potential. I would love to see a full release!

godknows 2024-04-16 09:18

Nice look, very cool mechanic!

uniowl 2024-04-16 12:55

@roughskin thanks for your feedback! Rune mechanic is something we'd like to investigate in the future indeed!

uniowl 2024-04-16 12:56

@godknows thank you! Our artists did a great job!

uniowl 2024-04-16 13:00

@the-neon-shark thanks for very detailed review! You've make a good point about stats calculation. It could be much easier to player to make creatures if stats were depending not only from connections but runes itself.

Yep, it's a bit tough to pass through rats at the start, but if a player will play a bit longer, he will manage to get more diverse creatures eventually.

Thank you for ideas listed at the end! If we continue working on this game in the future, we'll take a very close look to them.

uniowl 2024-04-16 13:04

@wmute

> it’s unclear how colors is affecting the result?

Colors don't affect the resulting creature. They're used only to make connections. Different colors don't connect. You get stats listed in hint for each connection. for example, two connections will give you x2 stats, but no connections won't give you anything

Everything else were covered by my colleague. Thanks for playing and giving feedback, it's very useful for us as it is something we can learn from!

asfdfdfd 2024-04-16 17:48

Love your visuals and overall game feel. It's pretty hynnotizing to place gems on the circle but mostly feels as random actions.

uniowl 2024-04-16 20:49

@asfdfdfd thanks for your feedback! Glad to hear that you liked the look and feel of the game! Yes, the game is pretty random because of enemies, gems and slot spawning. Nevertheless, player actions really matter in terms of creating multiple links so you can summon some very powerful creatures. We'll think about your thought though and try to find ways to make game less random

k-toll 2024-04-16 21:06

Nice and pleasant games. I like the online result, it makes you want to do well... so play again. The graphics, the design, the combo possibilities and tactics to be judiciously exploited... I'm having a lot of fun! Great idea!

Nice job!

alldee 2024-04-16 21:12

I must admit that unlike the other comments, I paid more attention to the visuals and I find them INCREDIBLE! The creatures are all adorable, the game's interfaces are very pleasing to the eye and the creature's animation (when they are fighting/walking ect...) and VFX makes the game even more lively and fun to play ! :) I really like it !

civ92 2024-04-16 21:27

I really enjoyed the art ! I was a bit skeptical at the beginning as it begins quite slowly, but then it quickly gains in complexity. The leaderboard is a nice addition

uniowl 2024-04-16 21:27

@k-toll thanks for your feedback! Glad to hear that you liked the game :D

uniowl 2024-04-16 21:28

@alldee thank you! We've as developers had a LOT of fun creating the artwork and then animating it in silly-funny ways! Also, we've spend a lot of time on making VFX, so thank you for noticing all of this c:

reaperhb 2024-04-16 21:47

Nice look !

vincenttt 2024-04-16 21:47

Great game, but I don't understand if it has an ending or is it infinite?

uniowl 2024-04-16 22:05

@reaperhb Thank you!

uniowl 2024-04-16 22:06

@vincenttt The game has no end, so players can play as long as they have creatures on the battlefield. Also we used "Easy to learn, hard to master" balance curve, so it will become very difficult at some point (indended).

pado 2024-04-16 22:27

It's a good game. From the spinning sofa to the spinning sofa :3

uniowl 2024-04-16 22:30

@pado 👍👾

kirass 2024-04-16 23:09

You are really great! The game turned out great!

klemen 2024-04-16 23:09

I love the art style, animations, textures and desings but it kinda bugs me that there is no sound, but overall the game is amazing

yoruvii 2024-04-16 23:13

Love the art and the summoning effect is *chefs kiss* preem however I do think the game is too easy other than that though its great.

uniowl 2024-04-16 23:14

@kirass thanks a lot! Glad to hear that you liked the game very much!

uniowl 2024-04-16 23:15

@klemen thank you for your feedback. Didn't quite had much time for audio, but we'll try to get better at this in the future games!

magnat 2024-04-16 23:18

Really nice game here ! It would be cool to add the possibility to remove runes when you find after that they are not really well suited

shyoko-ghost 2024-04-17 01:32

cool game, very fun to play！

ariyassa 2024-04-17 05:18

This was fun to play! There's something very satisfying about completing connections on the summoning circle. The first time I got a non-rat I was very excited -- I wish I could see the rest of my summoned buddies though :) (I wanted to go back and see the new thing I had summoned, but alas, there were only rats on my screen!)

