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Thank you for playing and the feedback.

Sorry we missed your stream, we've been monitoring the Discord and trying to keep up on who is streaming so we could be present when our game is played. I've done a quick skim of the video, and we will watch it as a team later. Our game was designed as a story-driven experience. Since you had a headache and did not want to read, that certainly impacted the experience. Your starting quest for food is why the party heads out to start. That quest becomes less of a driving force, and the story about the invaders is what keeps them moving. When you reach the end of the demo they leave their home forest and gain new quests. Clearly we need to adjust the pacing of the demo to add other quests sooner for players who look at the quests and skip the story. In the non-Lite mode of the game there are some other smaller quests along the way. 

I noticed that you played version 0.21.1, so I'm guessing you downloaded previously. We've released 3 updates over the last week. Some of the UI has been cleaned up and shrunken down in them. The latest, which came out after you streamed, also shows you the overall progress for the larger goal of providing enough food for your clan, not just your initial goal of sending 500 food back. You do need to send the food back before it counts for the quest, and that is done in the Traders' Depot. Once you send back 500, your team gets a new quest of trying to get more to help the clan reach its needs, though even there, it really is dealing with the invaders and story elements that are meant to be the driving force. We will need to work on improving how the story is presented, and also make it clearer outside the story that you need to use the Traders' Depot to send items for quests.

The game is primarily designed for playing with keyboard and mouse, but fully supports keyboard only, controller, and touch. It does not auto-detect and alter settings yet, so you do need to use the settings screen to turn on the tooltips you want. For controller we have Focus based tooltips. They get in the way when using the mouse, so are off by default. We will add auto-detecting other inputs in the future and letting plays choose to switch to a different preset, but it hasn't been as high a priority so far.

The biggest change in our recent release is an increase in difficulty. The older versions were too easy. The intent was to make them more accessible to a wider audience so people could play further and see more story, after earlier versions were too hard and jam players were stopped early. Many have said it is too easy and so they do not feel like it is worth paying too much attention to stats. We are hoping that the higher difficulty will encourage people to learn the underlying combat mechanics, such as needing to use items that match the affinities of the character and the ability chosen, to get the most power out of an action.

The slimes will get special equipment later, though limited to helmets and accessories. We greyed out the slots while they cannot be used, but will see about hiding them for the slots the slimes cannot use at all.

This demo is meant to be an intro to the story. The real adventure picks up as you leave the forest at the end of it. Unfortunately, we lack the skills and audience to make that work. We were inspired by RPGs where there can be long intros that build up the story that sets the scene for the rest of the game. We clearly cannot do that, and will be rethinking how our story plays out. A future demo will also change it to skip around a bit so players don't get all of it, but can see later content sooner. For jams the current demo is clearly not the right style.

Again, thank you for taking the time to play our game, even if it wasn't working for you, especially with the headache. We will watch the video and take notes to see how we can improve the presentation of information to clear up some of the pain points. 

For the Themed Items we have included some items you can collect as loot: Moonstones, Moonwater, and Honey. You will get several of these from the camp, and potentially more from random drops.

Thank you for playing and the great feedback.

The game was planned to be a story heavy RPG, with a story opening sequence.  For jams and demos it is clearly not working well and the game has started to stray from that vision. We are planning to split the intro out into a prologue, and let those who don't want as much character building to get right into things, starting at, or after, the initial town's Inn. We've gotten mixed feedback on the story. Some tell us there is not enough and they want to have more personality and getting to know the characters, and then those who want to jump right into everything else. Our current state is in the middle and not good for either group. The Lite story mode was meant to give players who want less story that option, though it was done quickly as a cut down version of the main story mode. We need to redo all the story aspects to try to give more draw with fewer words. We will probably try to add more animations and other things to replace some of the text. We are considering dropping the full story mode for a while as we focus on other aspects of the game, and then come back with a revised story mode that better presents things.

We will be reworking the tutorials to show less initially. I've started working on toggleable help popups to replace some of what is currently in the tutorials. You can see the first of them in the Inventory and Traders' Depots, by clicking the question mark at the bottom left. The overall tutorial system is being reviewed for how to best overhaul it to streamline conveying information, and allow players to get more over time.

I can see how the button border does look like a faded version of the panel borders. We will take a look at the coloring and see about updating things to be a bit more clear.

We primarily use Vivaldi (Chromium based). We will do some more testing with Firefox and see if we can replicate the lag you experienced. We did recently add some extra calculations to the tooltips for abilities and items, so some of that could be causing the lag, though I didn't think they were too complex. This is the first we've heard of lag on the tooltips, but they are important and we will look into this.

The ability buttons are color coded based on the type. Red is for attack. Green is healing. Blue is defense and others that don't fit into the other 2. Yellowish is new, and only Mindy has it for now. It used to toggle groups of other buttons that are related (ie. elemental of similar tier). When an ability can't be used it is faded out as if disabled.

We have heard a lot of feedback that the game is far too easy. We are currently playtesting a difficulty update that will be out in the next day or two. We wanted it to be easy for jam players, but now that we have difficulty settings, the Normal level should be more in line with where we want the game to be, and those who want easier can choose it. We really should have updated it when we added the difficulty settings.

Thanks again!

The core puzzle idea was decent. It took a while to figure things out. The biggest issue is that you have buttons with arrows on them next to the buttons to start and restart. I kept clicking on them and the other buttons trying to get something to happen. Eventually I thought to use the keyboard and that worked. If the buttons are not meant to move the character, then they should be changed to not be clickable buttons. It is good to tell/show people the controls, but as buttons they looked like the controls themselves, and not instructions. I played a few times and managed to get several people out. Things flashed fairly fast, and I wasn't following everything, but got the general idea of what was happening.

This is not really my style of game. It seemed decent for the style, but was bit boring to me. The mechanics were simple and easy to understand. It started very slow and I was debating ending it when it finally picked up the pace. It did seem to go from nothing to really do up to a swarm of arrows, pretty quickly. The progression could certainly use with smoothing out. 

Starting the game, it feels like parts are cut off. The hearts at the top were cut off slightly, while the bottom ones go right up to the edge. Switching to fullscreen, the top hearts go to the edge, and the bottom ones are cut off at about the half way point. Exiting fullscreen the blue hearts moved up a ways to be next to the bottom right corner of the board. I could also now see the top of the Pawn card, which had previously been off screen.

I used summon to place a Pawn. It then went back to the bottom edge so I could just see the name at the top and a little more below it. Summon was greyed out. I moved my Pawn across the board and the opponent avoided it. It got to the end and then seemed to be stuck. I used my King to get close to the opponent and was able to beat them, though it was just a matter of whoever struck first won.

I picked a new piece and the next round started with the cards off screen again. Clicking on Summon brought them up.

The CPU is not very smart. They often moved into positions that let me attack them. The Queen gave me some trouble due to her power, but I had 2 Rooks. I lost 1 to her, and the other was at half health. Then I faced their Rook. I got into position and attacked them. Instead of striking back and finishing off my Rook, they moved away. I moved my King up slowly, as they moved back and forth across the top row. When my King was 1 row from the top I moved diagonally near their piece. They moved down 2 tiles, remaining in range of my attack, allowing me to end the fight with my next move.

The game could use with some basic instructions, even if just on the game page. The enemy logic could use with being less suicidal, though I do acknowledge that with so few pieces, and your starters being slow to move, it could be a long game of chase if they were too smart. The Pawns being unable to upgrade, or do anything, once they reached the other edge was an unpleasant surprize. It would be nice if they could upgrade or do something more at that point.

Thanks for playing and the feedback. We watched the video and it was helpful. We have taken notes on the key issues and will be reviewing how best to handle them. Several line up with a stream we just watched as well, so doubly stand out as problem areas.

The next version will be increasing the difficulty and trying to make the player need to rely more on learning the combat mechanics. We will also move up the status effects being used by enemies. Multiple can be applied at once, but the icons above the characters only show one at a time, cycling every second. You can see all current effects when you select the character and look at the corner near their name.

We will be updating the Traders' Depot UI to make it more clear how it works, especially around items to be sent being editable until you leave town. We also likely need to make it more clear when you get new quests, as you do gain some after the final fight, but if you are used to only having the one, and missed the small notification, may not be checking the list. In the future there will be more meaning in sending things back over time, rather than saving them up, but for now, you are correct that you do not benefit from sending things before you can complete the quest.

