Are we gonna get a downloadable version with save feature? Sometimes I have to abandon the game and have to start all over when I get back... It could be a simple autosave when you quit, so when you launch it again there is a "continue" option. Also it´s kind of a bummer playing from browser only. Great game though.
Had an error, I tapped on the button to go to the map and the character walked off the map somehow and left me stuck in a void. Forgot to take a picture of the end result, unfortunately- (Though I'm playing on Mobile so it may not be showing up to everyone)
Saw a video for this on you tube. Thought it looked neat. I just realized I just played for 3 hours. Wow. What a great game. Lots of interesting decisions to make. Such a clever design. I wish I could play this on the ipad.
I love the mechanics and gameplay here, as well as the cute design!
First game, managed to get to the last floor, and really enjoyed the Fish Sword (doing 24 damage per hit). Sadly, lost to the final boss, because I had too much armor and not enough healing items.
Managed to find enough of the cleaver items and gems to boost them to make a cleaver build. Quite a challenge to beat the final boss with them, since he builds up spikes so quickly; fortunately I had some sources of haste, so I could get out ahead with enough shield. Made it as far as floor 15 before hitting the armor cap.
Screenshot messed up, this is as far as I got, Did anyone actually get through this? Everything was going smooth until the final boss on endless mode showed up. Was not ready, and I wanted to know what is after this.
How did you beat the 18 level boss? Also does the endless mobs after that get even more health and attack than the first endless? Currently on level 14, just taking a rest before cuz I been playing too much.
I stacked enough damage on my wand to kill him before his spikes got high enough to one-shot me. Between each attack, I would use my broken ring to stack the shield to absorb his spike damage. A bomb of cleansing (I forgot the exact name) is also very useful for clearing his buffs after they get high. There is a new version out since my last run, so I'm not sure what has changed
Can slimes be nerfed? the first enemy I fought was a slime and then I accidentally threw my sword out for a bow so I had to scratch without arrows and then 3 seconds later I see like 50 regen so I had to restart. this happened multiple times... I just want slime to not go HAHA YOU CANT KILL ME GO BRRRRRRRRRRR. I have been trying to use bows only but I never get far enough plus it only takes about 5 turns for slimes to start destroying u anyways cause their damage goes up by like 10 or something
Is there regular whetstone in the new update? I tried to play it three times today, and found only the whetstones you can use 1 time. I died every time on the 9th level because I kept hoping that I would find one to compliment my daggers/cleavers. Also, are there any artifact, or do I just spam regen the old-fashioned way?
Regular wetstone it still there. But there is more items so less chance to get a specific one.
My advice if you want a fun run tp test the new stuff, try the cursed sword and some energy token / berserker ring
I really enjoyed this. I hope that one day, when it's even more complete, you can sell this on Steam. Keep this up, and the game will be worth money. It already arguably is.
If it were up to me to add things, I would try to take advantage of the map system and deliberately make monster types that certain builds would want to avoid. Monsters with flat-rate damage reduction, where every attack has damage decreased by some constant, would very well counter those shiv builds. On the other hand, making monsters immune to the first couple attacks would discourage folks with crazy whetstone builds.
This was a fun little time-waster. I built a ring around a Broken Ring, a Whetstone, the hat that gives you +haste every turn, the lightning bolt that hurts all enemies at the start of your turn, and a bunch of Shivs.
I died on Floor 16 when I ran out of mana (near the end I had to spam Broken Ring multiple times on the first couple of turns to not die), but I probably could've gotten further if I hadn't sold some boots and a helmet like an idiot (for whatever reason, the fact that Haste was better the more sources of armor you had didn't occur to me until it was too late.)
I was also mildly screwed over by the armor cap — when I fought the Badger boss on endless mode, I was generating something like 200+ armor per turn, but I lost half of that due to the cap. I kinda wish I had known about it beforehand, but that's neither here nor there.
I can think of two small QoL improvements for the (otherwise excellent) game:
Please let players see what the status effects do when you hover over an item in your backpack — you figure out what they do pretty soon, but it can kinda suck when you're looking at a Curse and wondering how bad it actually is.
Please include some kind of function (maybe shift+click?) that lets you use an item as many times as possible. There were quite a few times where my turn effectively boiled down to "hit Whetstone 3+ times, then click on all of my Shivs", and it would have been nice if I could've done that in fewer clicks.
EDIT: If anyone is curious, this was my third run, and the first one where I beat the King.
I decided I'd record a run, and eventually got to this point:
Yes, that is 100 regeneration under my character (thank you, My First Wand + Wizard Cap, for being utter nonsense). The entire run was a cakewalk up until I got into this fight, where I died on turn 3 from Fire Geckos being jerks. That said, if I had seen a single damage-dealing wand, I could've wiped them off the field with minimal effort — generating 5 mana a turn is really, really nice, especially when you have a Whetstone backing it up.
