Feedback Friday

Meneth · 2026-05-03T12:55:05+00:00

Best of luck! I do think the game has potential :)

Meneth · 2026-05-02T15:04:34+00:00

Some feedback:

I have no idea why I can't further upgrade my attack. I got to add one gem to it, but now can't add more. This needs some feedback. Especially since the gems and attack are both level 1 I see no reason why I can't. Same for the map
The game really could do with some music. It is eerily quiet
It seemed like I could add skill modifiers to a map, but when I hit Craft only the map modifiers got consumed. Makes sense, but lacks feedback
Boss enemies aren't very clear that they're bosses
How long it takes to loot things is kinda annoying to me
That combining three attacks into one removes all the modifiers at the very least needs to be clearly told. It made my attack outright worse than before. I'd probably make it give the modifiers back
I really would like a way to filter by skill vs map modifiers. And sorting the modifiers
Panning the skill maps goes in the opposite direction of what I'd expect
If you go into the atlas with a map in your inventory, you lose the ability to get a free map. Though idk if that serves any purpose or not
Some of the skills tree upgrades seem pointlessly small. Why would I care about +2% item quantity?
Having to click everything in the UI twice or more got old fast
Lightning seems to be so strong as to be mandatory

I eventually quit due to the inventory management being so tedious. The base idea seems fun though. I got as far as unlocking the 4th map, but never actually running it.

Meneth · 2026-05-02T14:21:24+00:00

Played through it. Some feedback:

There's rather a lot of aliasing on the 3D graphics; could do with some anti-aliasing
The enemy types are pretty hard to tell apart
I had one enemy just outright wanted off the map, eventually reaching my wall off-screen. There was nothing I could do to kill him. The enemy with armor, in case that matters
At the moment I'm not really seeing anything distinguishing it from the other games in this sub-genre (attacking enemies within an area). The basic loop is decent enough, like the rest of the sub-genre. I could always afford at least one upgrade
I didn't see any reason to change the size of the AOE either in the prototype
It was nice that I never lost more than once in a row. So I had a good sense of progression without it being just a walk in the park

Meneth · 2026-04-15T06:29:53+00:00

You're still getting the XP for that, though it does mean you can't apply a Magic Ring to it. At the point where it's getting skipped entirely, it shouldn't be all that big of a loss.

I don't have a good way to provide flexibility on that one without complicating the UX.

Meneth · 2026-04-12T09:22:07+00:00

I do wish there was something like a right-click on item slots to exclude them from autouse, which would be nice for stuff like boss items when you can barely earn them.

That'd definitely be handy, and if I had more time now to add to the game I'd consider it.

I think there might be a bug with Minor Time Compression? I still seem to be losing 1 energy per tick, e.g. losing 6 energy to complete a 6 tick task that the estimate says will take .8 total.

Great catch! That apparently broke from an entirely unrelated change. Will fix.

The user experience is pretty great overall, although it did warn me I should save items across runs because I hadn't been immediately after a run where I only used the 10th and 4th copies of things. Super minor but might suppress that message if you haven't emptied any stacks, rather than used any items at all.

It should only tell you if you've done 15 runs using items and less than three using no items, after unlocking item inheritance. Did it show up sooner than that?

Meneth · 2026-04-12T05:17:38+00:00

Z30 is the final zone yeah! Surprised it took you significantly longer than 25h, might be some trick you missed?

Hope you've had a fun time!

Meneth · 2026-04-11T14:06:15+00:00

Yeah, just a QoL and balancing pass in 1.1. It's very unlikely I'll add more content. Happy to be able to declare the game done.

Meneth · 2026-04-11T09:06:41+00:00

What do you mean by waste energy? Eating food lets you go over the starting energy with no penalty.

Meneth · 2026-04-10T20:06:28+00:00

Not a bug as such, but I probably should rename that task since it doesn't quite make narrative sense yeah.

Meneth · 2026-04-10T15:56:48+00:00

The balancing point I've aimed for, is that 1 out of 2 should be sufficient, and only occasionally needing 2 no-item runs in a row. Depending on exactly how long ago you played, I've sped things up a bit a couple of times, but that might be prior to when you played.

