Fun little clicking game! I played around 10 combats and cleared the second Forest adventure. I played it in browser, which I assume the UI sluggishness was at least partly due to this likely. It feels like there’s more tactical depth here than I was able to understand from the tutorial/descriptions alone.
Combat / strategy clarity
The elemental trade-offs and different ability/card types seem like they could create interesting strategy, but I wasn’t always able to understand what was happening well enough to make deliberate choices. I read what each did, but understanding why or when to use which seemed difficult.. a color or symbol quickly identifying the type would be really helpful: Summon, Damage, Buff, etc.
I don’t understand why cards appear and disappear. Is the available selection random? What determines which cards appear, and does the player have any control over it besides picking their deck cards? Because they change/disappear, it was difficult for me to plan ahead. I might consider keeping them visible unless that changing hand is an important part of the intended strategy.
Mana also felt less important to me than the response time of the card UI. I could usually cast as quickly as the card menu became available, while I only actually ran out of mana once or twice. Because of that, the speed of the drawer/UI animations became part of the combat pacing. Smoother/faster UI interactions could have a surprisingly large impact on how the game feels.
I also had trouble distinguishing my units from my opponent’s, and I often couldn’t tell whether I was winning or losing. Some clearer indication of battle momentum, outgoing vs. incoming damage, or whether an elemental choice was effective would help me understand if my decisions were good.
I also saw minions become scared and run away, but I didn’t understand what caused that.
Flow / usability
Hitting Practice started a matchmaking queue. I expected Practice to immediately start a fight against AI, so this confused me.
When starting an Adventure level, I clicked the level, saw its intro, was returned to the map, and then had to click the same level again to actually fight. I think clicking the level → showing the intro → immediately starting the fight would flow more naturally.
I also couldn’t find a way to quit/leave a non-human battle once it had started.
Possible bugs
Canceling from the matchmaking queue didn’t appear to cancel properly. The battlefield briefly appeared and then the game exited the match.
I cleared the second Forest adventure, but the third adventure didn’t unlock/progress for me.
Overall, I think there’s more strategy here than I was able to fully understand during the playtest. The biggest improvement for me would be making the combat state and the reasons things happen more immediately readable, along with smoothing out the UI response during battle.