Way better. The concept and goal becomes easier to grasp. I played a few more rounds to see if some of my other questions/problems would answer themself while playing. And they did. Seeing the animations a few time made more clear how the damage calculates, that you get damage when healing at full life etc.
Overall I like your spin on Balatro. Especially the boss battle was cool (He kicked my ass) I probably will check further updates
I think the intro sequence is a little too long. Also it has this mysterious, spooky soundtrack, but the seconds you are in the game you are greeted with upbeat, 90's game music. A weird switch in atmosphere.
The game explanations were sufficient and I had no problems knowing what to do or how to use things. I just want to mentioned that during some of the first fights I saw little tutorial pop-up massages. I could only read half of them because I was distracted by enemies.
The game and especially the weapons feel good. I really liked the spear and it's moveset. Sometimes the combat feels a little clunky in close distance with enemies but I can't really tell why.
The bosses felt fair but a little too easy. They didn't had much health so I was able to kill them rather quickly without paying too much attention to their attacks.
Overall I really like the idea of the game. I'm a fan of the depth that action-rpg gear can bring. As long as the enemies and the environment force you to adapt your build/gear
Also, after playing a few minutes with mouse and keyboard I switched to controller. Worked but I wasn't able to select anything in the escape menu anymore. Neither with mouse nor game pad. But after reloading the site it worked again. The safe also worked.
I realized how the game worked (mostly) during the third attempt. At first I didn't understood the concept of the enemies, I didn't see them when they were mentioned and it clicked only later when part of my hand wandered to the enemy side. I also didn't see the significance of diamonds, hearts etc. The only information came with one short text by the dealer, were at first I wasn't sure if it was tutorial or just talking. The text said diamonds have an edge, I have no idea what that means. Then the text says I should discard (I think) spades and clubs but doesn't tell me why. The animation after playing the hand is quick and satisfying but I don't fully understand what happens with all the damage numbers. Maybe the firs played hand should have more of an explanation what actually happens, maybe stopping the animation to explain why you get points/damage and so on. I also didn't get how my points correlated to the damage at the bottom. I also may encountered a bug, I had a 10, j, q, k and spade in my (4 diamonds and one other I think) hand but when all selected it said I have a flush(different colors in hand btw) not a street. When I removed a card it became a street.
I like the game idea of enemies working coordinated and that they can only be damaged after they're exhausted. But the gameplay doesn't feel good to me. It feels a little clunky and the low movement speed of your character makes it hard to dodge ranged attacks or to guess if the lion will reach me (But I'm also used to play these kinds of games on a controller or with different bindings on the keyboard. So I may have just not gotten used to use the dodge mechanic). ps, I like the attack indicator of the ranged enemies, The glowing of the tip of their wand is a nice touch.