Add me to the chorus of people who think there needs to be a better way of dealing with poison — the rag in the top-left of my inventory is the only kind of anti-poison item I ran into on my run (other than some Cleansing Potions, but those hardly count).
Maybe the Cleansing Wands (which I ran into, like, 12 of) could clear your debuffs instead of clearing enemy buffs? Or maybe poison could "eat" regeneration before it hit your health? I dunno, I just think that it's a little odd that there are only a handful of items that can deal with poison effectively, especially given how much of it gets thrown around by some of the enemies in the endless mode.
Seconding the removal of the armor cap. I had a build that could have beat the endless-mode badger boss on floor 15, but due to the armor cap I didn’t actually get all the armor needed to survive:
I really like how now you can curse yourself, which potentially grants great bonuses with lots of risks involved. But the Emerald Bracelet is not that great. I understand why it had to be reworked, but it's bonus is not worth the size it takes up in the inventory with curses, as it's ability only activates on the first turn. If it was instead active on every turn but it's bonus would decrease by 1, maybe then it'd be a good alternative to energy gems for early setups, (except to Crimson Energy, that is a really good addition to a legendary arsenal, thank you so much). At least it's counterpart got the better hand with it's balanced utility.
Then there's Cleansing Wand. It's not Crimson Energy, and it's also not even worth it. The one enemy i hoped it would work best is the King, but since it "attacks" it, spikes and rage are readded, basically wasting mana, which, unless you get Necro early on, is now even more scarce. Same happens with other enemies that have their abilities activated on touch. That doesn't leave us with a lot of units this wand actually works on. Pass.
Also, it would probably be better if bows (and maybe some wands) could avoid spikes on the target. Would make this class of weapons have a valid reason to coexist with other weapons, considering the size bows and arrows take up. If you see an opponent that has spikes but also understand that touching those will potentially end your run? Deal with that menace by turning them into swiss cheese from the comfort of your comfy backpack with arrows.
I was very lucky there. First of, in this entire run I encountered the key sword no less than 3 times (which was also my first time ever seeing this weapon because I genuinely did not know it existed).
The first time, I found it in a chest and it was immediately discarded because I had only 1 key and the club was better with its extra ability to weaken enemies over time.
The second time, I obtained it from re-arranging my backpack in the middle of battle, I had stacked up a bit because I just couldn't find anything useful in the dungeon to keep and there were no door whatsoever to use the keys on, so I had 4 keys on me.
The third time, I found it in a chest and used it to open a single door. The luckiest part of the run is the fact that I encountered a door only once and the healer a ton, so it's my first time ever gaining this much health.
Another thing that I'm lucky about was finding the necronomicon which is incredibly rare, I have only seen it 3 times across 2 runs total. Too bad I didn't have any damaging wand on me to use on the enemies, but at least the whetstone and the key sword basically carried me through the game.
I really like the new weapons from the latest hotfix.
Also, I came across a cursed shiv earlier and I wanted to build around that for unlimited energy, but it seems both of the bracelets got retconned out of the game, so I discarded the shiv halfway through. I can at least get behind the change.
EDIT: The bracelets are still in the game, nevermind that.
The link to join the discord group is not working for me, but I like the endless mode. Here is my final build (I've had the tab open in a browser and played it on and off yesterday and today): I think the build focuses on farming slimes and other creatures that can be endlessly weakened so they do no damage. Once the target is neutralized, then the tome can be used to stack as much mana as you will need until the next chance you have to farm (look ahead at the map). Once I get the mana bank high enough, I switch over to the potion cycle to farm for golden whetstone (it is important to have an open 2x2 next to the bracelet for the big curse while doing this part). The net result is you can over prepare for anything with as much mana as you need and then dealing damage to all enemies with the Skull Wand (which has been augmented with the golden whetstones). Round one kills of any enemies you can't farm (bosses included) are possible, but this strategy does make the game less exciting... I was just curious if it would work, and it does as of v.07
I was doing well and not taking any damage as well as dealing around 40 every turn up until magma 1/3, when I was immediately destroyed by poison getting me down to ten hp as well as getting rid of over half of my items. then I was killed on turn 3 by poison. is there anything that can deflect curses and/or poison?
Emerald Bracelet is my go to for dealing with curses (along with enough space to place an adjacent 2x2 curse when you get hit with the big one)
Cleansing Potion can clear poison. I usually either burst poison enemies down or counter the poison with regeneration (but this will fail if you have more poison stacked than your max health, so I keep a cleanse or two on had to reset if I get too close)
Black Rose or Rose thorn or Black Thorn The best of the best. thought it was so epic it needed a name and so I say goodbye to rose-thorn or black rose or black thorn. The best and most chaotic thing ever. it doesn't look like much but it was godly. but against queen bee I was snuffed out. there were only a few things that could have made it better. one was to have a regen wand to negate the poison, more heart stones so it doesn't take that much mana to heal, and of course more spike helms. I had a lot of fun with this one I could have made it to the king boss in endless if I made it past this one. honestly love this game and physically cant stop playing. I didn't have many grievance's with the game really just that poison sucks. and I honestly think this is one of my favorite games now. I just love how everything can go with something else. it also has great replayability which is awesome. love everything about the game I think you made something great and can't wait for what comes next.
