I wanna start out by saying that this game has some really cool features, and it's extremely ambitious in what it sets out to do. There are definitely a few issues that i'll get into, but I want to commend you for making such a complex project - I can't even imagine the workload that comes with making a complicated tabletop rpg style game. I particularly liked the Baldur's Gate style UI, where you can hover over certain things in the menu to get more information over them - It truly makes the game feel gigantic, just knowing that there's so much going on underneath the hood.

I think my biggest issue was the pacing at the very beginning - I really enjoyed the game after the first part, but I think the heavy narration at the start might turn some people off. There's nothing wrong with the contents of the narration, but I think it could be presented in a more engaging way - As opposed to having about 2 minutes of narration in the dark void, it might be nice to have something to interact with or simple visuals that help compliment the narration - Illustrations in the book could be a nice touch. An even simpler solution could be to just have the pages have significantly less text on them - At least for me, it's much more engaging to be clicking through shorter pieces of text than having to wait for a long piece of text be read to me. The game is really complicated and neat, and I think burying it under such an empty opening is really doing the rest of the game a disservice. 

I think I really just might have an issue with the book in general - I felt like a lot of the game was spent waiting for the narration to finish so I could interact with the cool stuff in the world. It makes me wonder if there would be a better way to convey the information that the narrator presents, rather than having the player feel like they need to wait patiently before doing anything else. That being said, the stuff in the world IS really cool. 

As soon as I got into the character creator, I really was invested. It would be nice to be able to name your characters. I'll be honest; I immediately forgot who was who after I exited the character creator, so giving the characters a name would definitely help with that, and having their class be displayed when you hover over their portrait would help as well. It was difficult for me to assign proper equipment to each character when I had forgotten what role I had assigned to each of them. Definitely a skill-issue on my end but I think it would be a great quality of life thing to be able to see their class on the fly.

A proper tutorial would also be a godsend in this game - I actually really like the twist you do on normal D&D where you want your rolls to be low, and i think it helps give the game it's own unique identity, but it would have been nice to have a good meaty tutorial in that regard. With things like stamina, dice rolling, using extra dice, all that jazz, I felt like I was just learning by doing, and not making informed decisions. I also wasn't sure with some of the stat rolls that had a (-1) modifier; was -1 good in this case, since I wanted lower rolls? Questions like that could definitely be helped with a tutorial.

Another small thing - I think the dice rolling could be a bit more streamlined. I'm not sure I see the need to choose which dice you'll select after a roll, and the fact that you can put the appropriate dice in and then choose to fail the roll seems a bit unnecessary. Unless you are creating mechanics later in the game where you might want higher numbers, or a reason to choose one specific roll over another, I think the game would benefit from having the outcome of these rolls be automatic.

Okay, so I have written a LOT about this game and it's because I actually REALLY LIKE it and I want to see it succeed! I think the aesthetic and vibes are really fun, it's giving Inscryption in a really cool way, especially with that spooky floating eye. The combat was also fun when I encountered it, but I also loved that I could avoid so much combat through my choices and rolls, that adds so much depth to the game. I think the worldbuilding is really interesting, and I love the anachronisms with floodlights and batteries along with bandits and knights - I want to know more about this world! This game has a really unique identity, and there are so many neat things hiding inside, so I'm hoping and praying that in a further release any kinks will be ironed out. Again, what you have so far is REALLY impressive in terms of systems and worldbuilding. Keep it up!

I played the game here on stream around 4:42

• Youtube Link / Twitch Link
• Graphics : Somewhat rough, somewhat unity-store assets look.
• GUI : Kind of rough, a lot could do with a touch-up or changed (e.g. font.)
• Performance : Fine
• Music / Sfx : 
  • Music : Mostly ambience , kind of works but some feels more 'horror' , which might be intentional.
  • SFX : Mostly fine
• Gameplay : A narrative heavy D&D-esque adventure game that is rather unfortunately laden with issues. The dicerolls feel heavily against the player to a degree that makes Xcom seem generous. 
• Misc Issues : 
  • Combat is utterly broken , models don't turn to the direction they're supposed to be looking. Models don't move around the combat board. 
• Notes :
  • The dice rolls are completely counter-intuitive , D&D is usually being 20 = Good , here 20 is the equivalence of a Nat 1.
  • It'd be nice if you could actually click and drag tokens to move them.
  • The Anime pfps for characters doesn't meld with the rest of the game whatsover. 
  • Some models , namely the speaker's base is strangely smooth where everyone else's is textured.
  • The juxtaposition of 'fantasy' D&D vibe with modern tech like generators , batteries and flashlights doesn't work for me.
  • The lack of icons in the store (minizek's) feels a bit blah.
  • The vocal direction of the narrator is a hit AND a miss for me , I like it but I imagine with a longer play time it'd become a bit...tiring , there's a lack of energy and it's slow which could lead to players getting impatient or annoyed. 
    • There's some things that could be improved on this and I go over this in the stream (e.g. noise reduction)
  • The camera position and controls could be improved a bit.
• Final Thoughts : I really wanted to like this game more than I did by the time I reached the end of it. I liked the game quite a bit at the start but the slew of issues and the sudden modern tech really kind of soured it for me, hopefully you can iron out some of the issues the game has to make it more playable as opposed to effectively getting soft-locked by combat but I'm unsure what your plans are with the modern tech.