We also plan to do a complete overhaul of the story in the future. We have struggled to find a good balance of writing out the story and keeping the dialogue short enough for the pace of the game. A new approach is needed. We plan to work on refining the gameplay further first, and then starting fresh with how to shape the interactions to better express the personalities of the characters without having too much text.

I didn't play right after reading the devlog and so missed that the tutorial had been updated. I have been skipping it lately. Next time I play I'll  pull it up and see how it looks. Tutorials can be such a pain!

Glad to help. We've enjoyed the game, so are happy to spend more time playing and providing feedback.

I think there are some things that should be done before going into Early Access and charging.

The first thing that I think needs to be dealt with is the tutorial. It is out of date, and has several issues that we found rather annoying. Some people will skip tutorials, but plenty will try them first, and a bad intro to the game can easily lose people.

Do you have any complaints with the SFX of the abilities?
I'm not as much of an audio person. I enjoy having music on in the background, and we often have some playing, but for me audio often blends into the background and is something more sub-conscious. The hover effect for Sheer Gumption stood out, but otherwise I think things are fine. Songbird will be better at answering on the audio, though I will try to pay more attention on the next play.

Does the art of the combat feel disjointed, with the hand painted backgrounds and vector art spaceships?
There is a bit of difference, but I'm also used to plenty of games having different art for the background to add a more epic feeling than the sprites can have. I think the current background is a bit too prominent, and some could use with being toned down, but the overall look of it is fine.

The color of the shield changes based on its HP. Is this visible?
I noticed the cards showing different colors, but when I used the Shields they were generally taken out in 1 attack, so you didn't really see any changes. I also only used 2 of the Shield cards, swapping from the starting one to the weaker 2 energy one, and only used them rarely. I did notice there was a color difference, and attributed it to the power of it, but did not get to see the color changing in combat. I think it is a good effect to have, even if I don't know how often it will be seen. Maybe the top tier ones will be better able to show it off.

Did you try reverse tank controls?
Nope. I think the basic ones are fine and didn't want to go changing things.

Are you generally satisfied with the movement in the game?
I think that with the mouse for rotation, the controls are fine. For general movement I use WASD, and then rotating to finish I use the mouse to line up on the target. The controls work for what they need to do. I think the different fuel amounts for each ship adds to the strategy of how to use them, even if it means needing to think a bit more before moving as to how to get the current ship where it can be most useful.

I think EMP needs something more to indicate the situation. Maybe make the energy indicator stand out more when it is negative to draw the eye so players know how much AP they need to act. This time through I don't think I looked at it.

I do think that adding some progression to the order you get random cards could be good. Maybe don't force it to be completely linear, but make it weighted. There is something to be said for the feeling of getting lucky with a better card sooner. As a simple example, when starting the 1st tier Flower could be weighted as a standard 1.0, while tier 2 is 0.5x chance, and tier 3 is 0.25x or even lower. These numbers would update based on the cards you have. I think they should be based on the lowest level missing being at 1.0x, and all above being scaled from there. It is still possible to get them, but significantly reduced compared to the lower level one that it would make sense to get sooner. You could also add a limit so that they can't jump too far ahead. Maybe they can only get the lowest tier they don't have or +1 tier, and not the +2 tiers or beyond cards. This does add more complexity, but would probably be worth it for that feeling of getting something extra when you get lucky, without things being completely random.

Thanks for playing and the great feedback.

We have discussed giving the Slimes additional accessories/art to make them more distinct. Since items are such a key past of the game, we are trying to work out how best to do so without it feeling out of place. One of the ideas is a pendant given by parents, potentially as a Key Item that may have special attributes, but is personal and not transferable equipment. Of course, if we do that, then that opens up why can't others equip a pendant, and if we allow changing equipment, then the character with this item is limited to it and not swapping it based on player control. We have long planned to allow them some equipment, namely a helmet that serves as body armor for them. Some accessory ideas have been tossed around, mainly stones that can go into special pouches on upgraded belts, and will act like rings, including a limit of 2, with one per side. We really like the Slime characters, but for art they have some significant limits, especially with the limits of pixel art sizes. Everything we've come up with for distinguishing them brings up new gameplay questions/features. We could maybe try adding birthmarks or similar, but doing so in a way that is clear, and without a lot of extra art work, is tough. I think our best option is going to be adding some starting equipment that can be swapped out, even if the swapping is meant to be done much later.

That blue area at the top right shows the name of the current ability being used. For a long time that was the only way to learn the names of the enemy abilities and know what was happening on their turn. With the recent addition of the Combat Log, I have been looking at the area and thinking on how to better use the space. If people close/disable the Combat Log it could still be useful, but I've not really liked it for a while. I know it needs to change, but it also works well enough and does provide some useful info for those who want to know the names of the abilities. As I'm typing this, I'm thinking that maybe moving the text currently displayed there to use the floating text system we use with HP/AP, but making it start at the character's feet and go down. We want to make sure it does not cover up the animations and detract/distract from the new art. I feel like showing it when the text is added would be too eye catching. I'm also acknowledging that the white text on light blue doesn't work well, and it at a minimum needs color changing... Well, we've known for a while that the original blue wasn't great and doesn't fit with the changes to the rest of the UI, but it also was meant to be its own thing that stood out. I may go with the same coloring as the Combat Log. It can probably also shrink down to just big enough for the height of the text, and grow when there are 2 lines to show. The brown may also work better for hiding it normally, and only showing when it has text, without being as eye catching, though we'll see. It may need to become a Setting.

The combat character details have a lot of white space early on because their is not as much to show. The boxes are actually full, but only when there are more Affinities in play. The positive ones go to the top left, while the negative go to the top right. Bottom center are the Affinities for which the enemy has armor. It is meant to give a quick indication of Affinities related to the enemy for making choices on which to use against them. Most of our current enemies only have a small number of positive, and most characters are low on Death, plus there is only limited armor to start, so I can see it feeling oversized at the start of the game. I'll need to think on options to convey the quick details, without so much empty space. When we added the Status Effect icon to that area, the original plan was to put them, and the other target/ability used icons, inside the box as well, but it really felt too big and bloated. Maybe the box needs to go away or be reduced to just the name, with the other icons being outside of it. We still need an easy to understand at a glance way to distinguish positive and negative Affinities, as well as armor. Though, we e planning to make some changes to that so you have to learn the info from fighting them, but once learned it is convenient to know. Of course, in most games you don't really have that info in your face. We do have the full Character Details screen which is accessible from combat, so maybe it is time to get rid of those details from the main combat screen. I suppose that it really is a leftover from the original design that was meant to be quick and simple, without going into menus for details. If you want to know about a certain character you learn form facing them, or go to the Bestiary.

I agree with you on the lack of texture for the UI. I was starting to look at options for the Combat Log when I added it, but the artists were busy with the animations, and I did not like what I had done. I do like the simplicity of using the Style Box borders, but with the pixel art style of the game overall, they should get updated to also feel more in line with that. I'll admit, UI is not something I enjoy doing, so I've generally made it look good enough for conveying info, and then moved on.

Glad you like the new grouping. I've been thinking on how I wanted to do that for a while. I debated a popup menu with the abilities, a popup covering all the existing ones, scrolling (either horizontal or vertical) through pages of them, and doing a similar vertical expanding. For now this feels like it works the best of the ideas I had. Originally I was planning a smoother transition, instead of the slightly jumpy one button at a time shows/hides, but with the UI this was the much simpler one to implement, and it felt like it worked well enough. As we add more abilities up through the planned max level, this or similar will be needed so they all can fit. One other idea we had was setting a max limit on how many abilities can be active, and the player has to select which to enable for combat. We may still add some player customization options at some point, though prefer not to limit the player currently.

Moving around towns has been planned for a while, and the toggle for it is already in the town UI, just hidden. We need to add some new systems for movement to implement it, as out movement/pathfinding is currently all based on moving along the main path in a mostly straight line. The full story intro is mostly using Tweens for the early movement, instead of the navigation system. The menus can work, but have never been a favorite of mine. They are just a lot easier to add than the other systems we'd prefer. To start we will likely stick with the menus, but your move between locations. Later we will try to liven up each location with art for the location. The pubs especially could use a nice pub scene where you can select each character to interact with them.

