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Kieran (K-Embee)8 days ago (2 edits)

I also handed the controller over to my girlfriend for balancing, and it worked out well enough haha. I did end up coming back to this one for a few replays, and the gameplay holds up even on repeat runs, so here are my extended thoughts.

  • While this feedback is for the game as-is, I would absolutely buy an expanded commercial version of this if you ever decided to take that route. The gameplay loop works very well, and with more depth and polish in the right places, would make a very nice run-based roguelike.
  • The ships feel pretty balanced overall. I haven't had a chance to try out everything, but most of the ones I did either felt nice, or "wow this is busted" followed by "oh damn, it has [insert major situational flaw]".
    • The only ship I didn't enjoy was the Spider, with zero defense it was practically unusable on the frontline, and was more of a friendly fire machine than anything usable in the rear, and without the firepower to justify being so frail.
    • Ironmaul X is insanely good and if you get a decent attack buff on it, it's doing 3-4 damage AOE with very respectable bulk. Closest thing to broken there is, but considering it's the starting ship and only double upgrade (that I could find), that's fair enough.
  • I think starting with four ships was the right choice, having the full breadth of options from the start of the game is worth the issues it causes down the lane. There's no real elegant way to teach players that they need to replace their starting "mini" ships at some point, and making room for a friendly planet even if you avoided losing any ships just to avoid the mid-game DPS check doesn't feel the greatest when you only have a dozen or so rounds to play.
  • The upgrade system feels good in general, but there are a few specific quirks that stand out. I don't think they're flaws per se, but still worth commenting:
    • Years of similar games have conditioned me to think that "harder mission = better rewards", which is a very hard habit to break here since you do get better rewards, but only if you get a full clear. Had to train myself to take easier missions when I was really needing upgrades so I could actually afford them.
    • Having fixed prices is a very elegant way to axe a bunch of complexity from the store, especially given the context of this jam. That said, I think upgrades could've been a bit more expensive and new ships maybe a bit cheaper. Being able to afford to upgrade to Ironmaul X but not a single new ship unless you sell gears on your second shop is... certainly a choice. (Removed as I forgot you start with 3 coin and 0 gears, not the other way around). 
    • Despite being easy, you can get stuck in a pretty nasty doom loop if you end up low on ships in the lategame. Can't destroy ships means you can't buy new ships/upgrades means you can destroy even fewer ships. It reminds me of FTL in a way (in fact, the whole game gives FTL vibes in more than a few ways), and isn't that big of a deal given the game's length and difficulty, but it still stands out.
    • I wish more ships had two upgrades.
  • The layout previews that show you number of enemy ships and their position are way less useful than you'd think. Knowing the number of ships is very useful, and the positions can tell you if you don't have enough firepower for the ranges, but besides that there were still plenty of encounters I'd walk into only to realize I don't have the firepower to finish it because ship XYZ was actually a super-buffing support ship or whatever. Sometimes it was satisfying to find the second best option, or decide whether to sacrifice a ship for a full clear, other times it felt like an exercise in futility and wishing I'd picked the other mission.
  • As far as I can tell, there's no guarantee that the first hard mission can be fully cleared without losing a ship. Still, having to consider whether yolo sacrificing one of the mini ships and hoping the next store has a better version was a fun choice to start the game with.
  • The UX is good in general, but the missing tutorial and a lack of sound/visual effects were very noticeable. One place in particular was swapping ships - I didn't realize you could swap ships by moving one onto another until a few runs in, which would've made things so much easier.
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SirMaximo7 days ago(+1)

First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to write such a detailed comment. We must have a very similar perspective on video games, because it seems you have completely seen through the decisions I made during the jam haha, I’m really impressed!!

The Spider ship is a very risky choice, you can have a good run with it if you surround it with cards that give it buffs!

I'm glad you appreciate the idea of starting with four ships! At first, I had planned to start  just with the starting ship, but the game was incredibly boring. In the first four rounds, you could hardly do anything since you only had one or two ships. So I looked at how other deck-building and strategy games handled it and decided to have a starting deck with the other 3 cards.

I included the option to go to the friendly planet on every turn because, with so few turns, there was a good chance that players would have different needs throughout the game. But I imagine that in a larger game, it would be better not to offer that option and instead have x stores scattered across the map, so players don't get frustrated about having to "waste" a turn instead of fighting.

"Years of similar games have conditioned me to think that "harder mission = better rewards", which is a very hard habit to break here since you do get better rewards, but only if you get a full clear. Had to train myself to take easier missions when I was really needing upgrades so I could actually afford them.

I love this feedback, I hadn't thought of it, but you're absolutely right. I need to think about this, because it's true that I don't know of any game where you don't earn rewards just by beating a level. And it's clear that most players are going to come in with knowledge of those other games!

You're absolutely right about the prices in the store. Once again, you've seen right through my decision. I had planned to create a more complex system, but due to time constraints, I decided to simplify it as much as possible. Giving the player 3 coins at the start was just a way to balance the game given this constraint.

As for the difficulty, you're absolutely right. After watching my girlfriend play for a while, I noticed that too. The game penalizes you for not completing levels, so someone who isn't used to these kinds of games can get stuck in a loop where they don't complete levels, don't get the rewards, don't upgrade their ships, and then don't complete following levels because of that. That makes the game either too easy or too hard. If I decide to expand the game, that's definitely something I'll have to change!

Thank you for your feedback on the layout previews. I didn't want to show all the information so that the user doesn't always choose the best option, but maybe I'm not providing enough information. I was thinking that perhaps if I show the total (aggregate) attack and defense stats of the enemy ships, or something similar, the user might be able to make better decisions.

Yes, there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to complete the first rounds without losing any ships. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, to be honest, hahaha. In my playtests, you could always buy a ship after the first two turns to replace the one you lost, but maybe that doesn’t feel very satisfying. I need to think more about this... hahaha.

Thank you so much for this incredible comment. I wasn't expecting anything this good, especially in a jam comment. I'm so grateful, and I've learned so much from it!! If I ever make a bigger game, I'll have to put you in the credits, hahaha. Thank you so, so much!!!!

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