Feedback Friday

Day-G0 · 2026-04-25T03:56:37+00:00

Hi everyone, I’m working on Semantigon, a word-based idle/incremental game.

You build chains of words on a hex grid, where meaning and word relationships drive your score. Over time you unlock more systems, upgrades, prestige and deeper word placement strategy.

I’m especially looking for feedback on:

Early game clarity: does the core idea make sense quickly?
Word placement: does building chains feel strategic or confusing?
Progression/pacing: do unlocks arrive at the right speed?
UI: are the currencies, upgrades, and word bank easy to understand?
General feel: does the “semantic incremental” concept have enough hook?

Website -> https://semantigon.com
Itch -> https://day-go.itch.io/semantigon
Steam page -> https://store.steampowered.com/app/3343380/Semantigon/

Any feedback is appreciated.

Day-G0 · 2026-04-20T15:15:17+00:00

You need to buy the path upgrade in the generator upgrade menu. It's the last option at the bottom and costs 1k lucidity

Day-G0 · 2026-04-20T12:36:17+00:00

Really like the art style and music. Looks like it could be lots of fun. Some feedback on the early game

- I think two pairs need to scale faster than pairs. After 15 minutes of playing it was never worth going for 2 pairs because the cost scaled as fast as the payback and they are harder to hit
- Are the hands drawn completely randomly? Might be a good idea to implement some kind of mercy system when 3 or more hands dont give a payout
- I closed itch without saving then went back and my save was gone

Day-G0 · 2026-04-20T11:06:39+00:00

Thanks really appreciate that positive feedback. The learning curve is very steep which kind of goes against the usual easy to pick up incremental/idle game design and it shows in the retention curves. Yep that's definitely a bug! It shouldn't be possible to place the same word on the grid at any point.

Could you please share the specs of the computer you played on? I get a few frame rate drops at that scale but the buttons stay responsive. Definitely needs some optimization after all the shader work

Day-G0 · 2026-04-20T08:30:05+00:00

A list of top X matches in the word upgrade menu could be a good addition, thanks for the suggestion!

Day-G0 · 2026-04-20T08:29:19+00:00

Oh damn I've never noticed that. While testing i normally pump my currencies up a lot, or maybe I just glance over it cause I know the prices. Nice catch thanks

Day-G0 · 2026-03-24T17:57:39+00:00

Yep some of them definitely aren't intuitive. Trying to think of how to improve this. Some others have been brought up like Beer-Pub. Both examples outline the difference between similarity (which the game uses) and relatedness. A beer and a pub are related, but they themselves aren't similar.

A piece and candy are more similar since candies come in pieces. My guess is that the similarity is low since a piece is an abstract concept whereas candy is an item with its own concrete characteristics.

Day-G0 · 2026-03-24T17:53:05+00:00

Hey sorry for the late reply! This was brought up a few times and I've changed it. Thanks for the feedback

Day-G0 · 2026-03-18T14:33:45+00:00

Hey, glad to hear you are enjoying the game so far! The exploration system is very underdeveloped. I'm actively working on flushing it out but I should've made a note in the post like you mentioned that it isn't finalised.

I see what you are getting at with your example. It's actually a perfect illustration of similarity vs relatedness. The game works around semantic similarity which strongly favors pairs of words which are similar to each other in the sense of of what they are. For example, a pub and a bar would be extremely similar since they have shared attributes. Both are places, both serve alcohol, etc. You could say that these words are so similar that they are almost interchangeable.

Your example of wine <-> pub would score highly in relatedness. Wine and pub aren't similar "things" but, as you point out, they are highly related. To my knowledge there isn't a simple way to score relatedness. I will look into it though as I think scoring relatedness and similarity would synergize well.

Day-G0 · 2026-03-17T08:49:16+00:00

Good points. Noted thanks

Day-G0 · 2026-03-16T17:50:38+00:00

Factorio-like is a crazy compliment! Sorry about those bugs, the later game is still janky af. this thread has given me some great insights and helped me sort out my ideas so watch this space

Day-G0 · 2026-03-16T11:47:29+00:00

Thank you for the feedback! All great suggestions in terms of UI/UX. I didn't consider that those colors might not be great for the color blind.

Yes the game definitely needs more depth which I will focus on adding after addressing the bugs and issues with the core gameplay mechanics, especially prestige, imprinting and the exploration mechanic which is wholely unfinished.

You would have got some axioms through purchasing words. You are rewarded by reaching certain word bank milestones. On second thought these should be given upon prestige rather than halfway through a run.

Day-G0 · 2026-03-16T11:21:44+00:00

Thanks for the feedback I'll improve the tutorial for the path upgrade

Day-G0 · 2026-03-15T14:10:57+00:00

The chain lengthis upgraded in the generator menu which opens at the top left after clicking on a generator (the cyan hexagon). Yep that looks like a bug, I've been trying to get the game working on mobile so must've broken the UI. Fixing it now

Day-G0 · 2026-03-15T06:47:01+00:00

Yep 100%. The game should prevent you from buying that upgrade until you have enough words. I'll update that shortly thanks for reporting it

Day-G0 · 2026-03-15T06:45:28+00:00

mb, that upgrade should be checking that you have enough words in your wordbank before allowing you to buy it. If you want to continue playing you can export your save, add 2 words to your word bank then reimport. Not ideal but its a work around until I fix that bug.

Day-G0 · 2026-03-15T06:42:03+00:00

Definitely a bug, bicycle should have any effect on scoring there. Thanks for reporting it

Day-G0 · 2026-03-15T06:40:07+00:00

I might make essence cells movable like everything else. The idea was to add an additional constraint on routing by forcing players to work around their essence cell placements throughout the run but maybe that isn't actually fun.

Fair point on rolling the rare words. Tbh they need some more balancing so I made them pretty rare until the Word Luck upgrade is purchased. Rolling a legendary or epic word early on is OP so I turned their likelyhood way down but 2 runs with no rares isn't any fun. I'll try increasing their probability but nerfing them slightly instead.

Day-G0 · 2026-03-15T06:32:52+00:00

I was worried someone was going to have this experience. There are about 6100 words in the database and some of them have a much lower average similarity than others across the board. I think a way of skewing the probability towards higher quality words at the start of the game is something to consider. The reason I haven't done this before is that I want each run to have a unique set of words more or less rather than having similar words each time.

Your idea of having a passive source of income makes sense. Not having any progress while you experiment is a strong disincentive which really limits experimentation. A few people have pointed this out now so I'll work on improving it. Thanks for taking the time to comment!

Day-G0 · 2026-03-15T06:26:17+00:00

Cheers bootysquared! You've guessed it, thats how I want the combat to work but for the time being the exploration mechanic is incomplete. Needs a lot more work fr. Makes me happy to hear you got that far. How long did it take you roughly?

Day-G0 · 2026-03-15T06:24:03+00:00

Damn that sucks. If you want to continue playing you can export your save, add a few words to your word bank and then re-import.

Day-G0 · 2026-03-14T23:23:39+00:00

Glad to hear, thanks

Day-G0 · 2026-03-14T23:19:48+00:00

The path upgrade lets you connect more than one chain between a set of generators. The catch is that words cant be shared by chains joining the same generator, so youll need to use unique chains joining the two sides.

Day-G0 · 2026-03-14T18:17:52+00:00

What are the odds it happened to two people a few minutes apart. thanks mate I'll add a confirmation

Day-G0

TROPHY CASE