I really enjoyed ZAR. The comic book art style looks great, the music is pleasant, and the core idea is clear and engaging. It feels a bit like Balatro, but with dice, and there's plenty of room for cool mechanics. I've only beaten the first boss so far, so I definitely haven't seen everything yet, but even at this stage it already feels like a solid, polished alpha. The only thing is that the pacing can feel a bit slow at times when you're rolling and resolving all the dice, but that's also part of the charm. Overall, everything is already at a really good level. Best of luck with development and the Steam release!
A cool game with beautiful visual design! The core of the game already looks complete, and all that's left is to expand it and add everything we've planned!
pretty cool game, I started with the tutorial and played for a bit (first shop visit, not much further beyond), the UX looks really well done and distinct
at first for me it was a bit too many animations and tooltips, I feel like if i could see all the dices I have with their info at glance and just click one to pick rather than hover to see what it does + stacked and see how many I have of each... in the first rounds / tutorial it looks like throwing doesn't do much (like I'd wouldn't mind skipped animation and see the result of throw), or to be convinced how I throw matters and it's not a dice game (which I don't like much :D) but judging from the gif it becomes core part soon, it would be nice to get to that early maybe. Also Combo starts appearing later. Not fully sure whats the multiplier in scoring or how to get it, or why aim for combos.
Thank you so much for playing ZAR and taking the time to share your feedback! We're really glad you liked the overall look and UX of the game!
Regarding dice throwing, as you progress, you'll discover Relics and Augments that require you to throw your dice into specific areas of the arena or interact with certain objects. This makes aiming and positioning an important part of the gameplay. However, we completely understand your point. Since the arena is mostly empty at the beginning, throwing doesn't feel particularly meaningful yet.
We're also actively working on improving the game's balance, onboarding, and overall user experience. Making information easier to access and helping players understand mechanics like scoring, multipliers, and combos are definitely things we want to improve.
Right now, our main focus is finishing the core mechanics and systems. Once those are in place, we'll spend more time refining these aspects of the experience.
Thanks again for the detailed feedback! It really helps us understand how new players experience the game and what we need to improve!
I played a few rounds and would like to share my experience.
First Impression
The game feels very polished and professional. I especially liked the visuals and music.
Character Selection
After pressing “Start”, I was presented with two characters with different dice-related abilities.
As a first-time player, I couldn’t really understand these abilities yet. More importantly, I wasn’t sure whether I was choosing my own character or my opponent. A simple “Choose your character” would make this much clearer.
Tutorial
The tutorial was very helpful and explained the game well.
Getting out of it was a little confusing. I had to press Escape twice: once to exit the browser fullscreen mode and again to open the game’s menu.
Dice Scoring
After accepting a roll, each die is briefly zoomed in on while its points are displayed. Afterwards, the values are counted again on the left.
For me, this was too much movement for relatively little information and made the scoring harder to follow rather than clearer. I think a calmer, more compact presentation would work better.
Opponents
After a few rounds, I really started to enjoy the game.
I would like the opponents to have a stronger visual presence. Currently, I mainly perceive them through the icon on the left. It could be cool if their theme or personality was also reflected around the dice board, making each match feel more like a duel against a specific character.
Overall
I enjoyed the game. The core gameplay is fun and the presentation already feels very polished. Most of my feedback is about making some elements clearer and giving the opponents a bit more personality during the matches.
We’re really happy to hear that you enjoyed the game, and thank you so much for taking the time to share your feedback!
Regarding the tutorial, the Escape key behavior is unfortunately related to the web version rather than the game itself. In the browser, pressing Escape first exits fullscreen mode, and pressing it again then triggers our in-game pause menu. There isn’t much we can do about that on the web version, but you won’t have this issue if you play the Windows build.
We can definitely add a clearer title such as “Choose Your Character” to the character selection screen. As for the abilities themselves, our intention is actually to let players play their first run a little more freely, discover how the game works, and then start making more tactical decisions about which character and dice to choose in later runs.
For the scoring sequence, a lot of players previously felt that it was too slow, so we sped it up. However, we’re planning to make the scoring speed adjustable in the settings later on, since everyone naturally has different preferences when it comes to pacing and readability.
Opponents are currently one of the areas where we’ve added the least amount of content. We’re planning to introduce many more characters with different attack mechanics in the near future. Right now, bosses are the main enemies that can directly interact with the board and create more of that back-and-forth duel feeling you mentioned. We definitely want to expand on this with regular and elite enemies as development continues.
Since ZAR is still in Alpha, we’re currently focused on completing and polishing the core gameplay systems first, and then we’ll put more focus into enemy variety, personality, balancing, and additional content.
