And what is the reliable way to gain +1 buys for the 48 pointer stage??? Errand Boy is basically a garbage, and all the other +1 purchase cards I've seen are complete garbage too... I know I NEED them, but most of the time I can't afford mana costs for them.
There are a couple of other + buy cards (there's a 2 gold + buy that only costs one mana, the other one costs two). And then there are also a couple cards that can destroy and gain, so you can try and line up a bunch of purses or chests and use them to fuel the rites, or you can try and play Haggles to get the price down and use the cards that can gain at 4 or 6. Twincast or Multicast can help.
Almost all of those need a deck that can draw a significant chunk of itself, and to generate a ton of mana b/c none of those methods are cheap.
I wish there was a way to view current deck. I keep using Meditate to remove Mental Scar early on(before affliction happens), but for some reason, it keeps showing up in my hand.
I went and played this an unreasonable amount, and I've made pretty much every card work in a deck one way or another; even did a "no buying coins" run and a "no removing cards" run and a "no discarding" run. (Consume is probably the strongest card 😉)
I'm eager to see different character (I guess you're calling them "areas"?) unlocks, with your sense for balance then maybe you could make some entirely different sets of cards that have their own gimmicks and combos to explore. Individual card unlocks can't be as brave and creative because they have to avoid diluting the card pool and probably shouldn't add crazy new combos that drastically reduce the difficulty.
Great to hear! My plan is to have a map of the Dreamlands w/ branching paths, and between rounds you'd get to pick a connecting gate and go there. Different paths would have different themes and cards that are available (for instance, one route might have lots of cards that gain weak stuff, plus lots of destroy synergies. Another might not have rites that do damage at all, but there are cards that do damage, or maybe special rules like "do 1 damage for every card discarded").
Consume is def pretty busted. I'm adding a rarity system, but I sort of like having broken cards. My ideal is that a player can get one or two really strong cards per run, and they build their deck around that. My nominee for most broken is multicast, if you can get a mana engine going 😂.
I got very excited when you posted this game on the Dominion subreddit. This felt more like a blend of Dominion and Slay the Spire than Balatro. Regardless, you did an incredible job with this game, I love it. I spent the entire morning playing and finally was able to finish a run. I didn't track how many runs it took to complete one but it was probably around 15. The run that I won was very satisfying. I was able to draw my entire deck pretty consistently and even gain and play stuff once I had an empty deck and discard. Still need work to find the correct amount of specific cards to have in my deck.
As far as difficulty goes I think it's great to start. The cards themselves are surprisingly well balanced. Some obviously stronger than others, the cards that allow you to convert your gold into card draw or mana were very strong but I don't think I could have won without them. You still have to manage and strike the right amount of card draw vs manna generation and obviously you have plenty of shuffle luck as well. And the card draft concept is genius. The easiest way to introduce a sliding difficulty would probably be amount of turns in each new level, amount of turns to carry over or increased number of shields to break per round but I didn't have any nerfs or buffs for specific cards in mind. Will come back if anything comes up as I continue playing.
As far as previous comments go, I am on the fence as far as deck visibility. I think knowing the contents of your deck and what you have bought/trashed are part of what makes Dominion difficult. I do think it would be beneficial to have deck visibility and stats after losing or winning a run to keep that knowledge for future games but as far as in-game I think you would want to only allow that at certain times. I also didn't have a problem with the turn counter. I can understand the other player's point but I would be fine with it either way.
My biggest recommendation for improvement would be a back button. Obviously you shouldn't be able to go back if you've revealed new information through card draw or deck spying but mis-clicks cost me big a few times (let me know if I am missing this somewhere I couldn't seem to find anything). Also, a card concept I was wishing I had while playing was something that would give start of turn draw the next hand similar to duration cards in Dominion.
I'm glad you enjoyed it! 100% agree on the undo button -- I took a stab at it, and it was buggy af (lots of edge cases), but I think it's more-or-less necessary.
I like encouraging deck tracking, but I think I'll give players visibility into like, their total deck contents. That still keeps the tactical edge of tracking where your good cards are, but it makes it a bit more accessible I think.
I definitely want to add duration cards or something like it! Probably something to unlock after the first run.
need some performance tweek as it is eating my gpu (9600k+3060ti) also today on my phone (s23 ultra) and almost catch a fire
also a summary screen when you win/lose will be great
another suggestion is to change the remaining turns message, I wouldn't count the turn I'm currently playing as remaining, as I'm already using it. It is confusing, mainly on the second to last turn: You're playing it, you look up and read "2 turns remaining" -> end turn -> "last turn" Balatro does it this way with both hands and discards
and finally a gallery to see all the available cards would be nice.
thanks, great job, keep it going
PD. the tutorial unchecked is not remembered, I read some comment that you already fix it, but is still not working for me
Thanks! I'm working on a card selection update now, then I'll take a look at the performance. And the gallery is coming! Along with some card unlocks.
