itch.io

Graphics - great

Gameplay - terrible. No strategy, No tactics, everything is pointless after the first 1 minute of gameplay.

Feels like there is no balancing on the costs/upgrades in the tree. Everything is "so expensive you have to grind" and no path is better/worse than others, with zero combos: everything is so weak that you have to grind EVERYTHING in parallel - no balancing of the costs.

Burning does nothing, its so weak. Every enemy (eg cavalry) has zero ways to counter - just nothing the player can do except die until they've grinded.

Every level is the same: "DO NOT TRY TO WIN, just ignore all the enemies and grind gold" there's literally no other gamplay.

The specials (meteor etc) do nothing useful, until your core dmg is so upgraded it doesnt matter anyway. They feel like a mobile gambling game: designed to make you pay2win.

And the meteor/dash/etc buttons prevent you from burning things in that direction because they steal the mouse cursor.

TL;DR: I think this could be a great fun game, but depserately needs you to play and balance it.

I work with AI all day every day. Most of the text seems very strongly AI, most of the UI looks AI - it has the standard problems that LLMs like Claude have whenever they try to design game UI or game copy (too complex, doesn't make sense to a human, words that are mismatched grammar, meanigns that are jumbled up, etc). If you say you wrote it, OK fine - but it currently looks very strongly like you did not. I would suggest rewriting your copy to be more natural. It's difficult to read, in exactly the way that long AI-written text is difficult to read.

Similarly ... The tutorial is not something I can believe was written by a human, it's so incredibly complex and over-fixated on details that only an AI would focus on.

This suffers the same problems as your other AI-generated entry. Is it entirely AI? Or were humans involved in some (any?) of the design? Separately they seem like someone trying to make something, but put side by side they seem like the same AI failing in the same ways: Both feel a bit incoherent, confused, ... not really 'designed' just some things thrown together ... and difficult to play, as if they never saw a human playtest them and see any of the obvious problems.

I have nothing against AI, but I'm not sure what I'm interacting with here - something designed and built, or something that an AI randomly created.

Even reading the instructions multiple times I couldn't really understand what was happening or why. If I just sat in the hearth it seemed that was fine forever. Or if I picked items up ... didn't feel there was any reason to. Eventually I tried to fill the mantel (after a few re-reads I figured out the goal is that small button in the bottom corner, although there was nothing in game to tell me that, or what I needed to do to be able to click it), so I filled the mantel, and ... it stalls. Can't remove items from the mantel, can't progress. I guess I didn't get the perfect combo? The text was extremely small and low contrast even on my small monitor so it was hard to read the items, if the text is important in a game I would prefer it to be readable sized.

Quick question: did you stop at Phase2? The build I submitted before the deadline went all the way to phase4, with multiple endings. But now I'm concerned something went wrong and the build didn't get passed-through to the jam?

Updated: Greatly improved phase 1, added a working upgrades tree, etc

Added: phase2 (tunneling) and a devlog with some of the phase3 graphics: /__site/tmachine.itch.io/take-in-kind/devlog/1658274/flocks-of-birds-on-a-game-m...

/__site/tmachine.itch.io/take-in-kind

UPDATE1: Added phase2, different gameplay

First build, has basic gameplay.

I normally get too ambitious in gamejams and have some great 'potential' with some fun mechanics but no overall game, no ending, etc.

So this time I spent weeks just thinking about the theme, the content, the narrative, and started implementation late (to coincide with other deadlines). I now have to move fast to catch up and have anything to show by the end :).

Net result: this is only the opening sequence of the game (compressed so it only takes about 1-2 minutes to play with current settings).

Over 10k ore on nightmare. I normally ignore mushroom, but actually its pretty good if you can get a few of the draw cards with it. I spent ages waiting for a pickaxe, or this would have scored higher.

Chrome, Firefox. As noted: errors on the music files.

Completely unplayable, new-game button doesnt work.

Console log shows you're trying to load non-existent music files.

(also lots of errors with your calls to Unity Analytics - not sure if built-in or you added it, but its not configured correctly)

Cool mole is, indeed, cool.

10,000 total money on brutal. Aquifer = upgrade many cards, Canary = pick up many cards, Crusher = have enough energy to cast them. Then AncientArtifact (mostly useless) to reduce the bad draw you get randomly, and wait for a Bubblite. Cool moles to help it along the way so I can ignore score and just build $$$.

Then its: play any 0-cost card = bubblite upgrades = canary does pickup = (moles give score in passing, dont really care) = ... focus on 0-cost from here: pickaxes played on Gems (pick up many, get score as bonus), or 0-cost Geodes (pickup x2), or any 0-cost (pickup x1).

