Very nice short little game. It really isn't long enough to make the game difficult, but I enjoyed the few levels that there are. If you were to continue this idea, I would like to see a little more agency for the battles. Even just mashing would make them feel more like a proper encounter and less like a resource check. Keep up the good work!

@zettasimp Thank you for playing! Fair point regarding battles. We were thinking about adding at least some rock-paper-scissors kind of mechanic but then just got overwhelmed by staff.

5/5, 10/10

I liked the style, the roguelite model also works good. The level curve is pretty good. For the LD - it is solid experience. The only request for this version - to make popup's bigger. Now on my screen they look quite small.
Also i liked the separate screen for combat, which might be the start for comple combat mecs.

thanks for the game! Finely made design :))

Pretty solid game jam entry. Even though it was quick, there was a lot of story decisions and features in it. Fun boardgame like RPG, nice work!

@jackshadow Thnak you for playing! UI definitely needs a lot of work still. You should’ve seen it on day two, it was way worse! xD

Nice little Game. I like the graphics and the feel overall. The texts are sometimes a lot. Some sound effects additional to the music would be nice. Great Submission!

Really fun! The evil cave cat is cute. This feels like a game people would genuinely want to play—it definitely has the potential to become a full release.

The graphics are phenomenal and the gameplay is very engaging while the sound design and lore set such an opressing atmosphere that it was impossible to keep myself concentrated. I did feel a certain lack of strategy or expansion though. One more 10x10 map and/or a new enemy type would make this a solid 5 stars. It would also be great if we had the ability to be the Boshy, keep on improving!!1!

Really complete work! Art, music,and the animation performance are integrated very nicely.and like the strategy gameplay so much

I really liked the gameplay, I don't remember seeing anything like this tactical game style. If they add animations, sound effects in the fights and change the music when changing scenes, it will be great. It has great potential.

Game play so nice, i need to play it again later)!

This was really good! I had two funny things happen to me: First i won the game at precisely 0 life and energy. Another run I lost both of my attack power and became defenceless :P

The atmosphere with the music, story bits and art is great, I was completely sucked into the game and it did feel like an experience, especially with the ending screen.

Won at my first try, maybe I was lucky or it would need some balancing, but anyways this is a great entry!

I was almost worried that I couldn't reach the bottom with my limited power but turns out I could spend HP for that and did win on my first try.
If the deeper rooms were different or darker, it might give better impression of going deeper. But it is good game nonetheless.

Well designed game !

Awesome aesthetic. Love the art style that you put together. I especially really liked the outro scene with all of the gears. The transition of the character going into the ground was also neat.

For the gameplay itself - there was some room for decision making but because of the randomness of tiles in terms of their benefits it felt a little arbitrary in terms of whether you would end up getting the pieces that you would need to win. Creating more space for the player to make decisions that meaningfully interact with the outcome would make things feel a bit more engaging. Maybe a currency that enemies drop that you can then use to purchase things?

Really cool game though - I had fun playing through it!

Good job team, that's quite a game to make in the short time frame. Definitely felt like it was hard to direct my choices with reasoning behind them, but that can just be not understanding the mechanics well enough yet. Thanks for making it, props to the artists and programmers!

@keely-brown @brian-russell Thanks for playing and thank you for your feedback, guys. The game is quite random and unbalanced indeed, we weren't able to fully tackle those issues during the jam, those are not easy ones ;( We now have an idea for a combat mechanic and plan to work on it for the post-jam version. Our current goals are to introduce a proper combat system (which will also allow for more meaningful character progression mechanics) and to add more interesting tiles - like a shopkeeper you've mentioned, and tiles that interact with the surrounding environment. That should help improve things in that area.

Still a long way to go, though :D

A nice game with a great atmosphere!
Is the music dynamic? It feels like there is a new instrument for every new floor. Great game!
If I could wish for something, frankly it would be a skip button for the battles. They are a bit slow and as far as I know no RNG or other effects, so I knew the outcome of a battle by looking at the numbers and seeking how many turns they take and just watch it play out.

In general the game feels like every choice is trading resources, which I like. Feels a bit like an old school pyhsical table top game haha

Speaking of feelings:
Tell me... Is there any positive outcome for events at all?? I felt like I lost resources with every event, but then again, I never chose to ignore because I wanted to see what you were cooking. My curiosity got the better of me. :(

I expected this game to just be a tile-based strategy game, but the adventure game elements were really neat. I enjoyed exploring the question mark tiles to find new tidbits, and I wish I could explore more and solve some of the mysteries of this underground robot world!

