Took me a minute to adjust my chess knowledge to unusual mechanics, but when it all clicked, the game was a lot of fun! I lost a couple of times, but then snowballed relatively effortlessly to the very end, winning the last several matches in one or two turns.
Fun game! The piece-based movement rules are very intuitive as long as you know chess. Something I think can be improved upon in this game however is the progression/scaling, as once you get 5 good cookies, shops stop feeling interesting because all there is to do is upgrade pieces (there's not much choice there either). More strategies/synergies to lean into would be cool, as well as a "deck fixing" method that lets you add, change, or remove pieces from your deck.
you should indicate a king getting broken after a piece attacks it and then the king gets resurrected with green glowing animation and the game does suffer from clarity, it would be better if we had a more visual tutorial on the first level!
yeah I didn't realize I was taking damage for a few rounds, I'd just be pushed by the other pieces?? winning a round also wasn't clear for a bit, it just suddenly ends. fun game tho!
Nice game, good visuals and music. I was often confused when the round ends. Did I win? Did I get all the points? On the third hand I can only play one card? Or why did it end the round? When do I unlock better food or is it always available? Also when hovering over my deck cards where it shows what they do I see the king on the pawn card and in general the deck info felt a little buggy. Sometimes I hover over something and nothing shows, sometimes only when I hover over the edge. Also I assumed the enemy player has cards of his own but he plays kind of normal chess? Sometimes he said he couldn't move a piece, but only because he should have moved another beforehand, so the order is a little messed up. Also: Is it over when I defeat their king? Sometimes there is no enemy king in play? Would be nice to see some more info/reasons why a round ends and how many points I got. Still a very fun game! Keep it up :)
Overall it suffers from lack of clarity. Why am I losing lives if the pieces aren't ever actually attacking me? I understand that I'm in danger, but an animation to show them attacking or a more clear explanation of how losing health works would be great. There's also just a lot of stuff on the screen at once in the shop. Balatro separates the Blind selection from the shop for a reason, it gives the player a clear understanding of what choice they're meant to be making at that time. There are 2 types of things to purchase in the shop, but everything is very close to each other in the center because the deck UI is still on screen. Also, selecting a blind doesn't serve any purpose without the ability to skip a blind, it may be worth it to remove blind selection altogether and replace it with a Next button. Each food item should also have a specific food tied to the description, it was very confusing seeing 2 different foods in the shop that do the same thing. Only being able to play 2 cards is told to the player but is never shown during gameplay, and their is no live score total, just your current score and the multiplier, but I can't actually see what that score is at a glance. Some transparency on how much a move is about to score would be nice too.
If you take anything away from this: there is too much information on the shop screen, and it makes it difficult to understand the important information. Personally, I would give the Blind selection a separate screen after the shop or remove it entirely, and I would remove the hand section on the right, but maintain the run information and current foods/artifacts. Also, a new run should probably start either straight into the first blind or give the blind selection screen without the shop, as we don't have enough money to buy anything.
That was a lot of feedback and it was mostly negative, I know. I want to end off by saying that I did enjoy playing this! There is a lot of really good juice here, I especially like the way the chess board forms at the start of a match, how the cards come in to your hand, and all of the sound effects for performing actions. The style of the game is great, and this being a jam entry is SUPER impressive. It is very common for jam entries to suffer from these types of conveyance issues, and I think the underlying game here is fun and quite interesting. I hope this feedback is useful as you develop the game further, and that this didn't come across as too harsh!
Thank you for the constructive feedback. Your points are fair, we’ll take them on board. Your analysis won’t go to waste, it’s exactly this kind of input that helps indie games get better, thank you.
pretty cool roguelike. I think increasing the difficulty a bit and maybe making it a bit more clear what piece is the queen or the king would be helpful. I felt like the rare items were a bit too OP and just rolled through everything once I got all of them. I never even used the discard button and got 3906 when I won. different pieces should have different values like a queen being worth 5 and a pawn being worth 2 since I don't think having a queen and a pawn be the same price is a good idea since the queen is so much better.
3423 Highscore, awesome game. Could give a little bit more feedback about what is going on because it is sometimes hard to plan a game. Otherwise: BRILLIANT!
Full playthrough with feedback:
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Cool game!
