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DIS July 2026 Mutual Feedback Jam

Hosted by Dragon's Isle Software, A Wandering Songbird, DIS Kids
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A jam submission

Hungry For LootView game page

Attacked while looking for food, they found the invader's loot tasted great!
Submitted by Dragon's Isle Software, A Wandering Songbird, DIS Kids — 1 day, 10 hours before the deadline
Rated by 4 people so far
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Improvement Summary
Most of this month we have been working on backend systems, so there is not as much clearly visible to the player. The most notable changes will be the addition of a "Story Lite" mode, along with Poison and Regen status effects.

Devlog
https://dragonsisle.itch.io/hungry-for-loot/devlog/1603419/0180-status-effects-part-1

Requested Feedback/Comments for Reviewers
Our second devlog, for the release with the combat changes:
https://dragonsisle.itch.io/hungry-for-loot/devlog/1609574/0190-combat-overhaul-part-4

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Comments

Triston GriffironSubmitted1 day ago (1 edit) (+2)

I completed the game in Lite mode and now will attempt to share my thoughts about it.

I will try not to repeat any of the feedback I have given previously.

My Gameplay:

My strategy is simple, hit hard and fast with Phil and Mindy, use defensive stats with Tanko and use Helen to fix my mistakes. I get a kick out of using the least amount of items possible so I frequently hit the enemies with no items especially when they are low. Last run I used the defensive abilities of Tanko a lot, this time around I sparingly used them. In fact, I only used a meta armor once in the entire run. I generally used the cheaply available cloth instead. It is much higher RoI to heal Tanko instead of using armor in most situations except boss fights. So even Tanko of a lot of damage this run.

Seeing items consumed vs items received is also very fun to see.

I like that we have to give away the items to save the villages. This actually rewards players like me who are massive item hoarders. Many games actually have a simple sell option for items that isn’t too satisfying to I end up keeping my inventory full. But here my inventory kept getting cleared in a meaningful way. Good job on that mechanic! Don’t think I have seen this exact variation before where you have to select and submit most of the loot instead of purely hoarding.

Tanko fainted once in the final fight because of my arrogance and unwillingness to use the stronger armor provided by the dragon. That was no issue as Helen quickly revived our boi and healed him up to full HP.

In the final fight eventually only two were left, but they kept healing and that extended the fight quite a bit. eventually I won without any casualties or even low HP.

I have thought a bit about how the difficulty progression of the game goes and I have come to the conclusion that it is pretty spot on. We get powerful rather quickly and the last fight showing what the future of the game could look like is satisfying.

Requested feedback

If you play the full story mode, what do you think of it? Is it too long/wordy?

The intro is definitely wordy. I immediately want to kick some ass. RPGs do have wordy intros but they try to introduce some major conflict or some sort of hook quickly. With hungry for loot it felt like we had a lot of character introductions and it was a bit of a slow start.

For reference, I consider Golden Sun(GBA version) to have one of the best wordy intros to an RPG game. We do not see any action for quite a while, it is mostly cutscenes after cutscenes, but we do get to explore the world and do small quests that all leads upto the major hook. Combat comes in quite late. As long as the player has something to do, the longer intros could be made engaging.

Beyond the intro, the longer story mode is no issue in my opinion.

If playing the story lite mode, does the cut down story still convey enough and feel like it is at a good level?

I think the Lite version might be the way to go for the demo, because it gets us into the action immediately.

For either mode, does the story take too long to get progress? The combat is a bit faster paced, while the story is more RPG and builds up slowly.

I feel the story is correctly paced for an RPG and isn’t too slow.

We are saving villages and each village gradually gives us more information about the people we will fight and challenges we will take on.

Is combat feeling enjoyable? Or does it get repetitive and boring?