Finally! Thanks. The unique events are below the fold, so you cant even see them unless you manually scroll down, and there's no reason to so ... I never did. And then you have to wait until you 'get lukcy' and the events start to appear, in each location, can take a whie.

But it worked! Thanks

Research wasn't involved at all, maybe that was an old build?

OcVg ash, leverl 15 fort, no portal, no RPG, no castle, no quests. Game just seems stuck.

Mostly well balanced up to here, except that offline boosts were insanely big.

Main problem is the game randomly says "nothing left to do" then suddenly you do one thing that randomly unlocks content. E.g. it said there were no more perks (it lied). It said there were no more body unlocks (it lied).

So now I'm assuming there's something to do after exploring 100% locations, building 40 boides, 500 billion clones ... but no idea what and losing the will to care. Game is obviously missing some basic narrative links somewhere.

One commentr said to serch ashen camp again, but I've searched it thousands of time nothing happens. Others said to check the jounral and breadcrumbs but theres literally nothing after "limits of your mind" that was early in the game (bug?). If its dependent on the journal - that has been useless throughout the game so far, apart from containing some very buried stats on which location had most wood vs stone etc (that you only find out after its irrelevant, and is buried there) ... thats bad narrative. You tarined us never to use the journal, so ... (and if its meant to show something, its not).

Now that I've won nightmare, some thoughts:

0. The reworked Prospect is excellent, just the right balance of usefulness/cost. No longer too weak nor too strong.

1. Level 1 is still boring especially having to play it over and over again - I wish you'd just remove it from the harder levels and start them in the shop. It was briefly a lot more interesting (the variable sizes looked fun), until I realised that its the identical cards every time. No point playing the level, its almost identical, no choices to make. BETTER IF: you randomise the starting cards

1b. ... EVEN BETTER IF: you randomise their 'inert' levels: that would immediately provide interesting choices (which to upgrade?). This would also help nightmare by making some currently "worthless" cards (upgrade-related) potentially useful

2. There are now a few different outcomes to level 1, if you play perfectly you can finish with 54, 53, or 52 in most games, or 51,50,49,48, if you play imperfectly, or less if you play stupidly. But the shop prices are so huge that there's no effective difference between 50/51 and 53, and the easy path is to always get 52, so ... the level and the skill is useless.

3. Pricing in the shop is still broken. There are multiple rare cards that if you buy them early in the game you INSTANTLY lose the game (e.g. Crystallium == instant death, e.g. the mace (cant remember the name) = usually instant death, etc), simply because the price is so high. Note that Crystallium in the early levels not only takes all your cash (killing you) but ALSO is comepletly useless since until it's been upgraded a few times it has no special feature (on first two shops it only has 4 strength, I think I even saw it at 3 strength a few times). 

4. ... cost to re-roll the shop is much too high. Would be better if it was a constant low value - there's no need for the escalating cost, money is already tight enough that any reroll cost > 0 is punitive.

5. a lot of cards are mostly useless on nightmare, would be better to remove them from the game or rebalance them. They dont make it harder, they are just literally wasted slots that cannot do anything (fun in easier levels, but useless in nightmare).

6. Raise the cards-in-hand limit in nightmare (this would immediately unblock some of the cards that currently dont work: hard to build a large hand in nightmare, but at least it would make those cards useful. Right now they scale too slowly and/or provide no tangible benefit, they are less valuable than the starting cards).

7. nigthmare's final level is great, a suitably hard challenge (requiring you to spend the entire game planning for the ending, which I think is right for this difficulty) .. BUT .. it feels weird that there's no foreshadowing, nothing to indicate it will happen. This isnt so bad,after you see it the first time you know whats coming, but it feels like there's a missing story beat to explain it / warn about it.

8. the reworked pickaxe thats the only way to mine a card while spending 0 (and unlike the old dagger (?) that did that, it's a useful card in its own right so you buy and use them) is great. It means that a well-designed deck typically has a few of them in and when you've got one last energy and a choice between playing a higher score/money card or triggering card pickups (eg with axe) ... there's real value to the card pickups (previously there was none: you have 0 energy left and the smelter, torch, etc require at least 1). This makes the choice meaningful.

Overall great, by far the best iteration of the game.  

Nightmare is now suitably difficult - completed but tough. Technique: buy a 18-yellow sunstone and immediately scramble it and hope for somethign that doesnt suck (I got the 0-cost meteorite) ... then just try to survive until you get a yellow cube ... then cross your fingers for a cave painting. With the cave painting you can upgrade the cube every turn, and eventually it gets big enough (100 or so) that you can actually win the final level.

Much better balanced now - a far cry from the early builds where most things were useless in the long run. The starter upgrade card works well with the +5 bonus.