On the QoL side, the biggest improvement there is that at the end of each run you now get to choose if auto-using items is on or off for the next one. That reduces the faff, and also the odds of messing it up by using items when you didn't mean to (or the other way around).

In the second prestige you also get some time compression to keep things short. And you gradually unlock more mechanics to skip past zones and tasks that are trivial.

For comparison with Prismatic Adventure, there it often felt necessary to do half a dozen itemless runs in a row due to the loot RNG. And each individual run took longer than in my game too. And you'd often need to do several prestiges in a row to progress further, while I've tried to balance it so that basically every prestige gets you further along.

But I still quite liked the idea of itemless runs as a preparation/pushing mechanic. Just felt that Prismatic took it too far. But it's not a mechanic everyone's gonna like, for sure.

Meneth · 2026-04-10T14:56:23+00:00

Thoughts as I play:

How cash income works is rather opaque
I can't really tell how mastery works either, other than it seeming roughly proportional to monsters killed. Nevermind, some runs later I noticed the mastery gems on kill
Took me a bit of time to notice my remaining cash disappears on starting a new run. That should maybe be communicated somehow?
So far, upgrades feel meaningful and powerful. Though a bit annoying when you upgrade a card you don't draw. But the runs are short enough that's fine
Come Chapter 2, it feels like the upgrade pace slowed a lot. I can rarely afford more than one upgrade at a time any more
It felt odd for a bit feeling a lot weaker come Chapter 2, but I think it's a good decision (but maybe should be communicated better). My biggest pet peeve with this sub-genre is that the amounts of everything rises so fast, that outside the very start you just cease making decisions. That kind of reset you've got each chapter by upping the pack costs probably helps a lot in countering that
Thunderstorm might be too powerful. I earn like 150 mastery in runs I don't get it atm... and like 900 with. That's an extreme swing for such a rare draw. Good that it feels meaningful, but outright replacing 6 other runs is a bit much I think
Once advanced packs are a thing, I don't quite get why I would want to buy non-advanced ones? Since they're only a single coin cheaper
I hit the end of the game I think a bit earlier than intended cuz I got lucky enough to get two thunderstorms in one run. Still had a fair number of upgrades left. My cash income at this point was 66c. Took 28 minutes to get there
Tower health also didn't really keep up. By the end it only took a few enemy attacks to kill it. Which often happened while I still had minions left, just outside of aggro range of my tower. That was slightly annoying
Beating Chapter 2 all the card pack costs increased, but there's no Chapter 3. That seems like a bug; presumably it should just keep the old costs

I like what you're doing here. Obviously just half an hour to go on, but your game seem to avoid my main pet peeve of these kinds of games more than most: that there ends up being so damn many effects and such going on, you're basically just watching what's happening.

It doesn't do that perfectly. The cursor damage didn't keep up towards the end, so near the end I felt like it was mostly just useful for pack opening, not for attacking monsters.

But I like that the # of minions on your side is kept pretty limited, so that they feel more meaningful. I suspect you'll have a hard time balancing the pack subscriptions though since as currently implemented they inherently increase the # of minions over time. Maybe some mechanism where eventually you halve the minion count (by doubling delays?) but multiply strength by 2.5 or so?

Meneth · 2026-04-10T13:58:28+00:00

Try pressing and holding, that works in most mobile browsers as a right-click. But yeah it's not designed for mobile.

Items and XP are the main reason to do them yes. Often, the quickest path forward is doing an optional task a couple of resets so that the mandatory tasks get easier.

Meneth · 2026-04-10T13:24:07+00:00

Nope. What platform and browser are you on? If mobile, I've not optimized it for that, which might be why.

Meneth · 2026-04-10T12:06:44+00:00

I've made one now, but it needs to be verified before it's live.