Good point on turns remaining -- I had the other language for a while, and that also confused some people ("The game says I get 8 turns, but the initial message says '7 remaining'"). I'll figure something out 😅.
And I'll take a look at the tutorial bug, I saw in another comment it wasn't fixed! One of those "it works on my machine" things T_T.
there seems to be some "Problem" with "Train of Thought". Sometimes cards aren't played.... but the same card in a different play is... I can't help more than that... For example, it has happened 2 times with Inner Flame... that wasn't played (maybe because I don't haven't the mana?... but it should be free)
go into play but didn't activate/do anything. same card, same deck, same run, different play, it was activated. as a programmer... very strange behaviour, maybe some boubble event that check mana or not (to me, it seems that the problem was connected to mana... maybe Train of Thought play card but I must have the mana to play the card). p.s. sorry for the english
never win the run, tried like 10 or more times :D I've often played Dominion and unlocked all the decks in balatro so... maybe I'm missing something? on decent run I arrive at the "30" seals stage, breaking between 15 and 20.
Thanks for playing! Did you feel like at that stage you normally had pretty good "deck control" (like, you could reliably play most of your deck) and just had trouble affording all the rites (you need 5 at that point), or was the issue more managing all the junk? I've been trying to stop spirals where some good deck control early on trivializes the later stages, but I might be more concerned about that than I need to be.
3 more minor details. I understand it's an alpha, but a volume config would be nice ;) The initial question for the tutorial should memorize the answer for the next game, at least in the same session (aka, if I lost and I checked "no tutorial" I still don't want the tutorial) The possibility of checking my entire deck during the run would be handy
Good call on the tutorial, fixed that! And I made the turn reward a bit more forgiving.
The next thing I'm working on is some better deck visibility -- checking the deck, also maybe some summaries like total mana cost of the deck, gold gained, size, etc. Maybe tooltips for some of the terms on the cards.
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And what is the reliable way to gain +1 buys for the 48 pointer stage??? Errand Boy is basically a garbage, and all the other +1 purchase cards I've seen are complete garbage too... I know I NEED them, but most of the time I can't afford mana costs for them.
There are a couple of other + buy cards (there's a 2 gold + buy that only costs one mana, the other one costs two). And then there are also a couple cards that can destroy and gain, so you can try and line up a bunch of purses or chests and use them to fuel the rites, or you can try and play Haggles to get the price down and use the cards that can gain at 4 or 6. Twincast or Multicast can help.
Almost all of those need a deck that can draw a significant chunk of itself, and to generate a ton of mana b/c none of those methods are cheap.
I wish there was a way to view current deck. I keep using Meditate to remove Mental Scar early on(before affliction happens), but for some reason, it keeps showing up in my hand.
Viewing the current deck should be out soon! Every rite you buy also adds a Mental Scar, so maybe it's one of those?
This is not a combo I thought I'd ever see! I have not played dominion in YEARS lol. What a fun combo!
I went and played this an unreasonable amount, and I've made pretty much every card work in a deck one way or another; even did a "no buying coins" run and a "no removing cards" run and a "no discarding" run. (Consume is probably the strongest card 😉)
I'm eager to see different character (I guess you're calling them "areas"?) unlocks, with your sense for balance then maybe you could make some entirely different sets of cards that have their own gimmicks and combos to explore. Individual card unlocks can't be as brave and creative because they have to avoid diluting the card pool and probably shouldn't add crazy new combos that drastically reduce the difficulty.
Great to hear! My plan is to have a map of the Dreamlands w/ branching paths, and between rounds you'd get to pick a connecting gate and go there. Different paths would have different themes and cards that are available (for instance, one route might have lots of cards that gain weak stuff, plus lots of destroy synergies. Another might not have rites that do damage at all, but there are cards that do damage, or maybe special rules like "do 1 damage for every card discarded").
Consume is def pretty busted. I'm adding a rarity system, but I sort of like having broken cards. My ideal is that a player can get one or two really strong cards per run, and they build their deck around that. My nominee for most broken is multicast, if you can get a mana engine going 😂.
I got very excited when you posted this game on the Dominion subreddit. This felt more like a blend of Dominion and Slay the Spire than Balatro. Regardless, you did an incredible job with this game, I love it. I spent the entire morning playing and finally was able to finish a run. I didn't track how many runs it took to complete one but it was probably around 15. The run that I won was very satisfying. I was able to draw my entire deck pretty consistently and even gain and play stuff once I had an empty deck and discard. Still need work to find the correct amount of specific cards to have in my deck.
As far as difficulty goes I think it's great to start. The cards themselves are surprisingly well balanced. Some obviously stronger than others, the cards that allow you to convert your gold into card draw or mana were very strong but I don't think I could have won without them. You still have to manage and strike the right amount of card draw vs manna generation and obviously you have plenty of shuffle luck as well. And the card draft concept is genius. The easiest way to introduce a sliding difficulty would probably be amount of turns in each new level, amount of turns to carry over or increased number of shields to break per round but I didn't have any nerfs or buffs for specific cards in mind. Will come back if anything comes up as I continue playing.
