Thoughts after the first five hours

[Lance F]

First of all, nice job, it runs on my potato without a problem!

Then my first impressions:
The positives:
- Don't need to mash my mouse button
- The RNG makes it enjoyable even on replay
- The attention to little things, like the character model changing with lost health
- Pick up items not staying out of bounds
- Being able to re-roll the starting character
The negatives:
- Can't close the pop-up windows in the main screen, only the archives (I guess it will be fixed in later iterations, but it was still a source of annoyance)
- The upgrades are not intuitive. I can see the tokens I have earned so far in the main screen, but it took me some time to figure out how and where to use them. Maybe add a tooltip or only display in the windows, where they are used, or add a highlight to the icons to where to use them when howering over the tokens.
- The soul shards have too many type of buff choices in the pool and the RNG often works against the player, stopping the flow of the gameplay, so the player can decide which option could even be considered beneficial, or making them blow all of their re-rolls and still ending up with something useless. Maybe add a different colored shard, with a different drop rate, and separate buffs that actively affect gameplay (like +dmg, or +atk speed), and those that passively affects it (like drop rate modifiers or re-roll chances).
- Debuffs, like being poisoned or bleeding not being clearly indicated took me sometime to understand why I am loosing health. An icon next to the health bar would be nice, so my lizard brain doesn't go on a spin to figure out what I am suddenly doing wrong.

The gameplay overall was nice and enjoyable. There were some minor annoyances, like the mobs spawning too far in the initial phase and having to run around to collect the Xp, or making a good build and killing the mobs too fast and having to do the same to collect Xp, or the purple orb attacks blending in with the visual clutter of the mobs and inadvertantly running into one, despite them being slow. But I guess, I just have to get good.

Also, I would like to know more about to what degree the full version will allow cutomization.
Like adding or taking out abilities to the RNG pool, or what choices are locked behind the gold soul coins in the other abilities that I could not unlock after spending the three available.
I'm also interested in how stage progression looks like in later gameplay if each stage starts from zero. Will there be more developed starting characters with equipment in the starting choices, or will the player have to grind for half an hour at each stage to progress?
Will there be boss only stages and how they would be solved so the character have to be built up from zero?

Anyway, thanks for the demo, I will go and back and grind it a bit more.

[Irmstoi]

First of all, thanks for the well-constructed feedback, Lance F. I’ll write these up for future reference.

You can farm more gold coins in the demo by killing the last boss of Coastal Cave. In the full version, there will be multiple sources for this, and you can also expect the ability upgrade system to change (I'm currently iterating on the design for it).

Each stage starts from zero in the full game as well, but there will be different gameplay modes available. Additionally, there’s a plan to add "uber" boss fights that will feature sped-up progression and the possibility to restart the fight with your character and gear intact.

The full version will also include additional character build options that are not present in the demo.

[Lance F]

It seems I was the victim of my own negligence and stubbornness. I have farmed the first two stages then jumped to infinity mode to try out some different builds after finally beating Coastal Cave with the build I have been trying to push for. It seems like I will have to go back and grind a bit more. Oh, well, people have to do what they have to do.

I forgot to mention that I really liked the idea of having an "event" on the stage where you can farm additional equipment and stats. After running the stage several times I was kind of looking forward to it when they will arrive.

If I can recommend, just go with one idea of gameplay and release additional game modes later on - either as an update, a DLC, or just as a game+ feature. Having too many options on how to play the game will just leave the player wonder how it is "best" to play the game. I know from experience that what people are looking for is to have their hand held for an unique experience - however contradictory that may seem.

I'm looking forward to how the game will turn out!