I can agree that the towns need to grow, and with combat feeling better, maybe it is time to put more focus there. One option we've debated is offering classic JRPG free roam controls while in towns. This would feel so much nicer. But, it does change things from the feel of the rest of the game. There is an entirely new control and collision system to deal with and maintain. Players also have to transition to using different controls, and there will be some who don't like that. We could offer a setting for which mode to use, but then will have to maintain both and keep them in sync. I do have ideas for this, and I feel like it is probably where we will end up. It does also offer the advantage of not having to wrestle with the navigation system and setting up the towns to play nicely with pathfinding. We already know how to handle that kind of character movement, though would need to add the logic for having your party follow the leader. For mobile we'd need to add the On-Screen Controls, or we do click to move, but that then brings back pathfinding, and even more complex as it could be anywhere, rather than the preset locations. This would be an example of where we would want to have the fallback to menus, or maybe using the menus to select locations, but if we are doing free roam, then we would want to have your classic RPG hidden things to find... so, yeah, we have thought a lot on the towns, and the main delay for them is the can of worms it would be opening as we feature creep our way through them. They do need to improve. For the game they don't really fit, but they will also be a huge project to do well, in part because we try to support so many inputs. The game itself is not CPU/GPU heavy, so keeping it able to work on mobile will open up one more option for where to sell, especially with so many people these days living on their phones.

Now that you mention it, I don't think we have anyone giving items in towns, other than in the scripted event for the Traders' Token. You get the 1 quest, but that is all. We have an interaction system in place that can handle giving items, quests, and much more. We kind of switched away from story to focus so much on refining the combat and other gameplay, that we haven't really gone back to rework towns and the interactions there in a while. We will need to think on these things. I'm not sure it will be the next big update, as I'd really like to finish some of those other changes I've been trying to get to, but it should be revisited soonish.

The berry bushes were the only random event we had. When I updated the way the world was setup the random events were removed mainly so we didn't have to test them at the time. They felt so minimal with just the bushes that it wasn't worth the effort. We really need to add more random events so they feel more a part of the game. I think I have some to-do items for them to refine things first to better fit with the new system, but once done they should be easier to implement. The old system was finicky, which is largely why we never added more. Hopefully the changes will make them work better, so we can implement them in a reasonable amount of time.

The current demo end fight really was just meant to give a battle where you could see late game combat. The Demo Dragon event was our best idea for how to level up the party to make it work. In the future we are thinking about doing a time warp for the demo. You play through a bit of the opening, and then jump a few levels, play a level or 2 and then jump again. We are thinking 3 sections, and ideally ending on a cliffhanger. There is a major event around the mid-point of the game that we'd like to get to implementing, but the game just has not been ready for it. I think that ending the demo at the start of it would be a good way to draw interest for those who enjoy story... of course, right now we are more focusing on the non-story bits, so don't want to entice people with that, and then not touch the story for months. We still may head towards it, possibly having you enter the location, with just the hints of what is to come, and maybe ending before the big fight.

Thanks again for your great feedback! This has given me a lot to think on. We still have a lot to do, and every so often it is important to step back and look at the big picture to see if to much focus has gone in one direction to the detriment of other aspects. I am currently trying to clean up some of our outstanding UI tickets, so I will look into those aspects first, as they should also be the quicker and easier ones to deal with. Then we can think on which big thing should be next. I do think the roguelite variation's shop is still going to be the next big thing, as much of the ground work for it is done, and the regular game is going to need a lot more work now to be finished the way we want it to be.

This is an interesting combination of platformer and tower defense. The movement was fairly easy to control. The controls felt a bit odd. I generally prefer WASD movement, so ended up starting the first wave by accident when trying to move. The controls are on the web page, but instinct took over. I was able to use them, but they make me wish for input remapping.

When I first started playing, I did not realize the level went up beyond the screen. I just expected the enemies fell from the top, so the long delay after the wave started was odd. Once I was able to purchase a tower and learned to pick them up to move them, I jumped up to put one on the upper platform, and then learned it went up. I tried various placements, though found the towers had bad aim, generally shooting at falling enemies where they were and missing them. You had to place them so the are under where the enemies fall, or where they have to walk into them and not fall into their range, but also be able to be hit before falling off the next edge. The towers and/or level design could use some work to allow more useful placement positions of the shooting towers.

Having the spot to purchase towers does allow for popping up the message of which key to press to do so, but it is annoying having to go all the way back down to buy a new tower, when placing multiple up higher. It would be much nicer if pressing S or Z was a toggle for the shop, and the tower was placed next to you, or even started with you carrying it.

It wasn't always clear which projectiles were yours vs the enemies. A different color for the different projectiles would be helpful.

I played the boss fight once. I got hit a few times learning its pattern, but then was able to beat it on the first try. As a first boss it works well. It has a learnable pattern, with clear indication before its move, and is fairly easy.

This seems like it could grow into a fun game. There are some good mechanics. As a proof of concept demo, it works.

I had fun playing. I completed the first 2 islands and saved at the start of the third. The music was good. The SFX fit well. The wolf howl was a good warning they were spawning. The art style worked well and was easy to understand. The UI was reasonably intuitive and easy to navigate. The only real issue was sometimes needing to remember where something was, though it did not take too long to find things with a bit of looking.

The tutorial is nice. It goes at a good pace. The instructions are clear, and the tooltips draw attention where they are needed. The only issue I ran into was at one point, after the exploration of the ruins, it felt like the tutorial ended. Eventually I did the right things to bring up the next step, but it took longer than expected. I may have missed something that would have guided me to the next step.

The nested tooltips are interesting. It is a neat feature for allowing additional details, though the progress bar on every tooltip does feel a bit odd when first seeing it. I will probably get used to it over time, and the benefit of the nested tooltips will likely be worth it.

After completing the first island it looks like I had 3 routes to choose from. 2 of them had 2 stops, while the last was only 1. That last had a Ruins, while one of the others had a Small Ruin. I figured the Small Ruin would only give 1 blueprint, while the regular one would offer 2, as the Ruin I had explored did. I like research paths, so took that one. It only gave 1 blueprint, making me regret not choosing the Small Ruin with second stop at an Atoll.

Reaching the next island I have what look like the same 3 units, but they are now unequipped, and I have very few resources. It feels odd to lose your equipment when the same team is traveling to the next island trying to solve a greater threat. I can understand the gameplay mechanics of starting fresh on each and building up with new challenges, but with the story, it feels odd.

The curses add an interesting challenge. I like to explore and build up as much as I can. The curses being added over time puts a bit of a limit on it. You can keep building up, but the challenge will increase. They never felt unmanageable. The game overall is fairly easy. The combat threats were quite manageable, allowing freedom to explore and build up. The Androids/Automations were an unexpected surprise on the second island. It is a nice way to allow expanding the team. The various more modern tech elements fit well in the story of much was lost and trying to recover. You get to start with the basics, but also have that elements of more options and quickly advancing to more modern techs.

Thanks for playing and the feedback!

This was a fun little game. The theme is amusing and creative. The upgrades are good. The luck of what you get can majorly impact how well you do. My high score was 2,582,955, in a run where I lost to the boss. I beat the boss with a score of 1,575,676. I enjoyed it enough to keep playing for a bit after winning, and may play some more later to see if I can get a better score and win.

The transition to the boss fight starts to fade the screen out while you can still take damage. It would be nice if things froze, or damage was blocked, so you were not trying to evade enemies when you cannot see anything. My first boss fight I got hit several times during the transition.

The boss was a good challenge. I had a good run my second time, getting the magnet early on, and having good options from each soup. I got the boss down pretty low, but was not able to beat it. My third run was bad. I beat the boss on my fourth try, though my score was much lower than my magnet run. By then I'd figured out the boss fight enough that I was able to pick upgrades that helped me in it, even if I did not get as many.

When starting out, the movement speed feels really slow, especially after a run where I had several speed upgrades. It works, since you have the upgrades, but it does create a challenge. I like that you have indicators when you get close to a treasure. I got at least 1 treasure on each run, and sometimes got 2. I think one of the runs might have been 3 of them, but I'm not certain and may be combining 2 runs. I got each of the 4 shown on the web page at least once. I found the dash to be so-so. If you don't have any speed upgrades it felt almost useless. With some upgrades it felt better, though the range was still fairly short. Add that to the long cooldown, and I only used it rarely.

