First of all, I had a lot of fun playing the game! Spent a good couple of hours trying to beat it. I should say I haven't beat it, but I did feel like I made a lot of progress on my strategy. Was hard to understand the mechanics at the beginning, I had no clue what I was doing until later in the game. A little tutorial at the beginning would be nice. Also, enemy attacks sometimes feel unfair. Just because it's unclear of how they work and what dices they role each turn. Most games have a little diary about each enemy and more things the player might want to know about. With all that in mind, I still think you did a great job on the visuals and sound feedback. It was clear enough for me to get what's going on just by playing a bit more. Very well done! Love it.
I'm not sure if I've ever won up after facing that trio. They all deal high damage, and the axe guy deals even more if you don't constrain yourself to inefficient patterns. Even in the rare occasion that I win, my HP are so depleted that I can't survive anything but good luck in the next fight or two.
I've played several times, and while I've neve reached the final boss, I've had a bunch of fun!
Two criticisms I have of the Muscle Boost enemy: It's really, really unclear how that ability works, and it's pretty tough to counter.
For the longest time, I assumed that the Muscle Boost ability meant that putting dice in the red spaces would boost the enemy's damage, presumably proportionally to the numbers on those dice. Needless to say, they kept murdering me. The little muscly arm icon helps, but it's not clear what that means unless you intuit that there's an associated tooltip.
Second, it's tough to counter. Unless you have a decent number of hollow dice or low-level Boost dice, there aren't many useful formations you can put dice in that cover all three spaces. It feels like covering just one or two should have some effect, but it doesn't—put all three dice in a line or just eat double damage.
Anyways, despite that I'm still enjoying myself. Trying to figure out a good strategy to use. Probably need to remove dice more often...
And now I finally beat the game! I'd like to thank the heavy block dice for letting me turtle so dang much, and mirror dice for letting you pull off silly stunts. (It also helped that I figured out how the crown spaces work.)
(Especially since I accidentally closed the tab almost immediately afterwards.) Anyways, hollow and heavy dice are a ton of fun, and I'm disappointed that there isn't a way to add those qualities to dice you already have.
I played for around 1,5h and didn't manage to finish yet, but won't stop trying! Very nice game, love the art and idea for dice mechanics! First, I thought you used GMS2 to make it, but build told me otherwise :> Keep up the great work
I enjoyed the game with its pixel design as well as its combat system. I am hoping to see more games similar to this. I haven't beaten it yet but I will keep trying. Keep up the great work.
oooooh so how the jelly works is, once you cover up a slot with jelly it modifies dice placed on it so if you cover up a queen space and place a dice it gets *4 but if you do it on a regular honey you get*0.5
It looks like it doubles its damage unless you cover all three highlighted spaces. And it has to be all three—just covering one or two gives the same effect as not using any.
EDIT: Also it's an absolute pain in the butt if it's accompanied by enemies that heal it or grant it block, especially if there's multiple such enemies, especially if you have two such encounters right before the final boss, leaving you with basically no HP. (You can probably guess how my latest run ended.)
I love the addition of the honey dice but the boss can be a bit overpowered and confusing. It did something like 30 damage to me and completely wiped me out in one shot, even when I had 10+ shield. After a couple more tries I finally beat the game, the struggle with previous attemps and the realize that royal jelly tiles exist/how they work made the win much more satifying.
I know it says an hour, I took a break in the middle of it to draw. Always gotta follow the sudden insperation, otherwise half my art wouldnt exist.
It was good until the 20th floor, but it was difficult on the 20th floor. When honey dice fill up, there are cases where the necessary dice cannot be used.
The dynamic on the last one is nuts. The honey dice can be helpful but it depends on where things are. Wowzers. What an amazing, addicting, and extremely aggravating game! 10/10.
Okay I get that the crown slots affect the boss's attack. But it's really unclear how the honey dice affect it? And you need to play the honey dice without triggering an attack somehow. Or only triggering weak attacks. Hmm... Anyone figure this out??
The last boss is so OP. I don't understand how one hit can do like 25 damage on its first attack and totally wipe me out. Also it takes so long to get there. A save point would be fun. Ugh.
