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A jam submission

Anachronium - Gatekeepers of Time (prototype)View game page

A space themed turn based tactical strategy game.
Submitted by Triston Griffiron — 1 day, 11 hours before the deadline
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Anachronium - Gatekeepers of Time (prototype)'s itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Overall#14.2674.267
Fun#14.6004.600
Recent Work/Making Progress#24.4004.400
Onboarding/Intuitiveness#43.8003.800

Ranked from 5 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Improvement Summary
Created a completely new mode for the game. Also added three new ships for each pilot! For more information, do go through the devlogs.

Devlog
https://triston-griffiron.itch.io/space-themes-turn-based-game-prototype/devlog/1646079/anachronium-version-18-battle-mode

Requested Feedback/Comments for Reviewers
Mainly what I want feedback on is..

How long did you play the game?
Is the game replayable?
Did you feel like giving it another go after a win/loss?
Did you encounter any bugs apart from the ones I mentioned?
What were your favorite abilities?

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Comments

Jam HostSubmitted (1 edit) (+1)

I played through the Story Mode to unlock the cards to play in the Battle Mode.

In Story Mode, the following happened:

I thought I had swapped Anachronium Beam with Therapeutic Grapple, but when I got into combat, I still had Anachronium Beam. I dropped Anachronium Beam in the Other Tab, at the end of the list of cards. I swapped between ships after that, though I didn't acknowledge Valkyrie had the new load out or not. On my next round, I dropped Anachronium Beam into the Heal Tab, then switch to the Other Tab to add Therapeutic Grapple. Therapeutic Grapple was in my load out for that combat.

I tried to see if I could recreate what I did. I put Anachronium Beam back into my load out, then tried removing it on the Other Tab. This time, I couldn't place it into the empty space at the end of the list of cards. I'm guessing there was a miner glitch that made it look like I dropped the card off, but it didn't actually register due to where I placed the card. I've noticed on other tabs that sometimes it seems like you can place a card from your ships at the end of the tab's list of cards, though most of the time it seems like you can't. I think it might be nice if you could add a card to the end of a list, because sometimes I will want to replace a card from my load out with a new card, but since I don't have a card from that particular tab there isn't a free space to place it. (I asked Dragon to proofread, and they commented "You don't use Right Click?" It would seem I completely missed that I could easily remove cards by clicking the right mouse button.)


Afterwards, I started playing on Battle Mode, and wrote down my thoughts as I was playing.

I think it would be helpful for the number of credits you have to be shown on the Ship Select Screen without needing to click the "Buy Ship" button. When I went to buy any ship, there was an extra comma in the cost, meaning at a glance it look like it costs 2 million instead of 2 hundred thousand. There was not any commas in the amount of credits I have, which made it a little difficult to read my credit total.

It would be nice if you could see your ship upgrades on the load out screen. Different upgrades influenced what cards I wanted to use, and being able to easily see all my current upgrades would have been helpful.

Utility Belt is insanely powerful. With it, Valkyrie can do Therapeutic Grapple every turn. Therapeutic Grapple is high on my list of favorite cards in general, with the Utility Belt upgrade it may have been a bit over powered.

My next upgrade was Remove Propoganda, which made Utility Belt feel even more powerful.

The achievements didn't show how you got them when you hovered over them at the end of combat.

On my first time playing Battle Mode, after going through Story Mode and unlocking all but two of the cards, I used the three default ships.

I got what I'm pretty sure was a bug. I'm not fully sure what I did to get it, but I'll try to describe as much of the turn as I can.

I had the following bonuses: Oyster with Healing Lasers, all ships with Utility Belt, and Remove Propoganda. I was on my fourth combat overall on my first time playing in Battle Mode. I don't recall what turn it was, though I think it was on turn three. Oyster used Tri laser to heal Morningstar. Morningstar used Snipers Legacy (and missed). I then tried to have Valkyrie use Therapeutic Grapple on Morningstar. While I was clicking, a giant, screen filling green laser came from the right side of the screen. It took out all the enemy ships, and might have taken out my ships, though it wasn't clear as I got the Victory Screen. I got the rank of "Win" with 1 out of 5 stars. At the screen load out screen, all my ships were at 0 health. I could continue, but I didn't see any of my ships and I got the Glitch Card.

On my second time, I decided to try to use Kunai and Talaria.

I had a surprisingly hard time aiming with Kunai, seldom getting the crit and missing a fair bit. I was much better at hitting with Oyster. I feel my ability to hit and get crits was about the same with Morningstar and Talaria.

I had the option to give Kunai Solar Panels, so switched her to being another support based ship. I found her far more useful that way.

On my second playthrough, I lost on my third overall fight. I decided to switch Gwen's ship to Archania to give it a try and started again. I started on the same fight that I had just lost. I played a little, but was doing poorly enough that I decided to quit to menu to try again. When I started Battle Mode again, I had the same fight again. The fight had two Alpha Defenders, two Feather Strikers, and a Heal Bot. I lost to that fight again, started another run on Battle Mode, and got the same fight. I exited and tried switching my ships, and, when that resulted in the same fight, I opened up the Story Mode, fought Phantom, exited, and started Battle Mode again. Again, I got the same fight I lost to. The fight feels a too difficult for a first combat, when you don't have any other bonuses, and it just wasn't fun to try to keep playing it when I kept getting the same fight that I kept losing to. I think it would be nice if there was a way to reset, for lack of a better word, the Battle Mode, so you don't keep getting the same fight over and over when you lose.