It's not listed on the web page, but the Fire was one of my favorite upgrades. I also liked the Chef's Hat and Running Shoes. Upgrading the Fork and adding BBQ Skewers were also nice. The others were picked based on what I had already gotten.

The music was nice. Some of the sound effects felt out of place. It was not clear what I was hearing initially. Over time I learned what each was, but it would be nice if they better fit the character and were more clear about what they were meant to indicate.

I like the parallax backgrounds. There is definitely more sense of movement and action. I do think that they may be a bit to prominent. Some of the galaxies especially feel rather large, vibrant, and close. I think of viewing large galaxies as far away. Some of the spiral ones also feel a bit too precisely spiral. Nature has a bit more variety. I think the very spiral shaped one could use with a bit less perfect spiral. Maybe squash one direction in a bit on a loop, making it more oval. Maybe a bit more wiggle in the lines. It is not bad, just that since I am looking at the new art, and it is a large object, I feel that some parts could be refined. The asteroids work well, especially since they can show up in combat, and space battles are often shown being fought in asteroid fields. They are largely different colors, and constantly moving, but at one point I did step away and when I looked back I saw a background asteroid near one of my ships, and had an initial Oh Shit, reaction, before recognition of being background. Not likely to be an issue, and quickly acknowledged as it moved by, but still something to mention.

The basic card hover effects are nice. A subtle touch that helps to focus on the hovered card. The specials, I'm not sure what I think. It's not like I'm going to hover them often or for long, and they are powerful, but they felt maybe a bit too much. The first I hovered was Sheer Gumption, and I'm not sure on it. It certainly drew attention. I'm not even sure what it is supposed to be. It sounds like a repeating rapid pulse of maybe burning/cutting torch. I like the slashing sound when used, and this one just feels so different. The slashing with a sword feel of the symbol and use animation, make me think something like drawing a sword from a sheath would fit better here. I'm not really sure, as a repeating sound it can be tough to get something good that really feels right. It also sounds louder and not a s smooth as the others. Doom Pulse sounds a bit quite compared to the other two. I'm only starting, so this is comparing the 3 original ships. And, again, this is not really meant to be a focal point where players leave it hovered to constantly listen, so I may be over focusing on it as I look at the new stuff.

The music after the first combat ended did feel a bit out of place. Not that it was bad, but that it felt like a strong shift from what we were hearing. As victory music I suppose it can make sense, or even travel music for the team to cover the long boring journey through space. The music did only play a short time, then went silent. I did click away to write my notes, but even after clicking back it did not continue playing. I'm guessing the track was not set to loop.

When I got to the card select screen the regular music started back up, though after the loud fast music, it felt like it took a while and it starts really quiet. The transition is something you may want to think on.

I did take damage in the first combat. Normally I'd just click to repair each ship and move on. The new need to purchase cards means I have to think about how to spend the credits. Before I'd just use the practically unlimited credits to fully heal between fights, and equipped only minimal healing cards. Now I have to weight the value of using an action in combat to heal, over the use of credits. I'm also more likely to use the Shield cards, especially with the new ones offering a wider range of options. Once the valuable stuff is unlocked, and we are making enough, I'm sure things could hit a point where money is plentiful and paying to repair wins, but I have 2,000 credits, and many cards cost that, so I can't do any repairs and still get one of those cards. The damage is minimal, with 1 point each to 2 ships, so getting a card is going to win. Now to decide on which card to get...

So far I am seeing cards at 500, 2,000, and 3,000. It feels like there should be some at 1,000. You have 2 shields, with one clearly being the upgraded version of the other, both at 500. I feel like the Sturdy Shield should probably cost 1,000, just to give that feel of progression. The Spectral Shield is also at 2,000, so this would feel more natural.

Early game choices are limited, and now having to pick only 1 to get is tough. I was thinking about going back to my old favorite, the Blast Gun. Double Attack is also tempting to hit a bit harder on the first turn, and I think it is winning, as I'll keep it as a basic first turn attack for much of the game, while Blast Gun will likely be replaced, or used situationally.

It is a bit odd going into the next fight without a full loadout. It adds a bit more challenge to the early levels. It is also probably good for new players to not have as many choices in combat to think about. Even the confirmation popup warns about not being at full, but it is all we have.

I spent a fair amount of the fight with Oyster using Band Aid to heal up my ships, and used some repair crystals, which previously I'd often ignore in favor of finishing the fight quickly and healing with credits

Getting 5,000 credits after the second fight is much nicer. Now I can start to fill in those gaps. Remorse Flower was an immediate pick. Need some high power options for boss fights, beyond the specials. I also grabbed Recharge Ally, to speed up being able to use the Flower. With 1,000 credits left, I decided to heal the ships to full.

Rion the Destroyer fight did not show the Battle Log on the enemy turn. Flinn's line at the end of the fight "what are you afraid of? We have a Doom cannon now." is missing capitalization of the first word. Doom Cannon also feels like both words should be capitalized. In the cutscene sequence Pearl's has a line missing a space "Already done. But they will take atleast a week to reach".

It never really mattered before, but the Rion mission says the reward is 30,000. It doesn't say what, but Credits would be assumed. The 3 fights gave 2,000, 5,000, and 10,000, totaling to 17,000. The mission select screen should probably be updated with the current numbers.

The Doom Cannon being 5,000 seems reasonable, but I also rarely used it, so it will likely be a while before I buy it. Laser of Lamentation, however, is a top pick. Healing is more important now, so while there are others I'm more likely to use, I'm going to get Uplifting Aura for Valkyrie. The card says "Heals set amount". It should probably be updated to clarify what the amount is, or how it is decided. I finished my shopping with Blast Gun & Snipers Dream. I still have some credits, but the team has a full loadout now, so I'll save the rest for potential repairs.

I really like being able to now drag cards around to swap, instead of right-click to clear and then replace.

One of the End Bots fired (Basic Shot), then moved, but the movement started at about the same time as firing, so it was traveling alongside the shot, though at slightly different angles. It might be good to add a short delay if they fire first and then move, as it looked a bit odd to see it traveling with the shot.

It sucks when you keep your ships back and the enemy uses one of the Snipers on you. Didn't lose the ship, but the repair bill now matters. I was rearranging cards, and forgot to move the shield over to Valkyrie. It would have been nice to have used in this battle. I picked up the Spectral Shield to have something I could use every turn.

Uplifting Aura seems to have a dark square area show up before the animation fully starts and it blends in.

Just unlocked Pravarshan. 5,000 is a fair amount, but being able to group heal, with most ships getting more than 1 HP, is useful. That tends to be my preferred heal. With the increased need for healing, I'm also going to get Quick Repairs and swap it in place of Band Aid. Not enough to also get Sniper's Legacy, so that will have to wait. A critical Triple Attack can do a lot on its own for less, so has been enough so far, especially with a Flower for higher power, but the upgraded Sniper would be nice. After the purchase I acknowledged that the next fight is a boss fight where the upgrades Sniper could have been useful, and might have been the better choice over 2 healing abilities... oh well.

It would be nice if hovering cards that target closest ally would highlight the target, so you know for sure when the ships are close to the same distance.

Crusher used Doom Cannon on an already damaged ship, but thankfully only hit for 2 damage, and the other 2 ships were outside of the field of fire. It can be powerful, but only when aimed well.

EMP drains energy, and also seems to prevent you from attacking at all. It should remove the icon showing you can still attack.

Prepping for the Phantom fight. Picked up Sniper's Legacy. Doom Cannon also seems like a good idea, in place of Blast Gun.

Phantom is too far forward, and big, so Sniper's Legacy only did 9 when it hit, even moving back to the edge. Using Remorse Flower next did 14. It is more energy, but can also be used from anywhere. I suppose I should have moved to a corner, and aimed at the far edge, to boost distance... but a lot of work compared to a Flower. Shields or lined up enemies make for a better use, but wanted to do some testing here. With such a large target, Doom Cannon worked well. I did not get up close enough, so not all beams hit, but it still did a lot of damage. Remorse Flower was my favorite for the fight.

Of course I purchased both Phantom abilities right away. Phantom Flower replaced Doom Cannon. Phantom Ray replaced Sniper's Legacy.

