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

I love the pixel art and wish they did the animations with it instead because when 2D lewd scenes are made not well enough, it doesnt really put you in the mood atleast for me. Otherwise if 2D art and animation gets better attention to them, could be really nice too. No offense to the artist. Both pixel and 2d art is nice. It just needs a lot more polishing to be more effective in a lewd sense.

Loved the gameplay, finished the game on my first run because after getting a hold of some strats like no cost attacks with draw card defenses, which gives no cost strikes again, you can win pretty much any fight. Liked the shop system too but didnt know I had to unequip the cards first to be able to sell them which made me waste my first shop. Would appreciate if we can sell the equipped cards on deck too. Also I dont know other peoples opinions on this but I would rather be able to have sex in any encounter. Like even if i win I want the option to be able to fuck. And because of that losing completely after getting full corruption for a hentai game may not be the best way to put it.

Im giving it 4 star for now due to these issues and not having enough content. May update it to 5 after it gets updated.

Well, after finally giving this game a try.. I have to say that it has surprised me quite a lot, and in a good way

First of all, the story of the game:

As the game is still in development, there really isn't much of it but the premise given at the beginning was nice. I liked how it was portrayed and the events that led to Taya's fall into the dungeon. The dialogues were also quite nicely written, although there isn't exactly much of it as of yet

The art of this game is also surprisingly good, I like the design of the characters, the pixel art part is quite good as well, scenes are pretty good and they don't feel extremely long which is a problem I tend to have with other games. It was quite fun and enjoyable all the way through

Now, I think there are some balancing problems to take into consideration. The first thing that I noticed is that enemies feel quite strong from the get-go, you start off with the little slime which is honestly an interesting fight to start off in this world but then as you explore the dungeon, every fight you take part of feels hard. You can still beat the enemies but you'll likely be taking a beating yourself

I think enemies should become harder the further you go into the dungeon, so the power spike is more fair as you get more cards and build your deck

Another thing that caught my attention is the corruption build-up. I feel like you gain way too much corruption when you're defeated. 20 points of corruption per defeat is too much in my opinion, and even though you can still go on through the dungeon, if you get defeated again that makes it 40.. and then 60.. and then you max out corruption very very quickly, which might be what the creator is aiming for.. the character ending up corrupted enough which could maybe affect the ending. This probably wouldn't be a problem if we were given ways to decrease our corruption build-up, but so far we don't really have that.

Another thing that I feel like needs a bit of tinkering is the shop. I personally visited the two current shops in the dungeon and it felt like you needed to trade too many cards or resources in order to be able to buy something and you don't exactly find too many things as of yet, despite the fact that the dungeons are relatively big.

To balance this, it would probably be a good idea to spread more resources around the dungeon, so you don't feel "forced" to trade a good card you have for the value of the item. Or enemies when you defeat them could give both things cards and something they might've carried around with them. I honestly decided not to buy anything from the shop just to keep everything I have.

On a good note though, I think the shopkeeper gives some nice background into the world of this game which I appreciated.

And lastly, the "content".

While there were a couple encounters that were different outside of the whole combat aspect, the events and thus sex scenes kind of revolved around fighting a lot (and losing, most of the time). There weren't many ways to build up your deck if it wasn't for the fights, so the dungeon itself kind of felt empty. There also wasn't much liberty when it comes to scenes. For example, the demon boy that is stuck in the wall (which, by the way, is the only ever scene you can get without fighting), if it hypnotizes you during the encounter (which is a 100% chance of it happening, since you look at his eyes too much) will end up asking the character for help getting him off and to suck him. I tried going back to the other side of the wall where his genitals are but you don't really have the option to help him off.. and I assume it's the same demon, since you don't really find any others afterwards

It would be cool if you could have the choice to actually follow through with that and suck him off, hell.. maybe even try to find a way to unstuck him and maybe make him your companion.. since the game does talk about NPCs at the beginning that could help you out or accompany you in your journey. And now that I think about it, getting a companion could potentially make enemies feel a bit more balanced as they would need to defeat the both of you, instead of just defeating Taya alone and getting quite high values of corruption.