Combat is fun so far. I did not find it boring. The thing I would advice on it to give better descriptions for abilities when we open the character screen. Description on hover is perfectly worded, but if I am opening the character screen I definitely want to know more about it. What are the exact differences between them? There are two of Helens abilities that talk about growing pains, how are these different? (It is clear that one is stronger than the other and takes more AP.) Are the older abilities less useful after we unlock new ones? I do not know this since damage numbers aren’t clear even in the ability screen. This is one area I feel where the combat can shine more.

Other thoughts

  • The game was even more fun on the second playthrough than the first one.
  • Music is fitting catchy and enjoyable.
  • This could be a repeat point, but I noticed the villages look quite similar and it is difficult to distinguish one from another. Differentiating villages is something Pokemon does really well. One of the ways is to change weather.
  • I really like the item sprites. Very well done art!
  • I do think the steam capsule needs some design work. It doesn’t do the game justice. I mention this because I know the goal is to monetize the game eventually.
  • More gameplay screenshots on itch than just UI could also be cool.
  • The ideal words per line acc to web design rules is 8-12. This does not always apply to games but I think it does to UI screens where readability is important. Some of the screens are breaking this rule.
  • I 100 percent agree with Irmoz about the complexity this game has. The Menu has a staggering amount of content, with info about towns to stat screens inventories, all quite organized. (Icons for these are quite cool.)
  • I left the game running and idle for about 40-45 mins. Unlike last time there was no lag spike whatsoever. The game around for I think 90 mins total without a hitch, very smooth!

If you have any other questions feel free to ask!

This was a great experience and I look forward to playing your next patch(and the roguelike mode).

Submitted
Anachronium - Gatekeepers of Time (prototype)
Reply
Dragon's Isle SoftwareDeveloperSubmitted16 hours ago

Thanks for playing and the detailed feedback!

We are also classic JRPG players who hoard items. It amused us that we decided to create a game centered on using consumable items, when we like to hoard normally. Yet we found that it ended up working decent;y, even if we do still like to hoard things that are limited quantity, and expect many players will do the same with things they don't know are rare. We are thinking about adding a rarity to the items for players like us, along with possibly a new Bag for storing items you want to keep and not accidentally use in combat or the Traders' Depot.

With the status effects being added we are hoping to give Tanko a bit more use as a support character, giving some stat buffs. We certainly need to do a bit more work on balancing items so that the higher level items do feel more useful, but also leaving lower lever ones as reasonable when you just need a lower power attack or heal.

We initially added the quest to feed your village to fit the story. Then it grew and we added the Arm the Resistance quest as a way to make it not feel too boring just dumping items back to the one town throughout the whole game. With the recent updates it will be much easier to implement then next part of this, where the amount you Arm them will have an impact on the rest of the game. We've debated adding shops, and even started adding money, but the Traders' Depot makes it feel like shops would not really benefit the game, especially once we add in the rewards from completing quests. We may still add money, as it would make more sense for inns to require payment, especially as you leave the forest, but we still need to work things out so it doesn't feel wrong collecting a ton of money only to use a small amount for inns. Shops would help, but we need to decide what to have in them. It could just be allowing you to buy regular items so you can stock up on the ones you like the most. Maybe allowing the player to send money back as part of the quests, so the towns can buy what they need. I think this last would not work as well without also including other uses of money, as it would feel like an extra step for something that could be automatic since you only need a small set amount of money for each inn otherwise.

Yeah, we did ramp up the difficulty on that last fight and give the powerful items for it to compensate, as normally by the time you got there you would have more items of the proper level from normal fights. Glad the healing worked well for you though.

That final fight does need a bit of reworking on the amount the enemies heal. We are planning to adjust how often they can use their healing abilities to make it not feel so long, at least for the demo.

Glad you like the difficulty progression. We will be reworking it a bit as the game grows. It feels like it may be a bit too fast for the longer game being planned. We currently aim at having around 15 towns, with some camps, and maybe dungeons, along the way. Ideally we plan to have some side quests that will open up additional paths you can take to other places that are not on the main path, though we will see how that works out. The goal is to have at least 10 hours of gameplay. We don't want the party to grow so fast that it feels like you are constantly growing out of things shortly after getting them.