The Mobile Destroyers are really nice lining up like they do. Makes for a quick end to the fight.

As expected, the cost of repairing ships is not really a concern after the first few fights, especially once you have the cards yo like. Getting enough to unlock the new ships will take a while, but the repair costs aren't going to have a huge impact on how long that takes.

I'm amused that I finally unlocked the basic Flower, so long after having the upgraded version I prefer. I purchased Therapeutic Grapple, and swapping it in place of Quick Repairs.

Another level where they line up so nicely and Laser of Lamentation deals with most of their HP. Triple Attack cleans up those who remain.

Having played through several times, I have a decent feel for the fights, and they mostly go pretty quickly. The boss fights especially go well, since I save the special abilities for them, and open up hitting hard. My average accuracy was lower than I'd like, dropping a bit as I played more and took riskier shots, with an overall average around 70%. Crits averaged around 89%.

Heading back to the Ship Select screen, it would be nice to see your current credits, at least when showing the button to buy. Clicking it does show a message with the total, and if you have enough, but seeing before clicking would be good.

I played a bit on Battle Mode, but my accuracy was dropping, so I'm taking a break.

I exited and refreshed the page. With the recent changes, I think it is time for saving. Sure, you have the settings to unlock things, but it would be nice to be able to play over multiple sessions to earn up to unlocking ships and cards.

Thanks for playing and the feedback.

There is a random delay to the Slime animations, but I may need to increase it, or give a hard set variation.

We do plan to add more animations. We have many planned, though time and skill will decide what makes it in. This was just the first batch and updating the system to support the multiple animations.

While we are adding more animations, our game is not trying to sell itself on the art. We know our art is not good enough to try selling a game just on the art, even if we wanted to. We are not planning to add custom animations for every ability with every item. We plan to have a number of basic attack/ability type animations designed for item types for humanoid characters. Some Slime animations will show the item being eaten by the Slime. The Slimes' abilities are largely spit based, so that will be the main animation for them, with some variations. There are others, such as Slime Strike that will be non-spit based.

We plan to do enough art to give the game some life, but the gameplay is far more of our focus. Art, especially animations, take a long time for us, and we have to divide our time up to work on all aspects of the game. The items being used for abilities is one of the things that makes our game distinct and is something we plan to keep in the core game. Some game variations/modes may add characters other than the Slimes who will not be consuming items for their abilities, but the Slimes that eat items are the core characters of the story, and the use of the items is a key element of the system we are developing. If the flash and graphics are your main draw for a game, then our game may not be the best for you. We have always put art as a part of the game but something that needs to add to a good game. Art for art's sake can be fine, but we've never been fans of the games that put their entire budget into fancy graphics and ignore the gameplay or story. The abilities are going to be designed around the characters, and the art will be what we are capable of doing in a reasonable amount of time to match that feel. The variety of items is meant to add to the game by giving players more to choose from that can adjust the power of the ability. Eventually the items may be able to add status effects of their own as well. The focus for us really is on the strategy and decision making of the combat, and the animations are to convey information, even if only that the character acted.

As we have time to work on them, we are adding more town specific assets, such as the Hazelnut trees at Hazegate. The weather effects will grow, and may even start to have effects on combat. I'll need to check on the weather effects at the inn fade, they should have faded then with the darkness, but maybe I need them to fade faster than the darkness or otherwise show something for being inside. We will think on it.

We plan to add some AP change indicators. We just haven't come up with anything we liked yet due to the many Affinities and trying to make them clear enough for something that is only shown for a short time.

Stepping away and doing this is a good idea.  Perhaps the next step, after you are done with this one, might be to make an RTS. Don't redesign Rootwarden into it. Just let that RTS inspiration be its own thing, probably as a jam game, and go wherever it takes you. You may find doing it that way relieves some of the pressure of what you want Rootwarden to be, but also lets you get those RTS ideas out to play with. Maybe do another with a different aspect of what you want for Rootwarden. Just do some small jam games to play with the ideas, and find the pieces you like for each. Then you can come back and look at Roorwarden as the bigger project that can draw from what you learned with all the smaller pieces. We all have those dream projects we'd love to do, and often try to start them before we are truly ready. Yet, having started the project, you can have a feel for where the potential problems are and use what you learned to guide your future projects. I've been enjoying your games, and look forward to seeing your future work!

I played co-op for almost 2 hours with one of our kids. We made it to the ring level. Going through the gate there I got the same crash as my previous solo game got on level 2. I'll send the errors on Discord.

On the single player ship select screen, it would be nice if L1/R1 would switch between Overview and Stats. Currently to change them I had to move all the way to the left to the Back button, then press up. The Back button itself could use a bit of touch up, as it doesn't really match the rest of the UI, and more blends in.

The co-op split-screen ship select could use with showing what button to press to select your ship.

"Do people even read these?" Yes, sometimes.

Our first playthrough my partner ended up dying in the rotating rings of the first level. I died trying to learn how to tow them out. When I selected play again it let use interact some, but we were in the same spots, and the Defeat screen never went away. I was pressing several buttons as nothing initially seemed to work, so maybe I paused at the wrong time. I was able to press Start to pause and, after a couple tries, was able to use the controller to get down to go back to the main menu.

Game 2 went better. My partner chose the Carrier, and I stuck with the Tank. All of the enemies bunched up and focused on the fighters, leaving us to explore the level and destroy everything. I got a turret fabricator that gave me a nice beam weapon with decent damage and over 600 rate of fire. I then got lots of shields and damage boosts. I went over to join the fighting, and eventually we decided to go through the gate at almost 30 minutes on the in game clock. My partner did not fare as well as I did, and while they got a number of items, they were low power. On the next level they continued to have bad luck, and ended up being destroyed several times. I figured with how powerful I was that it would be a good time to try a throne, so I activated the Throne of Blood. The swarms of enemies were constant and large, which did make things a bit more challenging for my partner, though I was able to revive them each time. I found that I had a hard time activating the tow, as well as triggering some interactions.

I think the issue was FPS, and it was often below 20, and sometimes dipped as low as 11. We were playing on a 4K screen. I tried various settings, but even 1080p was often in the 20s with so many enemies on the screen, and it did look blurry. Next time we will try switching to windowed mode or fullscreen on a 1080p monitor. The visuals generally still moved decently, but the inputs seemed to not respond as well, and the popups indicating you could interact also did not always show as you passed by, even when trying to slow down for them. My system is not amazing, but not too weak either.

Here's the Godot stats in the terminal: Vulkan 1.4.354 - Forward+ - Using Device #0: AMD - AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT (RADV NAVI23). My CPU is AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT 8-Core & I have 64 GiB of RAM.

By the time we went through the last gate I had nearly 40k in shields, and over 1,500 HP. I was regenerating Energy from doing damage, allowing me to spam my Heavy Ability. A few good upgrades to start and it can really make the game.

I think the co-op mode is a great addition. Being able to revive your ally with towing to a repair point was an excellent choice. Without some way to revive a companion the game would not have been nearly as fun, and the towing mechanic fits the game well. The luck based nature of the game is a bit of an issue. On one hand, being co-op, when one is powerful, both benefit. On the other hand, I got really powerful from that 1 turret upgrade, and that helped me destroy a lot more stuff, even just from stray shots while dealing with enemies, getting even more upgrades and becoming even further ahead of my partner. The did take the Carrier, so were already a bit of a support role, and those fighters certainly helped us early on to get the initial upgrades, but as the gap between us widened, it was not as fun for them. While I was over 1,000 HP, they were still close to starting levels. It wasn't until the 3^rd level they finally got a 200 HP boost, which still meant their combined HP and shields were less than half of just my HP, and by then I was over 10k shields, and might have already hit that near 40k point. I think you may want to add a bit of rubber-banding should one player get significantly ahead of the other to help boost the lower pone up and keep things feeling balanced and fun for all. You could balance the boost for the lower player with lower chances for the player who is already ahead. I'd say that a focus on survivability at least would be good. Make sure that the more buffed player doesn't need to always go "rescue" the one less lucky. We had no problem with helping each other out, but I know plenty of people would have an issue with one feeling burdened by needing to help the other, or the one needing the help feeling like a dead weight.

The split-screen does impact the view, but it didn't feel too bad. The scaling did impact the menus, and on less than 4K they were a bit blurry with the default being very blurred and some things being hard to read. There was some overlap on the lower resolutions as well, though some of that may be from the low res setting on a high res monitor.

