I've been on a weekly update schedule, pushing out a new build to itch.io every Friday night, but unfortunately I can't say the same for write-ups like this. In the month since release, I've had some great feedback, and the majority of the work done has been to rectify issues from that feedback.
Balance Issues
Obviously this is something that every game will have once it's released to a broader audience. As I expected, most people found the game too difficult. It's supposed to be a difficult game, but not frustratingly so. Rather than focus on tweaking the numbers, though, I instead wanted to tweak the player choices to help with this. The biggest change in balance was to lower both movement speed and range for all enemies. Whereas originally most ranged enemies could and would shoot their target from almost anywhere, their threatened range is now reduced enough that a viable defensive option is to retreat far enough away that they are unable to attack at all. Other numbers like HP, damage, and defenses will be (and have already been) balanced as well, but I think this change will go a lot further to interesting gameplay choices.
Stupid Controls
There's no way around this one - my original control scheme was stupid. To discard a card (which is a major gameplay feature) you originally had to right-click to queue the discard, then left-click to confirm the discard. Except left-click was also the button to queue a card use, and right-click was also the button to cancel a queued card, which made things right confusing. Throughout a single game the player will use or discard dozens if not hundreds of cards, and if that isn't second nature after a few minutes of playing then it's a complete design failure.
I went through a few different versions until I came upon one that feels good - now when discarding you HOLD the button down on the card, with no extra confirmation needed. The default duration is 1 second, and during this time a recycle icon grows to completion and a sound effect plays that increases in pitch. After using it once it makes complete sense and is impossible to accidentally do. The only issue with this new scheme is the frustration of waiting, so I left that entirely up to the player. There's an option to set the delay when discarding to values between 0 and 2 seconds. While it seems like most people prefer the instant discard by right-clicking, I think it's important to initially have the hold option be the default until they're comfortable enough to change it themselves.
Information (and the lack thereof)
I've spent more time on how best to present information to the player than any other aspect of this game, by a huge margin. I never want the player to feel like they got screwed over because the game did something they didn't know. Unfortunately, there's an absolute TON of information that the player needs access to at any given moment. The combat grid, the character positions, the cards in their hand, what special effects of the cards do, enemy intents, enemy targets, character health, character shielding, status effects afflicting all characters in play - and it's been a challenge to prevent the screen from being overwhelming. I think I've done a decent job of keeping things small but noticeable with smaller texts and icons that grow as well as popup windows when hovered, so that you understand something additional is there but it doesn't concern you with the details unless you actively mouse-over it. There were some other complaints, however, and changing them has definitely made the game better.
First was ability ranges. Queuing an ability like an attack or a move draws its range onto the cells. However you cannot queue a card if you don't have enough power. I had a few complaints where people discarded a card to gain the power they needed to use another card only to find out that they were out of range to use it. This was a quick and easy fix - by hovering a card and holding the Preview button, its range is drawn, and the range is cleared as soon as the button stops being held. It's simple to use, simple to understand, and invisible if the player doesn't care, which is a win in my book!
Next was enemy ranges. By hovering an enemy, after a short delay it would show you which cells they could attack with their current range and move speed. This was a solid start, but made for frustrating play when you wanted to move out of their range and had to keep hovering multiple enemies that were attacking you and then queue up a move and then think "Oh wait, was that cell REALLY out of range or could the enemy just barely reach it" and then hover again and blah, exhausting. So now you can simply click on an enemy to "lock" their threatened cells (clicking on them again clears just their threatened cells, or clicking anywhere clears all threatened cells), which stay visible until you clear them or an ability is used. This lets you see, without a doubt, if you'll be safe from certain enemies when moving. Since I had the Preview button already setup for card ranges, why not use it for enemy ranges, too? If you don't care about specific enemies, any time a movement card is queued you can hold the Preview button to show the threatened cells of all enemies that are going to attack that character next turn. In most cases this is actually what the player cares about anyway, so why not make it easy when you want it, and invisible when you don't?
I'll go over some of the other changes I've made in my next post, but until then I'd love to hear from anyone and everyone, and the alpha versions will continue to be updated weekly and free-to-download!