Part of the long intro was from comments that we did not do enough character building to draw the player in. We plan to break the current intro up into a prologue before the main story, that is optional. It may also be used as a free promo to learn about the world. At that point it will likely grow, allowing you to interact with more of the town. We are even thinking about adding mini-games as part of the celebration, thinking about the opening to games like Chrono Trigger and Wild Arms (well, opening after you complete the 3 individual bits). The main game would then start after the inn, as you are getting ready to leave town, with the Leader Leo dialogue being shortened and moved there.

I'll take a look at Golden Sun. Several Dragon Quest games also have really long intros.

We plan to work on the UI for showing power of abilities soon. While we were working things out we didn't want to show in-progress info that was changing as we tried to decide how to do it. I think that our current system of using multipliers on the abilities is what we will stick with. It allows even they lower level ones to scale with the character and remain useful later on, even if they do less. They will also require less AP/lower level items to use. I think the AP based ones will remain relevant longer, while the non-AP ones may become obsolete, unless they have status effects or other secondary reasons for using. I am thinking about ways to allow the player to adjust the in-combat icons to allow us more space for adding more. Some may get grouped. We may add a way to scroll. We may also add an option to hide those you don't want showing in combat, or even rearrange them. That will likely be added later after we build out more of the game and start to run out of space, but we expect we will.

As we add more art we are updating the towns. We will take another look at them and see about adding a bit more distinction. As you leave the forest you will also be seeing more distinction as we plan for each area and groups to have their own styles. We only added the Slimes living underground fairly recently. Before that all the buildings were wooden looking. As we add art for the other races in our world, Wildemore will be getting some of them added in, representing its diverse population.

Weather is something we are thinking on. One of the kids started on a system for rain, and we also found a shader for it. We need to do a bit more review on how we want to implement it. We are debating if we will make it have an impact on gameplay. I suppose that using it for towns could be a good first use.

I'll take another look at the screenshots. I wanted to show off everything I could, but there are so many menu based elements that they do overwhelm. I added a screenshot of Slimerise. I took it before for something and really should have added it sooner. The screenshots do make the game look too menu heavy, when most action is the combat.

I'll take a look at the words per line. Currently, a lot of the design is centered around making everything fit, while still being readable. After we add all the features we will be taking another look and seeing how best to optimize the layout.

My partner loves world building. We have so much in mind for the world, and have been struggling to figure out how to best make it fit into the game in a way that makes things feel better and not forced or in the way. The Compendium was the best we came up with. Glad that the current systems are working well enough.

Good to hear you are not having any performance issues. This last set of updates changed a lot of code, and I took that opportunity to do some additional cleanup.

Thanks again for the great feedback! This gives us a lot to think on and will certainly help lead to a better game!

Reply
irmozSubmitted3 days ago (1 edit) (+2)

This game is simply astonishing in its detail and how comprehensive the mechanics are. I played for quite a while, and feel like I barely scratched the surface of what this has to offer. Absolutely one to watch, I was very impressed. It's quite an interesting take on the turn based RPG genre, and I also love the details of the conversations with people in each town, and how it offers not only tips for gameplay, but also life advice haha! It oozes heart, and is very fun to play, and I fully expect I'll be back for more.

For criticism - I also agree that there could be a bit more tutorialising. I was able to basically figure it out over time, but I was primarily guessing at what to do for a while.

Submitted
Burning Tides
Reply
Dragon's Isle SoftwareDeveloperSubmitted3 days ago(+1)

Thanks for playing and the feedback. Glad you liked it.

A lot of the gameplay grew with the story as it became the guiding force. There are still several mechanics on our wishlist that are only meant to come into play as you leave the forest at the end of the current demo.

