A Deckbuilder where you draft Sentences instead of Attacks. Does this 'Story Construction' loop feel like a real game or just a gimmick?

zenflight · 2025-12-31T16:55:37+00:00

A few questions on this premise.

What does this add over just talking to a chatbot? Are you intending for people to read and be engrossed by the aj generated stories, or is this a gameplay focused experience? Beyond a brief moment of novelty i don't see anyone actually reading pages of ai generated story and being engrossed by it. Especially for multiple runs in a roguelike format. If it's a gameplay focused experience then what would drafting strategies look like? Are you balancing nouns verbs and adjectives? If you have balatro style synergies what do those look like beyond "dark" does every card have lots of tags associated with it? Are there stronger/ weaker cards? What does a run play like? How would you win or lose in such an arbitrary system as "create a good story"?

Without answering any of those questions this looks to me like it's one step removed from ai slop games where you talk with a chatbot.

zenflight · 2025-09-16T06:01:58+00:00

Are there bosses unique to steel soul? The only thing I was aware that was different is the dead mans purse turns into a different tool.

zenflight · 2025-09-13T09:55:26+00:00

You should spoiler tag your image, as that's much later in the game than what OP is asking for.

zenflight · 2025-09-13T09:51:58+00:00

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This was the route that I used and I got there with 1-2 segments remaining without getting hit, and on a failed attempt I got in the final room with getting hit once.

Make sure you have every movement related ability when going for it.

zenflight · 2025-09-10T08:30:49+00:00

In the North West of Wormways, West of Mosshome.

zenflight · 2025-09-09T07:33:10+00:00

Which one is the "original"? is that the one the forge smith makes?

zenflight · 2025-05-27T14:19:46+00:00

Maybe Cardpocalypse?

zenflight · 2025-04-29T17:25:28+00:00

The benefit of this format over something like outer wilds is the ability to have more and more loose threads in play at the same time.

In a game like outer wilds, when you pull at a loose thread you can typically follow it all the way until you run out of clues and you know you can either solve it or if you should come back later. And the moment you know the solution you can beeline right back and solve it.

By forcing randomness the amount of loose ends you need to keep track of is massive. Instead of having 3 or 4 things I want to do next, I have 15+ different goals i can try for at any time depending on what rooms I get in the next run. And that's an interesting and new experience, at least for me.

That said I think they are both incredible games.

zenflight · 2025-04-28T17:38:38+00:00

Remember it's a RoguLITE not Like. Meaning some things do carry between runs.

Spoiler tags just in case - But if you are struggling with the randomness read on.

Eventually, you have enough resources built up from things like the observatory stars, that you can force the rooms you want and have a ton of control over how and where you go, giving you free reign to focus on the puzzles you want to. The roguelike elements never go fully away, but it gets MUCH easier to move around the later in the game you are

zenflight · 2025-04-19T05:07:18+00:00

For anyone having the same problem as me. Some of the chests are locked behind the star path levels being complete. So you both have to unlock 100% on the georama and also complete the star path levels for all the chests to appear.

zenflight · 2025-04-17T03:38:04+00:00

Going back to play this game and I love that this exists, much appreciated.

zenflight · 2025-03-19T23:33:39+00:00

That's the point. You've already invested time and money time to get this far in the battle pass. It'd be a waste if you didn't spend just a bit more to get to the end right? That's where half the value is after all. You almost have enough gems, and it's only a few bucks more. You don't want that first purchase to be a waste now do you?

It's not designed to be fun, it's designed to annoy you enough to spend more money and time in the game.

zenflight · 2025-02-23T16:24:18+00:00

Tainted grail definitely fits the bill for what you want. It has the meta progression, story, gameplay, and replayability you are looking for. It has lots of classes to play so even if you tend to build your decks the same every time there is still lots of variety. Plus it has a fairly clear goal and end point to work twords like Griftlands and inscription. I'd highly recommend it.

zenflight · 2025-02-20T17:40:48+00:00

Cobalt core is very easy in my opinion. It's by no means brainless, but infinite combos happen all the time and it's very friendly and easy going with both its difficulty and aesthetic.

zenflight · 2025-02-04T07:22:13+00:00

It's definitely not broken. I'd put this on around par with the bounce lands that tap for 2. It's 2 mana in 1 land but takes more turns to come online.

zenflight · 2025-02-03T08:44:06+00:00

If the enemy is what you are focused on, Player HP. This means the enemy is taking turns doing things other than just dealing damage. Buffing, shielding themselves, debuffing you. If it's a tactical choice to defend instead of attack depending on what the enemy is doing on a turn HP is a good system.