*Edit* I had started playing last night, and left the game up to keep all my cards and such.  So the issue with the same fight coming up after I lost may have been from before the most recent small patch.  I didn't try a new game after losing after I refreshed the page earlier today, so I can't speak to the most recent patch.

I decided to restart the game to see if I could get farther on Battle Mode.

Here are my ship starting layouts:

Kunai was a support ship with Seal of Equinopolis, Solar Power, Pravarshan, and Godrin's Ring.

Talaria was a combat ship with Double Attack, Triple Attack, Snipers Dream, and Snipers Legacy. (On second fight I swapped Snipers Dream with Bounty Shotgun, thinking I might want something with a little more spread occasionally. I never actually used it though.)

Valkyrie was a support ship with Recharge Ally, Energy Infusion, Uplifting Aura, and Therapeutic Grapple.

I replaced Uplifting Aura with Seal of Equinopolis on Valkyrie for one round to give Kunai more Max energy, giving Kunai Plasma Shield in its place.

I'm not sure if the Max Energy boost from Seal of Equinopolis is suppose to stick around from combat to combat in the Battle Mode, but it did, even after what I believe was the boss fight from the first set of three.

This time around I didn't use Therapeutic Grapple, had ended my turn, and the giant, screen filling green laser filled came from the right side of the screen, taking out all ships on screen. It took me to the victory screen and let me select a new card. I picked a card that increased Valkyrie's Max HP by 1. When I got to the load out screen, Valkyrie had 1 HP, while both Kunai and Talaria had 0. I changed my load out a little, giving Valkyrie Godrin's Ring, and continued to the fight. I again got the glitch card and screen.

Developer (1 edit)

I apologize for all the glitches you faced!

Can I ask if you downloaded the todays patch when playing? Or is this an older playthrough?

Also was the screen filling laser always occuring after Snipers Legacy?

Jam HostSubmitted(+1)

Hey, part of the reasons for this jam is to help each other find bugs and glitches.  I'm glad I can help.

I was just editing my post to mention that I haven't tried starting a new game after a loss on today's patch.  I had started playing last night, and just left the game up so I could come back to it today.  I did refresh the page to try again (I was playing on the web), but I only did one run.

I'm not sure what was causing the screen filling laser.  The first time it happened was right as I was using Therapeutic Grapple, but I had just used Snipers Legacy as well.   I don't think I used Snipers Legacy the second time it happened, though I used the ability so many times I can't be 100% sure one way or another.  Given how often I used Snipers Legacy, it didn't even occur to me that it might have been the cause of the screen filling laser.

One of the kids just let me know that they got the screen filling laser as well.  They had used Snipers Legacy and had missed.  I know I missed with it the first time it happened, so it does seem like a good place to start looking.

Developer(+1)

The loss mot resetting the battlemode was a bug I fixed in the latest patch. That’s why I was curious why the same level kept showing up. I will definitely retest this just to make sure.

The green laser is a funny bug caused by the Legacy bullet getting sooo large off screen that it eventually fills up the entire screen. I have set it to queue free after exit screen but I suspect one two pixels fail to exit screen and it keeps infinitely expanding. I’ll fix this too.

The card swap bug I’ve no idea about. I’ll definitely have to test that. 🤔

To answer some of your questions:

  • The Seal oj Equinopolis buff is supposed to last the entirety of the battlemode.
  • The battlemode is supposed to reset after win/loss/surrender. A new path is to be drawn.
  • The new levels are definitely VERY challenging. Do you think I should nerf them a little?
  • for playtesting purposes since you’ve already completed story mode, you can always unlock all cards from settings. ( And buy all ships)

Thank you for going into such detail for the review! I really appreciate you taking the time to describe the bugs and try to recreate the steps to get to it!

Jam HostSubmitted (1 edit) (+1)

I just pulled it out again to do a little more testing. Battle Mode gave me a new run when I lost this time around. The issue I was having with it yesterday was almost certainly because I was playing on an older version.

I did a bit more testing with Snipers Legacy. I didn't always get the screen filling laser when I missed with it, but each time it happened was after a miss. I didn't notice any particular pattern for when it happened based on where the projectile went off screen, nor how long it took between missing and the laser happening.

I had forgotten that I could unlock all the cards when I had first pulled it up, which is why I played through the story again. I remember it later on, which was part of why I decided to refresh the page to try it again yesterday, and noticed that I could also buy all the ships.

I think having some very challenging levels adds to the overall game, and the later levels in Battle Mode should be harder than the earlier ones. I don't mind losing to a difficult level, though definitely had "Nooooo! I had such great upgrades that run!" moments. The frustration I was feeling was because I kept getting the same super hard level as my first fight, so I didn't have any bonuses to help deal with it, and that's been fixed. Fresh runs felt reasonable, with levels getting harder the longer the run went. Personally, I don't think anything need to be nerfed.

I had thought that Seal of Equinopolis was useful when I thought it was only going to last through the next boss. Knowing it lasts the whole run makes it even more worthwhile to spend several turns early on boosting my ships. I think my favorite part of the Battle Mode is it has encouraged me to play around with cards I otherwise might not have used, because I got an upgrade that made it easier to experiment with some of the higher energy cost cards.