Just a small bit of feedback that it was a bit hard to notice the very thin red lines on the gems, so it took me a while to figure out how to connect the lines, but I eventually got it!

uniowl 2024-04-17 06:51

@magnat thanks for the feedback! Although non-removal runes was actually by design, we will probably look closer into that question in the future

uniowl 2024-04-17 08:15

@yoruvii thank you for your feedback! Glad to hear that you liked the game :)

uniowl 2024-04-17 08:16

@shyoko-ghost thanks!

uniowl 2024-04-17 08:18

@ariyassa thank you! You will see all summoned creatures on the field at some point. Eventually, rats will become so weak that they will be defeated instantly.

Thats a valid point about arrows. For some reason, WebGL build just doesn't seem to render them properly. Win version though works fine. We haven't figured out the reason behind that.

le-slo 2024-04-17 09:12

Nice little auto battler. The idea of summoning using stones is pretty cool, although the connect lines part is not too interesting and hard to visualize (it is not obvious if a double or triple angle will match in the summoning circle to where other circles are), I felt like just going fast connecting whatever I could was the best strategy, where maybe having synergies between the stones could be an interesting path to take. It is also true that currently the lines are barely visible and that made difficult to understand the game intuitively, but a quick read of instruction was all I needed. Really cool to have different creatures be summoned, felt like unlocking a bestiary. Very nice work!

uniowl 2024-04-17 09:25

@le-slo Thank you for your feedback! Indeed, game becomes pretty fast and elements combo becomes less effective than rushing. Game balance is something to reconsider in the future perhaps.

jean-francois 2024-04-17 17:22

Hooo wow this is the best game I've played so far in the jam :) the art is good, the gameplay is original, a bit confusing at first but the second time it was clear. good job.

rensun 2024-04-17 17:56

The game is cool, interesting mechanics with summoning although my mice seem to be immortal, and all new creatures fly to the left without a trace

skleembof 2024-04-17 18:18

I think you should allow the player to move the gems after placing them since it's very difficult to visualize the angle of the lines ones they're slotted. The player is already limited by the pool of gems they have access to, they shouldn't be penalized for not properly visualizing all the possible combinations of angles. I felt like I couldn't really experiment with the summoning mechanics because of how limiting this was.

I liked how the monster you summon is based on the stats, and how the maximum possible stats you can get into a summon increases as you kill monsters and get stronger gems. It gave them game a good feeling of progression.

The difficulty curve is a bit intense though. It starts off slow but then explodes rather quickly. I thought I'd summoned a really powerful monster and was ready to see him do some damage but he got obliterated by a giant skunk thing. Seeing that was pretty disappointing. I think you should make the enemies smaller and weaker like disposable mobs so that effect of different stats between your summons is easier to visualize. I think this would make the game feel more satisfying and engaging.

The graphics and audio were very nice and the game felt very polished overall

uniowl 2024-04-17 18:36

@jean-francois Thank you! Glad to hear that you really liked the game!

uniowl 2024-04-17 18:38

@rensun Mice is just very hard for enemies at start, they just don't have enough time to attack you. Later in the game enemies become much stronger. All new creatures are waiting in some sort of queue - when creature in front is defeated, all behind it will move forward. Thank you for your feedback!

uniowl 2024-04-17 18:41

@skleembof Didn't quite understood the first paragraph. Did you tried to rotate them? Also, later in the game player will be getting more powerful gems with lots of arrows (up to 6) and there will be more slots avaiable.

UPD: did you mean removing stones from slots? We've recieved some feedback about it and I think it's a valid point to let players at least destroy incorrectly placed elements (or remove them back to invertory? idk for now)

---

The difficulty curve is pretty raw, indeed, and it needs correction in the future.

Thanks for all the points you mentioned! We'll try to learn from them to make better games in the future!

courtneylapin 2024-04-17 19:02

I think that any criticism I have has already been said lol, but here's my 2 cents. It's a fun game with adorable art and nice replayability. Would be nice if the gem lines were more visible. Would also be nice if it was easier to tell if two gems can make a connection, I had a few times where it looks like they're generally pointing at each other, but the angle was wrong so i just put in 2 gems for no reason. It's fun trying to strike a balance between putting out monsters fast or taking the time to figure out how to make more connections, and thus a stronger monster.

uniowl 2024-04-17 19:47

@courtneylapin thank you! It's totally fine if someone will repeate any issues - it will mean that most repeated one is very important to cover later. Win version doesn't have issue with arrows, but the WebGL one :( let us down a bit. There's one particular combination (actually 3, they're just rotated version of one) where you can't connect lines: non-adjacent slots on two different orbits. Number of slots, orbits and their position is another thing we can play around with in the future.