It also feels like once the events happen, that character suddenly ceases to be.. even if you go to the place where you've found them, they're no longer there.. This to me is a little weird, and it kind of makes the world a little boring. I would like it if the characters you've once found were still there and you can interact with them, talk about them a little bit, maybe they can give more hints about the lore.. maybe you can manage to get them as companions, maybe if your relationship is high enough with them you can have a bit of sexy fun going on, which would make the events less grindy. I definitely think this game could use some more interacting to make going through the dungeon more amenable and fun.

And speaking of grindy, it would probably be a good idea to have a gallery of sorts down the road if you want to replay the scenes you've got.. instead of having to go through the dungeon from the start.

Overall though, I really really like this game and I look forward to the new content.

This review is addressed towards version 0.1.5 of the game. And I just want to point out before I leave, for those of you that may be wondering, this is NOT a fully-developed game.. it is still being developed

v 0.1.4 review

Pros
+ Concept is good. It's a rougelike with card game elements for battles. Like Slay the Spire

Cons
- I don't have a problem with WASD controls for movement, but the slanted orientation of the map is jarring when combined with WASD (e.g. Up is north east, right is south east).
Suggestion: It would be better if the map was simply in bird's eye view without a slant. Up is North, right is East. Ideally with WASD, arrow keys or mouse click to enter the room you want

- Way too much text. I find that I'm mashing Enter all the time to skip through dialogue, just so I can play the game.
Suggestion: There needs to be a button you can hold to skip dialogue (like Ctrl). Ideally text boxes just display all the text at once, as opposed to mashing Enter

- Monsters deal too much dmg too soon. My second encounter had 3 monsters. One of them had 30 HP, buffed on turn 1, did 24 dmg on turn 2, followed by 13 dmg on turn 3. The other two had 18 HP, and did 3-5 dmg. The fight after that, I was fighting 4 enemies and one of them buffs. It's impossible to avoid taking damage early on.
Suggestion: The game needs to give you a chance to gain cards safely on the first level before bringing in tougher enemies and more enemies.

- I don't like "click and drag" to use cards, it wears down your left click and sometimes the game registers the wrong target when you use a card on an enemy in a 4 enemy encounter.
Suggestion: when a card is clicked it, it's selected and then when you click on your character or the monster you want the card to be used on.

- When the enemy's next turn says: "Enemy is applying a buff!".
Suggestion: It should tell you what type of buff it's applying, who it's targeting, and how much of a buff. There's too much guess work at the moment

- (Bug) When the enemy has Protection: Stacks 1. I used 2 Quick Jabs and it did 0 damage. The other monster kept protecting the targeted enemy, beyond 1 hit.

- (Bug) The defensive enemy next turn was only "apply defensive buff". It did an attack, while also buffing

- The shop items are a bit overpriced compared to the money you get from selling. A relic costs 12, while a card you sell can cost 1-2. You'd have to sell 10-11 cards to be able to afford it

- Shop's relics don't explain what certain key words do (e.g. Inspire, Potency)

- Monsters should have names. So it's easier to refer to them

- No Gallery to replay unlocked scenes

- I'm not a big fan of the art. I don't think the H-scenes are done particularly well

Conclusion:
This is very early in development, so a lot could change. I like the concept, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. As much as I want to give this game a better rating, I can't when the gameplay is janky, the H-scenes are not appealing, and there's wall and walls of text.

Nice! A very well thought out and designed game compared to most. Happy that it involves some of my favorite genres. It ignores a lot of tedium that most games have and focuses a lot on content. The traits could have more of a description on what they do. Some graphics settings would be fantastic but all and all a very solid game.

The game kind of feels like a crossover between Slay the Spire and Trap Quest.
It's good but as of v0.1.4 it is kind of short and in my opinion the art/animation could use a little bit of a touch-up.

Never the less I did enjoy myself so, good job.

Very basic but functional game. The art... I do like the pixel art, I dont like the art for events that much. It isnt that dificult, with a good deck I guess, and if you know what the enemies are throing at you. Well... I guess the dificulty might be just fine. I like that you can build a deck out of the cards you have and sell off your unused card, needs some more variety of course. Good start.