Edit: I forgot to mention, I have no idea how I got the card swap bug.  I have not been able to recreate it, and I wasn't paying enough attention to what I did to be able to detail out the exact steps I took when it happened.

Developer(+1)

Thank you for giving it another shot!

I’m glad the battlemode bugs are fixed now.

I’ve now capped the max size for the snipers legacy bullet. It will never become an apocalypse causing event anymore. ( Hopefully 😂)

I plan to add more levels and polish!

Thank you again for writing such a detailed review! These have been extremely useful for finding and fixing bugs!

Submitted(+1)

It's my first time playing the game, and I think the concept—deckbuilder + spaceships—is great. I love the aiming mechanics to land a shot, the characters are super unique, and the game's overall aesthetic looks really promising, honestly. The card descriptions are a bit small, though; I had to play in full screen to read them.

Developer

Thank you for playing!

I’m glad you liked it!

The cards can be zoomed in using right click or long tap. 🤔 I’ll try to make this more clear using some UI prompts.

Submitted(+1)

Yes, I know you can zoom in by clicking, but I think it would be better to increase the text size so you don't have to click on every card and can just scan them quickly. These are small details that improve the overall quality of life of the game.

Developer(+1)

I will definitely try to fix this in the coming patches.

Jam HostSubmitted(+1)

I like your updates in 1.8 and 1.9. they add a lot to the game and make it more fun.

Open notes:

I know you said that the ship selection screen was un-finished, so I understand if these are things you had planned but did not make it in to this version.

I feel that in the ship selection screen, especially for certain ships, it should show energy production and HP production. It should show whatever the value is to start with, but if they have upgrades/boosts, like gaining energy production as they lose health, have more info for how to get the production.

I also feel like the ship selection should show the starting fuel, as looking at Talaria H versus Morningstar A, the only thing that seems different between them is the HP, which the Talaria H has less of.

With the battle mode I am finding myself using Saul Kay and Shield a lot more then I used to. I also am regularly losing my top and center ships in the first or second combat and needing to use those cards to survive.

I like that you have description of the characters, it gives a little bit more about them, which makes some of my thoughts on them feel more solid, as they are included in the description.

I have a possible idea for a achievement/badge: Something for when you spawn a bunch of Saul Kays. The reason why I thought of this was due to me having 6 Saul Kays at the end of a combat.

With the new battle mode I have a different loadout then what I usually go with. Here is my main loadout:

Kunai N: Triple Attack / Uplifting Aura, Laser Of Lamentation, Phantom Flower, and Phantom Ray.

Morningstar A / Talaria H: Anachronium Pills, Blast Gun, Barrage Shotgun/ Fuel Shot, and Destroyer.

Arcania S: Recharge Ally, Plasma Shield, Recycle Self / Recharge, and finally Saul Kay.

I feel like the card selection screen's music is a bit loud compared to the other music, especially with me wearing headphones.

There are some upgrades I would like to see: An aim speed upgrade, an aim circle upgrade, a fuel upgrade, and maybe an upgrade that will increase your starting energy in a combat.

It feels like certain ships are targeted more than others, most notably Kunai N being targeted more, and Arcania S being targeted less. If this is the case, it would be nice if when you were looking at your ship it displayed the their likelihood of being targeted so you can decide whether or not it is worth it to pick that ship.

Possible nice to have: Giving the enemies targeting circles and showing them lining things up, part of this would be to make it more clear when they get damage boost, as the current text is easy to miss.

Ignatius feels a little bit overpowered as I am able to take out almost every single enemy or boss in one hit using it, as it has a massive explosion range I can easily take out every enemy in one turn just by using this special ability.

I would like it if there was a lower cost, lower power version of the Plasma Shield. Maybe 2 energy, 6 HP.

I wish that you could cancel an attack when you are aiming as there have been times where I clicked on the wrong ability.

I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but I like descriptions of the different cards, and some of the humor you put into them.

Story thoughts:

Last time I played I left some thoughts on the story, but as I thought on it more over the month I had some more thoughts on the bad guys you are fighting in the main story. Here they are:

I have some ideas for who they might be. I think that they are probably government or ex-goverment. If they are government, my thought if that they are the undercover group doing what the government wants to do to the planet but can't for political reasons. If that is the case then it is likely that the rest of the military will not be coming to your aid as your signal is intercepted and never gets through.

The other thought of them being ex-goverment leads me to think, that maybe what they are saying is the situation in the government and might be why they left, and why they are doing this.

Both of these two options give reason for why they have all of these experimental techs, and why they have such a big fleet. They are clearly bad guys but it has the feel of they think that they are not bad guys and doing something for the greater good, which again, could fit with both of my ideas.

Anyway that is all of my story thoughts for now as I spent all of my time doing the battle mode instead of the full game mode.

Requested Feedback/Comments for Reviewers:

How long did you play the game:

~4 hours, though some of that was idle time where I was writing notes.

Is the game replayable:

The battle mode is definitely replayable, and with the way it is currently gives dopamine boosts each time you win a fight, especially if that fight is a boss.

Did you feel like giving it another go after a win/loss:

Yes, definitely I played this for a while and after losing I might change some things around for my ships and go again. I definitely wish that you could start over from the first fight when you lose and re-try.