The persistent green cards are great, and finally give enough control that you don't continually snowball / fail entire runs purely based on random draw-order (because they persist, the player has some deck control).

I am VERY SAD at the 10-card hand limit, takes a lot of the fun away at the harder levels - also makes some of the new cards (eg the one that prevents discards) not only 'useless' but 'actively harmful' because you almost immediately have a full hand and it actively prevents you from picking up the cards you would need in order to spend the hand.

TL;DR: If you're keeping the 10 card limit I hink you need a 'discard hand' button. But I'd prefer relaxing the 10 card limit on harder difficulties - let the snowball runs return!

My best final cash is now just over 1k on Brutal.

I couldn't get nightmare to work at all - I think I had to win on brutal first? - but it seems unlocked now ... so off to see how high I can get (But with the 10 card limit I think very little).

Max everything, then start nuking it as soon as it appears on screen. Still defeatable

Soooo close to 10k...

... first 3 cards were originals that got converted in shop or by badger. Aimed for 10-15% of deck torches, 10% axes, and as many 0-cost cards as possible.

Deck was too efficient :(. Could probably have harvested 10k but I kept running out of cards (almost every turn).

But finished last level with 2000 red on nightmare, new personal best

Nice start.

There's some kind of bug in the tax calculation. Start of game after 1 prestige immediately get hit with $250k tax bill. After 2 prestiges get hit with $600k tax bill.

when bubblite upgraded, moonstone did not :(

on level-select screen, type: nightmare

Finally finished Brutal with over 1000 ore.

Nightmare is almost too easy now I've got the hang of it

Inspired by @connman116 and @mfcjpg (and thanks to @FleshHuman (A.K.A. D99) for unlocking Nightmare) - finally figured out how to get nightmare victories in current build. I can retire now :D.

Goal was "buy as few cards as possible, only buy the smallest number of cards you need to win the final level" -- which was 2 x axes + 2 x wrenches + any of the 0-cost-pickup-1 cards I was offered (only one in the end). Everything else was because I was waiting for wrenches.

I got the yellow cube at about 16 strength, and just kept upgrading using the freebie.

I got the 0-cost 17-scorium by tumblering a basic scorium to get rid of it.

Please please please start the game in the shop. There are zero choices to make in the first round, so its sole purpose is to artifically make you wait longer before you can start playing the game, and make the whole 'reroll until I get a decent shop' take longer.

Since new update ... 'Run Game' now broken on itch, it opens a new window? That's quite a big problem, messes up. If we want to go fullscreen, itch supports that from inside the page, but if you let itch open a new window it screws up on resolution and Godot animations go jerky and horrible.

(but I really like all the new cards and shop features - just wish the shop would retain the last purchase options when next level ends, otherwise you pay for refresh and often can't afford anything, but when your cash refreshes, you lose access to the re-roll you paid for)

Excellent work. How many attempts to get the planets to align and give you the options you felt you needed in the shop to pull this off?

... I want this (nightmare difficulty) :D

e.g. won like this multple times - after wrenches, axes still dominate the game due to balancing issues (better to be able to shoot through the deck fast, since the game doesnt let you keep cards in hand and decide when to play them. This is the core balancing problem: player has very little control, so things that make up for the lack of control win much more often)

I literally did not say that. I have won multiple times on brutal without wrenches. But it requires a lot more luck - luck that the shop will give you the cards you need (with very little tolerance, most attempts fail because shop just never gives you enough) and luck that the large deck in midgame wont screw you with a bad deal that ends the game early.

Wrenches do not have this problem.

(pre balance patch): Prospect. Or a variation on it.

forgot victory shot:

Balancing: much better

Brutal: I often got (literally) within *1 point* and died :D, until I used Wrenches.

Wrenches: OP

Everything-not-wrenches: (that you can reliably 'choose'; so e.g. getting enough nmineshafts is great, but it requires a lot of luck to get enough): not good enough, no strategies really work; they *can* work but see below (basically: it becomes random luck more than strategy - one bad deal and you die)

Balancing still needed:

 - more items in the shop (because you still can't choose your strat - escalating shop costs are just not good for balancing) ...

 - ... and more cards (so that the previous item doesnt let players 100% choose their own strategy; your core game-design is 'prevent players choosing a strategy, force them to react to the random roll')

 - reduce the cost of deletion: I lose SO MANY brutal rounds because I get 1 unlucky deal in the last level or penultimate level (this is a sign that there are too many cards in my deck, and I'm at the mercy of random deals, and that that is overshadowing my choice of purchases)

I'm a bit disappointed that you block picking up cards when the deck runs out - most games will shuffle the deck at that point. Score would have been higher but I kept having to end turns early beacuse I ran out of cards.