itch.io

Thanks for the write-up! This would probably be one of the first times someone's played and wasn't completely confused. Which means it's improving! ‎ I'll respond to a few of your points (twice as Itch decided to refresh when I was almost done  writing).

Figuring Out: ‎ 

• I suspect you managed to find yourself above a damaged orb. You can destroy it as you do any other cube, by pressing down + attack. If that's not the case, uhh... 
• I'm not sure, but I suspect you were in some alternative view mode. Can't recall from the top of my head, but pressing ESC once should leave it. 
• No logs as the game has the potential to process thousands of events per second. However, there are some useful keybinds, for example, to see what last hit you. I find this one especially useful; I don't recall what I set it to by default, but the ? menu should show it up, mayhaps with a bit of scrolling. As for auto-pause on damage, it's possible for me to add, though you can always just pause the game with default spacebar while you figure things out. 
• Pretty sure you can do both to attack vertically. Some systems just had issues, so there are auxiliary binds that let you do it with shift. 
• I think the n↓C@ is explained in the readme. <br>
  • n is the current view order mode (for when cubes are on top of each other), in which case, n recent on top. <br>
  • ↓ indicates the faded cubes you are seeing are below you. You can press d and D to toggle this. <br>
  • C@ are camera view priorities. If enabled, they will show the camera cube/player on top of other cubes regardless of sort order. Press @ to change these. ‎ <br><br>

• O and X are accessibility icons to determine if a cube is opaque or not. You can turn them off in settings if you can tell simply by contrast.

Issues: 

• ‎ Yeah, that shouldn't crash the game. Pushed a commit to fix it, though I can't say when I'll release. 
• 10x or not, that shouldn't happen. I can't say what it was without extra info, though. I probably need to add some sort of popup either way when people start pressing random keys in the tutorial. 
• Question is how high those placeholder numbers go. I've noticed this was an issue and the past and tried to address it by changing the length of the translations, so it wouldn't look as funny at base resolution. But yeah, the text is determined at the translation layer and it doesn't really know what the numbers I'm giving it even are, just that it should write 'em out. Not sure how I want to address that, but I agree it is a little annoying. 
• Yeah, the attacking up/down part of the tutorial is for some reason locked behind dying. I didn't expect it to be unclear as I did explicitly specify attacking worked in any move direction, but you aren't the first one with that problem. Guess I'll have to add a short section. ‎ 

Requests: 

• As said previously, you can view up to the single most recent event you were hit with an existing keybind. The primary reason there are very few logs in general is provided the massive amount of events the game has the potential to run every second. Beyond player interactions, is there anything of note?
• Highlighting tiles is actually something I've considered and even attempted before, but distrusted due to technical reasons. I'd have to add a frame countdown variable to every single cube that activates each time they're hit, and I'd prefer to save resources. I also wasn't sure if it would be perceived as just another visual effect that confuses new players, or if what it added was worth the cost.
• All keys are fully rebindable if you are unable to use numpad. As for multi-key binding, I've always found its existence clunky at the best of times when I see it in games, and would much rather players go ahead and set their keybinds than let themselves insist on enduring that. And unfortunately, Lanterna, which the game's graphics is based on, can't really handle more than one keypress simultaneously anyway.
• Yeah, vertical attacks need clarification.
• Explaining UI has always been the most problematic element of the tutorial, provided the limited space and that every tile is the same width and height - there's no clean way I could figure out to do it. I could append it to the README, possibly, but I'm still not sure how I'd want to, in a way that wouldn't look absolutely hideous. A UI look mode was an idea I've been pondering a little lately, and probably stands the best chance of getting in once I decide to deal with it (haven't been too much in a dev mood lately).

The rest:

• Figuring out which screenshots would best portray the game in a clear way has been a mainstay problem since release. If you have any better suggestions, let me know! And good luck on your umbrella base. I haven't tested enough how useful they are.
• Scenarios are already implemented on the backend (as the tutorial exists), though puzzle rooms would take a lot to build. I figured the game might have a sort of small story at some point, though, in regards to the nature of the realm you find yourself in (a dimension of abstraction beyond our own, perhaps the subconscious abstract layer of a universe-dreaming god, accessed via wormhole, or smth). 
• Meta-progression and achievements were something I wanted to avoid, however, as they either subtly tell you 'proper' ways of playing the game, or spoil the point by faking an economical ending that doesn't exist where there should always be a next run. I never anyone to go 'I unlocked everything, game done.'
• No idea how I'd do 3D. Tilesets alone would require remaking the graphical end from scratch.
• The game technically isn't ASCII. It could classify as ANSI, but ASCII is a very specific character set. I also very insistently refuse to call this game a roguelike - it's not turn-based, has no perma-death (just reload last save), and it's not even set in a dungeon. I might be a purist, but I really can't see anything the game has in common with Rogue besides text graphics. Procedural generation? Tetris had that and was permadeath.
• Honestly, while the game has some depth, I suck too badly at my own game (attention-requiring project built by ADHD developer, loam) to figure out if a normal person could realistically build a lasting base, lol. There probably needs to be a balance patch somewhere, but I could see at least a dozen hours being put in.

I hope my mountain of text is larger. It was, having to type it twice, at least.