Arghh! I should bring regen staff with me, sadly died to poison. Simple no armor Hatchets + Assassin dagger(lv104) + Poison tome + broken ring build, together with regen staff it should be able to counter the deadly poison. Superb game.
Good game, very addicting! But it would be so nice if you added more ways to get rid of poisoning. I got through level 15 with 0 damage, but then the poison got me again. Levels past the final boss also kind of feel like a chore, but I'm sure it won't be a problem as you add more content to the game.
Here's my built more or less, whetstone + spiked helmets + haste-adding armor make you feel like a god at turn 10
Spiked Club should be changed "Deal X damage to self" to "Lose X HP when used" because if you used Spiked Club while you have spikes your spikes deal damage to you also.
Absolutely insane run with king cleavers and boosting from 2 rings of doom. Boosting 20 damage per round and starting 40+ damage. I always lose to poison tho ;(
I had a magic build and got a lot of the rings that increase maximum HP I don't know what caused it, but I was steadily losing HP after I did anything that had a marker on the map tied to it so when I beat the 7th floor my Maximum HP lowered from 15 to 0, I did not take damage during the battle in fact I probably would have won if this didn't happen.
This was my pack at the end of the run. There are quite a lot of balance issues. The first two bosses are actually easier IMO than some of the basic enemies. The only real challenge was the final boss, and that was because he gained 10 spikes out of nowhere (Despite his text saying that he gained 1/turn). He never actually did increase his spikes beyond 12, nor did his rage and regen increase beyond 12 and 4 respectively.
This was a lot of fun, and I loved assembling this OP build. Lots of Max HP combined with lots of seasoning, and a log for infinite +25 healing for 1 energy. I could heal for 100/turn if I wanted to. This made me immortal if the enemy is incapable of dealing 81 damage in 1 turn. I even have a magic armor ring if I desperately needed a lot of armor for whatever reason.
Then I have 6 single use weapons for 0 energy combined with a whetstone that adds 3 to all weapons in that row for 1 energy. Lots of fun with this, but it did trivialize every single fight. I was able to win most fights in turn 1 before the magma caves.
I was very excited to have found the golden whetstone, but I was disappointed that it was a single use +2 permanently. That didn't seem all that good for ~40 gold. Especially when I can achieve a +72 boost to my damage every turn.
Edit: (Had to use Imgur because Itchio wouldn't let me submit a comment with an image in it)
I think quite a few people are having difficulties when it comes to Column and Row, perhaps have a look at Horizontal and Vertical. Good game, quite challenging at first, but once you understand, you start your runs planning instead of just taking what fall of the tree.
Aside from the Colum and Row thing, a key to swap between map and bag would be neat as well, perhaps Tab or Space.
I am impressed with the game so far and I am enjoying it, but I keep running into one big that is ending my runs. I am on a phone which may have something to do with it. I will sometimes have my icon on the map travel to the upper right corner of the screen, off the map, and then I can't move anywhere on the map.
It's a very fun game, I'm glad this was in my feed when I checked Itch.io last Sunday. I played 3 runs total, and managed myself into endless twice.
The music and graphics are all great too. The character you play as is cute-as-heck and the other NPCs are pleasing to look at too. The battle music is very fitting and pumps me full of adrenaline when I'm thinking of my next move while the other music that plays all throughout the dungeon is calming with a feel of mystery to it. That game being a roguelike + the gameplay element of rearranging your backpack is fully unique and very creative. I'm being serious when I say this does look like an early access indie game on Steam with a price tag of about 10$/€ and yet, this is free!
With all the good being said, I do have a few suggestions for the developer, particularly to balance the items in-game.
First things first, ailments/status conditions need to have a timer or a way to refresh/reset them, otherwise this becomes way too broken. Both the player and the enemies can make good use of status conditions to buff or debuff each other. For example, a haste value of 15 or above and you become quasi-immortal against all physical attacks.
Haste is a buff that increases defense atop existing items that already increase it, so if you have a lil' buckler (Love that thing) and use it, normally it'd give you 6 shields, but with a haste of 15, you gain 21 shields instead.
Regen is a buff that automatically recovers health every turn, regen makes it difficult for enemies or the player to kill either one or the other. This comment below really summarizes my concern with that: https://itch.io/post/5435057
Poison hurts every turn. The most interesting aspect of it is the fact that it basically ignores defense and I think it's fine this way, but that also means that the player is enticed to use items that inflict poison rather than items for damage alone since late-game enemies really love shielding themselves up. I tried a poison build and it worked even better than my magic build which is also in need of a nerf imo, gonna get to that later.