Thanks again for playing and for the detailed feedback! It really helps us improve the game. 🎲
Comments
I really enjoyed ZAR. The comic book art style looks great, the music is pleasant, and the core idea is clear and engaging. It feels a bit like Balatro, but with dice, and there's plenty of room for cool mechanics. I've only beaten the first boss so far, so I definitely haven't seen everything yet, but even at this stage it already feels like a solid, polished alpha. The only thing is that the pacing can feel a bit slow at times when you're rolling and resolving all the dice, but that's also part of the charm. Overall, everything is already at a really good level. Best of luck with development and the Steam release!
A cool game with beautiful visual design! The core of the game already looks complete, and all that's left is to expand it and add everything we've planned!
Good luck with the development!
Hi,
pretty cool game, I started with the tutorial and played for a bit (first shop visit, not much further beyond), the UX looks really well done and distinct
at first for me it was a bit too many animations and tooltips, I feel like if i could see all the dices I have with their info at glance and just click one to pick rather than hover to see what it does + stacked and see how many I have of each... in the first rounds / tutorial it looks like throwing doesn't do much (like I'd wouldn't mind skipped animation and see the result of throw), or to be convinced how I throw matters and it's not a dice game (which I don't like much :D) but judging from the gif it becomes core part soon, it would be nice to get to that early maybe. Also Combo starts appearing later. Not fully sure whats the multiplier in scoring or how to get it, or why aim for combos.
Looks well made, hope that helps.
Hi!
Thank you so much for playing ZAR and taking the time to share your feedback! We're really glad you liked the overall look and UX of the game!
Regarding dice throwing, as you progress, you'll discover Relics and Augments that require you to throw your dice into specific areas of the arena or interact with certain objects. This makes aiming and positioning an important part of the gameplay. However, we completely understand your point. Since the arena is mostly empty at the beginning, throwing doesn't feel particularly meaningful yet.
We're also actively working on improving the game's balance, onboarding, and overall user experience. Making information easier to access and helping players understand mechanics like scoring, multipliers, and combos are definitely things we want to improve.
Right now, our main focus is finishing the core mechanics and systems. Once those are in place, we'll spend more time refining these aspects of the experience.
Thanks again for the detailed feedback! It really helps us understand how new players experience the game and what we need to improve!
It's a pretty good game. That's all I can say for now.
Thanks !!
Hi,
I played a few rounds and would like to share my experience.
First Impression
The game feels very polished and professional. I especially liked the visuals and music.
Character Selection
After pressing “Start”, I was presented with two characters with different dice-related abilities.
As a first-time player, I couldn’t really understand these abilities yet. More importantly, I wasn’t sure whether I was choosing my own character or my opponent. A simple “Choose your character” would make this much clearer.
Tutorial
The tutorial was very helpful and explained the game well.
Getting out of it was a little confusing. I had to press Escape twice: once to exit the browser fullscreen mode and again to open the game’s menu.
Dice Scoring
After accepting a roll, each die is briefly zoomed in on while its points are displayed. Afterwards, the values are counted again on the left.
For me, this was too much movement for relatively little information and made the scoring harder to follow rather than clearer. I think a calmer, more compact presentation would work better.
Opponents
After a few rounds, I really started to enjoy the game.
I would like the opponents to have a stronger visual presence. Currently, I mainly perceive them through the icon on the left. It could be cool if their theme or personality was also reflected around the dice board, making each match feel more like a duel against a specific character.
Overall
I enjoyed the game. The core gameplay is fun and the presentation already feels very polished. Most of my feedback is about making some elements clearer and giving the opponents a bit more personality during the matches.
Hi!
We’re really happy to hear that you enjoyed the game, and thank you so much for taking the time to share your feedback!
Regarding the tutorial, the Escape key behavior is unfortunately related to the web version rather than the game itself. In the browser, pressing Escape first exits fullscreen mode, and pressing it again then triggers our in-game pause menu. There isn’t much we can do about that on the web version, but you won’t have this issue if you play the Windows build.
We can definitely add a clearer title such as “Choose Your Character” to the character selection screen. As for the abilities themselves, our intention is actually to let players play their first run a little more freely, discover how the game works, and then start making more tactical decisions about which character and dice to choose in later runs.
For the scoring sequence, a lot of players previously felt that it was too slow, so we sped it up. However, we’re planning to make the scoring speed adjustable in the settings later on, since everyone naturally has different preferences when it comes to pacing and readability.
Opponents are currently one of the areas where we’ve added the least amount of content. We’re planning to introduce many more characters with different attack mechanics in the near future. Right now, bosses are the main enemies that can directly interact with the board and create more of that back-and-forth duel feeling you mentioned. We definitely want to expand on this with regular and elite enemies as development continues.
Since ZAR is still in Alpha, we’re currently focused on completing and polishing the core gameplay systems first, and then we’ll put more focus into enemy variety, personality, balancing, and additional content.
Thanks again for playing and for the detailed feedback! It really helps us improve the game. 🎲