I can't seem to replicate the mirror die getting stuck, but the current behaviour is definitely not good, Mirror Dice shouldnt try to mirror Ant Dice. Thanks for the report.
Really fun and addictive game! I am truly impressed by the people who have beaten the game. The axe guy is brutally powerful, and coming across two at once is tough, esp when they each do 10 damage. Do they get the power-up if a heavy die is stuck in their slot? It seems they do 10 damage regardless.
Also I still have not the slightest clue about the last boss. How did you all figure this out? And how/when do you decide to remove dice?
Well a poop is AMAZING because if you upgrade it once it turns into The Holy, which is a 6 attack every time! But it does require that upgrade. However I think maybe some boosts might not be helpful by the end. Especially an un-upgraded one. And upgrading a boost only upgrades from 1/2 chance of it being a 1 to 1/3 chance of being a 1, while introducing the 3.
SERIOUSLY??????????? Ididn't know you could upgrade poop... Well thats a game changer for sure. Ya, I don't like boosts. Because a power 2 boost is better than power three, just because it has way more points of impact.
Thats for sure, part of a good deck is just the balance sometimes, but even with a balanced deck, you can start your turn with no boosts or defence, wich is pretty much your death.
Thanks for making this great game. So much strategy now with the final boss. I feel like removing cards from your deck is much weaker because of the bloat from the Queen Bee. Choose a card is crazy good late game because you almost always get a top tier card and you are thickening your deck against the honey dies. Still not sure what the Bee's attack pattern is.
I got some good rng here buddy chum pal this is hard at start but main the attak dice first if you can remove the boost dice in the middle dungons so you have more consistaint damage
The art used in this game was so cute and such a fun game as I was able to move around all the places that I wanted to go and the levels of the game was very equal.
A cute game that enforces strategic thinking. Played it instead of studying, but the game is worth every failed class. Couldn't manage to get further level with two hammer beetles and shield one, will try again a bit later.
Thank you so much for this game! I got mildly addicted to it in the previous version (1.2) and was very excited to see this come out.
I actually took a ton of game testing notes this time including a spreadsheet detailing my approach to 8 different runs, and which enemies I encountered. If you'd like I could share the entire thing but for now I'll just post the highlights.
The first time I met the boss queen bee I was low on health and died immediately. The second time, I knocked the queen bee down about halfway before dying, but hadn't quite figured out what the marked spots and honey did. The third time, I figured out exactly what was going on, which made me excited to get back to it the fourth time, which is when I finally won. That was around run #20 (I've attached the FIN sheet to that run).
I've figured out how to beat the healing moth easily by saving the right dice for a few turns and attacking all at once. But a lot of players might not figure that out. I notice that it never appears on the first floor anymore in this update but it still comes in on the second. At first I thought you could push it back a few levels, but that only helps if the player consistently upgrades dice in the first couple levels to have a better shot at beating them. Instead, I'd probably lower its healing capability slightly, or give it 10 HP instead of 12. By the way, I personally don't have a problem with it now that I know how to beat it but I worry an enemy like this in the early stages of the game will cause some players to quit.
The first time I faced an axe bug, he was the only opponent. I think that's good for a player meeting a new enemy for the first time, especially one as difficult and complex as this guy. In later runs he wasn't alone though, which would have been annoying if it was my first time seeing him.
The blocker beetles look interesting but they don't really change how I play - there's still plenty of room on the board to place dice. What if they also block the path of your boost dice? I imagine the boost dice's power travels through the grooves of the board, so if a blocker dice is in the path of a 2-4 level boost dice, it negates it?
I'd love to see new dungeons with different boards! The current board is spacious and open but you could try different boards like long skinny ones, or very small ones, which would lead to using different tactics.
I've noticed I subconsciously place defense dice on the left half of the board and attack dice on the right half. I wonder if that could be used in some way, perhaps on other boards?
After my successful run, I decided to try some runs where I limited my dice bag to just 7 or 8. It turns out this is a great strategy as I immediately won my next two runs in a row. In fact, I think it's an overpowered strategy... I'd either find a way to disincentivize removing dice, or make it harder or impossible to do so. Otherwise, it makes it feel like the "correct" way to play the game if you want to win, and I think you should be able to win with other strategies too.