I have played a few roguelikes before and many RPGs and status conditions/buffs/debuffs/ailments are a staple, but this is the first time ever I come across a game like this that has uncurable permanent (Per battle) status conditions and from what I have gathered, this does not work all that well since again this is broken and can be abused by the player and the enemies, particularly the player.
Another thing that I really did not like about the game were the curses, or their implementation so to speak; in the screenshots and video above, curses did exist in previous versions of the game, but they were atop the inventory and directly added by the enemies. In this version, you, the player, have to manually add the curses to your inventory whenever an enemy uses a curse on you which kind of kills the momentum of the game, but also they take physical space in your backpack, so you end throwing out useful items in exchange of annoying pseudo-items.
Magic items are OP. Most wands cost no energy (or like I'd like to call them action turns or press turns), so as long as you have mana on you, you can abuse them to hell and beyond and then there are items that further increase your mana count: The wizard cap passively increases your mana by 5 every turn at the cost of 1 action turn; the Necromonicon gives 1 poison to all enemies and gives the player 2 mana at the cost of 1 measly action turn. By using the Necronomicon 3 times (Assuming you have no wizard cap), you can give 3 poison to all enemies and then you can hit them 6 more times with your wand. You really need to play the game to understand how broken a magic build is. In fact, the final boss couldn't even make his move because I had a lot of mana and just burned it all against him.
Lastly, I am fairly bummed I cannot play version 1 of the game to compare with the latest build.
That's it really, I hope at least that my remarks are considered.
A lot of great suggestions! They will be considered! You can join the Discord too if you want to discuss further with other contributors!
In the original GameJam build, status effects slowly decreased over time. Each turn, all effects would go down by 1. This seemed like a good system, but it lead to confusion for some players. A lot of effects are added passively each turn. And it can be confusing to have your haste go up by 2, and then the next turn go down by 1, and then up by 2 again, giving you a total of 3 haste on your second turn. A lot of players were confused by this - so we removed it. I agree that it makes status effects overpowered now. Not sure the correct solution yet, but we're thinking about it! Maybe they just need to be less common. Status effects can be removed using the Cleansing Potion and Cleansing Bomb.
As for the curses, I do believe the new system is a lot better. It forces the player to reorganize and lose their "perfect" setup, forcing them to make sacrifices and hard choices. The real purpose of the "curses" is to get you thinking about your backpack layout - so just having them on-top of your items often didn't achieve this and it just became another way to inflict damage on the player. I totally understand your criticism though... maybe we will find a way to improve them further.
As for the balance issues, you're 100% right. Poison is overpowered. Magic is overpowered. These will be addressed in updates!
Assassin's Dagger is pretty OP. managed to one shot pretty much every enemy except the bosses. Rogue's mask + the fish that gives haste pretty much makes you tank all enemies as long as you have a good armor set.
Game is short but fun! Interesting to see different builds or synergies from different items.
A good game, but I experienced a thing that I feel like should be illegal😭
As I was playing, I misunderstood a fancy sword's description. I sold my standard sword and bought that one since it was only 2 square instead of 3. Apparently it only has 2 use in one battle so I was baffled like wtf how should I beat them then. There were 3 enemies, and I defeated 2 of them. There was one left. It was a slime.
And it has healing ability that grows every turn🧍🏻♂️ I forgot scratch was a thing until it healed 27 hp per turn🧍🏻♂️so basically it was an endless battle because the slime keeps healing and healing even more and i was just there scratching it🧍🏻♂️
Very fun game there. I don't think my build was too notable compared to what else has been posted. (Save for an interaction between armor that increases armor to other armor and the Rogue's Mask: The mask benefits from it its own haste when it gets armor points from other items. Not sure if the multi-headgear penalty will also trigger this.)
As for anything to input/report, it's that the confusion on enemy buff tooltips between those that trigger on the beginning of the enemy turn and those that trigger when the enemy is hit: Both use the wording of the first. (Most noticeable with the King, who has the former on regen, and the latter on rage and spikes)
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I beat the final boss by using three double poison potions.
I ended on 6 hp because I forgot to be blocking.
archer player?
The Orksork Ax seems to not require energy to use at the moment.
Uses gold!
OH! Hah, my mistake.
Great game, by the way. I'm really enjoying all the stuff you've been adding.
Are we gonna get a downloadable version with save feature? Sometimes I have to abandon the game and have to start all over when I get back... It could be a simple autosave when you quit, so when you launch it again there is a "continue" option. Also it´s kind of a bummer playing from browser only. Great game though.
Yes! It is planned! We're just trying to get the gameplay right first. Then we'll introduce saving!
Had an error, I tapped on the button to go to the map and the character walked off the map somehow and left me stuck in a void. Forgot to take a picture of the end result, unfortunately- (Though I'm playing on Mobile so it may not be showing up to everyone)
Tomorrow's patch should fix that! Sorry to hear about it!
