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All very valid points. Most of them I am already looking to address in the next iteration. I do agree that Slow is pretty useless for the player as it stands, and the balance is all over the place, but that is part of the charm of a prototype, heh.

I plan to split enemies into groups instead of fighting them one by one. For example, in a fight you might face five goblins, each with two or three base cards and one unique card. The fight ends when you defeat at least one of them. The others run off, and you then get to either consume the corpse or graft the unique card of the fallen enemy. This then makes more sense for you to return to a fight, as you still got few goblins that been left for you to fight. Since remaning goblins still have the base cards, there is always a baseline level of challenge, but you get to choose which unique enemy to take out in the first fight to make the next one a bit easier.

A big change I am also thinking of is giving the player five cards in hand, like in most deckbuilders. Instead of using energy or anything like that, turns would alternate between one of your cards and one enemy acting. This should help shield cards become more valuable too, since you can choose to block before one enemies big attack, knowing you will kill enemy but delaying it saves you more health in long run.

Having multiple enemies also opens up a better use for Slow. It would be changed to something like "skip" instead. One enemy in a group having a card that skips your turn is not too punishing, and if you get a card that skips an enemy's turn, it becomes a useful and interesting decision. You would need to choose which enemy to skip. Slow would also be reworked to delay an enemy’s action in the turn order, giving you a chance to prepare for them or end the fight before they act.

Card removal is something I definitely want to add, but it is hard to say how much of it will be in until the game is more balanced. Removing cards is always fun and useful since it helps fix up your deck, but too much of it takes away from the challenge. A big part of a deckbuilder should be about building and adapting the deck, not just piloting a perfect one. If removal is too easy or too frequent, most runs will start to look the same as players just cut everything that is not enabling their strongest card. But if removal is too limited, it becomes hard to take speculative cards or pivot your strategy.

Thank you for the feedback :3

Thanks for noticing that :3
I did notice, while working on a different game, that a lot of deckbuilders benefit from having small decks that you cycle through quickly. That made me consider the idea of punishing players for going through their decks too fast by having too few cards. It creates an interesting balance where players want to keep their deck small to access strong cards quickly, but not so small that they run out of damage and cannot close out the fight.

I have a few ideas for mechanics that would reward smaller decks and tie more directly into the decay theme, but I did not have time to include them in the prototype.

I am also considering shifting the decay from the deck itself to the cards individually. Each card would weaken the more it is used, and players could spend essence to restore them to full strength. This would still encourage larger decks, since you would want other options available rather than overusing your strongest card, especially if you are saving it for a tougher enemy. But I need to think about it and play around with both concepts to see which one feels better.

Yeah, the balance is definitely scuffed, but it’s just a prototype, so the next iteration should be better. Hopefully :3
Once the game has music and more art, the undead decay vibe should come through more clearly ;p

Thanks for the feedback, it’s much appreciated :3

The balance is definitely too scuffed. Once a fight reaches a certain point, there is no real way to come back, but the game does not end. Your only option is to surrender. It does tie into the theme of being undead and decaying past the point of recovery, but without stronger visuals or a clearer cutoff, it does not leave a great impression on the player.

Thanks again for the feedback :3
I will be checking out your game for sure!

Thanks :3
Yeah, I think the core idea behind the game is pretty strong, but it definitely lacks in visuals and overall user experience. At least now I know what to focus on next ;p

Thank you :3
I do have a few ideas on how to improve the user experience and make the decay feel more integrated into the gameplay.

Yeah, the lack of clarity is definitely the biggest issue. I agree that even some basic visuals would have made a huge difference.

Thanks for the feedback! I’ll be sure to check out your game too :3

Yeah, the UI was the bear minimum I could get away with. Even in this version, it definitely needs a few tweaks to make it more user-friendly.

One of the biggest issues, I think, is the lack of visual feedback. Watching numbers change without any clear visual cues isn't very satisfying.
I really wanted to show the cards physically decaying as they got weaker. In my mind, the big punch and selling point of the idea was seeing your cards fall apart with each use, and visually tearing parts from enemies to restore or strengthen your own cards.