Overall, I think my main takeaways are that there needs to be some optimizing for higher FPS in co-op, and adding a bit of rubber-banding to keep the players a bit closer in stats. That and the bug fixes. Great work! The co-op is an excellent feature for the game.

Thank you for playing and the great feedback.

The Polish naming was inspired by The Witcher, and their choice to rename Jaskier for the English translation. We looked up Dandelion in Polish as a bit of a nod to that. In general we have tried to add a bit of variety to the towns with each having a bit of cultural inspiration.

The current difficulty was added fairly quickly, and had only minimal balancing. We plan to revisit it later to do a bit more fine tuning, but with the new "Status Effect" system it was easy to implement, and one of the things I wanted to use it for, so we threw it into the release. For something done quickly, it adds a lot for player choice on the challenge they want.

I plan to update many of the tooltips in the future. For now, if you want to see more details on your current Status Effects, you have to select the character, and then click on the mini-details panel to open the full Character Details screen. In there it will show you more info, such as how much damage/healing, and how many turns remain.

We've had a lot of requests for being able to know how much damage an ability will do. We will be looking into adding something. I'll need to think on the confirmation step. If we add it, it would need to be an option, as I'm sure there will be many who want to skip it for speed, especially once they learn what things can do. I was thinking about adding it in the tooltips when selecting an item or enemy, but all of that still needs to be worked out. Right now the calculations are all done only when the attack is happening. Status Effects add even more complications into it it, as an attack that causes an Effect would need to also check if the new Effect would alter the damage amounts... so yeah, it is on the list, but it needs some work to do well.

We are more inspired by classic RPGs, even if the combat is not quite that style, so most of the randomness comes from random enemy parties, and the choices they make. We aren't really going for a deck builder randomness mechanic, though we have had many compare the game to Slay the Spire and deck builders. The items you have do give a bit of that, but we also have so much loot drop currently that there is less of that randomness. Depending on how we balance the loot there could be a bit more limitations based on what you have. We are also thinking about having the weather be more than just cosmetic, with the current weather affecting Affinities. During rain Water abilities will be stronger, and Fire will be weaker. We've also thought about the terrain acting similarly, but we don't really have a lot of variety in it, so it would likely not play well. The Status Effects are designed to include Effects that can limit abilities, such as by Affinity, so fighting some of the enemies using those may add more of what you are looking for. We may also add some events that can block Affinities for a time.

I like the idea of a button to toggle the Combat Log. There is a setting to fully disable it, but adding the toggle is good too. Maybe clicking on it will reduce it to an icon, and clicking that will expand it.

Thanks! Glad you like it!

For the story, I can't really say anything specific. It just felt like so many others. The reluctant ex-soldier, accepting a new young student, who does better than any before and could be the one true partner... The villain burning down your home and forcing you onto the task they want you to complete. I didn't play far enough, but the tragic death of your master feels likely to be coming up... though on that note, for such a legendary and powerful fighter, he felt rather under-powered. For gameplay reasons it is understandable, but it is something I look at when a supposedly great hero joins your party. If he is going to only be a short term character, then you have more room to boost his stats to feel legendary, even if it does make balancing things so the young one true hero doesn't feel useless. I enjoy RPGs and grew up playing them, with a fondness for SNES/PS1 era. Maybe I've just played too many.

None of the music really fit the setting, in my opinion. The look made me think this was set in a fantasy feudal Japan. I would have expected more of an East Asian sound to the game music. To me, the music sounded modern, and more like an urban setting, not out in the woods.

I fully understand not overloading players with too much at once. Personally, I do like a bit of exploring and learning, but I also want to know everything. I like when there is a way to confirm that I understand a mechanic, even if I initially learn it through using it. I think the biggest one for me was the Speed/Wait. I think if you added % next to the numbers that would help as it would give some definition to what these numbers without a unit mean. I saw the indicators jumping around, but there was a lot of quick movement, so I did not acknowledge it was % based. Maybe if I played more I would have connected it to being a percentage.

While I missed how the HP bar worked, it also wasn't a major issue. They took damage, and it showed progress, so it worked. I just didn't acknowledge how the fainter section was working. Again, given more play time, it probably would have been clearer. I suppose many of my questions probably would have been answered over time. I'd say that adding the % to the Speed/Wait would be the main thing I'd change on these, and the rest probably are fine for people who play long enough and get invested. When I hit the second camp fire I did a bit of testing on the infinite TP ability so I'd know how it worked for the clearly upcoming boss fight. I could have spent more time testing the other things, but I just wasn't drawn in enough. I was thinking the boss would be the end of the demo, so I'd play that far, and just wanted to be prepared to beat it and not need to retry. Eventually explaining things would be nice just to confirm, but is probably not needed. You could add something to the menu that explains mechanics in more detail, possibly unlocking as they are meant to be revealed, if you feel it is worth the effort. It could be styled after the paper manuals that used to come with games.

I played on Linux with Lutris (Wine). Everything played fine as far as I could tell.

It's been a while since I last played. I don't recall everything exactly, but the game does feel much improved. The level progression is certainly better. The environments, especially the woods, are easier to see in. The map generation and enemy placement feel much more reasonable.

I started by resetting my game so I could play with the updates, and reduce chances of any conflicts from such an old game save. I did a few runs. My last I made it to the Forked Cave/Cavern (I forget the exact name) with my character at level 10. I like the powered up enemies having a clear visual indicator under them. I was lucky enough to have always had enough space to back away and deal with them over a distance, sometimes with a bit of rolling to dodge them. It was one of them that finally got me when it went around and came out where I wasn't expecting it. I did not yet do any of the red portals this time, as I did not feel I'd built up enough for them. I had over 1000 gold from this last run, so with the new upgrades I will probably go through one on my next run.

The bow is my favorite weapon, and I pick the Hunter when possible. Unlocking the option to pick your class from all 3 is among the first things I go for. I remember being rather bad with the melee weapons in the game, so did not try it this time. I used the Cryomancer once. I find them to be a decent secondary option. The Shattering Orb can be handy for hitting enemies hiding behind things. Still, I am best with the bow, so currently that is what I mainly play with. I may try playing more with the other classes for a challenge eventually, but for now I want to see how far I can get, and unlock as much as I can.

I enjoyed playing and look forward to seeing what you have planned for future updates.

When I first scrolled through the list I missed your game. The new name and art were different enough. Then I saw the dev name and took another look.

I like the new tutorial map being smaller and dedicated. I went through all the Control Tips. I like the new details about the Ratings. Placing the first building, and the new bars for how much buildings improve the Ratings are an excellent addition! The energy bar being replaced by the hexagons is also a nice change, making it easier for players to see the change in max energy more clearly. That tutorial is well done, and a huge improvement from the old one. Just playing through the first area I'm really liking the changes so far.

The core mechanics are the same, but a lot has also changed. I spent the first couple days learning things. I'm so used to rallying every residential building as soon as I can, that I had to stop myself and remember to treat them like the Campaign Day crowd gathering and save them up. I did one early, and then I waited until Day 4, when I gathered all and reclaimed 5 lots. I might have done more, but I missed one of them in my initial gathering, so first protests likely lost more than they would have otherwise. By this point, before building on the Reclaimed Lots, I was at Marginal in 2, and Adequate in 2 other Ratings. After some rest, I built on the Reclaimed Lots. Moving to 3 Adequate, 2 Marginal, and Health at Poor. I guess I need to work on that one next.

The Utility Pole at the top, just to the right of the gate, did not spawn a lot for me to build on when activated. There was still a cash pile next to it that I grabbed next, and another spot was occupied by BigRealty, so maybe that was the issue. The next one I went to worked fine.

It would be nice if the furniture in your room had an indicator for what is installed on the buttons. It's not too hard to check if unsure, but would be nice to have.

The mafia quest is a great addition, though I've yet to see what having them team up with BigRealty means. The quests in general are a nice feature that adds more to the game to get you involved.

On Day 7 I gathered most of the available crowd, skipping one on the far end of town. I protested at the remaining 6 branch locations, and then went to HQ. The first protest was not enough, but was close. I still had a good sized crowd, so did it again and won. I'm not sure what the mafia were going to do, or if they boosted BigRealty against protests, as I got that event just before the protesting.