Did you encounter any bugs apart from the ones I mentioned:

Yes, I did. I also have some notes on the bug I was calling the "Practice Test Bug", as from reading your devlogs I think that we might be having two different issues that result in the glitch card.

So, about the bug that I was calling the "Practice Test Bug". I believe that the issue has something to do with having my last ship destroyed by crashing into a astroid. I was able to get the issue on this version with all of my basic three ships fully loaded out. It does not seem to matter if all ships are destroyed by astroids or if only your last ship is, but that seems to be the problem.

I also got the Glitch card when I used the surrender right as one of my laser abilities was fading, when I went into the next combat there was the glitch card.

When you have a ship destroyed in combat, you can get upgrades for them that increases their max HP, and their current HP, but they do not show back up in combat, despite having health gained. This could be intended, but it was not clear to me and felt like there might have been a bug.

When you get a health upgrade without changing the max, it does revive the ship, which feels kind of odd when you have one ship with higher health then all others not showing up in combat because it was a max health upgrade, but when you give another ship a small heal they come back into combat.

Also on the upgrades, I got a upgrade for Kunai N's health, increasing it by 7, and in the card selection screen it listed that ship's health as higher then the max health.

If you are moving a ship and you crash into a astroid, destroying the ship, the space bar will not work for stopping movement, you will have to click the stop button.

I think that the combat music does not loop.

Certain of the card's expected damage is zero even when others of it's type have an expected damage here are some of the most notable: Laser Beam, Penta Laser, Doom Cannon, Phantom Ray, And Laser Of Lamentation. Also most of the healing cards have a Expected healing of zero, here are the ones that don't: Pravarshan at 20, and Band Aid at 1

What were your favorite abilities:

So, I am not fully sure what you mean by this and wether you mean special abilities or regular cards, so I will list both here.

My favorite special would probably be Ignatius, but I also really like the Ancestral Secrets ability, I just almost never get around to using it, as the Kunai was my main attack ship.

For my favorite cards with the battle mode I will separate them out by ship, because some that work really well for one ship do not work at all for another.

Kunai N: Triple Attack, and Phantom Flower. Triple attack because I can use put it in place of my double attack which in the past I would give Pearl's ship and have a more powerful basic attack. Phantom Flower, because it is a powerful ability and I can use it more often with it's energy use reduced.

Morningstar A / Talaria H: Anachronium Pills. I use it to buff Kunai N most of the time. I also sometimes use the Fuel Shot for Talaria H.

Arcania S: Saul Kay, and Plasma Shield. Saul Kay as my droid army when all other ships are down, and Plasma Shield For all the time use helping keep my ships alive. I also like Recharge Ally.

Although for just a in general for many ships my favorites are: Recharge Ally, and, any Phantom ability as long as my ship has enough energy for it.

That is all for now, this update was awesome and that new battle mode adds a lot to the game. I will definitely be looking forward to where you take this game from here.

-R

Developer(+1)

Hey! Thanks for playing the battle mode and leaving such detailed feedback!

I will try to address some points, answer some questions:

  • I plan to add all the stats for that screen.

  • Oh yes! I plan to add a lot more badges. The Saul Kay badge is a good idea! Six Saul Kays is a great strategy haha. Must have been a crazy fight!

  • I will reduce the music volume of the ship select screen

  • It is definitely less clear when enemies get a damage boost. I will look to making the UI for this better.

  • The ideas with upgrades are great! I plan to add aim related upgrades soon. And I also have some new fancy stuff planned out.

  • Glad you like the card descriptions. I had started to assume that people were not reading them.

  • I really love hearing story thoughts! Even if I can’t comment on them much for the fear of spoiling.

Based on what you have described what I can say is that you are very observant. It seems you have picked up on small cues left and scattered through the story and lore in the game.

About the bugs: “I also got the Glitch card when I used the surrender right as one of my laser abilities was fading, when I went into the next combat there was the glitch card.” This is another first. I will definitely look into this.

  • About your HP and Max HP observation you are spot on. Heal is also a revive if you are at zero. While max_HP gives you as much HP as you have gained MaxHP it does not revive. This is by design, but I should most definitely make it more clear.

“I think that the combat music does not loop.” Did the time reverse come into play by any chance? This stops adaptive music from playing. I have yet to fix it.

The expected damage part is a WIP. I have yet to form my thoughts around if it is even useful. Do you find it to be a useful feature so far?

I am really glad you enjoyed the game. your opinions and thoughts thus far have been extremely valuable in shaping the game!

Jam HostSubmitted(+1)

Thanks for reply. You had some questions so I will go over most of your reply and give my responses. Each of your comments will be bolded, and my comments will be under them in regular font. Hope that helps with reading it. I also have an idea for the battle mode combats that I forgot to put in my main notes, that is at the end of my reply, separate from the rest of it.

I plan to add all the stats for that screen.

  • That is what I thought, I just wanted give my thoughts on what stats felt like they needed to be added.

Oh yes! I plan to add a lot more badges. The Saul Kay badge is a good idea! Six Saul Kays is a great strategy haha. Must have been a crazy fight!

  • With Gwen's new ship, once it gets down to a low enough health I can spawn Saul Kays every couple of turns, and when that is the only of my main ships still alive, in order to survive through any combat, shields and Saul Kays are my strategy, so regularly in one of my runs I would have 5 or 6 Saul Kays on the field before I finished all of the enemies..

