Unity Abandoned The Bard's Trail [v0.1.5] [Studio 80085]

3.70 star(s) 6 Votes
Discussion Reviews (6)
Eatyourdessertfirst!

Eatyourdessertfirst!

Leg Enthusiast
Game Developer
Sep 22, 2017
243
546
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Overview:
The Bard's Trail is a fantasy roguelike dungeon crawler with a tactical card based combat system.
Our hero, a treasure hunting adventurer elf named Taya, gets confined in a cursed dungeon and has to find her way out, preferably with her sanity still intact.
The sprawling caves are the domain of many dangers: like hidden traps, horny monster girls, monster boys and perhaps... somewhere deep beneath... an ancient evil!
Along the way Taya will meet a wealth of colorful characters, some might provide aid on her long journey while others will lie and decieve to take advantage of the young treasure hunter.
Nevertheless, Taya has to press on deeper through the maze. Unbeknownst to her... she might just be following... The Bard's Trail.​

Thread Updated: 2022-07-26
Release Date: 2022-07-25
Developer: Studio 80085
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Censored: No
Version: 0.1.5
OS: Windows
Language: English
Genre:
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KuraScropia

KuraScropia

Newbie
Jun 26, 2018
59
63
Ohhh, nice to see ya and what you were working on after A Shade of Pink.

Would there be corruption kinda similar to that? Even just a bit is fine. (Change of color pallet, mannerisms, even corrupting allies/teammates)
 
EthanB86

EthanB86

Member
Jun 7, 2020
448
671
game was great, maybe some way to replenish resolve would be nice, maybe there was a way and i just missed it idk, but decent game you got going :) also i think every good game needs a skill tree or skill system and level ups, im no developer tho lol
 
N

nightburn12

Newbie
Jul 7, 2017
46
71
The game has a good concept and the scenes there are excellent. I do not like the fact that I cannot save and heal in or out of combat. I really dislike getting to the boss room with 10hp and knowing I am going to lose no matter what I do. The only way to not have so little was to have rng not to encounter so many fights. Idk maybe a level-up system to reward fighting and provide some way to heal. Or just rooms that have a healing event?

Gaining corruption did not really impact the gameplay so far but it would be cool if it at least impacted the losing scenes.

I know I listed negatives but overall I enjoy the combat and everything was smooth with no bugs at all.
 
X

X_Machina

Newbie
Jun 17, 2020
43
117
First Impressions (v0.1.4):

It has potential. The card game mechanics are simple but expandable (It is basically Slay the Spire after all. EDIT: However, the deckbuilding part is different and needs to be properly balanced. Please see my later post regarding that). The dungeon itself is alright, I wish there were maybe paths on the ground to show how each room connects to each other rather than having to rely on doors, but it's good.

I'm not sure how to raise lewdity as well as what raises corruption. Even just a small "You gain 10 Corruption." after events would be helpful.

You might want to add a reminder in rooms when you lose / surrender to enemies. After you lose / surrender to an enemy, there's nothing indicating that once you step back into that room, you have to fight them all over again. Adding symbols to know what rooms you can explore (Battle, Event, Shop, Boss, Etc.) would also be nice.

Enemy design is annoying. Usually in these games, the goal is to preserve as much HP as possible. However, enemies almost always come in groups and have enough HP to avoid getting OTK'd. And even if they do get OTK'd, you won't have enough energy to defend against attacks and preserve HP, meaning your HP will slowly dwindle no matter how well you play.

Similarly, I wish there was a way to heal HP. It's not a great feeling having to walk into a boss room with 2 HP knowing you're going to lose. I get that in this game you don't immediately lose when dropping to 0 HP, but it still feels bad seeing that number steadily drop. Maybe add a benefit to surrendering early like gaining lewdity, gaining a temp buff, or gaining less corruption so that players can be more strategic with losing to regain HP?

My biggest issue with this version though is that the size / resolution is jank for me. Perhaps it's because I'm playing on a laptop, but cards in the deck manager are too big so they show up offscreen so I can't manage 1/3rd of my cards and the boss's dialogue / intents don't show up on screen so I had to fight her blind.

It's a good foundation, but I honestly can't say much more until the game is further developed. Wish y'all the best of luck
 
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X_Machina

Newbie
Jun 17, 2020
43
117
One more thing for the developers: Be very careful about the deck manager function

Normally in deck building games you're not allowed to edit your deck. The reason is simple: If you could take out the weakest cards in your deck and keep in your strongest cards, why wouldn't you? Adding a deck manager allows players to create optimal and consistent builds and not have to worry about deck bloat. For example, what's stopping someone from making a deck with only 5 copies of Blade Flash (Sidenote: Nerf Blade Flash. There's no reason ever not to pick it over Strike.) and 5 copies of Quick Jab? Sure, they don't have any defensive cards, but they'll be able to do a large amount of damage consistently.

Because of that, the game functions more like a TCG rather than a Deckbuilder game. If you do keep the deck manager function, I have 3 recommendations:
  • Increase the Card Pool: This makes it much more unlikely to get duplicate cards and make a more consistent / optimal deck.
  • Increase the Minimum Deck Limit: The more cards there are in a deck, the less likely a person is to draw the cards they need. And while it sounds terrible for the player, it's a powerful tool for game balancing
  • Limit the Number of Duplicate Cards: If a player can only use a certain number of one card, then they can't fill their deck with just that card (Make sure not to limit basic strikes and blocks though). Seeing how small the card pool and minimum deck size is, this is highly recommended.

Of course, these recommendations are only for if you keep the deck manager and don't use the conventional drafting system. But still, I wish you the best of luck with developing the game and hope you keep my message in mind when balancing everything.
 
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X

X_Machina

Newbie
Jun 17, 2020
43
117
Taboo-Sho said:
OR! JUST MAYBE! They want their game to be easy for everyone to be able to get to the fap material? Or maybe they are fan of making stupid flashy OP builds that are fun to use cus they are OP.
Click to expand...
Fair. Personally, I prefer it when a game has a bit of balance and challenge to it. A porn game is still a game after all and just mindlessly running through a gauntlet without any challenge might be fun at the start, but I don't think you'd want to do it for very long. But hey, I'm just a random guy on the internet and they can aim for whatever they'd like
 
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JackTheSyco

JackTheSyco

New Member
Nov 24, 2017
8
7
Big fan of the last game.
If you hoped for something similar, then soo far there is no similarities, but still a good game with ALOT of potential.
 
Squidbit

Squidbit

Member
Jan 2, 2019
103
533
I played for probably 20 minutes and there's a couple things that really stopped me from enjoying it

The tank girls are tedious as hell. If they only had 10 defense from their ally protection I feel like they would be better, but as it is now they make it impossible to deal damage without taking damage in return

Also, I chose quick jab as my reward from 3 different fights and never got one added to my deck

Last thing is just a little quality of life, it'd be nice to be able to just click on the room to move there instead of the WASD in the corner.
 
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3.70 star(s) 6 Votes