I think the strategy gameplay itself could use some fleshing out. Combat was just a number check, and the energy for movement wasn't that engaging - item cases rarely gave you back your energy, so the best strategy was just beelining for the exit. My first run I ran out of energy on level 3, but for whatever reason I could still move for several turns before the game killed me. Then my second run I found an event tile that gave me so much energy I didn't have to worry anymore. I might rethink the energy & health economy and add some more layers of strategy to managing them - or maybe some more interesting things to find in the environment.

Overall, very unique take on this genre!

I really liked the entry. The presentation is consistent and polished (separate screens for fights look great). Initially I was confused why I could continue after my energy was depleted though (saw in another comment that life is consumed instead) - the mechanics here was either not communicated or I didn't register it. The battle mechanic is simple, but works - ideally, there would be some strategy to it. I liked the idea in general, the atmosphere is on point. Great job, congrats!

@tosmaster Hey! Thank you for playing and for the feedback! We really took some inspiration from physical tabletops. Valid points regarding battle. It's more like a resource tradeoff indeed, and a battle palceholder to add some vibes. And also a statement, like, "hey, here could be a full-scale battle mechanic" xD. There are definetly positive outcomes for events, I guess you just was a bit out of luck at the time :D

@sam-gorman @marudziik Thank you, guys! Yes, there is a mechanic, that you are losing HP when you can't lose energy. It's intended, cause we didn't want the energy to be such a fatal limitation. However, it is really not communicated at all, that's a fair point, thanks for bringing it up!

Music was great, gameplay was fun, all was very clean! Well done

I really enjoyed playing :) Needed two tries but got it in the end. I like the choices you have on the question marks and the graphic style

Its very nice!

The game is great whether it is the sound that fits the genre of the game and its graphics, or the original gameplay. I played twice so it's nice to notice that cards are randomized. However the only issue I had is that it doesn't do anything to run out of energy, that's probably a bug (after looking at the previous comments, it seems you lose HP when it happens, but I didn't notice it so a visual indicator would be nice to add). Well done !

A bit short so never got too challenging but there are some nice systems here and it's a neat idea to plan a route with risk and reward. Cool with a battle system as well although it's pretty simplistic so far. Art and music is nice but I wish there were some sound effects as well.

Cool and fun game with some great art!

That's good I like it

This was a wonderful experience. I love the setting and the vibe of this game. The over world exploration and event choices were a really nice experience. It was pretty cool seeing the board expand with each layer. My only complaint is that it was too short :)

Interesting game, the concept was nice. Reminded me a bit of Card Thief which was nice and fun. Really cute graphice definitly enjoyed it :)

One of my favorites! I was succesfull on my first try, but only with one heart left. :D

I like the lore going on in this game with the mechanical wheels. Could read even more of it.

The changing music was a wonderful touch! Only complaint here is, that some instruments were too overwhelming compared to the others. Could use some sound mixing.

The endscreen was fantastic! Really liked that and the visuals were nicely done. It seemed very polished overall. Congrats for making this little gem! :)

Neat game, the artwork was charming and the puzzly path-choosing was interesting and felt like it had good tradeoffs. I didn't like the combat -- it seemed completely deterministic, which is fine but it could have been handled quickly instead of making the player wait for the whole animation OR it could have more strategic choices. The narrative bits and flavor text were a lot of fun and set this one apart from similar games.

Its a cool game!!! I love it. My only complaint was that its too short.

Nice game. I like the choicec you need to make and that you lose life if your energy is out. I thought at first, that the game would end.
As other have said, combat lacks a litte strategy. Maybe let us chose, if we want to attack or defend or something. Also, I found the popup text to be a litte small.

Overal a nice, short game.

I loved this entry. Okay, so the combat was very simplistic, I didn't seem tog et penalized at all for running out of energy meaning most navigation choices weren't that deep, and the experience was very short, BUT the atmosphere was impeccable. The music track adding a layer with each descent and the map growing, the appealing art, and the haunting combination of audio and text elements all hit just right. Good job.

edit: I guess I just didn't notice taking damage when out of energy!