It is definitely less clear when enemies get a damage boost. I will look to making the UI for this better.

  • Part of the issue for me is both the duration of the text and the color of the text. Since several of the enemy ships have reds on them, the red of the text does not stand out very much. To add to that, the text does not stick around for very much time. Because of these I regularly missed the text.

The ideas with upgrades are great! I plan to add aim related upgrades soon. And I also have some new fancy stuff planned out.

  • Awesome! Would love to see the new upgrades when they are done.

Glad you like the card descriptions. I had started to assume that people were not reading them.

  • I read all of the text on the cards, partially cause I don't want to miss anything important, and partially cause I like to see the humor put throughout the game.

About your HP and Max HP observation you are spot on. Heal is also a revive if you are at zero. While max_HP gives you as much HP as you have gained MaxHP it does not revive. This is by design, but I should most definitely make it more clear.

  • That is what I had thought, but it was not clear to me at first and I thought that it might have been a bug because of the healing working to bring ships back.

“I think that the combat music does not loop.” Did the time reverse come into play by any chance? This stops adaptive music from playing. I have yet to fix it.

  • No, it did not. I was on the Signal boss fight, on turn 1 with all of my ships close to full health. I was not paying attention to the game, and I had taken off my headphones, so I don't know if something happened while I was distracted that caused the music to stop.

The expected damage part is a WIP. I have yet to form my thoughts around if it is even useful. Do you find it to be a useful feature so far?

  • Yes, though many of the ones that, to me, would be the most useful don't have the expected damage.

I am really glad you enjoyed the game. your opinions and thoughts thus far have been extremely valuable in shaping the game!

  • I am really happy to help. I have greatly enjoyed playing the game and seeing how it has grown.

So, I just finished reading your reply to Dragon's Isle Software and you had a few questions for them, I am going to give my opinions on the questions:

Do you feel Kunai is underpowered?

  • No. I found Kunai to be quite useful in combat once I got a handle on working with the limitations of the ship. Part of this might be because I focused my strategy around giving her Anachronium pills and energy buffs, to be able to unleash The Phantom Flower and Ray every few turns. I do feel like enemies target her a little too often, but that could just be me having bad RNG.

Do you feel the battlemode is too difficult? Or is the difficulty alright for the given format?

  • I think that it is a bit too difficult early on, but as things get later, it feels decent, and even sometimes a little easy.

What other games can you think of that are similar to Anachronium?

  • I can't really think of any other games, though I have not played many games, and most of those were more fantasy JRPG style. DIS will probably have better feedback on this question.

An idea I had for the battle mode, was as things get later on, instead of having preset combats which it currently seems to be, having spawn points throughout the enemies side of the map that can spawn any enemy and then have some logic for making sure that enemies don't spawn crashing into each other. For progression with this idea, you could expand the available spawn points for the enemies, and the max number of enemies, allowing for it to get harder over time. You could also do that for boss fights, maybe starting with one boss and a couple of enemies and building up to a point where you have multiple bosses at one time.

Developer(+1)

Thank you for your thoughtful comments on this!

One of the new Saul Kay badges will be dedicated to you!

I am so glad you read all the card descriptions. I spent almost 3 days on them. fine tuning the lore and hidden details and so on. It took a lot more time than I expected.

I will definitely look into the music bug.

Kunai is a very odd ship in my opinion. And I have seen players find many unique ways to play her and everyone uses her differently. I personally use her as a secondary support with overcharge slotted. (It is almost impossible to miss on her close range.)

I have long pondered the idea of proc gen/randomly generated levels. I feel like the puzzle element that the enemies display now will be completely lost in that approach tho. Each ship will do its own thing and that could potentially get boring after a while. Right now each level can be solved like a puzzle. I really want to retain that feel.

That being said I am still figuring out if smaller elements of the level can be randomized leading to better variety. Like the enemies that spawn on certain spots could be randomly picked from an array of 4 and so on.

I will definitely think about what you said as well. having tertiary enemies definitely makes a boss feel much more difficult and menacing instantly!

Thanks again for playing! I will try to bring out the newer patch, sooner rather than later!

HostSubmitted (1 edit) (+1)

I know things are not complete, and you likely are aware of some of these, but I'm still going to comment on some things I think are important for near future. Besides, there's always the chance that some of these aren't on your list.

Flinn's Ignatius description is too long to fit the card. Most of it seems to be there but the comment on explosion damage is cut off.

On the ship select I know you just started adding the stats. It would be nice to see fuel added, especially for evaluating Flinn's Ignatius.

It would be nice if there was UI showing HP & Energy Regen, especially since these can now change. I'm just starting so don't know how high it can go, but you could possibly add an icon above the HP bar for each point you regen. Or an icon with a # next to it for the amount. Maybe also add the popup messages about gaining these to the Battle Log.

I had a Refined Diamond move onto one of my ships between turns, and it kep doing damage every second or so, destroying the ship before I could move it away. This was in my first fight.

Extra Cargo Hold does not mention the name of the ship it affects in the description. At first I questioned if it was meant to affect all. Then I noticed the ship icon at the top left.

In the devlog you mention that no ship stats will be reset after battle. It does not seem like the current Energy carries over.