ENT is Good, EDU, ECON, & LOG are Adequate. SAF & HLT are Marginal.

All around this was a good update. The game feels more alive and there is certainly more to do. I did not unlock any Cafe upgrades. I did check on them earlier on, but did not meet the requirements, and then I never quite got back to check again. I built a lot more building than I normally do, though still only built the free ones from Utility Poles and Reclaimed Lots.

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'm playing on Linux. I started from the terminal. As soon as I started the tutorial I got a bunch of errors about being unable to create Tiles. Followed by what look like debug messages, and a Node not found. Then "im getting a bug here in unit, under set strength Player".

I like the outline of where you can move to. I also like that you now have the menu when pressing Esc.

I went through the tutorial, and it looks to be similar to before, so I'm not going to repeat my comments on it.

Starting a new game, I chose The Commune. Extra orders sounds like a good buff. Many of these could use with a bit more description as to what they do, but there were several that sounded interesting. I left the other settings on their lowest values.

I moved twice, then went to press Turn, and it did not react to the mouse hover, nor click. I could interact with everything except Turn and Note. I started trying things, and eventually interacting with the mini-map seemed to fix the issue. I had clicked the plus to zoom in, and clicked on the map moving around a bit, then when I moused over Turn, it reacted.

Knowing a bit of how to play, I built a town sooner than when I played before. When gathering survivors they now went to the nearest town, rather than forming new teams, and I had to use orders to form new teams. I can see reasons for both ways, but at that point it would have been more convenient to have more units. I wanted to start a town to get to research, but also want to build teams to explore, so I'll need to think on strategy in the future for how many teams before a town, or when to build a new team from a town.

Some research completed, so I queued up more. I then tried to click on one of my units to move it first. I had a tooltip showing for something, and it did not change as I moved my mouse. I clicked and nothing happened. I moved the mouse around and clicked on things, and nothing happened. I tried pressing escape, but nothing happened. I then moved to the top, near the center, and clicked, and ended up back at the menu. I don't know if it was the clicking, was things catching up to previous clicks/presses, such as Esc, or clicking that spot, which finally caused the reaction. The terminal did not show any new errors.

This was a small update, but it is improving. The UI is better, though still needs refining. More details replacing the placeholder text would be good. Tooltips and instructions are helpful, but in many places you have a lot of space that can be better used to convey information.

I look forward to seeing how the game grows.

I played twice. My first time I got to wave/round 3. The second time I played through wave/round 10, then intentionally lost, as it was too easy and getting repetitive. I was often waiting for the next enemy to spawn with none on the screen. I found the shooting enemy bullets to make them yours very powerful. I got that along with increasing my rate of fire, and that pretty much was all I needed. After that I mainly focused on minimizing the curses, favoring spike traps, and making the enemy bullets bigger, as they then benefited me. I think the gift/curse mechanic is neat, and a decent way to let the player control the increase in difficulty, though clearly some gifts are more powerful than others.

I'm playing on Linux with Lutris (Wine).

It has been a while since we last played, and I saw the comment that while it looks the same, it is supposed to be an "entirely new game", so I started by going to Training and then Basic Tutorial, but it did nothing. I then went to Practice Mode, which did work. It seems like I can only pick one character. None of the abilities shown on the "Character Select" screen make sense to me as I don't know what those numbers mean, and nothing tells me how to use each. The text at the top seems very out of nowhere and again tells me nothing about the character or prepares me to learn the game.

Moving seems to always use Dash, which appears to have 4 bars, and takes one to use, or as part of an attack. Everything seems to require using energy of some kind that replenishes over time, and it feels like the game has a large focus on resource management. Using abilities sometimes replaces them with a different ability. That makes planning combos tough, especially as a new player trying to learn the mechanics. There are a lot of systems here, and this really needs a tutorial to teach everything. After playing around in the Practice mode I only started the regular fight to see how performance was, as I remember the old version was really bad. I did a dual, and the performance seemed OK. I only did one fight, mostly button mashing, so no clue if any specials might cause lag, but what I saw seemed playable... if I understood the mechanics.

I played to the start of Probis Castle. The game had some neat mechanics. I like the different defense abilities to deal with different types of attacks. The timeline system worked well, and made the actions you chose have a bit more weight. The story was decent, though felt a bit too familiar to so many others & over using classic cliches.

It would be nice to have more details on the various stats related to abilities, and combat mechanics in general. How does Speed/Wait work? I'm guessing that wait means you slow down and wait that long before the next move, while speed is how fast you will move down the timeline, but it would be nice to have it a bit more clear. How much do the number mean? Similarly, the infinity symbol next to TP, implies that it drains all remaining TP. Does the amount of TP affect the power? It seems like it does not. When first seeing it I questioned if I should save it to be my last attack when TP is low if it would be the same power, or save my TP to use it at full power for a boss? The Ground Cleave does not seem to accumulate Beats. It is showing as 0 and a different color, but it was not clear to me that it also would not accumulate any, and I had used it a few times without being hit, then noticed I had 0 Beats. With it being at 0, is that because it is always using the Finisher? It seems a bit odd, and would be nice to have it clarified, or maybe show it as no Finisher, but also does not accumulate Beats being listed. Initially I wasn't using TP abilities as I didn't want to waste power on weak things. Only in the first boss fight did I realize I would regain some during combat.

The enemy bars have what looks like 2 bars, with one more faded than the other. It is not clear what that is meant to show.

At the campfire it says HP/MP, but in combat it is called TP.

Some of the music choice felt a bit odd to me. The Boarcupine fight really stood out as not fitting with the theme/setting of the game, at least to me. The title screen as well, but not as much as during the boss fight.

At the start of Probis Castle I got the message about the Boarcupine DNA drop. That should really show up earlier, before all the cut scenes.

I played the original version when you released it, and enjoyed it. We were really busy at the time and I didn't have the energy to write up my thoughts into a coherent comment. When I saw this in the jam I was looking forward to checking it out and seeing the updates.

I like the tutorial. It does a good job of teaching the game and letting the player have freedom to design their base. The map is a good size allowing plenty of freedom to pick a spot that works for the player's vision. Having the last step start everything into motion was a great design choice. One minor thing on the tutorial. When you get to step 9/9, the button still says "Skip tutorial". I'd change that to "End tutorial", or similar.

The hover text on the transporters mentions carrying finished parts, but not transporting the ore to the factories.

When a ship is fully assembled it plays the same sound as for a countdown, but beeps only once. That does draw attention to it, but I think it would be nice if the sound was different. It makes me think it is starting the launch countdown. The main countdown is plenty of time to get back to watch the launch, but I do like the heads up when it is assembled. I'd just prefer a different sound so I have a more clear idea of timing for when I should scroll over there to watch, especially when there are multiple pads.

On the upgrades screen, I was wondering what the "FIT" button did, as nothing happened when I pressed it. I was starting to comment on it when I finally noticed the small text at the bottom about panning and zooming the upgrades screen. I've never felt the need to zoom or move things, as everything fits just fine and is readable for me. If yo continue to expand the tree I could see that being useful. I think the zoom/pan informational text needs to be more visible. Being so small, and over the main UI buttons, makes it easy to miss. It could be placed in a Panel Container with a different background color of its own, or maybe have the text be brighter white. Moving it next to the FIT button could also help connect them. This isn't a huge issue, but I kept wondering about that button every time I opened the screen. A tooltip on the button would also be a good choice.

An accessibility detail here. It would be a good idea to have an option to turn off screen shake. That can be problematic for some people. It was only a minor annoyance for me when I went to place a new Launch Pad and things were shaking so I couldn't get it where I wanted it. A general option for it in the settings is what I was initially thinking, but a nice extra would be if you could hold Shift, or some other key, to temporarily disable it while placing things, especially if you have a lot of rockets going off.

I got every upgrade but Heavy Lifter before the last group of the initial colonists launched, and I sat on the upgrades screen to get it as soon as the points were available, which was just before the Congratulations popup showed. I had 4 of each building. I had 5 Excavators. I think I had 6 Transporters, but they were moving too fast to reliably count them. It would be nice to show a count somewhere. A game like this can always use more stats and details! Similarly, it would be nice to have a score, or overall stats screen when you win. Something like totals of everything mined, built, accumulated. Maybe include how long it took. Something you are probably not tracking, and I'm not sure it would be worth the effort of doing so, but might be fun, would be distances traveled. How many steps did the colonists have to walk to get to the launch pads? How much distance did the Transporters and Excavators cover?