King the boss becomes kinda immortal and OP when not killed early. But man this was 3 hours spent well :)
Saw a video for this on you tube. Thought it looked neat. I just realized I just played for 3 hours. Wow. What a great game. Lots of interesting decisions to make. Such a clever design. I wish I could play this on the ipad.
Works well on mobile devices! But we my do an iOS version soon
I see that, thank you!
I love the mechanics and gameplay here, as well as the cute design!
First game, managed to get to the last floor, and really enjoyed the Fish Sword (doing 24 damage per hit). Sadly, lost to the final boss, because I had too much armor and not enough healing items.
Second game, managed to win this time, using a whetstone and many zero-energy weapons. Got as far as level 13.
Managed to find enough of the cleaver items and gems to boost them to make a cleaver build. Quite a challenge to beat the final boss with them, since he builds up spikes so quickly; fortunately I had some sources of haste, so I could get out ahead with enough shield. Made it as far as floor 15 before hitting the armor cap.
You get a second golden cheese after the second version of the final boss. It appears to just loop the endless levels.
How did you beat the 18 level boss? Also does the endless mobs after that get even more health and attack than the first endless? Currently on level 14, just taking a rest before cuz I been playing too much.
I stacked enough damage on my wand to kill him before his spikes got high enough to one-shot me. Between each attack, I would use my broken ring to stack the shield to absorb his spike damage. A bomb of cleansing (I forgot the exact name) is also very useful for clearing his buffs after they get high. There is a new version out since my last run, so I'm not sure what has changed
i use one bow and then 3 seconds later (even with a weapon) i die to something stupid like a slime
Can slimes be nerfed? the first enemy I fought was a slime and then I accidentally threw my sword out for a bow so I had to scratch without arrows and then 3 seconds later I see like 50 regen so I had to restart. this happened multiple times... I just want slime to not go HAHA YOU CANT KILL ME GO BRRRRRRRRRRR. I have been trying to use bows only but I never get far enough plus it only takes about 5 turns for slimes to start destroying u anyways cause their damage goes up by like 10 or something
they have been nerfed once becuz i made a vid about how immortal they really are
Is there regular whetstone in the new update? I tried to play it three times today, and found only the whetstones you can use 1 time. I died every time on the 9th level because I kept hoping that I would find one to compliment my daggers/cleavers. Also, are there any artifact, or do I just spam regen the old-fashioned way?
Regular wetstone it still there. But there is more items so less chance to get a specific one. My advice if you want a fun run tp test the new stuff, try the cursed sword and some energy token / berserker ring
thanks for advice, will try them out if i see any!
I really enjoyed this. I hope that one day, when it's even more complete, you can sell this on Steam. Keep this up, and the game will be worth money. It already arguably is.
If it were up to me to add things, I would try to take advantage of the map system and deliberately make monster types that certain builds would want to avoid. Monsters with flat-rate damage reduction, where every attack has damage decreased by some constant, would very well counter those shiv builds. On the other hand, making monsters immune to the first couple attacks would discourage folks with crazy whetstone builds.
This was a fun little time-waster. I built a ring around a Broken Ring, a Whetstone, the hat that gives you +haste every turn, the lightning bolt that hurts all enemies at the start of your turn, and a bunch of Shivs.
I died on Floor 16 when I ran out of mana (near the end I had to spam Broken Ring multiple times on the first couple of turns to not die), but I probably could've gotten further if I hadn't sold some boots and a helmet like an idiot (for whatever reason, the fact that Haste was better the more sources of armor you had didn't occur to me until it was too late.)
I was also mildly screwed over by the armor cap — when I fought the Badger boss on endless mode, I was generating something like 200+ armor per turn, but I lost half of that due to the cap. I kinda wish I had known about it beforehand, but that's neither here nor there.
I can think of two small QoL improvements for the (otherwise excellent) game:
EDIT: If anyone is curious, this was my third run, and the first one where I beat the King.
I decided I'd record a run, and eventually got to this point:
Yes, that is 100 regeneration under my character (thank you, My First Wand + Wizard Cap, for being utter nonsense). The entire run was a cakewalk up until I got into this fight, where I died on turn 3 from Fire Geckos being jerks. That said, if I had seen a single damage-dealing wand, I could've wiped them off the field with minimal effort — generating 5 mana a turn is really, really nice, especially when you have a Whetstone backing it up.
Add me to the chorus of people who think there needs to be a better way of dealing with poison — the rag in the top-left of my inventory is the only kind of anti-poison item I ran into on my run (other than some Cleansing Potions, but those hardly count).
Maybe the Cleansing Wands (which I ran into, like, 12 of) could clear your debuffs instead of clearing enemy buffs? Or maybe poison could "eat" regeneration before it hit your health? I dunno, I just think that it's a little odd that there are only a handful of items that can deal with poison effectively, especially given how much of it gets thrown around by some of the enemies in the endless mode.