Tutorials have been our bane. We over did them and had to turn them off. We used to have a combat tutorial that took you through each action you could take one by one. That was with our old system with fewer unique abilities. A lot of the feedback we've gotten was wanting to get into the gameplay sooner. We plan to eventually update that old combat tutorial for the new systems and make it optionally start from somewhere like the Training Hall. There are also some popup tutorials, but as we redesigned features we'd up that them just before releasing and were too tired so they were very wordy and need to be cleaned up. Those are still in the game, but have to be turned on from the Settings before starting the game.

Reply
VividEnigmaSubmitted3 days ago(+2)

Your game is coming along really well! I played pretty far into the game this time, getting past the first enemy camp where you had to fight the armored opponent. Having the AP at the top of the screen helped a lot, helped me realize that it was a big part of gameplay. The lite mode is also a really nice touch. 

I feel like a very basic tutorial explaining abilities, ap, damage types, ect would help a lot. You have a lot of interesting mechanics and it would help players to understand the different ways to play. 

Overall great progress, game is improving a lot, great job!

Submitted
Chaos Cat Cafe
Reply
Dragon's Isle SoftwareDeveloperSubmitted3 days ago(+1)

Thanks for playing and the feedback.

Glad the change to the AP display helped. We still need do a bit of tweaking with it, but it is coming along fairly well.

Yeah, we need to redo the tutorial from the current bloated version that made people feel overwhelmed to something simpler. I may even change the current on/off setting to one that allows selecting how detailed the player wants them to be, with our current more detailed version being the detailed option, but a lite version with just a quick summary.

Thanks!

Reply
AbstractLaserSubmitted4 days ago (2 edits) (+2)

Hi!

I just played through the game using the Lite mode, with skimming the whole dialog,  it took me a bit less than 1 hour to complete. I quite enjoyed the experience, although you mentioned there is very minimal changes to the player-facing side of the game, I felt the battle experience is getting more streamlined on every update. Up until the previous update, I tried to hold on to most of the items in fear that they won't be enough. Whereas this time, I tried sending out all the lower-levelled items back at the trading depot so the battle is less cluttered. This decision did make the experience more enjoyable :D

During battle, the phase indicator (choose skill -> choose target thingy)  on the top of the screen is really helpful in navigating the screen. Also, the AP indicator is now immediately visible when choosing ability, nice touch! Maybe making the icons just a tad bit bigger will help with readability (or make the icon more distinct than each other using forms/color).

The poison/regen status effect is a good addition to the combat system. Although I mostly try to deal the most damage, I do use the poison quite a bit.

For a lot portion of the game, items with earth element are quite rare. So for the most time, I don't use Tanko's earth ability. I'm also still wondering what the difference between using Earthshater or use a basic spit with earth elemental is. Also, what is the difference between using common elemental strike that opens up all elemental options or specific elemental strike? it's quite different to tell.

There is a non-game-breaking bug in the trading post. When I use the trading post to send home items, I found duplicated items. As you can see in the following screenshot, there are two sets of bullwhip. When I transfer all of them to the top, the problem resolves itself and change into 1 set of bullwhip. I can't identify what triggers this duplicate though. 



This time I managed to beat the final boss. The issue for me this time is that the final boss theme is very high-octane for the whole track. It took me between 10 to 15 minutes to finish the final boss, I was feeling audio-sensory overload. I think it would benefit everyone if there's a small section of the track where it slows down a bit. Hey, even a heavy metal music usually have parts where it slow down a bit to give some variation to the tone.

I was looking through the compendiums, settings and stuff and found my account listed there.
Thank you so much for the shout-out!

Based on your devlog, I think this month has been an overall good update.
Looking forward to the next one that you've been wanting to show off!

Submitted
Project Rally
Reply
Dragon's Isle SoftwareDeveloperSubmitted4 days ago(+1)

Thanks for playing the and the great feedback!