A nice to have control would be using the middle mouse to drag the screen around.

I've enjoyed playing Star City. I do like Sci-Fi and builder games. It is simple and short, so works well for something I can play to relax, and also not feel like I'm going to be sucked into hours of playing when I should be working (or getting some sleep), at least in its current state ;)

Reading your devlog, I like Rootwarden, but fully understand the need to step back and try other things sometimes. We also had some projects we thought were going to be our big project, and then found we could not make our vision work for a full game with where we were going and our skills of the time. It can be easy to get yourself in too deep and locked into a certain direction that things just aren't working. Maybe after stepping back and working on this it will inspire you with new ideas for Rootwarden, or something else you want to work on more.

I'm playing the web version. You mention that the download version is preferred, but the only file available is WebBuild.zip, which contains what looks to just be a web version.

I enjoyed playing. There is a lot more than the last time I played.

The last time I played there was only the one fight and single arena. I like the new intro area for the campaign. It would be nice if there was a clear indicator as to if you can defeat the targets or not. I beat on them quite a bit to be, fairly, sure they couldn't be destroyed.

It felt odd that Q activated the ability displayed on the right, and E the one on the left.

The first time I played through I did not get many of the initial tutorial messages. When I started, I saw the target and headed right for it. This looks to have had me too far to the right side to trigger the attack message. After beating on it, I continued along the right edge to the second one. Hit it a bit, then moved towards the line of shooting towers. I stayed well clear of the attacks, following along mountains around and behind them. I may have gotten the dodge message here, I'm not recalling on that one for certain. I did get the following message about using skills.

When you reach the first boss it tells you to build up the stun. The bar fills up, and there is an icon counting down, but nothing actually seems to be happening. The combat continues as normal.

I almost beat the first boss my first try, but ended up losing. The Game Over popup gave me buttons for Restart and Main Menu. Unfortunately, I could not interact with them. Neither was focused so arrows and Space/Enter did nothing. The mouse was captured, and it did not show, preventing me from clicking. Using Esc to release the pointer lock ended up with the Pause menu under the Game Over, but it did give me a mouse cursor and I was able to click on a button. I refreshed the page and restarted. I had the cursor available. After a while of pausing to write notes, when I switched back to the game it captured the cursor again.

After beating the boss I got the following message. I translated it in my browser, but I'm not sure what Input I'm supposed to press to access what I gained.

Machado Orc Obtido!

Aperte {Input} Para Usar

When I tried to enter the door I got the following JS error:

Uncaught RuntimeError: memory access out of bounds

I'll check back later to see if there is an update or desktop version to try.

I'm playing the Steam version, and have wishlisted it.

I played for a while, beating the first god, and getting all of the 5 cost upgrades along with one 15 cost upgrade. I'll play more later after I check out more jam games. Overall everything feels a bit better than when I played before. Having some practice it was also easier to get into the game and start building up the character.

With the limited number of uses, I don't value weapons and armor much, and will favor amulets. I also favor passive amulets that last over consumables, but that is common for most games I play. I often favor attack amulets first, then parry. Max HP is low, unless there is a Bonfire nearby or I have some other way to heal soon.

When I went to the settings it showed the defaults in the fields, even though the game was not in full screen, nor at 1280x720. When I clicked on each it first switched to that default value, then I could change it. After that when I left and came back it showed the correct values. When the game started in fullscreen I did use Alt-Enter to switch out of it, so that is likely the reason.

I like the new popups you've added since I last played.

I got to the How To Parry popup and pressing Esc is not closing it. I'd just gotten a new weapon and wanted to double check something on it so was pressing Tab as things started, so maybe that caused an issue with focus. I tried clicking on things other than the button to get focus, along with pressing Tab again, but it did not get to where Esc worked. Clicking on the button worked fine.

With the need to go back to the menu regularly to get Masteries, the load time does feel a bit long.

I finally got to a Merger location with amulets to merge. The green button, that I assume is to Merge, is mostly under the Back button. Enough sticks out that I can click on it. After the merge, when trying to exit, I got the popup on merging. Both the Exit button and the Info button brought up the Info screen when clicked on. Pressing Esc worked to exit.

Great Master Shield says "Chance De Congelar Al Enemigo En Parry". Most of it was easy enough to understand, but I wasn't familiar with Congelar, so had to look it up.

I'm playing the Steam version.

On the options screen the Keyboard and Gamepad tabs are the same size, but the other 2 are different. For keyboard/gamepad it probably matters less, but with the mouse, moving tab to tab to check things out it was a bit odd needing to move up and down to select the next tab. It would be nice if the top/tab bar stayed in the same place, even if the overall size changes.

I started a new game, having completed it last time.

When I started playing the first time, the bounce back effect when walking into objects you can't pass felt a bit sharp. The more I played the more I got used to it. Maybe it was something about the early levels that made it seem more pronounced.

I like the signs giving some info as you play through the levels. The difficulty progression feels pretty good, with each level teaching you a bit more of what you will need going forward. The level names are also helpful in knowing what to do. You do a good job of giving just enough written instructions while leaving plenty for the player to figure out. I like that you have 2 routes allowing people to continue on even if they can't solve all puzzles. Several levels had me stopping to think before I figured out what technique was needed. I was able to complete all of the levels in the demo in my previous playthrough, including the preview of things in the full game, which look like they will be a great addition. Playing through again the puzzles mostly look to be the same, so I just did the shortest path through this time.

I had some issues with the music ending. It paused when losing focus, but resumed when regaining focus. I had some cases early on where it did not continue long after regaining focus. During the intro I was distracted for a bit and the music stopped when I came back. Similarly, when I went through the portal right after that there was music for a little while, then it ended. As I played and wrote notes it resumed, though I did not pay attention to exactly when it restarted. After that it seemed to be fine. I'm guessing I had it lose focus at the wrong time causing things to not loop properly.

You have the move controls hard coded into the overworld, but also allow remapping. Ideally it would be nice if the display updated to reflect the actual controls, but if not that, maybe some kind of indicator they have changed. Maybe a line or X through them. This could be helpful if multiple people play and one makes changes without telling the others. Or, as in my case right now, I forgot that I had remapped them last time I played, and initially thought something was wrong.

I did not have to complete Double Doors to continue on past it.

Great game we are looking forward to seeing more!

Thanks for playing and the feedback.

I'll take another look at the music. It is a web only issue. I thought I'd fixed it, but apparently not.

We'll double check the timing on the tools. The UI should be synced to tool use.

Yeah, the bow is pretty powerful currently. We plan to go over all of the tools and rebalance them soon.

Thanks for playing and the video! It is always nice to see how people play. I've watched it myself and we will rewatch it as a team later.

Looking forward to checking out your updates.

This jam is all about helping each other out by leaving comments with feedback. I've looked over the submissions and did not see any feedback comments from you on other submissions. The voting period has just under a day left. Please take some time to play and leave feedback on at least one other submission.

This jam is all about helping each other out by leaving comments with feedback. I've looked over the submissions and did not see any comments from you on other submissions. The voting period has just under a day left. Please take some time to play and leave feedback on at least two other submissions.

You submitted 2 games to our jam. You've been responding to comments, and you have received a  fair number of them, but have not contributed back to help out those helping you. Looking at your other submission, it looks like that one may not even have been worked on during the jam, as the update seems to have been from just before the jam started.

Thanks for playing and the feedback.

Combat is turn based. You choose an ability to use, then you can select an item to use with it, and the target to use it on. The Item chosen will affect the ability. It can add to the power of the ability. It can also alter the "Affinities" of the ability. For example, eating a fire item will grant more fire Affinity to the ability. We previously had more of a tutorial going over things like the Affinities, but many found it too long, so we've cut things down, and the extra details are now in the Training Hall, for those who want to read them.

Our jam is all about feedback, and updating your game based on feedback is encouraged, even during voting. We have ratings for those who care, but the ratings have always been meant as a secondary thing. When updating during the jam we do encourage making a devlog or putting a note somewhere to let people know about the changes, especially for those who enjoyed your game and want to see the update. This certainly qualifies. We will take a quick look at the game and see if we notice any issues.