Seconding the removal of the armor cap. I had a build that could have beat the endless-mode badger boss on floor 15, but due to the armor cap I didn’t actually get all the armor needed to survive:
Finally completed a run! Exploiting curses and regen...
I really like how now you can curse yourself, which potentially grants great bonuses with lots of risks involved. But the Emerald Bracelet is not that great. I understand why it had to be reworked, but it's bonus is not worth the size it takes up in the inventory with curses, as it's ability only activates on the first turn. If it was instead active on every turn but it's bonus would decrease by 1, maybe then it'd be a good alternative to energy gems for early setups, (except to Crimson Energy, that is a really good addition to a legendary arsenal, thank you so much). At least it's counterpart got the better hand with it's balanced utility.
Then there's Cleansing Wand. It's not Crimson Energy, and it's also not even worth it. The one enemy i hoped it would work best is the King, but since it "attacks" it, spikes and rage are readded, basically wasting mana, which, unless you get Necro early on, is now even more scarce. Same happens with other enemies that have their abilities activated on touch. That doesn't leave us with a lot of units this wand actually works on. Pass.
Also, it would probably be better if bows (and maybe some wands) could avoid spikes on the target. Would make this class of weapons have a valid reason to coexist with other weapons, considering the size bows and arrows take up. If you see an opponent that has spikes but also understand that touching those will potentially end your run? Deal with that menace by turning them into swiss cheese from the comfort of your comfy backpack with arrows.
And, uh, i don't think it's supposed to do that.
I am on my seventh run and this was my end build:
I was very lucky there. First of, in this entire run I encountered the key sword no less than 3 times (which was also my first time ever seeing this weapon because I genuinely did not know it existed).
The first time, I found it in a chest and it was immediately discarded because I had only 1 key and the club was better with its extra ability to weaken enemies over time.
The second time, I obtained it from re-arranging my backpack in the middle of battle, I had stacked up a bit because I just couldn't find anything useful in the dungeon to keep and there were no door whatsoever to use the keys on, so I had 4 keys on me.
The third time, I found it in a chest and used it to open a single door. The luckiest part of the run is the fact that I encountered a door only once and the healer a ton, so it's my first time ever gaining this much health.
Another thing that I'm lucky about was finding the necronomicon which is incredibly rare, I have only seen it 3 times across 2 runs total. Too bad I didn't have any damaging wand on me to use on the enemies, but at least the whetstone and the key sword basically carried me through the game.
I really like the new weapons from the latest hotfix.
Also, I came across a cursed shiv earlier and I wanted to build around that for unlimited energy, but it seems both of the bracelets got retconned out of the game, so I discarded the shiv halfway through. I can at least get behind the change.
EDIT: The bracelets are still in the game, nevermind that.
The link to join the discord group is not working for me, but I like the endless mode. Here is my final build (I've had the tab open in a browser and played it on and off yesterday and today):
I think the build focuses on farming slimes and other creatures that can be endlessly weakened so they do no damage. Once the target is neutralized, then the tome can be used to stack as much mana as you will need until the next chance you have to farm (look ahead at the map). Once I get the mana bank high enough, I switch over to the potion cycle to farm for golden whetstone (it is important to have an open 2x2 next to the bracelet for the big curse while doing this part). The net result is you can over prepare for anything with as much mana as you need and then dealing damage to all enemies with the Skull Wand (which has been augmented with the golden whetstones). Round one kills of any enemies you can't farm (bosses included) are possible, but this strategy does make the game less exciting... I was just curious if it would work, and it does as of v.07
This game is super fun! I wish there was a save progress option, though....
its coming! On our discord we have a roadmap where you can see when new things are being added
I was doing well and not taking any damage as well as dealing around 40 every turn up until magma 1/3, when I was immediately destroyed by poison getting me down to ten hp as well as getting rid of over half of my items. then I was killed on turn 3 by poison. is there anything that can deflect curses and/or poison?
Emerald Bracelet is my go to for dealing with curses (along with enough space to place an adjacent 2x2 curse when you get hit with the big one)
Cleansing Potion can clear poison. I usually either burst poison enemies down or counter the poison with regeneration (but this will fail if you have more poison stacked than your max health, so I keep a cleanse or two on had to reset if I get too close)
omg ur game randomly crashed or something and i lost all my stuff wth >:( 0/5
I play so much of this game, best game
Won using this build, almost infinite block, fast generation of thorns, situational bow, and high damage assassin blade
Black Rose or Rose thorn or Black Thorn
The best of the best. thought it was so epic it needed a name and so I say goodbye to rose-thorn or black rose or black thorn. The best and most chaotic thing ever. it doesn't look like much but it was godly. but against queen bee I was snuffed out. there were only a few things that could have made it better. one was to have a regen wand to negate the poison, more heart stones so it doesn't take that much mana to heal, and of course more spike helms. I had a lot of fun with this one I could have made it to the king boss in endless if I made it past this one. honestly love this game and physically cant stop playing. I didn't have many grievance's with the game really just that poison sucks. and I honestly think this is one of my favorite games now. I just love how everything can go with something else. it also has great replayability which is awesome. love everything about the game I think you made something great and can't wait for what comes next.