I'm glad gameplay is feeling better. We did a lot of work, but when I wen through to write the devlogs it was hard to really list out a lot of the changes without getting overly technical, and I didn't really have good notes to do that. I keep debating writing a more technical devlog for the game, and may do so when we get to a more polished state. We are very happy with the changes. It has been much easier to work with the new systems. We discussed the overall plan, but I did most of the work myself, so it was nice when the kids started to work with it and agreed that it felt much better to them as well.

We are planning to work on refining the combat Select Item/Target UI. With the Hungry Goes Rogue project we will be allowing players to gain non-Slime characters with different types of abilities, so that UI needs to become more dynamic, but I agree that it flows pretty well and want to keep that. We've had comments about potentially adding other characters later in the story, including the possibility of non-Slimes, so the Rogue project will open that up as a possibility for the main game as well.

We had a couple comments about the old AP amounts not being clear. Extending the panel around it was the best short term solution I had with the focus being on other aspects. I had designed it to be smaller due to space constraints when the travel progress bar was showing in combat, but with the current layout I feel that there is a bit more space and we should be able to make things bigger. I'll see about that for the next update.

I feel like status effects are a staple that the game was really lacking without. Personally, I don't really use them. I also like to focus on dealing damage and winning quickly, but I know there are people who really like to use them. In longer fights, especially boss fights, regen can be great. We also have some planned abilities for the enemies that we think will be a fun challenge.

We've been trying to work with Tanko. We really like his character design, but balancing the items for his abilities with what feels "natural" to us has been tougher. The status effect system will help, as we plan for him to get more buff related abilities. We also want to review the items and see what we can add in to make all the needed elements common enough that no one character feels like they don't get enough items.

We plan to add more to the UI to help convey the power of abilities in the future. The new combat system being simpler should help with this. The way attack abilities are currently setup to use multipliers. The base Spit has 1.0x multipliers for physical and magical. Earthshatter has a 1.2x magical multiplier, but 0 for physical. This can make basic Spit more useful on enemies with high magical/Earth defense, but weak to physical. The Elemental Strike has 0.2x for physical and 1.15x for magical, while the element specific versions are 0 physical and 1.25x for magical. We really need to add this info to the UI. We also plan to add something in combat to give the player an idea of how powerful an ability will be with a given item. We may also add an estimated damage amount for a selected enemy, but that might be tied to an ability, difficulty setting, or perhaps only showing after you have fought the enemy enough to learn their defenses.

I'll check on the Traders' Depot items showing twice. There is a way for items to show twice, but that should not be happening any more when Inventory Management is off.

We'll take a look at the boss music. That fight is meant to be much later in the game and is meant to be more intense, but maybe we can have the intensity ramp up. The music we have from Ovani comes in 3 intensities, so it would be easy enough to implement.

We really appreciate the great feedback you've regularly offered! When we redid the About UI it seemed like a good idea to not only credit the assets we used but also other devs who have helped shape the game.

Thanks again for your continued playing and feedback!

Reply
AbstractLaserSubmitted3 days ago(+1)

I totally agree with what you're saying regarding status effect. It adds to the strategy on how to win very hard battle. In other RPGs, it's a must-have when playing under-leveled or fighting side-bosses earlier in the story than what is expected by the developer. And winning such cases is very satisfying! The context in which poison/regen is used is very important. But, it's better that it is implemented rather than not. So I hope you have some cases in mind that will at least encourage the usage of this status effects. 

Reply
Dragon's Isle SoftwareDeveloperSubmitted3 days ago(+1)

We don't specifically have a plan for poison at the moment. There are certain other ones that we have bigger plans for, and they are the ones that needed the combat updates to implement. We started with Poison/Regen because they were easy to implement and let us test our initial code, which is when we found the weaknesses that would be problematic for the other effects. We will probably add some enemies, likely a boss, that has high defenses where something like Poison will be the best way to deal with them, but nothing is set yet for that.

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