Unfortunately, art takes me way too long to produce, and I just didn’t have enough time during the jam to make that happen.

Sound is something I plan to focus on more in the future. Right now, I didn’t feel I had the time to learn how to create decent sound, and I’d rather include no sound at all and let people point it out, which motivates me more than just using pre-made assets.

Yeah, I think I didn’t convey the looping clearly enough in the game. It’s that thing where the idea feels strong in your head, and as you work on it, it starts to feel real, even if it doesn’t fully come through in the game.

A clearer visual of moving back and forth, revisiting previous enemies, and literally looping back on yourself would help a lot. Simple animations showing both your cards and enemy cards cycling in a loop, with that loop being the source of both decay and growth, could really reinforce the theme. That would make the theme land much more.

Appreciate the feedback :3 

Yes, putting things around the cards and on hover would have helped with a lot of the front-load of information in the help.
And if I did have time, a tutorial would have been great ;p and as you said better GUI would have made the experience 100x easier

Thank you for the feedback :3

This game really ticks all the boxes.

One sheep, two sheep... three sheep... A great game! Even counting sheep wouldn't put me to sleep while playing this.

Fun game. A multiplier could add some extra excitement. I actually had to try pretty hard to lose, just so I could see the fizzy effect, haha.

Slimes doing wall jumps wasn’t something I expected, but it definitely made me chuckle. And what can I say, I'm a sucker for pixel art.

The rigged casino game is a fun idea. The way the cards slowly fly out after pressing start for the next round is a nice touch 😜 That said, it's hard to see the current game growing much beyond a round or two. But a whole casino full of different mini-games where you cheat using time-bending powers? That would be wicked.

The level design is super clever and fun. I got stuck in a few spots by bumping my head on platforms above, but aside from that, it was a really enjoyable experience. Ho Ho Ho everyone!

The card names are great, and the art is fun with its own unique feel. The music and sound effects work really well with what's happening on screen.

The art is right up my alley, and the animation of the cards disappearing is amazing. Playing alongside your past self is a great concept. I wish there was a preview of their actions, as it would make it easier to plan your current moves.

The concept itself is really interesting. I'd love to see a more fleshed out version of the idea. It reminded me of the games I played as a kid, where doing things in the right order would lead to different outcomes as they would interact with each other while growing. It would be great to see a time loop mechanic where you can tweak your actions and see how they affect the future

I enjoyed the sliding way too much, which made it harder to speedrun since I kept sliding at every opportunity, slamming into things and getting stuck on the environment.

The music could be a bit longer, especially during the introduction as it starts to feel quite repetitive. Once the game begins, though, it works well.

Thx. For the next jam I do plan to mess around more with audio and art... or find someone to team up with who will know what they are doing.

Considering you started this just 15 hours before the jam ended, it's a good! With a bit more time, I can see this turning into something really fun to play around with :3

It's inspired by Squid Game. I was just messing around to see if I could get a level like that working in the last 2 hours of the jam. The code is the messiest I've ever written but it works!

Really love the idea of using just one hand to play. It's super clever and makes it challenging in unique way.

I saw in the GDD that the aiming was added on purpose to increase the challenge, which makes sense. Still, just as a thought, having an option where it auto-attacks the nearest enemy could be interesting for a more casual/accessible mode, and keep it more in theme with using only one hand.

A left or right handed option could also be a nice touch for accessibility.

If you decided to lean into an educational angle, this idead could make a fun game for helping people improve their typing speed.

I find the level a bit dark, so I cannot actually see the details of incoming enemies.

Overall, this is an awesome idea and genuinely fun to play. Great work!

Thanks! I dropped my first idea since it didn’t fit the theme and wasn’t fun to make. This took about 3 days, and I had a stomach ache for half of it. Wish I had the idea earlier so I could’ve added sound, more levels, and some animations like I did on the stage.

Some of my other ideas if you are intersted. An office on fire where you put out flames, a maze with shifting walls, a boat that rocks the player, and levels with multiple exits where you don’t know the right one at the start.

The big thing I'm sad I didn't get to make was having you pick up objects and throw them, and then use that to break windows to jump out of them.