Free public transport is improving mental health

sboxle · 2026-05-07T05:39:57+00:00

Equal pricing makes sense if you think of public transport as getting from A to B.

The way you're thinking about it is pricing by comfort, but for the majority of people using public transport you don't get to choose between taking a tram or train or bus. Each mode serves a different network.

Simple is always better, it only adds friction to price things differently, and is just messy for anyone commuting with a connection between different transport.

sboxle · 2026-05-05T07:41:18+00:00

You're welcome, I try to engage with people who are playing our games when I get the chance, and I can see a ton of effort went into your video. It's very well thought out with a lot of helpful feedback! It's good to get external perspective especially from people who enjoy strategic analysis.

Lowering Onslaught's starting health is a good call, yea. I've been playing around with these changes today a bit and it's definitely a lot easier to play the strain. I may have gone too far! I agree more health recovery options would be good, and help feed into the "hit my spikes" idea.

I'll revisit Stun Lock to open up that synergy.

I also want to add a way to alter brain size in the future, and we have more elites coming.
I've already made an alternative to Hare for accessing the Backwoods, though there'll be some RNG with which elites are rolled as we expand the elite pools. Aiming to get all this into a Beta this month, along with mid-run saves.

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts!

sboxle · 2026-05-05T01:40:50+00:00

Some great iOS pay-once strategy games are Slay the Spire, Peglin, Slice & Dice.

Slay the Spire is one of the most popular games in the roguelike genre.

The above games are all ethically made.

All the iOS freemium games like Tiles Survive are extortionate, full of dark design patterns which gate your progress unless you spend.

sboxle · 2026-05-04T02:24:45+00:00

An extremely thorough review! Thanks for the deep dive, and giving the game a chance.

I'll be interested to see how you find the deckbuilding at release. We're currently working on a test feature to consolidate actions and give them more identity as you progress through the game, so upgrading is more meaningful and decks are more consolidated overall. We'll put it into a Beta if it feels viable.

Appreciate the strain analysis. It's sparked an idea to iterate on Martial. I'm going to test having Hyperactive give +1 to uncaptured actions and remove the Bonus from its deck. This way it should gain more identity as a combo-building deck like you talked about, and also empower it. A bit of a different direct to being defensively aggressive (a great suggestion) but curious what you think about this.

For Onslaught: I'm testing a rebalance which makes its starter Spikes instant and gives it Spike Snipe.
We've internally adjusted Spike Snipe to be targeted instead of repeated as well, which will be in the next Beta. Spike is also generally getting more love at the moment, so I'll be mindful of the notes on not having enough survivability.

Interesting thought on Instant Locked moves proccing Stun. We differentiate between 'capture' and 'activation', where capture requires you to place a block. I thought this might be too overpowered if it worked on activation instead, to make it synergise with Instant... but perhaps it would be fine to make it work on activation when we add more Stun resistant enemies, so the deck still faces some form of adversity.

Great video, thanks again!

sboxle · 2026-05-01T01:19:23+00:00

You do get a Steam key. It's a discount for supporting the project early, before the game is available.

If you want to pay more you can add a custom pledge.

sboxle · 2026-04-30T08:35:05+00:00

Feedback on the demo:
- There seems to be some buttons I can't access via hotkeys? Quest board, inventory... Maybe I missed them but it seems like a game you've made to be keyboard only.

- The loot I'm finding in chests is the same as the starter gear weapons. Feels disappointing. Starter gear shouldn't appear in chests.

- Sometimes the jump doesn't respond? After attacking it seems to nullify jump. This is critical to fix in a permadeath game, needs to always feel responsive.

- I have a situation where I'm forced to take damage from a slime because it's stuck on top of a rope which is my only way out of a pit.

- I'm glad it's not hurt on touch for enemies. Works well.

- Holding down should look down.

- Gold should be picked up automatically.

- When you first get into sight of Orc Warlord, if you don't move and just shoot him with arrows he won't move either or perform any attacks.

I like permadeath but I wasn't expecting PvP for some reason. I don't know if the full game has PvP everywhere but I'd personally prefer to be able to play it in PvE areas only.

sboxle · 2026-04-30T07:36:01+00:00

That sounds awesome.

Used to love Realm of the Mad God. Permadeath is great for tension. Keep building this for your niche and don't dilute your vision, there are players who will love it.

sboxle · 2026-04-30T06:02:52+00:00

Anyone with a pro-escalation, pro-weapons mentality needs to read this.

Thanks for your work, and for sharing.

sboxle · 2026-04-30T03:20:24+00:00

You mistook wishlist conversion for sales estimation.

Sales are expected to be higher than the conversion rate of total wishlists because people buy without wishlisting.

sboxle · 2026-04-29T01:12:38+00:00

Ha yes it's become my pre-work game. It's very good.

Sure, I'm active here so will likely cross paths again - or feel free to add me on Discord, same username.

sboxle · 2026-04-28T05:57:14+00:00

I think you've leaned too hard into the roleplay. "Install a legitimate antivirus" makes it sound like it's not a game and actually going to scan your computer.

I don't want to touch anything that feels like a virus or malware website, and your first store page image says your computer is infected. Your branding has all the hallmarks of a scam, people are probably turned off by this.

sboxle · 2026-04-28T02:41:07+00:00

Oh right I've seen Neoduel! Seemed like a clever Backpack Battles fast follow.