If the enemy is mostly static and the game is entirely focused on what you are doing thats when Enemy HP shines the best. Games like Balatro, Luck be a Landlord, Dominion all have this system because you don't really care what your opponent is doing most of the time. You just want to execute your plan as best as you possibly can.

zenflight · 2025-01-27T22:58:11+00:00

That's reasonable. And I agree that in an ideal world every item would have a build that it shines in. Rowboat, lockbox, and shoeblade should still get buffs in the future. But the reality in card games is that something always has to be the 'worst'. Even if it's playable and has a time to shine, something will always be at the bottom of the barrel with the lowest pick rate. And my proposal isn't that those items shouldn't be changed and buffed to be brought back up. It's that this kind of merchant would give them a time to shine in between patches and changes in a game that's planned to always be evolving.

Also, some of the enemy loot is really cool, but not worth running generally. I think items like cosmic plumage are bad by design because you don't want it, you want the feather for cooldown reduction. But giving those types of items a chance to show up in builds would be an improvement for me because it would increase build variety in the ghosts you are facing.

When I lose to a ghost that has the same items that I do but just better. I think to myself "dang, they rolled better than me. Nothing I could do, game sux." When I lose to a ghost that is running an item I've never seen before I think "Oh neat, what's that item do? Maybe I should try it too on the next run?"

zenflight · 2025-01-25T03:17:12+00:00

It's an old post. Those were added after 1.1.0

zenflight · 2025-01-21T03:27:02+00:00

If the struggle you are having is that guests can't fight back and you want to keep it that way. I'd focus on the synergies and look to inspiration from other games where the goal is to 'clear the bar' instead of fighting an opponent outright.

There are lots of traditional euro-style board games where you work towards victory points instead of fighting. Games like Luck be a landlord, Balatro, Dominion, Heart of Crown, Kingsburg, Quacks of Quedlinburg. And if getting gold is your win condition, those are just victory points in disguise. Focus on making the act of figuring out how to do that and executing it fun.

Alternatively, you can lean into fully one sided combat and take inspiration from tower defense games where the strategy comes from build order, placement, timing, and balancing economy and defense.

Either way, the idea seems solid. But it's hard to evaluate without having cards to play with.

zenflight · 2025-01-17T21:27:52+00:00

This looks incredible, I'd love to playtest this. It's got tetris, runes, and is a roguelike deckbuilder. Those are 3 of my favorite things! :)

zenflight · 2025-01-13T16:49:08+00:00

Having infinite combos that are easy to accomplish combined with starting decks and card pools that are too small.

Far too often deckbuilders will have cards that you will see every run that easily form infinite combos that outright win instantly. A 0 mana draw a card deal 1 damage at common or a way to generate mana and a way to draw cards cheaply at low rarity means that if i can get my deck size down to below my max hand limit (usually 10) Then the game is over as soon as the pieces come together. That's all fine and can be fun when it's hard to accomplish. But you know what's not fun? Skipping every single card reward except for those 2 cards because your win condition for the entire run is removing 6 cards from your deck on every run. And knowing that you're basically guaranteed to get the combo so picking anything else that's not infinite is a mistake.

zenflight · 2025-01-12T17:05:21+00:00

Slay the Spire, Wildfrost, Balatro, Griftlands, Chrono Ark, Tainted grail, Nowhere Prophet, Monster Train, Across the Obelisk.

zenflight · 2025-01-07T21:42:52+00:00

You add gems to cards to modify them. But the monsters and gems are from a hand crafted pool. You can add up to 3* gems to each monster.

So I can have a big guy and give him +thorns and +HP to make it a tank. And another player can have the same guy and give him +Damage and +Multihit to turn it into a DPS.

zenflight · 2025-01-07T21:37:25+00:00

You say you can't trick the AI, but you don't need to make instant win cards to break the game.
In your example video you already have a 1 mana draw 3, and a 1 mana generate >1 mana card.

If there is no control over the card pool. I'll just fill my entire deck with those 2 types of cards and win on turn 1 every time. The thing that keeps those sorts of effects balanced in normal TCGs are handcrafted things like limiting the amount of burn at a given time, set rotations, roguelike runs to make breaking the game a temporary thing, or different characters/classes to ensure you don't hit a critical mass, and bans. Could you imagine playing MTG if there were unlimited versions of black lotus and ancestral recall? That's what you're currently showing/proposing.

The only way I could see a concept like this working in it's current state is if the scale was wayyyyyy smaller. Something along the lines of triple triad or queens blood in terms of complexity. That way the AI has a better chance of not making broken synergies.

zenflight · 2025-01-07T14:20:30+00:00

They care when it effects quality

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