Roguelike Deck Builder Hydra Simulator

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Yes, we made a roguelike deck builder in 3 days! You play as a Hydra, and summon heads (i.e. play cards) to fight off enemy waves. You can move the heads for targeting and ability triggering, and also upgrade them with mutations in-between waves.

The most challenging part was coming up with a design that is both fun and fits the theme. We first tried an idea where you get a random head each turn, but scrapped it because it was much more firepower than you need, especially in the early game. Then we thought that you'd already have the heads in play, and your task is to just reposition them, which didn't quite fit the theme. In the end we found the golden middle - you draw cards from a deck that has finite amount of heads, and you can expend it during the game!

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The design for the heads also saw a couple of iterations. Since the only head that deals damage (Headacher) can be easily lost if you are not careful enough, we wanted to give players a recovery tool. This is how we came up with the "stun attacker" idea. It can block and stun an enemy that is about to attack, and gives you a chance to strike with your beautiful yet fragile Headacher.

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Combo, baby!

Also the Masterhead initially was the one that draws you cards, and you could theoretically win the wave after you lose it, but we scrapped the idea because it wasn't intuitive enough.

There were other struggles like crunching almost all the time and not having the playable prototype early enough, but we're happy we made it through and we're happy with the game we made!

Play it here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/55/hyper-hydra