Love to see this game getting some updates! Its one of the most unique games on here, both in artstyle and gameplay. I would like to give some feedback on the gameplay
Trongle :
The Good:
- Love the Mercenary system! It gives the player a way to compensate for weaknesses and add some damage on the field.
- I see that some enemy HP has been nerfed and more upgrades drop. A much needed change.
The Problems:
1. The major problem imo is that the field gets flooded by enemies too quickly as the heroines lack the DPS to clear the field. This eliminates the main way the player has to influence the battle - Moving the enemies.
The second area in particular is very frustrating because of it. Two blue bugs near each other surrounded by enemies? GG. A charged up green bug but an enemy in front of him prevents movement? Get fucked.
A few ideas come to mind:
-Make the enemies stronger, but fewer. This would leave enough tiles to use the movement mechanic to keep them out of their danger zones.
-Make the enemies MUCH weaker, but keep the current swarm. Seriously, 2 - 3 enemies with an average of 30 HP spawning every turn? With some of them being able to stop/reduce Damage and counter you if you attack them? Then add a mechanic where killed enemies spawn a 20 HP mushroom that can attack you from everywhere and its a desaster.
-Make movement able to prevent reinforcements. If an enemy blocks the path for a reinforcing unit, it cant enter for one turn. This can only work once, next turn the enemy will bypass the blocking unit, or push it like it works now.
2. An enemy sexing a heroine is too unpredictable and there us a lack of counterplay. This is made worse by the flood of enemies illustrated in point 1.
The current system encourages you to clear enemies as fast as you can, not spread damage around. But you have no control over who fucks your heroine, so often she gets captured by one of the full HP enemies. Then since many enemies prioritize attacking heroines in their zones, losing the heroine means a desastrous lack of DPS to focus the guy holding her.
If the knight gets sexed by the 40 HP mushroom guy in her zone? GG. Ninja gets fucked by the 40 HP guy in her zone? GG. Or even better the blue Bug, since these guys need to be moved first then attacked to circumvent their buff.
There needs to be a counterplay for this. Right now it's neither rewarding, nor fun.
A few ideas come to mind:
- Let the mercenaries carry over from zone 1 to zone 2. This will add much needed DPS in the second stage.
-Make it so that the sexing enemy is considered vulnerable and takes full/more damage from the other heroines. This is honestly the most logical and straightforward solution.
-Solving the issues in point 1. will alleviate this problem too, since less but stronger enemies makes working around the mechanic easier and helps predict who will fuck the heroine next. Alternatively, all around weaker enemies will solve this too.
-Make the sexed heroine be able to attack her captor. This is an interesting choice, since it will actually make being sexed a reward and buff the sex power skills. It could be a strategy to actively lower the sex resist of the heroine so she gets fucked more often & gets the sex buff again and again. Would fit the point of the game too, encouraging the player to actively seek out getting fucked by enemies.
3. The claw game is too slow. Please it KILLS ME.
4. I would love more progress between the runs that helps future runs. Not only horizontal progression, but vertical.
Side quests where you unlock additional items the heroines can bring at the start?
Skill trees for the heroines where you can specialize/improve them? Or different equipment? Imagine throwing axes for the Archer that deals 15 damage consistently, but no chance at double damage. Or a spear for the knight that deals more damage but only knocks back one.
The Mercenary system is great, why not have a way to unlock to take one with you at the start of your run?
This would be no doubt a lot of work and more of a goal after the main areas, but I think it would encourage replayability and add a sense of progress.
All in all I would say the major flaw is that the game has a lot of "You lose, get fucked" moments with no counterplay. I remember that the devs major design idea was that the game should be difficult and getting to the end should be a rare occurrence, but the way it is right now is a wrong approach IMHO. Why not just program it to randomly crash 9/10 times during a run with such a mindset?
There needs to be a counter to this.
-Dark Souls difficulty: The balancing could be adjusted in a way that most of the time a loss is caused by bad play and the player learns with each attempt.
-Hades difficulty: Vertical progress is implemented and each run makes the heroines stronger, improving stats, giving abilities/items they get at the start, mercenaries...
Imo vertical progression is the most sensible one. It fits the theme of the game and would make each run satisfying even if you get fucked by RNG.
If the dev sticks to the current design, I predict it will suffer from the following:
1. A lot of content past floor 2 will be rarely seen, since most people will get inevitably defeated by then.
2. Immense player frustration due to lack of skill/decision impact, defeat feels unfair and victory feels like dumb luck.
3. Gameplay actively discourages seeing sex scenes -> Gameplay is in conflict with the purpose of the game.
-This leads to most people cheating/just using the gallery, or just dropping the game outright.
Seriously, I want to underline how important point 1 is. If you plan to design a game that you lose 9/10 times, that means players will see floor one many times more than the other floors. At the same time, the first floor has limited content and more importantly is the most boring one! So trongle, if you stick to your plans, you either have to fit 90% of the content in the first 2 foors, or change how you approach it. There must be a way to reliably reach to the end, either by skill, or unlocks.