Spread the good word and reap your rewards
Use your deck of tiles to build a path covering all the lands spreading the good word while also pillaging some rewards as additions to your deck or sometimes even blessing you with some powerful abilities.
The game was made for js13k where the goal is to make a game in JavaScript and make it fully fit in 13 kilobytes or less.
Impressive js13k entry! It does little to no concessions in terms of game feel and juiciness, with the same standard of quality that we've grown used to see in your work. Despite the numerous bytes that must have been sacrificed on the look-and-feel, there's a surprisingly large amount of contents and a slick soundtrack, so nice job.
Gameplay-wise, the idea of a roguelike-Carcassonne-deckbuilder is pretty good! Throughout my four games I've had fun discovering the different cards & powerups, and realizing that there may be some good synergies to set up in my deck. Some powerups that seemed "obviously good" at first glance, like "taking more chest rewards" turned out to be more risky than I thought, with unwanted tiles ending in my deck. There's a good deal of interesting risk & reward with the different cards.
Despite all these positive things, I'm still left with an impression of balance issues, especially interms of difficulty/defeat. Lose conditions seem usually triggered by either noob use of Khan's Legacy, or "bad luck with the deck"/accidental deck imbalance in terms of available directions. It doesn't seem like there's any real incentive for me to build a more risky deck with "single-direction powers" to increase score faster, as the game seems infinite. My 4th run is actually still going with no signs of incoming difficulty, I'm leaving it on a pinned tab to continue it a bit after dinner :P
So once we figure things out a bit it's still fun, but mostly as a relaxing tile-placement game, thanks to the increasingly satisfying combos we can play out with stuff like Dynasty and Indulgence.
EDIT: Okay the late game, once the deck is set without chests anymore, did make me reconsider my no-risk-taken deck :) There's a fair bit of replayability in this thing!
Really fun gameplay loop and well executed given the pretty restrictive Jam Concept. The Art style, overall theme, and sound are really solid for only 13KB of space to work with.
I can only really echo others comments and say that the most difficult part of the game is the beginning, when you have few cards to work with, as the Gems that increase Deck Size, regenerate your life, and give lifelines etc. all seem to make the game easier at a faster rate than the game can be made harder. As many others have noticed, High score becomes a bit less valued when it boils down to "How many Multiplier cards can I draw in a row".
I guess a Hardcore Mode where you maybe start with more life but can never regenerate it could work to stop runs going to near-infinity? Or maybe make more lives be taken per unfilled tile the further along you get. At least in my experience, the issue wasn't that the game was too easy, but rather that even when I made mistakes and missed a tile, it didn't really have any effect, as a few lost HP can be easilly regained by the half dozen healing tiles I've collected after the first couple rounds.
Good Job overall, it's a fun game as you first discover all the cards and Gem effects. You definitely pushed those 13KB to their fullest extent =)
This is a strong game on its own, and the fact that it's for js13k just makes it better.
The music is solid, the art and animations are great, and the gameplay is very polished. Fantastic! The difficulty seems to level out after a while, and then it becomes quite easy to continue as long as you have time. I wonder if you could add anything to ramp up the difficulty in the later stages? If so, it would be a brilliant tournament game.
I say the above trying to be constructive. But honestly this is a fantastic game and all the more impressive for the size. Well done!
# | User | Score | |
---|---|---|---|
1 | @Juutis | 999999999999 | |
2 | @bradur | 55745578214 | |
3 | @M2tias | 62591915 | |
4 | @toasty | 1202367 | |
5 | @Wan | 1191227 | View all 5 scores |
This has some really nice gameplay and solid presentation - except I'm getting a lot of missing glyph errors. Presumably I don't have enough fonts installed, but there are missing symbols throughout the game for me.
Still, I was able to enjoy everything else and appreciated the effort that went into dressing what is a fairly simple gameplay idea. Very cool