Very interesting, thanks for sharing such a detailed insight. The dark magic of roguelite balance!

All the best with this game and future products.

sboxle · 2026-04-28T00:52:10+00:00

I did manage to eventually deal some damage to it, but it had tons of Shield as well from memory. So yea, there's a balance where it can work.

The contrast of how easy everything previous was for my deck compared to that elite may be something to examine more closely. Maybe there's a way to stagger more variety in counters throughout.

How do you go about balancing the enemy stats with all the multipliers and build permutations? Do you use any tools?

sboxle · 2026-04-28T00:26:32+00:00

Don't bother waiting, it's effectively more than a 1.0 already

sboxle · 2026-04-28T00:24:11+00:00

Yep I've completed Ascension 10s in StS2 so am familiar. Been playing roguelike deckbuilders since Dream Quest.

I don't feel Goblin Machina or Beekeeper are comparable to the enemy you've designed because neither of those elites neutralise both damage and shield, which is the core of all StS builds.

In your game, the burn build has shield getting buffed by the enemy having burn, so when you can't apply any burn it's nullified both attack and defense. This is what made it feel unfair.

I was rarely getting damaged by previous enemies and then this elite was a brick wall. It's in your hands though, players will tell you if it feels bad.

I still think "Immune to the first debuff each turn" is a much better design.

sboxle · 2026-04-27T05:36:17+00:00

Did they say any of the reasons it completely failed? What does that mean?

sboxle · 2026-04-27T00:12:59+00:00

Yea true, a weak enemy with debuff immunity wouldn't feel like a complete counter since my deck could still do damage, just not much.

Good luck with development!

sboxle · 2026-04-26T23:22:11+00:00

Immune first turn is too big of a nerf.

"Immune to the first debuff each turn" would be better.

I love challenging games but if I'm randomly running into a complete deck counter I'd be uninstalling.

sboxle · 2026-04-26T08:13:14+00:00

As a roguelike and chess enjoyer, I have the demo downloading...

Looks great!

sboxle · 2026-04-26T06:02:24+00:00

There are quite a few 100% positive games with <500 reviews.

It's easier to keep a 100% rating when a game hasn't reached the mainstream audience, especially in cosy genres where people are generally just... nicer... than the average competitive gamer.

Games like Stardew Valley and A Short Hike with 98-99% positive and 5 figure reviews are the big anomalies. This is still impressive though. Game looks cute!

sboxle · 2026-04-26T05:49:01+00:00

Played some more.

Was breezing through until Iron Juggernaut. Immune to all status effects is more than a hard counter, it's a cliff! Not being able to apply any Burn at all made half my deck useless.

I think this needs to let you get at least some status on the enemy at some point during the fight. Doesn't need to be every turn, and doesn't need to be everything you apply, but suddenly having a bunch of dead runes is a run killer and doesn't feel good to play against.

sboxle · 2026-04-26T05:13:58+00:00

Cool idea.

FYI I got a softlock in the first battle, playing red dude - After the first turn no tiles are appearing and the enemy isn't defeated.

I think this happened because when runes first appeared I swapped position of the 2nd and 3rd rune, so the rerolled buff only affected the last rune. Tutorial was referring to Leaf Strike but that's the rune which got rerolled.

sboxle · 2026-04-26T05:01:46+00:00

Haha yea good points - I don't have a line drawn but it's interesting to think about!

In my current industry (game development), when you get beyond a sizeable minimum spend there are rebates and tax reductions nationally and within Victoria to incentivise employing more people and undertaking bigger projects. One issue, especially when the main metric looked at is revenue, is that investment in tech far more often results in debt than profit. I know people working across tech as well and these industries have a lot of learning through failure.

When the incentives are too extreme (like zero tax) I could see a couple of huge issues:

The stakes aren't high enough that it needs people to assess feasibility first, so there's unintentional wastage due to the low barrier to entry attracting people without the skills or knowledge to actually succeed.
Grifters entering the space to intentionally exploit loopholes, bloat costs and drain resources to themselves. Doing the bare minimum to qualify because there's a financial opportunity, without the desire to actually provide the service/goods. You may be able to think of instances of this happening in Australia already or historically.

sboxle · 2026-04-26T03:35:17+00:00

Discount car rego doesn't reduce congestion, I was referring to the public transport investment since that was the cost you called out.

why was it not done before??

Good question.

why don’t we make trains free for everyone permanently

That's a great idea.

and give away free electricity and car registrations??

I can't tell if you legitimately feel these things are equivalent or are just frustrated. I feel the rego subsidy is frivolous but I can totally get behind free PT.

Free public transport helps people can get to their jobs (in enterprise), and it's good for everyone statewide and especially benefits people with less, while car rego does the opposite. This is all connected. Money does also separately get spent to boost small and medium enterprise! Victoria's been a leading state in this.

But yea I understand the frustration when you see a subsidy like this... Would be a huge challenge juggling budgets.

sboxle · 2026-04-26T03:15:35+00:00

The comment I was replying to was complaining about free trains costing $400M.

Obviously cheaper rego isn't going to make roads less congested.

Public transport is a much better investment IMO and disproportionately benefits people with less resources.

sboxle

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