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What do you think about our ZAR Alpha Trailer & Demo? [Feedback Need ][Browser & WindowsPC ]

A topic by HappySealGames created 10 days ago Views: 101 Replies: 4
Viewing posts 1 to 3
HappySealGames10 days ago

Hey everyone!

We’ve been working on our game ZAR for around 3 months, and we recently released a new trailer along with a playable Alpha version.

ZAR is a 3D dice-based roguelike inspired by games like Balatro, where you physically throw dice, build combinations with Relics and Augments, and try to create increasingly powerful synergies.

Since the game is still in Alpha, we’d really love to hear your feedback.

What do you think about:

  • The trailer and first impression?
  • The core idea of physically throwing the dice?
  • The visuals clearity and UI?
  • The amount of chaos/readability during bigger combos?
  • Is there anything that looks confusing, boring, or missing?

Even if you don’t have time to play the full Alpha, feedback based only on the trailer is also very helpful for us.



You can try ZAR Alpha  for free here!

Thanks a lot for checking it out! 🎲

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Pixelkiln8 days ago

Trailer-and-page feedback only — I haven’t played the alpha, so none of this is about how it feels in the hand. I sell UI/HUD asset packs on itch, so weigh that.

First impression: your opening sentence is broken. The served HTML reads “ZAR is  a where strategy meets luck.” — a missing noun and a stray non-breaking space, in the line directly under the Run button.

Visual clarity: I can’t read a single die value on either still. The d8 in the first screenshot measures 23x27 px inside a 1329 px-wide frame, and the number on its top face is about 6 px tall. I blew it up 8x with nearest-neighbour and still couldn’t call it. The dice are the thing the game is named after.

Combo readability: both stills show the score as 0,0 x 1. Zero points, multiplier one, in the only two still images on the page. You’re selling increasingly powerful synergies and the page never shows one — a still caught mid-combo at a multiplier above 1 would answer your own question before anyone clicks.

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u_capricorn_studioz9 days ago(+1)

The physical dice-throwing idea stands out. From the trailer, do you think the bigger combo moments are still easy enough to read, or are you planning more visual cleanup for the UI?

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HappySealGames9 days ago(+1)

Hi ! 

We’ve actually been working on this quite a bit recently, and it’s something we’ll continue to improve. As the game progresses, the board can definitely get pretty chaotic. While that chaos is part of the fun to watch, readability is obviously important too.

That said, once the player throws the dice, their ability to intervene is fairly limited, so they don’t necessarily need to understand 100% of everything happening at every moment. The main challenge for us is finding the right balance keeping the satisfying chaos while making sure the important moments and interactions are still clear and easy to follow.

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HappySealGames4 days ago

ZAR NEW UPDATE LIVE!

Hello everyone! ZAR Alpha v0.4.85.18 is now available!

This update mainly focuses on readability, visual consistency, balance improvements, enemy clarity, and bug fixes.

Readability & UI Improvements

  • Updated the game's font system.
  • Previously, a single font was used throughout the entire game, which caused readability issues and problems with some characters, including Turkish characters.
  • ZAR now uses two different fonts, allowing us to choose the more suitable font depending on the UI element while supporting a wider range of characters.
  • Updated Enemy and Player speech bubbles to make dialogue cleaner and easier to read.
  • Updated several box names and descriptions for better clarity.
  • Improved several UI texts and descriptions throughout the game.

Keyword Highlight System

  • Refined the recently added Keyword Highlight System.
  • Previously, some highlighted sections could cover large parts of a sentence, making descriptions visually noisy and harder to scan.
  • Keyword highlighting is now more minimal and focuses only on the most important values and mechanics.
  • This should make Relic, Augment, Enemy Skill, and Player Skill descriptions easier to read without overwhelming the player with too many colors.

Visual Improvements

  • Updated the game's color palettes.
  • Relic illustrations, Augment illustrations, UI elements, and several other visual elements have been adjusted to better match the updated color direction.
  • Enemy sprites are still placeholder assets during the Alpha, but different enemies now use different color variations.
  • This makes it easier to immediately recognize when you are fighting a different enemy and helps communicate that enemies may have different attacks and abilities.

Balance

  • Updated several Dice Augments to improve balance and fix unintended interactions.
  • Adjusted several Enemy Attacks and their values.
  • Updated the Slot Machine Relic probability system.
  • Slot Machine symbols no longer have equal chances of appearing.
  • More powerful symbols such as M and J are now rarer.
  • This makes powerful combinations such as MMM and JJJ significantly harder to obtain and keeps the Relic's high-roll potential more balanced.

Dice Collision Improvements

  • Improved Die-to-Die collision interactions.
  • Collision-triggered effects now use a trigger buffer to prevent unintended repeated activations.
  • Previously, combining Sticky with collision-based Augments could cause two dice that remained in contact to continuously trigger collision effects.
  • These interactions are now handled more consistently and should no longer generate unintended repeated effects.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed issues with Sir Rollington's Passive Skill.
  • Fixed issues with Sir Rollington's Active Skill.
  • Fixed and adjusted several Dice Augment interactions.
  • Improved several collision-related edge cases.
  • Fixed various minor UI, text, and gameplay issues.

Enemy Updates

  • Adjusted several existing Enemy Attacks.
  • Improved the visual distinction between different enemies during the Alpha.
  • Different placeholder enemy sprites now use different colors, making it easier to recognize enemy changes and understand that they may use different attacks or mechanics.

Thank you for playing ZAR and continuing to share your feedback with us! 🎲

We're continuing to improve the Alpha step by step, especially around readability, balance, visual clarity, and progression as we work toward the Steam Demo.

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