As far as previous comments go, I am on the fence as far as deck visibility. I think knowing the contents of your deck and what you have bought/trashed are part of what makes Dominion difficult. I do think it would be beneficial to have deck visibility and stats after losing or winning a run to keep that knowledge for future games but as far as in-game I think you would want to only allow that at certain times. I also didn't have a problem with the turn counter. I can understand the other player's point but I would be fine with it either way.
My biggest recommendation for improvement would be a back button. Obviously you shouldn't be able to go back if you've revealed new information through card draw or deck spying but mis-clicks cost me big a few times (let me know if I am missing this somewhere I couldn't seem to find anything). Also, a card concept I was wishing I had while playing was something that would give start of turn draw the next hand similar to duration cards in Dominion.
Thanks again for sharing this!
I'm glad you enjoyed it! 100% agree on the undo button -- I took a stab at it, and it was buggy af (lots of edge cases), but I think it's more-or-less necessary.
I like encouraging deck tracking, but I think I'll give players visibility into like, their total deck contents. That still keeps the tactical edge of tracking where your good cards are, but it makes it a bit more accessible I think.
I definitely want to add duration cards or something like it! Probably something to unlock after the first run.
been playing this past week, great game
need some performance tweek as it is eating my gpu (9600k+3060ti)
also today on my phone (s23 ultra) and almost catch a fire
also a summary screen when you win/lose will be great
another suggestion is to change the remaining turns message, I wouldn't count the turn I'm currently playing as remaining, as I'm already using it.
It is confusing, mainly on the second to last turn:
You're playing it, you look up and read "2 turns remaining" -> end turn -> "last turn"
Balatro does it this way with both hands and discards
and finally a gallery to see all the available cards would be nice.
thanks,
great job, keep it going
PD. the tutorial unchecked is not remembered, I read some comment that you already fix it, but is still not working for me
Thanks! I'm working on a card selection update now, then I'll take a look at the performance. And the gallery is coming! Along with some card unlocks.
Good point on turns remaining -- I had the other language for a while, and that also confused some people ("The game says I get 8 turns, but the initial message says '7 remaining'"). I'll figure something out 😅.
And I'll take a look at the tutorial bug, I saw in another comment it wasn't fixed! One of those "it works on my machine" things T_T.
hmm where is the Balatro element?
Just the run structure (each round has a higher and higher total to hit, and you've got a limited number of turns to do it in).
there seems to be some "Problem" with "Train of Thought". Sometimes cards aren't played.... but the same card in a different play is... I can't help more than that...
For example, it has happened 2 times with Inner Flame... that wasn't played (maybe because I don't haven't the mana?... but it should be free)
Hmm, I'll take a look. Any chance you remember what happened? Like, was the card discarded? Or did it just go into play but didn't do anything?
go into play but didn't activate/do anything.
same card, same deck, same run, different play, it was activated.
as a programmer... very strange behaviour, maybe some boubble event that check mana or not (to me, it seems that the problem was connected to mana... maybe Train of Thought play card but I must have the mana to play the card).
p.s. sorry for the english
The game is very slow for me, all the animations stutter for some reason. Maybe a Windows version would be more performant?
Oh shoot, thanks for the info. What browser?
Firefox. I just tried Chrome and it's a lot better! I guess it has to do with Godot
you need to have hardware acceleration enable, no matter what browser you're in, otherwise it would be unplayable
never win the run, tried like 10 or more times :D
I've often played Dominion and unlocked all the decks in balatro so... maybe I'm missing something?
on decent run I arrive at the "30" seals stage, breaking between 15 and 20.
Thanks for playing! Did you feel like at that stage you normally had pretty good "deck control" (like, you could reliably play most of your deck) and just had trouble affording all the rites (you need 5 at that point), or was the issue more managing all the junk? I've been trying to stop spirals where some good deck control early on trivializes the later stages, but I might be more concerned about that than I need to be.
on one run I can play all the cards on my deck consistently every round, still I need at least 2 or 3 more turns to buy all the rite.
also, the turn gained between stage seems few
... :D
passed the 30 stage... death on the next one... still very difficult
so... in the end... I've understood where I was playing wrong.
(rushing first turns...)
Nice job! Do you mean like, on your winning run you spent more time staying in early rounds not winning so you can buy more cards or something?
3 more minor details.
I understand it's an alpha, but a volume config would be nice ;)
The initial question for the tutorial should memorize the answer for the next game, at least in the same session (aka, if I lost and I checked "no tutorial" I still don't want the tutorial)
The possibility of checking my entire deck during the run would be handy
Good call on the tutorial, fixed that! And I made the turn reward a bit more forgiving.
The next thing I'm working on is some better deck visibility -- checking the deck, also maybe some summaries like total mana cost of the deck, gold gained, size, etc. Maybe tooltips for some of the terms on the cards.
the "48" stage seems more reachable but... that's my wall now
the tutorial check doesn't work :D