Hello and welcome to Feedback Quest 9! My name is Hythrain, and I'm one of the hosts for this lovely event! I'm also one of the streamers, so both the game and this feedback are being done live! If you want to see the see the VOD, let me know and I'll link you to it when it's uploaded to YouTube!

So I love D&D. I also love Inscryption. This clearly takes inspiration from both of those and I'm all for that.

What I'm not for is just how utterly brutal this game is. I'm going to dive into this at the end as I think this is the most important thing to cover, though. I first want to cover a few things I made notes of.

First, I don't understand why my inventory comes up when I try to rest on the couch. What does the game want from me? I was going through my inventory while trying to find whatever relevant item I needed, yet nothing seemed to work. It would be helpful if the game did more to tell me what it wanted.

I also felt that the way to cancel out of an ability was a little confusing. I would assume it'd be the bottom most button, which happened to be labelled as "Back." However, it's not this. It's the button above it labelled "Cancel." Choosing "Back" causes the player to back away from the game board and stand up, which I feel like doesn't make sense to do in the middle of a fight since... well, what does this even allow the player to do? It's not like they can move around and change their perspective on the board.

Speaking of getting up and moving around... while I understand the intent of the fixed perspective, I feel like that doesn't belong here. In tabletop games, players are always able to get up and move around. You even let the player do the first part of this. As such, I think it would be good if the player could also look around the entire thing instead of being limited to a specific view. It would also make some of the controls actually useful or at the very least allow you to replace them with useful controls (like leaning to one side. When I used this, it didn't feel like it was giving me a better view to see things. It just made things worse).

Next, I want to address the dice rolling. When I first began experiencing terror rolls, I had no idea what was considered a good roll. It would be nice for the player to be made aware of what they don't want instead of just having no idea whatsoever until they get the bad roll. I also felt like the stamina system for rolls is very punishing, given how it only decreases if you fail a roll.

And this lets me get to the heart of the matter: the game's absurd brutality. In D&D, your dice rolls are typically combined with your stats to come up with a final result. This final result then needs to exceed a certain amount to be successful. While a low roll can be punishing, it doesn't outright mean you've failed the roll... unless, of course, you roll a 1 and get a critical failure. Similarly, a high roll doesn't necessarily mean you'll succeed if the skill check is very high, unless you roll a 20 and get a critical success. The main point in these is that you're not bound purely by the luck of the dice on whether you succeed or not.

However, the way dice rolls work in this is that you have to roll a D20 and get a number that is equal to or lower than the stat the character is using for that ability. This means that, from the very start, each die roll has a less than 50% chance to get what you need. While rolling more dice does increase the chances of success, failure means you reduce your stamina and have less dice to roll in the future. On top of this, some actions only give you a few dice and some use stats that are so low that you just don't really have a chance to get them, increasing the odds of failure.

From the start of the game through the first fight with a shadow and then into the second fight against the two guys trying to steal my batteries, I had far more failures than successes even when always using maximum dice. When I closed the game, I had already lost my warrior in the second fight and was about to lose another character because... the enemies don't seem to be subject to dice rolls on whether their abilities hit or not, only about how much damage they do.

Now I know this takes inspiration from Inscryption, which can also be a bit brutal at times. However, one thing that Inscryption has is that the person you're playing against has the same limitations as you do. They're bound to the same rules. If enemies had to roll dice in order to succeed with their attacks with the same low odds the player has, this would be different. This isn't the case, though.

So how can this be improved? There are a few ways. First, you could increase base stats across the board so players have better odds of getting a good roll. You could also use different types of die depending on the situation. For example, using a D10 or D12 in normal fights, then saving the D20 for fights that are supposed to be harder. You could also overhaul the way the dice rolls work to get something closer to what D&D does. However, I think that the one thing that should be done is that enemies should be bound to the same rules as you. They should be subject to the same dice you use and should be subject to things like terror. When enemies get to play by different rules when the game is skewed against the player, it makes the game unfair. When the game is unfair, it means the game stops being fun. When the game stops being fun, it means players won't play it anymore and will tell others to not play it. When that happens... well, now your game won't sell and you wasted your time and money on its development. So no matter what, this needs to be addressed.

And that's all I got. I wish you luck with the game. If you do change things up, feel free to hit me up and I'll happily try it again.