I like that when using Wolverine at -1 Energy, the Energy is applied first, allowing it to be counted towards the heal.

I lost to the Phantom. I kept getting bad luck with the space mines and other destroyable objects. I hit one and lost a ship from it, and the Phantom hit several, healing at times and hitting my ships others, sometimes from a chain reaction.

I am finding the Kunai to be tough to get the timing down for. The smaller arc does mean you are more likely to hit, or get close, but getting crits are harder due to the speed. I'll need some more practice.

I've decided that I should start looking at some of the other support cards. The new ships, and lack of healing between fights, means things are more serious and need more thought. This change certainly increases difficulty. It gives me new things to think about in planning my strategy and load out.

I continued at the Phantom fight. I was not expecting that. I decided to open with Ignatius, doing 22 damage.

I used the Anachronium Pills on Kunai. The change felt very minimal, if at all. I didn't exactly time it, but it did not seem worth using again. I'll need to test it out later in the practice area.

I beat the Phantom this time. It was much nicer having all 3 ships for the fight. I'm also getting more familiar with the ships, and forming more strategy for how I want to use them.

My cards were a 12HP group repair, Extra Cargo Hold for Talaria, and Remove Junk for Talaria. My HP is low, but not too bad, and I can heal that in combat. So it is +1 Max Energy, or +2 Max Energy, to the same ship... pretty easy choice. I noticed that "energy" is misspelled "enegry" for Extra Cargo Hold's description.

I messed up my healing decisions, and ended up losing Talaria. That was problematic, as my strategy was based on Flinn doing most of my damage. Thankfully, the next turn a Godrin's Stone appeared. It took 2 turns to activate it, but things would have been much harder without it.

Going through cards I saw Recycle Fuel, and figured that would be great for Talaria with so much fuel. Use that and the next turn be ready for a max power card. It gave 2 Energy. I think the description should be updated to note the limit, or it should be reworked to offer more for the fuel capacity of a ship. Still, I found that I did keep it around, as even 2 free Energy can be useful, and nothing else was demanding it be swapping in yet.

I got 2 identical unlocks. It would be nice if there were not duplicates, especially with how specific some of these are.

I forget the enemy ship names, but I died on the fight with the Doom Cannon. During the fight the UI was hidden on the enemy turn. When I continued I had my specials back, so started with Ignatius, and that ended the fight.

The lack of Energy carrying over, but HP not recovering, really sucks when you just used Recycle Self. I had not expected the fight to end so quickly, or I'd have done things in a different order.

Wow, the cards here are a tough choice. +4 Max HP for Arcania, which could use more HP due to constantly using it for Energy. +1 Energy Production for Kunai. Always a nice boost to have. And a whopping +13 Max HP for Kunai from Hand Crafted Armor. That one has to win out, but they are all nice options.

Ouch. Alpha Defender used Hexa Shot and took out Telaria in a single attack. I've started to bring along Godrin's Ring, and have enough Energy for it, so not as bad as it could have been, but still a lesson in not underestimating these enemies.

I was 1 HP short of taking a ship out. Their next turn the took out Talaria and Kunai with Hexa Shot. I had been building up enough Energy to heal. The real shame is losing that sweet Max HP upgrade for Kunai.

That fight was nasty. I finally gave up and after reviving the other 2 ships, yet again, I used enough fuel to get a clear shot and finished it with Ignatius again. I had eliminated the healer, but the rest I kept getting close, but not quite finishing them off.

My cards were Scrapped Parts, with 1 for each ship. I gave it to Arcania, as my heavy use of revive means I want to keep her alive at all costs.

As I start the next fight, I am acknowledging that I rarely use shields, but in the last fight Arcane Defenses may have been another option to get through it. Having used Recycle Self so many times, and not getting to do any healing, Arcania is low on HP right now, so going to use it for this fight, as I expect the next turn we will be getting hit hard.

Yeah, they used Fibonacci Strike and took out the shield. I did not notice how much damage it did. It would be nice to know just how powerful the attack was for future planning. The other Mobile Destroyer used Sniper's Dream, for 8 damage to Arcania. That left only 2 HP, so the previous upgrade was a good choice, and nice timing. I've found that Pravarshan does well for me when my ships are more to the left. I recovered 12 HP for Arcania using it.

The amount I have been dying, also has me more willing to use my Energy, instead of saving it. I spend all that time building it up, only to be wiped out before I can do the big thing I have planned, so I change tactics to reduce potential losses. Sometimes I will build up a reserve, and then only use lower Energy cards as I set things up, but now I'm more likely to value using the energy over saving for a potential better move later.

The next round of power attacks, there was only one of the Mobile Destroyers and an Energy Crusader. They again used Fibonacci Strike, but did so on an asteroid. I think it showed around 21 damage, so that was very convenient. I managed to end that fight at full health for all ships.

Again I got 2 of the same card. Regen 1 HP for Arcania. Keeping alive is very useful, so it is tempting. The other is +1 Energy regen for Talaria. I often use cards to boost Talaria's Energy, so normally that one would win, but as often as I am losing Talaria, having more HP on Arcania to recover Energy and revive lost ships seems like the better choice for now.

It would be nice to have a screen that shows all currently active buffs.

I haven't changed things much in a while, so here is my current load out.

