WASarD Demo 2024

As someone who doesn't play roguelite/roguelike games, I had a blast with it! (and I beat it in the first run, so it is probably too easy for veterans of the genre). I also love the art style, but I was a little bit confused by the discrepancy between the perspective in which the environment is drawn (top down) and the one in which the characters are drawn - especially the wizard seems to be a character from a platformer. Good luck with further development!

Thanks everyone for all the feedback so far! It's been super helpful. I'm working on a patch to try and address some of the more immediate issues.

Well done!

Nice prototype, addictive gameplay. Kudos!

Ward unlock screen can have a bit more love:
- When a first tier ward is highlighted, if I go down it shows the price for the last tier for the next row. I would expect it to show the same tier or the earliest one.
- The cost is a bit unreadable at first glance. Maybe add the essence icon next to it?
- For each row of a ward, Instead of radio buttons, it can be a progress bar or something in that sense that gives the "upgrading" feeling.

Great demo! I've been listening to your podcast so it was nice to finally see all the things you were talking about :)

While playing I kept wishing for a shield of some sort, or being able to shoot at the fireballs as a form of defense.

I got to the baby dragon boss, and while it's very challenging with the slimes and everything, it felt like the charge attack was too slow and often didn't aim at me at all. If the charge attack is made faster, maybe make it wait until there aren't many fireballs on screen though. I had a lot of fun playing the demo, great work!

Weird behavior while playing on dualshock 4. (maybe there's no deadzone and one of the analogs is slightly pushed?) This persisted even when I was playing on keyboard with the DS4 plugged in.

The enemies move on the same speed, if not for the slime looks like they're the same enemy with different sprites. (Snake, bat and mini-slime). I don't remeber seeing bats flying above walls.

Maybe give me the info on how much life every enemy have, or if an enemy is near death so I can take better decisions on which enemy I should focus on.

If it was me designing it, I would totally make the hearts fade after a few seconds to create tension. (and maybe create an upgrade do delay it?)

I don't know how i feel about getting overwhelmed on a corner by a bunch of spawned enemies, i like the tension it creates but not having any available actions to get out of that situation is kinda of stressing. 

Liked the art and the sound effects. Hope to see it evolving, it surely have potential.

As someone who struggles with having to send sometimes contradictory signals to my hands in a twin-stick shooter (e.g. left hand up, right hand down/left) I have just learned than an auto-battling Binding of Isaac is what I need! Can't play Isaac because I can't do the twin stick thing.

Satisfying feel and weight to everything. I like that as a long time subscriber I can tell you made the hurt noise with your own voice but that may be good or bad from your point of view.

It seems like enemies can get stuck on scenery (trying to move directly toward player "through" a wall and therefore just pressing their face into the wall with no effect) -  the slimes seem particularly prone to this, didn't notice it with others but would assume snakes or other non-flying types might have a similar issue if their pathfinding is based on the same principles.

I was able to complete the demo after buying two permanent damage upgrades and one health upgrade although didn't really need the health. Not sure if that is useful to you or not. I think it was five attempts to get there.

Overall I liked it, found it had that "just one more go..." quality to it and like I say an Isaac auto-battler is apparently what I needed to be able to play this sort of game so while some might dislike that, I can tell you there's people who will eat it up.

Hey Ben!

Great job, it's a fun little game to play.  One bug I found was the golden heart upgrade didn't work for me.  Picking up golden hearts gave no health increases anymore.  The mixing of a high resolution font, with low resolution pixel art was a little jarring at first as well.  Maybe worth trying a low res font too to see if it fits the game better.

Seems like a good concept overall though, so good luck with your Kickstarter!

Very good game! I managed to beat it at my first try against the "Baby Draco" boss. Here is my feedback:

What I liked:

• The minimalistic art is clean and charming;
• The controls are very easy to learn;
• Backtracking is good for managing resources such as "extra" hearts on the floor;
• The minimap!
• The shop system is simple and easy to understand;
• The HUD!

Suggestions:

• The protagonist could shoot faster from the start;
• The protagonist could move faster from the start;
• Some enemies could have less hitpoints;
• The rooms get crowded really fast along the game, maybe bigger rooms could solve this. Or by having stronger enemies that would require a strategic approach to them (by strong I don't mean more hitpoints to defeat them);
• Add music! Also, the sound effects could be smoother;
• When a room has traps, maybe reducing the number of enemies in that room would make the gameplay more pleasant and flow better;
• The enemies could drop coins! (if they do, that rate could be bigger);
• The Baby Draco boss has too much hitpoints; How about reducing it a little bit;

Extra suggestions:

• The enemy projectiles could be animated (fireballs) and the player projectiles could leave a trail (subtle trail);
• Arrow traps! (not sure if the game already have them). By that I mean some kind of statue or whatever, that shoot arrows at intervals or... when the player steps on a "trap button"!
• Still traps such as "lava";
• A buddy for the player. How about a following fairy that shoots as well? Not sure if the game already have them;

That's it. Keep it up! The game is looking promising. Cheers!

It is too similar to the Binding of Isaac, except with the auto fire... which took away from the game play. It is a good prototype, and the auto fire would work well on mobile, but not on a console or machine. Is everything 2D on godot or did you use 3D and rendered it as 2D?

Also, the dogs the shot two fire bullets makes it so that they stand and shot, but if you stay right in front they can never get you, I think their logic needs to be tweaked a bit.

This is great, Ben! Well done  💪

I love it! The art direction is really on point here and the mechanic is good. You're really in to something here, Ben! I'd suggest balancing the initial stages to smooth out the game progression. But things are in a good direction here, for real.

You're on to something here, one thought is you might want to add a roll or dodge like in Diablo 4. something you can't spam, but can get out of a pickle once in a while. The limited use turns it into more planning. space bar would be great. The rooms are very small and tight and sometimes there is no escape from a corner and no amount of skill will get you out of it.

I love it! Would balance the upgrades in a different way but I really like the concept! I suggest having more impactful and cheaper upgrades right at the start, to reinforce the sense of progression.