That's all I have for now... if you want to see the more nitty-gritty side of my notes let me know!
Wow, that's a big one, truly a detailed comment! Thank you for taking the time to write it and making some suggestions, we're constantly working on expanding the depth of the game and feedback like this is really valuable.
This update has been absolutely great! I've loved this game ever since I found it. I play on my browser most of the time and didn't check the update log, so imagine my surprise when new enemies showed up. The limits on the board they imposed were a great addition to the game! I think I found a bug though with that orange enemy with the axe. No matter what, it always dealt a solid 10 damage to me even if there are dice or no dice on it's little attack boost "spell area". I imagine it's supposed to do 5 normally and then double that if there's dice in it's area? It has made the game considerably harder in any case, even though I haven't run into it on every run.
← Return to game
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Lovely comment, thank you for playing !
First of all, I had a lot of fun playing the game! Spent a good couple of hours trying to beat it. I should say I haven't beat it, but I did feel like I made a lot of progress on my strategy. Was hard to understand the mechanics at the beginning, I had no clue what I was doing until later in the game. A little tutorial at the beginning would be nice. Also, enemy attacks sometimes feel unfair. Just because it's unclear of how they work and what dices they role each turn. Most games have a little diary about each enemy and more things the player might want to know about. With all that in mind, I still think you did a great job on the visuals and sound feedback. It was clear enough for me to get what's going on just by playing a bit more. Very well done! Love it.
it would be nice to hold click an enemy to see maxand minimal damage, and what it does (if it heals, if it gives other enemies shield, etc.)
I there something that makes the queen bee angry or is it a thing that happens after a set number of turns have passesd?
yep i'd like to know, too :)
look i got good dice but i lost to a elite spider, axe guy, and purple fly
Bad rng. It happens all the time.
I'm not sure if I've ever won up after facing that trio. They all deal high damage, and the axe guy deals even more if you don't constrain yourself to inefficient patterns. Even in the rare occasion that I win, my HP are so depleted that I can't survive anything but good luck in the next fight or two.
I've played several times, and while I've neve reached the final boss, I've had a bunch of fun!
Two criticisms I have of the Muscle Boost enemy: It's really, really unclear how that ability works, and it's pretty tough to counter.
For the longest time, I assumed that the Muscle Boost ability meant that putting dice in the red spaces would boost the enemy's damage, presumably proportionally to the numbers on those dice. Needless to say, they kept murdering me. The little muscly arm icon helps, but it's not clear what that means unless you intuit that there's an associated tooltip.
Second, it's tough to counter. Unless you have a decent number of hollow dice or low-level Boost dice, there aren't many useful formations you can put dice in that cover all three spaces. It feels like covering just one or two should have some effect, but it doesn't—put all three dice in a line or just eat double damage.
Anyways, despite that I'm still enjoying myself. Trying to figure out a good strategy to use. Probably need to remove dice more often...
Finally reached the Queen Bee. Wish I could tell what makes her mad/how to handle it, because it's wiping my shields dry.
(Also wish I'd found more attack dice, though turtling got me to the bottom of the dungeon, so maybe it wasn't so bad?)
And now I finally beat the game! I'd like to thank the heavy block dice for letting me turtle so dang much, and mirror dice for letting you pull off silly stunts. (It also helped that I figured out how the crown spaces work.)
I wanted to immortalize this moment.
(Especially since I accidentally closed the tab almost immediately afterwards.) Anyways, hollow and heavy dice are a ton of fun, and I'm disappointed that there isn't a way to add those qualities to dice you already have.
A bit overkill. I really hate those green healers since they heal alot of hp.
Dude. Total agree. It's super unclear how the muscle guy's power gets triggered.
The muscle guy goes 10 dmg but if you cover all the red spaces then it will only do 5 dmg.
2 OP heal dices and attack dices(6 every time).
one of the most uniqe games i have found on here
Yup. It's how the mirror dice level up—they have a greater chance of being usable when you roll them.
It wouldn't let me level it though...
I played for around 1,5h and didn't manage to finish yet, but won't stop trying! Very nice game, love the art and idea for dice mechanics! First, I thought you used GMS2 to make it, but build told me otherwise :> Keep up the great work
WOW thats a lot of dice in your deck
is that a non-glass heal cube? if so, wow.