Kunai: Double Attack, Therapeutic Grapple, Phantom Flower, Recharge Ally.

Talaria: Triple Attack, Fuel Shot, Phantom Ray, Recycle Fuel

Arcania: Recycle Self, Solar Power, Godrin's Ring, Pravarshan

I mainly use Fuel Shot for damage, with Phantom Ray for dealing with shields or groups. Therapeutic Grapple is mainly used on Talaria to fire off another Fuel Shot. Arcania starts most battles using Recycle Self, then Solar Power on Talaria to allow regular use of Fuel Shot.

It would be nice to be able to click on or hover over an enemy to see their name. Hover should probably be a togglable option, as it could potentially be annoying during combat, if using a tooltip over the ship. If it was at the top or somewhere else out of the way that could work for always on. On click having a popup, or toggle showing the name could also work.

And a Remorse Flower took out Talaria. I'd just used Ancestral Secrets and Solar Power, but at least I'd not done the upgrade.

I revived, moved into position, used the Grapple, and Ignatius. Took out the remaining side piece of the ship, but was not combat ending for this fight. With the shields all still in place, and the extra Energy from the Grapple, I used Phantom Ray next. With the max energy, maybe I should have reversed order of things, but I think it worked out fine. That attack removed all the shields.

OOPS. I Used Phantom Ray, moved Kunai up and used Grapple, then Ray again, but I like to be very close to use Grapple with Kunai... and got too close at the wrong angle. Hit twice and destroyed. I'd just used Recycle Self last turn, so had enough for another revive. Well, I guess that just means I can use the special again when I need it.

And another Remorse Flower taking out Talaria. I really don't like letting my ships be destroyed, but I'm starting to adapt my strategy to it.

I wasn't thinking, and after moving use Recycle Fuel, because I just though of it as using remaining fuel. It should probably be disabled after you move so you can't waste a turn on it.

They used a Doom Cannon that hit an Enemy Crate, and nothing else, with 2 of my ships nearby.

Dang, enemy HP is low, and Arcania is at full HP with 0 Energy. Do I sacrifice the health to be prepared for losing a ship, or try to ride it out... I feel like there is enough HP left for 2 more turns, so I'll probably need to heal or revive. I'm going for the Energy.

They used Destroyer for 1 damage. I used Pravarshan and healed everyone to full, so I guess it was the right choice.

My aim/angle was slightly off with Phantom Ray and only 3 hit, so the Fuel Shot would have done more. There is only minimal left in the HP bar. If all 4 had hit it as had been, it probably would have ended. I had an action left with Arcania, who was at the back. I managed to move up and get a crit with a Basic Attack and end the fight.

Ended with a miserable 49% Accuracy, and 77% on Crits.

Oh, Micromanager is a nice card. +1 Energy regen for all ships is hard to beat. The other options are 15 HP repair (my ships are at full health), and +1 Max Energy for Talaria.

Damn, next fight after a shiny upgrade is the one with the 2 Hexa Shot firing ships. And I don't have a shield. Ignatius it is!

My results (accuracy, crits, and badges) look to be identical to the previous fight, even though all I did was 1 attack.

And my unlock cards are all HP repair, for my fully repaired ships. 2 of them are even the same.

Fibonacci finally hit and took out one of my ships. Up until then, the fight had been going fairly well for me. Still won soon after. Took out 1 enemy, and the other used Sniper's Dream on something that wen boom killing themselves and doing a bit of damage to one of my ships, that were otherwise at full HP.

My results now have the Crits down to 76%, but otherwise unchanged.

When using Pravarshan, the HP bar above the ship updates, but the bottom left stats do not, until I click on the ship again.

Some nice upgrades. +4 Max HP to all ships. +1 HP Regen to all ships. And last is +3 Max Energy for 1 ship.

Not all upgrades are easy to verify, but +4 Max HP to all is, and it did not seem to apply. Several others I wasn't really sure were applying, but the ships are all at their default HP. I'm pretty sure the last time I got a MAX HP up it did not apply either.

I had another fight where I was down to 1 ship, twice. The second time was due to having no Energy for revive when it happened the first time, so only got 1 brought back when they did heavy attacks again. They partially missed on one attack, allowing me to fully revive, and, of course, end it with Ignatius.

I'm thinking of swapping out Recycle Fuel with Plasma Shield.

Alright, I think I'm ending here. Things are getting a bit repetitive, and with the upgrades not always applying, it takes away some of the fun of building up super powerful ships.

So, here are the things that stand out the most to me. Current HP stays the same between fights but Energy is lost. With Arcania this really stands out. Not being able to see the active buffs makes it hard to verify what is and isn't working, so a way to see them would be nice. If the buffs are meant to be permanent, then being revived should restore them. Some of those fights can be very tough to not lose a ship in, and it is tough to get enough HP to be able to survive some of those attacks. A shield can help, but then it almost becomes required. That leads into the special abilities. I started to not mind dying as much, since it let me reuse them. I think there needs to be a better way to allow using them again. Maybe giving them a cooldown, based on number of turns since last use, or number of battles. It could also be that they reset after a big boss fight. Having to use an upgrade to reset one feels wasteful. With ships dying the "permanent" upgrades lose some value, but dying also resets the special.