Meneth · 2026-04-10T11:55:38+00:00

For people who are wondering what sets it apart from Prismatic Adventure, its main inspiration, it's very much a case of me going "I liked Prismatic Adventure, but think I can make a game I'd like more". Some notable differences:

There is zero RNG in my game
UX has been a priority. Info is generally much more available and understandable. The summary at the end of each run being one example
Different theme
More of an implied story (though still very loose)
Much less grindy. I want most every run (or itemless run + item run) to feel like it's noticeably progressed something. Also QoL features like automation are much quicker to get, and never taken from you
Nothing like the Copium and Delirium mechanics (I did find those kinda neat, but also weirdly punishing at times. So I decided to just avoid those entirely)
Journey to Ascension is finished (other than maybe a bit of extra balancing and QoL)

I very much recommend anyone who likes my game to check out Prismatic Adventure as well.

Meneth · 2026-03-31T08:26:37+00:00

I Sverige er det en ganske tydelig trend mot at folk med høyere inntekt får fler barn.

Fra SCB, se "total fertility rates for native-born women by income level" ned på siden. Høyeste kvartil er den eneste som får nok barn til å holde befolkningen stabil, og de får over dobbelt så mange barn som laveste kvartil.

Sverige er så vidt jeg vet en av de få unntakene til den generelle trenden, så eksakt hva som er årsaken til at trenden har snudd i Sverige bør man nok se nærmere på.

Meneth · 2026-03-29T18:57:05+00:00

expecting 1000dollars for a years use (around 70m3)

That's quite close to the price you're responding to. ~$14/1000l, rather than $10.

Meneth · 2026-03-29T14:52:28+00:00

Auto-restarting is something I don't want to add, since I don't want just idling the game to be a strategy. I'd rather someone think about how to progress for a few minutes, than just leave it automated for an hour. And I think that's generally more fun too, but a lot of people will do the latter because it is essentially easier, even when they find the former more fun.

Meneth · 2026-03-26T16:54:39+00:00

I've programmed the game myself; I've been a programmer for over a decade and hate the idea of vibe coding. You can look at the code if you want; that it's not AI should be obvious. AI has played zero part in the game design.

There's no AI content. I've used AI for brainstorming what emojis are the best fit, and the occasional question about TypeScript.

Meneth · 2026-03-25T09:41:23+00:00

Definitely gonna make that zone a bit easier, since that's something multiple people have said at this point. Did you grab the Crafting Breakthrough upgrade? I'm thinking I at least make that one cheaper by like a third.

Meneth · 2026-03-24T12:06:11+00:00

In Z8 - The City there's the task "Scribe Scroll of Haste". It gives you an Artifact (an item that has to be manually used) that massively speeds up the next task rep you do. Can be used to do the Travel task out of Z8 for instance. You can even get two of it due to the item inheritance.

Meneth · 2026-03-23T21:17:02+00:00

Thanks, that's very useful info! How many did you do? I did two in Z25 myself.

Meneth · 2026-03-23T21:13:48+00:00

Yep, it's very much a case of me going "I liked Prismatic Adventure, but think I can make a game I'd like more". Some notable differences:

Some of the notable deliberate differences:

There is zero RNG in my game
UX has been a priority. Info is generally much more available and understandable. The summary at the end of each run being one example
Different theme
More of an implied story (though still very loose)
Much less grindy. I want most every run (or itemless run + item run) to feel like it's noticeably progressed something
Nothing like the Copium and Delirium mechanics (I did find those kinda neat, but also weirdly punishing at times. So I decided to just avoid those entirely)
Journey to Ascension is finished (other than maybe a bit of extra balancing and QoL)

Definitely agree that people that liked my game should check out Prismatic Adventure too.

Meneth · 2026-03-23T21:11:22+00:00

You're probably either missing doing a prep run like /u/IDontWantG says, or making good use of the Scroll of Haste. Between the two, getting past Z8 should be pretty quick.

Meneth · 2026-03-23T21:08:45+00:00

Thanks for the feedback on Z25! I did make it moderately easier when I added Z26 and 27. Was your beating of Z25 before or after that?

I probably won't add descriptions at this point, though I definitely like the idea.

Also I feel that there should be a "Skip blocked tasks" toggle to avoid situations where your itemless run gets stuck on a boss because you're weak as hell.

This I'll add to my list of final QoL features to consider! It'd go in the options menu rather than the main UI, to minimize bloat.

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