It's called "MIRACLE", made my run!
Thats just broken...
I enjoyed the game with its pixel design as well as its combat system. I am hoping to see more games similar to this. I haven't beaten it yet but I will keep trying. Keep up the great work.
Thank you!
thx it was good game ;)
Thank you! And congrats ;)
I did 45 damage in a single turn to the boss
i obtained the holy poop die
what was it like?
it's an attack die that starts with 1 damage, but upgrading it just once makes it 6 damage
funny game.
oooooh so how the jelly works is, once you cover up a slot with jelly it modifies dice placed on it so if you cover up a queen space and place a dice it gets *4 but if you do it on a regular honey you get*0.5
how does the muscle enemy work?
It looks like it doubles its damage unless you cover all three highlighted spaces. And it has to be all three—just covering one or two gives the same effect as not using any.
EDIT: Also it's an absolute pain in the butt if it's accompanied by enemies that heal it or grant it block, especially if there's multiple such enemies, especially if you have two such encounters right before the final boss, leaving you with basically no HP. (You can probably guess how my latest run ended.)
I love the addition of the honey dice but the boss can be a bit overpowered and confusing. It did something like 30 damage to me and completely wiped me out in one shot, even when I had 10+ shield. After a couple more tries I finally beat the game, the struggle with previous attemps and the realize that royal jelly tiles exist/how they work made the win much more satifying.
I know it says an hour, I took a break in the middle of it to draw. Always gotta follow the sudden insperation, otherwise half my art wouldnt exist.
The dynamic on the last one is nuts. The honey dice can be helpful but it depends on where things are. Wowzers. What an amazing, addicting, and extremely aggravating game! 10/10.
Nice one, thanks for the comments :)
Okay I get that the crown slots affect the boss's attack. But it's really unclear how the honey dice affect it? And you need to play the honey dice without triggering an attack somehow. Or only triggering weak attacks. Hmm... Anyone figure this out??
The last boss is so OP. I don't understand how one hit can do like 25 damage on its first attack and totally wipe me out. Also it takes so long to get there. A save point would be fun. Ugh.
Not sure wether or not this is a glitch, but if a mirror cube is placed across from a beatle cube, it can not be removed from the board.
I can't seem to replicate the mirror die getting stuck, but the current behaviour is definitely not good, Mirror Dice shouldnt try to mirror Ant Dice. Thanks for the report.
When a beatle cube steals the center slot...
It would be cool if there was modifier that caused a dice to always roll the same thing, it would redundant or something.
Really fun and addictive game! I am truly impressed by the people who have beaten the game. The axe guy is brutally powerful, and coming across two at once is tough, esp when they each do 10 damage. Do they get the power-up if a heavy die is stuck in their slot? It seems they do 10 damage regardless.
Also I still have not the slightest clue about the last boss. How did you all figure this out? And how/when do you decide to remove dice?
If you have to many attack dice, you might remove a poop(The games terms not mine!) one so that you come across better dice more often.
Well a poop is AMAZING because if you upgrade it once it turns into The Holy, which is a 6 attack every time! But it does require that upgrade. However I think maybe some boosts might not be helpful by the end. Especially an un-upgraded one. And upgrading a boost only upgrades from 1/2 chance of it being a 1 to 1/3 chance of being a 1, while introducing the 3.
SERIOUSLY??????????? Ididn't know you could upgrade poop... Well thats a game changer for sure. Ya, I don't like boosts. Because a power 2 boost is better than power three, just because it has way more points of impact.
Is it possible to get a heavy heal die? Cause if so, that is the most overpowered thing ever...
Yes I got one. It's great but also you need it to come up at the right times. Sometimes it'll hide from you.
Thats for sure, part of a good deck is just the balance sometimes, but even with a balanced deck, you can start your turn with no boosts or defence, wich is pretty much your death.
I just got one that's heavy and not glass.
So no, this is the most overpowered die ever. (...assuming the image is currently visible.)
I can't see the picture, but a non glass heal die sounds OP.
Cool game! Love the pun in the title. Also refreshing to see a fun non-horror game on Itch.io, seems like those are hard to find.