It would be good to add some UI to give an idea of any upgrades the enemies are getting, or just a rough power level based on their buffs to give players a feeling of progression and when a fight might be tougher than the last time they saw this group. A bit more variety in the fights would be nice. I know this is early and more content is planned, but still wanted to point it out as part of my decision to end it here, even though I haven't needed to continue for a while.

I think the Battle Mode is looking good. The core concept is there, and it just needs refining. The new ships are fun to play with, and require different strategy than the old ones. In a future play I'll need to consider all the ships and try with different combos to see which work well together for me. Considering how often I lost ships in this mode, I really like having Arcania as a full time reviver, and that high Max Energy is great for it.

I didn't really pay attention to the time when I started, but based on when I had last looked at the time, I probably played, along with writing this review, for over 5 hours.

Developer(+1)

Thank you so much for playing this and leaving such detailed feedback.

Since the Battlemode is new, I need to get all the feedback I can get to make it better.

I will try to address some issues and answer some questions:

  • I will nerf Ignatius, it can pretty much destroy most bosses even at the highest difficulty.

  • The new patch UI will show HP regen and energy prod values.

  • Spacerocks can kill your ships by rotating. This is by design. As not all their hitboxes are circular. I like the threat that is poses, discouraging people to walk into the asteroid field.

-Oh yes, energy does not carry over. It is one of the rules of the game that ships must start at 0 energy. Only specialized ships can break this rule.

  • Kunai is definitely a difficult ship to get the hang of. I am myself figuring out various ways to make her useful. She is not very conventional.

  • Recycle Fuel will be reworked next patch for sure. It has some issues.

  • I will fix the issue of duplicate unlocks.

  • I will show current stats of ships during the upgrade slotting screen for help with decision making

  • Enemy hover + click - is in the works

  • I have also noted some of the bugs you have mentioned.

I apologize for all the upgrade related bugs you ran into. I will take a good look at it to fix it.

Again, thank you for all the feedback you have left so far. I have taken rigorous notes and decided to rework parts of the battlemode based on your feedback!

I do have a few questions for you:

  • Do you feel Kunai is underpowered?
  • Do you feel the battlemode is too difficult? Or is the difficulty alright for the given format?
  • What other games can you think of that are similar to Anachronium?
HostSubmitted

While I can appreciate the concept of the rotating space rocks hitting multiple times, I think they need some adjusting so that players have enough time to react if they move between turns and hit one of your ships. I saw the ship was hit and already planned to move it, but before I could move it was destroyed. I suppose that it could lead to future efforts to stay further away, but when they first show up, you may not have a good feel for where it will end up on the next turn. I thought I was far enough away, and ended up being just close enough to be hit.  It really was that being the start of the turn and not having reacted fast enough to move away. Maybe a limit to how fast they can hit the same ship again, or perhaps a short delay at the start of the turn to give players a chance to select the ship and start moving. It was unpleasant, but at the same time, in battle mode I died so often that I suppose it wasn't that big of a deal. I will keep it in mind for the future.

I'm not sure on Kunai. I was able to find a strategy that worked for me. The cost reduction was nice, and allowed using abilities sooner. It was nice to start by giving 1 energy to self and an ally, allowing a setup for the next turn. The special allowing the others to have that was good for longer boss fights, especially for Arcania reducing the cost to revive. The higher speed, but narrow aiming window took a bit to get used to, and was not a favorite, so I did not do a lot of attacks. As it progressed I got better, but for something like the Grapple, I always got close. I'll need to try a play of Battle Mode using different combos of ships, but I am liking the new ones. 

Battle mode is certainly tough. It is meant to be a challenge. When I think of a Roguelite, I think of getting more permanent upgrades. With the between battle upgrades being lost when you die, and some fights being hard to survive early on, I think it makes many upgrades feel less rewarding. I'd just get this cool upgrade, and then be in a fight that has 2 ships destroyed quickly. To keep the upgrades survival is important. I think the shield has become almost a requirement. Allowing the specials to reset will help with being able to use the more powerful shield, but even the lesser one can be enough to take an otherwise fatal hit. If you get enough HP upgrades to be able to survive, it makes the others last long enough to be enjoyed. I need to try some new strategies when I next play. Fixing some of the bugs, especially the Max HP up not working, will also help it feel more reasonable. It certainly needs some adjusting, but I'd say that it is tough to define how best to do so until the next batch of planned updates and fixes are in.

I'm not really sure of similar games. You've got the cards and limited slots, but in many ways that could be compared to having equipment and weapon/ability slots for them. Abilities often need something to use. Having a low max, and regaining some each turn is not that common that I can think of, but there are games where you are fairly limited on what you can do and have to build up for more powerful actions. I'll try to think on it more and browse my games collection to see if anything stands out. I've not been playing many non-jam games in a while, so there may be some I'm just forgetting.

Submitted(+1)

Really like the new mode, it adds a new layer of strategy and I could see it being a great mode for replay ability long term. I still really like the laser weapons, energy moving moves and shields. I got stuck on the second mission of the second chapter and couldn't due enough damage to take out the heal bot enemies. I'm sure I can get past them with a different team build. For the rouge like mode are the encounters always going to be the same? I think this is a really fun addition and looking forward to seeing what you do going forward, great update 

Developer

Glad you are enjoying the new mode! For the roguelite mode the mission path is generated randomly each time the game is loaded. I will of course change this to, new path generated every loss/win.