Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 8! My name's Hythrain, a co-host and one of the streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live as I stream your game! If you're interested in seeing my live reaction, let me know and I can send you a link to the VOD once it's posted to YouTube!

So my normal approach for any game in these events is simple: I get the game, make sure it's not a virus, then play it with as little information on how to play as possible. This way, I can judge how intuitively someone can figure out the game. Only if it's obvious that I need to read more will I do so. I note this so you can get a sense where some of these feedback comes from. In addition, I want to note that feedback and rating are different; don't use this feedback to gauge what I'll rate, nor should you view my rating as entirely indicative of my feedback.

This is the second roguelite-Solitaire game I've seen in this very same event. However, where that one focused more on non-Solitaire aspects and simply used the basics of Solitaire as part of its gameplay, this focuses on Solitaire itself and uses the basic idea of roguelites as part of its gameplay. On one hand, this can work very well. On the other hand, it... kind of can't.

But before I get more into that and my deeper feedback, I want to cover one thing: this game is very memory intensive and very poorly optimized. While I accept my computer isn't the best, I also know that very few games in this event cause an issue like this one did: to slow down my vtuber model. This usually happens when a game isn't well optimized, and normally I only see poor optimization in Unreal Engine games. I was shocked when I noticed that this game used over 1 GB of memory despite the game itself only being 136 MB in size AND being a Godot engine game.

Okay, onto the true feedback. So upfront, I've played a fair bit of solitaire. When I worked in a grocery store, playing it on my phone during breaks was my normal way to pass the time. As such, there are things I've always noticed about solitaire games. For starters, they always included the ability to undo turns up to a certain number. This function really mattered when I'd have two cards of the same colour up but only had the means to move one of them; an undo let me check what came next under both cards and plan what I was going to do next. While at first glance this may seem unnecessary with the transpose skill, the problem is that transpose is entirely random; you don't know what you're going to get, even when you have relics that force what appears during transpose to something helpful. It can still end up not being what you need to make progress. As such, the first thing this needs is an "Undo turn" feature. I'd also recommend this feature work with transpose in the event a transpose makes things even worse.

Next, let's talk about transpose and relics. Conceptually, this idea is interesting. However, as I played more and experimented with more relics, I realized certain ones were... honestly, kind of dangerous. In particular, the one relic that lets you do every column and then disables a random relic (Personally, I think this relic should only disable itself). This was then made worse when I realized I couldn't get rid of them (There's a sell button, but it doesn't work). However, even then I feel like transpose needs to work a bit better. My suggestion would be this: upon use, you get to pick from one of three random cards that transpose chooses. You then make that the swap. If you have any relic that does multiple columns, you only get to pick one card and it's always done after all of the other swaps are made. The reason for doing it this way is so that the player gets to pick the one card with the knowledge of what else showed up and thus are given the advantage when picking.

The concept is certain good and can be fun. I just think it needs to be less RNG and more in the player's control.

Also, I felt like the cursor was really picky when it came to picking up card stacks. Had a lot of times where I was trying to grab the top of a stack and I would just miss it. Not sure of the best way to fix this, though. It's just something I wanted to bring up.

That's all I got! Keep up the great work!

I had a ton of fun with this and def am looking forward to the full release. It was also the demo showcase I did on stream that by far had the most people asking me what I was playing as they were interested in it as it's a nice simple familiar design with solitaire combined with roguelike elements. 

I will note I had some people mentioning the color of the orange cards were a bit hard to read, but overall was a smooth experience. Keep up the great work and I'm looking forward to seeing what the full version offers down the line.

My new favorite Solitaire game!

My only real concern is that the orange/red of the Diamond/Hearts is kinda similar to the sand, which makes it a little hard for me to see the numbers.  That could absolutely just be a me-thing, though.

I found the "How To" perfectly adequate to explain the rules of the game, and worked my way through a few different levels today!  It's very soothing, so easy to just sit and relax while playing, which is a wonderful thing.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2551305113

Really fun mash up of solitaire with roguelike elements! The art, especially the little blob guys, was so cute! And the transpose mechanic really feels like it helps with my issues with this type of solitaire, namely being like 2 or 3 moves off being able to finish it but because the card you need is trapped with no way to flip it over.  

With the location of the transpose button and how small it is I did miss it for the 1st round, got stuck on the 2nd and was about to quit the run and start again and then happened over it what felt a little accidentially, maybe making it a more prominent feature in the UI would help this out a bit.

I can see the shop items really bringing a lot of variety to runs! Best of luck for the rest of development :)

A Really fun game! The relaxing aesthetic works really well, and even though I was not even able to beat the first level (I am not great at solitaire), I still had a great time. The music and the art style work really well together, and it helps to create a really unique experience. However, I could not figure out if you could access the shop at any time or if you could only access it after finishing a level. Keep it up!

A solidly made solitaire with a relaxing atmosphere and great sense of place. The jelly creatures are cute and I like how they flee from the mouse. I had fun once I got the hang of it.

My only suggestions are improvements for the UI. it was difficult to figure out how to use the Transpose power, maybe make it more obvious when it is turned on and add text telling the player to pick a stack. The shop has a similar issue: "toggling" items on/off to purchase them feels strange, and sometimes the text is faded out on some relics, which in most games would suggest that they're locked or can't be selected, but here I'm not sure what the purpose is?

Also, I don't know if you plan on making this a commercial game but if you are, do note that the term "Jello" is trademarked, and could get you in legal trouble. Best to rename it to something else, like "Jelly".

I love that the little blobs on the side interact with the mouse, and the animations + sound effects feel good. Those moments of runaway successes when it finishes the rest of the round are satisfying, and I like having have a large hand to draw gaps in the cards from.

I got 22550 my first run, probably pretty bad but it was a lot of fun!

I wish it highlighted the icon automatically if I couldn’t do anything, and I’m not sure what the shop between the rounds did. A proper fullscreen mode would be nice, I’m not sure if I missed a shortcut.

I agree with the feedback from the other comment, and I’m excited for future updates!

It's a fun game to spend time on! I especially like the way it auto sorts. I missed a lot of obvious moves but got carried by the hint system

I won my second game by saving nearly all my jello. The problem with using your health as currency is that you have to make everything you spend it on extremely valueable to be worth it, and none of the items seemed to be worth it

In terms of roguelike-ness it felt very one-dimensional since everything was based around one special move

There's not a lot of feedback on spending/gaining jello so it's hard to keep track of your balance. I'd suggest also adding SFX on hovering over cards and when jello are pushed/hovered/clicked on for immersion's sake.

I didn't like the tentacle cursor, something about it is less intuitive for where you're clicking than a normal cursor

I think 'Jello' is trademarked and kind of an unsuited name even without the association to the food considering they're jell-ee-fish, Jell-ee-taire, etc.