Thanks for playing :)
The art used in this game was so cute and such a fun game as I was able to move around all the places that I wanted to go and the levels of the game was very equal.
A cute game that enforces strategic thinking. Played it instead of studying, but the game is worth every failed class.
Couldn't manage to get further level with two hammer beetles and shield one, will try again a bit later.
Hahaha, hopefully your professor is not around reading this... and thanks for the comment!
Thank you so much for this game! I got mildly addicted to it in the previous version (1.2) and was very excited to see this come out.
I actually took a ton of game testing notes this time including a spreadsheet detailing my approach to 8 different runs, and which enemies I encountered. If you'd like I could share the entire thing but for now I'll just post the highlights.
The first time I met the boss queen bee I was low on health and died immediately. The second time, I knocked the queen bee down about halfway before dying, but hadn't quite figured out what the marked spots and honey did. The third time, I figured out exactly what was going on, which made me excited to get back to it the fourth time, which is when I finally won. That was around run #20 (I've attached the FIN sheet to that run).
I've figured out how to beat the healing moth easily by saving the right dice for a few turns and attacking all at once. But a lot of players might not figure that out. I notice that it never appears on the first floor anymore in this update but it still comes in on the second. At first I thought you could push it back a few levels, but that only helps if the player consistently upgrades dice in the first couple levels to have a better shot at beating them. Instead, I'd probably lower its healing capability slightly, or give it 10 HP instead of 12. By the way, I personally don't have a problem with it now that I know how to beat it but I worry an enemy like this in the early stages of the game will cause some players to quit.
The first time I faced an axe bug, he was the only opponent. I think that's good for a player meeting a new enemy for the first time, especially one as difficult and complex as this guy. In later runs he wasn't alone though, which would have been annoying if it was my first time seeing him.
The blocker beetles look interesting but they don't really change how I play - there's still plenty of room on the board to place dice. What if they also block the path of your boost dice? I imagine the boost dice's power travels through the grooves of the board, so if a blocker dice is in the path of a 2-4 level boost dice, it negates it?
I'd love to see new dungeons with different boards! The current board is spacious and open but you could try different boards like long skinny ones, or very small ones, which would lead to using different tactics.
I've noticed I subconsciously place defense dice on the left half of the board and attack dice on the right half. I wonder if that could be used in some way, perhaps on other boards?
After my successful run, I decided to try some runs where I limited my dice bag to just 7 or 8. It turns out this is a great strategy as I immediately won my next two runs in a row. In fact, I think it's an overpowered strategy... I'd either find a way to disincentivize removing dice, or make it harder or impossible to do so. Otherwise, it makes it feel like the "correct" way to play the game if you want to win, and I think you should be able to win with other strategies too.
That's all I have for now... if you want to see the more nitty-gritty side of my notes let me know!
Wow, that's a big one, truly a detailed comment! Thank you for taking the time to write it and making some suggestions, we're constantly working on expanding the depth of the game and feedback like this is really valuable.
I'd love to see those notes btw!
I found you on Twitter so I sent a link there!
The Queen Bee at the end is so satisfying to beat. This was only the second time that I reached floor 20.
being able to select your dice with the digits on your keybord could be a nice little add-on
You'll be happy to know we're considering adding hotkeys in the future ;)
nice
SUCH A GOOD GAME :)
havent played the new update yet been playing the downloaded version but excited for the new stuff
im a big fan and hope the great work keeps coming
great game, would love to see what the enemies are going to do on the next turn like in Slay the Spire but game works very well already
noice game :)
Great update!
This update has been absolutely great! I've loved this game ever since I found it. I play on my browser most of the time and didn't check the update log, so imagine my surprise when new enemies showed up. The limits on the board they imposed were a great addition to the game! I think I found a bug though with that orange enemy with the axe. No matter what, it always dealt a solid 10 damage to me even if there are dice or no dice on it's little attack boost "spell area". I imagine it's supposed to do 5 normally and then double that if there's dice in it's area? It has made the game considerably harder in any case, even though I haven't run into it on every run.
Those red axe bugs are tough, but they are working correctly. Try looking at the "spell area" as a whole.