Glad to hear that you liked art and gameplay!

matt-ravenhall 2024-04-18 11:05

Really nice work - it looks and plays really well. My only issue was not realising the each gem can connect to others. I also made the mistake of spamming out basic rats for ages and not knowing why they weren't stronger.

uniowl 2024-04-18 13:16

@matt-ravenhall thank you! It seems like our tutorial drawing on the left is not clear as we wanted it to be. It's one of the things that needs to be fixed! Glad to hear that you've liked the game though!

montymoneybags 2024-04-18 19:05

I am the rat-o-mancer

cat-lab 2024-04-18 19:50

A very cool concept! It took me a while to get into the concept and lock into what to do. I think the amount of time it takes to progress was a bit of a turn off for me. But I really like what you did with the theme and the visual style is so cool!

uniowl 2024-04-18 20:22

@montymoneybags also its a game where you can be owl-o-mancer, dragon-o-mancer, piece-o-mancer (we call him that), etc.!!!

uniowl 2024-04-18 20:25

@cat-lab thanks for feedback! Indeed, it's a bit too slow at first and very fast at the end, hehe

anifan-gelati 2024-04-19 00:24

Very cool visuals. I just want to hug all the creatures. Very very cute. Gameplay is pretty simple, but I had to sweat to get to the top 10

roman-dubrovin 2024-04-19 00:25

Cool graphics but it looks I can summin only rats=)

uniowl 2024-04-19 09:30

@anifan-gelati thanks!

uniowl 2024-04-19 09:30

@roman-dubrovin when you play for like 3-5 mins you'll get pass them and you will be able to summon other creatures as well. Thanks for feedback though!

skleembof 2024-04-19 17:42

@uniowl yeah i meant pick them up and move them after theyve already been slotted, since it's difficult to visualize the possible angles of a gem until they've already been placed and locked into a slot. And when I say the player is limited by the pool of gems, I only mean they have a limited selection at any one time since you can't "refresh" the gems currently available or discard ones you don't like. This is a good mechanic, but if you lock the gems into a slot, and it turns out you cant connect them to other gems because the angles don't line up, its starts to feel like you wasted the gem. Letting the player pick up the gem and move it to another slot fixes this issue and makes it easier to experiment with the possible combinations available to them

uniowl 2024-04-19 17:42

@anifan-gelati no more in top 10 :D

uniowl 2024-04-19 19:58

@skleembof okay, now I get it. Thanks for clarification. Gem spawn and placement is something that definitely needs revisiting in the future (if we'll get to this project)

dissonance-generator 2024-04-19 21:19

Well this is fun! I like the layers of complexity in gem type, rotation, placement, etc. This rune mechanic has a lot of potential!

It quickly gets to be really difficult to get anything working though, once there's three different colors of gem lane and the bad guys are hitting really fast. If I could pick up and move gems after they're slotted, that might reduce frustration.

I also wish I could see how much health everything has the way I can see their speed and power stats.

uniowl 2024-04-19 21:31

@dissonance-generator Thanks for playing and leaving feedback! Initially we had idea for displaying health with text, but I made a desicion to remove it due to presence of health progress bar. I agree, balance curve is quite steep and needs fixing later :)

kiddy 2024-04-19 23:05

I love it, the graphism are stunning, the game design is really good and every feature are matching each other perfectly. The balance need a bit more adjustement but still fun. Bonus points for the beautiful itch.io page with the little creatures on the bottom

nomus 2024-04-19 23:14

super cool game, love all the creature design as i love monsters

concept is original and nice, having the fight happen in the background while you think of combination is cool

for some reason i couldn't see the leaderboard

jebouin 2024-04-19 23:27

That's a very cool summoning mechanic! I felt like I was choosing gems a bit randomly and it didn't help that it takes a while for your latest creatures to show up since the beginning is quite easy. Then it suddenly got really hard so I didn't feel like my best creatures were actually that strong. Anyway the game is well polished for a jam entry, the visuals look great and this mechanic has a lot of potential with a better difficulty curve. Good job!

uniowl 2024-04-20 00:53

@kiddy thank you very much. Your compliment to itch page is music to my ears, I tried very hard to make it looking good! Also, thanks for your feedback!

uniowl 2024-04-20 00:54

@nomus thanks for your feedback! Can you provide some details or a screenshot about your issue? What platform did you play: Win or WebGL?

uniowl 2024-04-20 00:58

@jebouin thanks a lot for feedback! As we get back to this project in the future, we'll try very hard to address all the issues mentioned by you and previous players!

mongoose-59 2024-04-20 02:35

really fun and addictive, tho id like for the clockhands to be more visible, specialy when the are on the wooden table

tapehead 2024-04-20 07:18

As far as I see the others pointed out already everything. All that remains to say is great entry! With the best use of theme so far! Well done!