Not sure if you want to nerf this strategy or leave it in, but it is not that hard to farm manna / golden whetstone with this build.
Good game, very addicting! But it would be so nice if you added more ways to get rid of poisoning. I got through level 15 with 0 damage, but then the poison got me again. Levels past the final boss also kind of feel like a chore, but I'm sure it won't be a problem as you add more content to the game.
Here's my built more or less, whetstone + spiked helmets + haste-adding armor make you feel like a god at turn 10
There will be an update tomorrow that will include some more ways to remove poison! And check back on Sunday for an update too!
Spiked Club should be changed "Deal X damage to self" to "Lose X HP when used" because if you used Spiked Club while you have spikes your spikes deal damage to you also.
Absolutely insane run with king cleavers and boosting from 2 rings of doom. Boosting 20 damage per round and starting 40+ damage. I always lose to poison tho ;(
Awesome! Get this to steam and sell it to me!
Fun as hell! Got to Floor 14 with a Lv 93 Assassins Dagger before an Axe Dude got me.
I had a magic build and got a lot of the rings that increase maximum HP I don't know what caused it, but I was steadily losing HP after I did anything that had a marker on the map tied to it so when I beat the 7th floor my Maximum HP lowered from 15 to 0, I did not take damage during the battle in fact I probably would have won if this didn't happen.
can i download this? i really really need this!
The itch client is able to download any web game on itch if you want to be able to play it offline.
how do i download it? the normal download button isnt there
Whetsone + shivs / cleavers are still pretty busted after hotfix 5 :)
Also again was able to generate enormous amounts of mana for glorious one-shots of king and any poisonous/curse enemies :)
although it is not as insane as ring of doom was because you actually need multiple turns to stack damage/
Saw Retromation make a video on this on Youtube.
2 minutes in, I had to come play for myself. With just seeing 2 minutes of gameplay, if this was hosted on Steam, I would buy it 100%.
This was my pack at the end of the run. There are quite a lot of balance issues. The first two bosses are actually easier IMO than some of the basic enemies. The only real challenge was the final boss, and that was because he gained 10 spikes out of nowhere (Despite his text saying that he gained 1/turn). He never actually did increase his spikes beyond 12, nor did his rage and regen increase beyond 12 and 4 respectively.
This was a lot of fun, and I loved assembling this OP build. Lots of Max HP combined with lots of seasoning, and a log for infinite +25 healing for 1 energy. I could heal for 100/turn if I wanted to. This made me immortal if the enemy is incapable of dealing 81 damage in 1 turn. I even have a magic armor ring if I desperately needed a lot of armor for whatever reason.
Then I have 6 single use weapons for 0 energy combined with a whetstone that adds 3 to all weapons in that row for 1 energy. Lots of fun with this, but it did trivialize every single fight. I was able to win most fights in turn 1 before the magma caves. I was very excited to have found the golden whetstone, but I was disappointed that it was a single use +2 permanently. That didn't seem all that good for ~40 gold. Especially when I can achieve a +72 boost to my damage every turn.
Edit: (Had to use Imgur because Itchio wouldn't let me submit a comment with an image in it)
I think quite a few people are having difficulties when it comes to Column and Row, perhaps have a look at Horizontal and Vertical. Good game, quite challenging at first, but once you understand, you start your runs planning instead of just taking what fall of the tree.
Aside from the Colum and Row thing, a key to swap between map and bag would be neat as well, perhaps Tab or Space.
Once again, lovely little game you got here.
I am impressed with the game so far and I am enjoying it, but I keep running into one big that is ending my runs. I am on a phone which may have something to do with it. I will sometimes have my icon on the map travel to the upper right corner of the screen, off the map, and then I can't move anywhere on the map.
Review
It's a very fun game, I'm glad this was in my feed when I checked Itch.io last Sunday. I played 3 runs total, and managed myself into endless twice.
The music and graphics are all great too. The character you play as is cute-as-heck and the other NPCs are pleasing to look at too. The battle music is very fitting and pumps me full of adrenaline when I'm thinking of my next move while the other music that plays all throughout the dungeon is calming with a feel of mystery to it. That game being a roguelike + the gameplay element of rearranging your backpack is fully unique and very creative. I'm being serious when I say this does look like an early access indie game on Steam with a price tag of about 10$/€ and yet, this is free!
With all the good being said, I do have a few suggestions for the developer, particularly to balance the items in-game.
First things first, ailments/status conditions need to have a timer or a way to refresh/reset them, otherwise this becomes way too broken. Both the player and the enemies can make good use of status conditions to buff or debuff each other. For example, a haste value of 15 or above and you become quasi-immortal against all physical attacks.