Took me a minute to adjust my chess knowledge to unusual mechanics, but when it all clicked, the game was a lot of fun! I lost a couple of times, but then snowballed relatively effortlessly to the very end, winning the last several matches in one or two turns.
very cool
Fun game! The piece-based movement rules are very intuitive as long as you know chess. Something I think can be improved upon in this game however is the progression/scaling, as once you get 5 good cookies, shops stop feeling interesting because all there is to do is upgrade pieces (there's not much choice there either). More strategies/synergies to lean into would be cool, as well as a "deck fixing" method that lets you add, change, or remove pieces from your deck.
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wonderful game!
start button it's hard to find
you should indicate a king getting broken after a piece attacks it
and then the king gets resurrected with green glowing animation
and the game does suffer from clarity, it would be better if we had a more visual tutorial on the first level!
yeah I didn't realize I was taking damage for a few rounds, I'd just be pushed by the other pieces?? winning a round also wasn't clear for a bit, it just suddenly ends. fun game tho!
Nice game, good visuals and music. I was often confused when the round ends. Did I win? Did I get all the points? On the third hand I can only play one card? Or why did it end the round? When do I unlock better food or is it always available? Also when hovering over my deck cards where it shows what they do I see the king on the pawn card and in general the deck info felt a little buggy. Sometimes I hover over something and nothing shows, sometimes only when I hover over the edge. Also I assumed the enemy player has cards of his own but he plays kind of normal chess? Sometimes he said he couldn't move a piece, but only because he should have moved another beforehand, so the order is a little messed up. Also: Is it over when I defeat their king? Sometimes there is no enemy king in play? Would be nice to see some more info/reasons why a round ends and how many points I got. Still a very fun game! Keep it up :)
This is a fun game and I like the concept!
Overall it suffers from lack of clarity. Why am I losing lives if the pieces aren't ever actually attacking me? I understand that I'm in danger, but an animation to show them attacking or a more clear explanation of how losing health works would be great. There's also just a lot of stuff on the screen at once in the shop. Balatro separates the Blind selection from the shop for a reason, it gives the player a clear understanding of what choice they're meant to be making at that time. There are 2 types of things to purchase in the shop, but everything is very close to each other in the center because the deck UI is still on screen. Also, selecting a blind doesn't serve any purpose without the ability to skip a blind, it may be worth it to remove blind selection altogether and replace it with a Next button. Each food item should also have a specific food tied to the description, it was very confusing seeing 2 different foods in the shop that do the same thing. Only being able to play 2 cards is told to the player but is never shown during gameplay, and their is no live score total, just your current score and the multiplier, but I can't actually see what that score is at a glance. Some transparency on how much a move is about to score would be nice too.
If you take anything away from this: there is too much information on the shop screen, and it makes it difficult to understand the important information. Personally, I would give the Blind selection a separate screen after the shop or remove it entirely, and I would remove the hand section on the right, but maintain the run information and current foods/artifacts. Also, a new run should probably start either straight into the first blind or give the blind selection screen without the shop, as we don't have enough money to buy anything.
That was a lot of feedback and it was mostly negative, I know. I want to end off by saying that I did enjoy playing this! There is a lot of really good juice here, I especially like the way the chess board forms at the start of a match, how the cards come in to your hand, and all of the sound effects for performing actions. The style of the game is great, and this being a jam entry is SUPER impressive. It is very common for jam entries to suffer from these types of conveyance issues, and I think the underlying game here is fun and quite interesting. I hope this feedback is useful as you develop the game further, and that this didn't come across as too harsh!
Thank you for the constructive feedback. Your points are fair, we’ll take them on board. Your analysis won’t go to waste, it’s exactly this kind of input that helps indie games get better, thank you.
a great game!! please continue working on it and release it!!
thank you so much, we will!
Steam release?
Also 60/40 revenue share is not fair I guess. Fair is 30/70(for you).
Yes, absolutely, we’re already working on it. The game has huge potential, the only issue for now is finding a publisher(
pretty cool roguelike. I think increasing the difficulty a bit and maybe making it a bit more clear what piece is the queen or the king would be helpful. I felt like the rare items were a bit too OP and just rolled through everything once I got all of them. I never even used the discard button and got 3906 when I won. different pieces should have different values like a queen being worth 5 and a pawn being worth 2 since I don't think having a queen and a pawn be the same price is a good idea since the queen is so much better.
3423 Highscore, awesome game. Could give a little bit more feedback about what is going on because it is sometimes hard to plan a game. Otherwise: BRILLIANT! Full playthrough with feedback:
This is awesome. CONGRATULATIONS!!! I literally just built a Balatro inspired game as well but yours is WAY more original. Hats off to you!
this is DEF based on balatro nice game tho!!!
great game Bro! Love it very much. Never give up making this. You can do it bro