uniowl 2024-04-20 09:01

@mongoose-59 thank you! You're right, kinda annoying issue. Something to fix later

uniowl 2024-04-20 09:02

@tapehead thanks a lot!

shaneshanekavanagh 2024-04-20 09:11

There's a great framework for some sort of idle game. I liked it anyways! Nice one!

uniowl 2024-04-20 09:26

@shaneshanekavanagh thank you!

konstantinreed 2024-04-20 09:59

Got really engaged with the gameplay, reached stage 138. I really liked the core mechanics. However, the time limit increases rapidly, and I would like to spend more time thinking about the best combination for the summoned creature. Very promising concept; I hope you succeed in developing the game further. Great job, thanks for the gaming pleasure!

pacelin 2024-04-20 10:29

@konstantinreed Thanks! Yep, we will continue development of it, when we complete our main project: "Coffee Time".

tetrergeru 2024-04-20 18:59

Cool game! Gameplay is quite interesting once you figure it out.

Migth be nice to add a tutorial and also to make the lines on gems thicker.

uniowl 2024-04-20 19:15

@tetrergeru thank you! The tutorial is made in form of illustrations on left side of the screen (and GIFs on game page if they are not very clear). Issue about lines mentioned in FAQ.

feynallein 2024-04-20 22:44

Really liked the art and summoning animation. Nice twist on the theme and on the "idler" battle par too. It felt satysfying to figure out a good combination and to summon a very powerful creature that carries you!

uniowl 2024-04-20 22:53

@feynallein thank you very much! ~

digital-bacon 2024-04-21 00:01

A very beautiful puzzle game, easy to learn, and plenty of fun. Excellent work!

custodi 2024-04-21 00:57

Gameplay is soooo awesome, but then it becomes too difficult for me) My respect to your artists, great work with character design!

pierre-cilluffo 2024-04-21 17:48

The only criticism I could make is the colored lines which show the connections are too thin, and we cannot see them well on the left.

Otherwise, it's a great game.

uniowl 2024-04-21 18:25

@digital-bacon thanks for your feedback!

uniowl 2024-04-21 18:26

@custodi thank you! game balance is a bit rough indeed

uniowl 2024-04-21 18:27

@pierre-cilluffo thanks! We will definitely seek for ways to fix this issue that appears on WebGL for some unknown reason :(

tetracold 2024-04-22 04:03

I wanted to say right off the bat that the here art is amazing I love all the creature designs!! they are all varied eye catching and appealing. very strong presentation here, congrats to the artists!

People have given out a lot of useful critique and I don't really have anything extra o add that hasn't been said already. I can see this being great with some polish, but it's pretty good entry regardless, especially the art!

ashia 2024-04-22 23:56

шикарный арт и музыка, полное соотвествие теме, отличная игра! визуальные эффекты и презентация у вас на высоте. Приятно снова видеть названия знакомых команд на Людуме, жду от вас отличных результатов в финальном рейтинге!

bulba 2024-04-23 05:57

@ashia

Спасибо за отзыв! Будем и дальше радовать вас новыми играми (^///^)

emilalix 2024-04-24 12:22

Congratulations on this game! The graphics and gameplay are awesome. The bestiary is varied and beautiful. The concept is engaging. I've replayed the game several times for enjoyment. Well done!

uniowl 2024-04-24 13:58

@emilalix thanks a lot! Glad to hear that you've liked the bestiary, we've put some effort in its making!!!

jeffez 2024-04-24 13:59

Funny game, couldn't spawn anything other than the ratoroo, but the idea was really interesting. The only drawback was the information about the different elements and creature that weren't enough clear for me.

uniowl 2024-04-24 14:01

@jeffez thanks for feedback. Other animals start to spawn a bit later in the game, there's indeed a lot of rataroos in the beginning :( Also, we'll try our best to improve information about elements and creatures in the future!

abcdef65g 2024-04-29 01:37

Very enjoyable game! The summoning effects and the art for the summons and enemies are all super cool, great job! Due to the lack of clear information, it felt like I was summoning at random for the most part, but it does feel good once you start getting better creatures on the field.

While I didn't understand the mechanics for summoning very well, I have to say that arranging crystals to summon works well to make the auto battling aspect of the game not feel like you're just watching the creatures fight. The whole experience is quite satisfying!

uniowl 2024-04-29 19:50

@abcdef65g thanks for your feedback! It'll be useful when we return back to this project!

prepe 2024-04-30 17:10

Compareing to other ratings I gave I would need a 6 Star rating option here.

pacelin 2024-04-30 18:48

@prepe Thanks for the comment! We hope that in the future we will be able to meet your expectations!