Haste is a buff that increases defense atop existing items that already increase it, so if you have a lil' buckler (Love that thing) and use it, normally it'd give you 6 shields, but with a haste of 15, you gain 21 shields instead.
Regen is a buff that automatically recovers health every turn, regen makes it difficult for enemies or the player to kill either one or the other. This comment below really summarizes my concern with that: https://itch.io/post/5435057
Poison hurts every turn. The most interesting aspect of it is the fact that it basically ignores defense and I think it's fine this way, but that also means that the player is enticed to use items that inflict poison rather than items for damage alone since late-game enemies really love shielding themselves up. I tried a poison build and it worked even better than my magic build which is also in need of a nerf imo, gonna get to that later.
I have played a few roguelikes before and many RPGs and status conditions/buffs/debuffs/ailments are a staple, but this is the first time ever I come across a game like this that has uncurable permanent (Per battle) status conditions and from what I have gathered, this does not work all that well since again this is broken and can be abused by the player and the enemies, particularly the player.
Another thing that I really did not like about the game were the curses, or their implementation so to speak; in the screenshots and video above, curses did exist in previous versions of the game, but they were atop the inventory and directly added by the enemies. In this version, you, the player, have to manually add the curses to your inventory whenever an enemy uses a curse on you which kind of kills the momentum of the game, but also they take physical space in your backpack, so you end throwing out useful items in exchange of annoying pseudo-items.
Magic items are OP. Most wands cost no energy (or like I'd like to call them action turns or press turns), so as long as you have mana on you, you can abuse them to hell and beyond and then there are items that further increase your mana count: The wizard cap passively increases your mana by 5 every turn at the cost of 1 action turn; the Necromonicon gives 1 poison to all enemies and gives the player 2 mana at the cost of 1 measly action turn. By using the Necronomicon 3 times (Assuming you have no wizard cap), you can give 3 poison to all enemies and then you can hit them 6 more times with your wand. You really need to play the game to understand how broken a magic build is. In fact, the final boss couldn't even make his move because I had a lot of mana and just burned it all against him.
Lastly, I am fairly bummed I cannot play version 1 of the game to compare with the latest build.
That's it really, I hope at least that my remarks are considered.
Some screenshots I took.
A lot of great suggestions! They will be considered! You can join the Discord too if you want to discuss further with other contributors!
In the original GameJam build, status effects slowly decreased over time. Each turn, all effects would go down by 1. This seemed like a good system, but it lead to confusion for some players. A lot of effects are added passively each turn. And it can be confusing to have your haste go up by 2, and then the next turn go down by 1, and then up by 2 again, giving you a total of 3 haste on your second turn. A lot of players were confused by this - so we removed it. I agree that it makes status effects overpowered now. Not sure the correct solution yet, but we're thinking about it! Maybe they just need to be less common. Status effects can be removed using the Cleansing Potion and Cleansing Bomb.
As for the curses, I do believe the new system is a lot better. It forces the player to reorganize and lose their "perfect" setup, forcing them to make sacrifices and hard choices. The real purpose of the "curses" is to get you thinking about your backpack layout - so just having them on-top of your items often didn't achieve this and it just became another way to inflict damage on the player. I totally understand your criticism though... maybe we will find a way to improve them further.
As for the balance issues, you're 100% right. Poison is overpowered. Magic is overpowered. These will be addressed in updates!
Assassin's Dagger is pretty OP. managed to one shot pretty much every enemy except the bosses. Rogue's mask + the fish that gives haste pretty much makes you tank all enemies as long as you have a good armor set. Game is short but fun! Interesting to see different builds or synergies from different items.
A good game, but I experienced a thing that I feel like should be illegal😭
As I was playing, I misunderstood a fancy sword's description. I sold my standard sword and bought that one since it was only 2 square instead of 3. Apparently it only has 2 use in one battle so I was baffled like wtf how should I beat them then. There were 3 enemies, and I defeated 2 of them. There was one left. It was a slime.
And it has healing ability that grows every turn🧍🏻♂️ I forgot scratch was a thing until it healed 27 hp per turn🧍🏻♂️so basically it was an endless battle because the slime keeps healing and healing even more and i was just there scratching it🧍🏻♂️
BUT GOOD GAMEEE I LIKE IT👍
Oh no! Hope you'll try again soon!
Very fun game there. I don't think my build was too notable compared to what else has been posted. (Save for an interaction between armor that increases armor to other armor and the Rogue's Mask: The mask benefits from it its own haste when it gets armor points from other items. Not sure if the multi-headgear penalty will also trigger this.)
As for anything to input/report, it's that the confusion on enemy buff tooltips between those that trigger on the beginning of the enemy turn and those that trigger when the enemy is hit: Both use the wording of the first. (Most noticeable with the King, who has the former on regen, and the latter on rage and spikes)
Great catch! The phrasing will be fixed in the next update!