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Love this, post it on the Discord!
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I tried to join but the invite was invalid D:
Try the one on the Youtube channel.
@comicallyunfunnydev
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v2.1.0 is HERE!
What’s new?
- Bosses are actually a threat
- New level up UI
- Shop UI rework
- Loot UI rework
- New multipliers on cards
- New sacrifice feature
- Score rework
- New cards
- Sounds for chests
- Much, much more!
Check it out!
Art for the cards is still a WIP.
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Where can I try it? The itch.io page says latest version 1.8.0.
Sorry about that! I’ve updated the page’s description. v2.1.0 should be available for download there.
First impression - the game is too loud! Sounds are clipping regularly. I suggest comparing game levels to a mastered album and adjusting accordingly.
It’s fun, but I found the pickups a little confusing, as you can’t really see what they do except on pickup. Being able to pause and see some effects / stats would be very welcome. Maybe leave the cards in place, so the player doesn’t have to redo their build every time.
As far as I can tell, the player has to select all the presented combo cards before seeing the next selection. It should be possible to disregard some (or all) and return them to hand after selecting one.
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There are volume settings, and the default is the maximum. Is that what you mean? Should I set the default halfway up?
Is that in the build menu (where you see slots, deck, discard, etc)? If so, there’s text there that tells you you can hit Enter/RB to skip the hand and draw the next one. I’ll make it more visible.
Which pickups are these? The ones that appear at the center bottom of the screen?
EDIT: I realized what you’re talking about. The little loot that you pick up (rainbow notification) does NOT enter your loot pool immediately. Instead, it waits till the end of the wave where you may choose to take or scrap it. This is because you don’t have full control over which items you pick up, and in future, not all items will suit every build. I’ll have to find a clear way to show that.
I would suggest not allowing the audio to clip. Set the levels in the game so that max volume matches the levels you get on a mastered music album, which is generally close to maximum (0db in the digital world).
If you absolutely need an easier solution, you can put a compressor / limiter on your master audio bus. That will prevent some of the distortion, and you can lower the overall volume, but your mix will still be squashed.
I did mean all the pickups, as in, everything the player picks up 
I suppose playing with a larger window size may alleviate this (by making pickup text larger), but I still think it would be nice to see a breakdown of where the values are at (ie. “how much luck” => has “this effect” on the game). This is also important to make decisions about what to upgrade.
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You can press F/B when in the level up, trinket, or card shop to check your stats. I’ll add this in the pause menu as well.
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v2.3.0 is here. (I forgot to announce 2.2.0.)
- More card art, level up cards now all have art except for sacrifice, multiply
- Nerfs and buffs
- Tried to master the audio, it should be quieter now
- You can see stats when buying cards and in some pause menus
- The new score system produces scores that are orders of magnitude lower than the old one, so I removed and drastically lowered most leaderboard scores for now.
Coming soon:
- Bosses
- A second map
- New rarity of cards, maybe
- A minimap (is it necessary?)
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It’s fun to play, though I admit I dread the between-level stuff a bit, which feels a bit dreary. Lot of choices to wade through, which could maybe stand being condensed a bit
My notes:
- Balancing feels better, maybe a bit easy to die at first before getting armor? It should get harder as you go. Enemy damage also seems to scale up quicker now, which can lead to very sudden death.
- Having damage numbers when the player is hit would make death less surprising, and give the player an idea of the danger level.
- Audio: bit of clipping in the between-levels music (same as pause music), and explosion sound. When turning down the game audio, I still get distortion, so maybe the original tracks are distorting?
- Hit “splats” and hitting trees is a bit loud compared to gunshots.
Suggestions:
- Have an effect that shows when the player is inside a pickup circle, in addition to the green meter going up. It can be a bit tricky to determine the edge with lots of enemies around.
- Have an arrow or similar that points to the level exit(s), it can be hard to find / re-find, or missed entirely.
- There’s a big pause in the gameplay when leveling up and buying combo cards - it might be an idea to shorten this in favor of gameplay, for instance by having shorter play sections (=> fewer stars => fewer purchases), encourage shopping earlier by having a max number of purchases per shop, or even by making a different buying interface (like showing 20 cards simultaneously, buy as many as you like, expensive / no reroll).
- Similarly, buying / rerolling combo cards could have a steeper increase in cost, to discourage many rerolls (which take time)
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Thanks for yet another amazing lot of feedback, this is super helpful.
As for my response:
excessive yap
- I have also noticed my scaling algorithms are a little wonky, that’s my top priority RN.
1a. True, that’s a cool idea - The original tracks are quite distorted, does it bother you? Explosion sound in particular is meant to sound crunchy, and the shop music seems to sound bad on most computers, but one friend of mine with a high-end sound system gets great sounds. I’ll have to strike a balance between muting that crunchy low end and letting it be.
2a. Gunshots have been tuned low since they’re a bit repetitive, but the hit sounds are more significant, so they’re a bit louder. I can tune the hit sounds down further still though. - OK.
- Having to find and keep track of exits was significant, it’s risky if you wander too far in search of loot. I could add an arrow after you’ve first discovered the exit, perhaps.
- Seems like this could be mitigated with a faster scaling reroll price as you mentioned. I do like the long shop phases in terms of strategy; if you watch most streamers play roguelikes like Brotato they spend ages in the shop. On the other hand, most casual players don’t because they can’t afford anything (me). I think it’s a sign that my items are too cheap, or money is too easy to come by. Probably the latter, since the new overtime feature has thrown economy a bit out of whack. I see what you mean regarding the fixed purchasing, since friends of mine have been spending 10+ min in the shop with econ-focused builds. How long did you typically spend?
It does, in music production, I’d say clipping is always bad. If you want it to distort, you can use a distortion effect rather than just pushing the levels “beyond” max. If you have the unprocessed sounds, I’d be happy to give them a treatment
If that’s the rationale, that’s fine. Maybe you could let a guiding arrow fade away after a while?
I agree, that would also make each purchase feel more significant, cut down on buy time, and make combo cards more manageable (as you get more and more, never losing them).
As for the time spent between levels, I only know how it feels to me, which is too lengthy. Maybe half the time spent in levels? However if you feel that’s important to a certain audience, by all means leave it - maybe it’s more about presentation than the number of decisions, like having a more cohesive menu that lets the player do all the steps in their own order (ie buy combo cards, assign them, remove a couple of cards and sell them, buy bonuses, etc… basically a build menu).
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I very much agree with this. When I was first playing, whenever I got hit I thought that I was barely dodging and that’s what the zoom in was until I died and realized that I was actually getting hurt :/
Come to think of it, a successful dodge should definitely also be show, if it isn’t already
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A successful dodge pops up some text saying “Dodge!” but doesn’t zoom in.
I’m surprised istubbdmytoe didn’t notice the health bar flashing white and bouncing when you take hits. In fact most playtesters don’t, and I have no idea why.
I just tried looking for that health bar, and I can’t spot it…
Incidentally, I just had my most succesful run - my PC runs new 3D games on ultra, but Wombo brought it to its knees. See below
Curiously, the gun stopped firing entirely some time after that screenshot. Not sure what caused it, but it was after pausing and resuming.
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I think it’s a matter of where the player’s focus is. When I get the zoom in, I’m looking at the player, and what’s closest to me because I want to see where I am and what is causing the whole zoom in.
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