Who is Revilo?

I had played this in a previous jam and really enjoyed it. I reset my progress so I could play it fresh.

I like the addition of the cut scenes. They helped draw me in even more than last time. The story did a great job of giving clues to what was going on, while still leaving many questions unanswered. I wanted to learn more about who I was and what happened to lead me here. The little bits of details on each of the enemy cards did a good job describing the creatures while still keep a bit of mystery about them.

The art is beautifully done. It has an eerie feel to it, giving everything an otherworldly feel to it. I liked that you didn't make Freya or Sigrun traditionally beautiful; instead they were quite striking and had the feeling of power to them. The creatures I was facing felt like they may have once been part of the mortal world, but no longer were. As much as I enjoyed the story, the art was what really drew me in and made me want to keep playing.

The gameplay was fun. While there was a fair bit of randomness, there was also a fair bit of strategy. There were several times when I had to sit and debate whether it was better to use my cards to take out an enemy since the runes matched or better to use it to damage a different one because the number value. And there were several times I had to really debate between my reward cards, because all three were useful in different ways.

I got to the end, and wasn't ready for it to be over. I look forward to the full release, because I enjoyed the gameplay and want to see where the story goes.

• Youtube Link / Twitch Link
• Graphics : Stylized , some of the art is a maybe little iffy, maybe just not my cup, but I do like most of it and I rather like that each freak gets their own unique art.
• GUI : The font can be rather difficult to read at points.
• Performance : Flawless
• Music / Sfx : 
  • Music : A bit mixed on it , what's there is fine, it works, but it also feels lacking. What's here is mostly an ambient backdrop which is perfectly fine, but it'd be nice if you got some dark moody 'norse' sounding music as well.
  • SFX : Fine
• Gameplay :  A perfectly fine roguelike 'solitaire' deckbuilder. 
• Misc Issues : 
  • The little 'x' to go back / close off the options menu is a bit hard to see.
  • Blodsuger : "basdard"
• Notes : 
  • The demo only having one path made it feel rather restrictive. 
  • Some verbiage can be a bit unclear on their effects (e.g. the god choices , Tyr sounds like it'd be a recurring random 12hp heal, not once off.)
  • There probably should be a note somewhere explaining the 2 hits on enemies (First to weaken, Second to get to the 'kill state') and how if you use too low of a value card, it might not be doable.
  • There should be a pointer at the state explaining how running out of cards is NOT death or a loss, but instead all remaining enemies will do their HP in damage.
  • The sequence that follows running out of cards could be sped up, as it is there's 2 or 3 separate hits that play out per card and adds up in time / annoyance.
  • A card that can "pierce armor"  (ignore the kill state and just outright kill if high enough value) would be nice as an obtainable option from the card pulls.
  • Not keen that blodsugers basically get a free attack.
• Final Thoughts :  Overall I do like it and don't have much to really critique here.

I really wanted to enjoy this game, but out of the gate I could not see the cursor on screen; it only showed in my OBS.  I tried restarting it, but had the same issue.  When closing it, it also gave an error (picture of error below).  I played it a bit anyway, just looking in OBS to see where my cursor was, but I didn't give it the full time I normally would have because I had to turn my neck to look at the other monitor.  Once I got in to playing it, I couldn't close it without CTRL-ALT-DELing.  If it helps with debugging, I'm on a Windows 10 system and had the game on my primary monitor.

All that said, I absolutely love the artwork!  The pencil sketch style of the woman giving the rewards, the design of the cards: all gorgeous.  And I love that it doesn't just copy the broad mechanics of games like Inscryption, but has its own story, feel, and mechanics that help it stand apart. 

In terms of mechanics, I thought I had the basic idea, but at the same time, I got confused.  There was no information on what the rock beside the deck did, so I just clicked it to see, but I still wasn't sure what it did or what enabled its reuse.  And I didn't understand why the game would keep me from playing a card once the enemy's defense was at 10 or lower, or why, once their defense was fully gone, why I still had to hit it with another card to actually get rid of it.  If it had 5 defense and I hit it with a 6 or higher, I thought it would remove it, but it didn't?

The only other thing I noticed was that the fonts are very hard to read on the cards and in some of the game text.  While I managed to read it, I noticed that on some card descriptions, parts of the letters were invisible because of the font + size, and the way the cards are done, it might be especially hard for someone with dyslexia to read when some numbers are backwards.

All that said, I really like the idea of the game and, as I said, overall the graphics are gorgeous.  I look forward to seeing where it goes!

VOD with my gameplay (set to starting time): https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2874427686?t=02h54m45s

It's amazing work! I can't think of anything to add to this game, it's already super polished.

I'm going to add it to my wishlist!

I started by resetting my progress so I could experience the updated version fresh.

I like the addition of the cutscenes. It helps add more to the immersion of the game. The story is rich and draws you in, but adding the art helps add to it.

I played through to the second boss, where I lost. I did not do well dealing with those shields, and need to rethink things next time. I enjoyed playing and look forward to your continuing updates.

Good luck with the Godot update. We started updating some small jam projects back when Godot 4 came out, though it wasn't until around Godot 4.3 when we were really happy with the process for one of them. We've very much enjoyed working with Godot 4 over 3. With all the work on nice to have editor improvements I can't imagine going back. Working on both version must have been confusing at times as you try to keep track of the differences.

I really liked the art style — clean, readable, and very atmospheric. It actually reminded me a little of Year Walk.

The mechanics were easy to understand, and the playthrough felt smooth overall. That said, it started to feel repetitive fairly quickly for me. I think part of that came from both the deck-building progression and the enemy encounters. Going from around 40 cards to 45 didn't feel like a very noticeable increase in power or variety, and the enemies tended to be presented in a similar way from level to level. The boss felt much fresher, though.

Overall, it's a polished game, and I enjoyed Chapter 1!

Hey, I played this on stream yesterday, you can check the recording here: