itch.io

Since this is a prototype I will assume the feedback you are looking for is the following:

Is the core gameplay loop fun?

What are core mechanics that the player might find more engaging?

Is it easily accessible?

I don't know for sure if these are the questions you are asking/wanting feedback on, but since there is no direction (here or on the reddit post) it is what I will assume. 
 
To answer the first question, is the core gameplay loop fun?

I would say it has the potential to be, although I worry about your features planned on the itch page. I think there is a LOT of polishing that this game will need to go through before there are 20 classes in the game. However, I do think there is potential for each dungeon a player heads towards to have more enemy's geared to a certain stat/weakness that players need to learn and prepare for. There is some real potential for strategy which I like. However the current impact with stats means nothing to me because it isn't established yet. Hell, I think I only saw one enemy. Which is fine for a proof of concept/prototype, but I am still going to point it out. 

I will rip the bandaid off and tell you right now that the dungeons aren't fun. They are boring. As I said before, there is basically only one enemy and I don't think there is any music in the game. With a blank background and no strategical element when party building, it is a bowl of nothing. A lot of my criticisms are nice because this is a proof of concept/prototype and I don't bother mentioning most things because of it. However I really worry where the devs priorities lie when in their planned features they don't mention polishing this stuff. 

Second question, what are core mechanics that the player might find more engaging?

Well, I definitely think there should be more strategy involved, it's basically all my fun from an autobattler lol. You say that there will be more story implement, so maybe collecting story characters that get fleshed out later could be something? Also there should most definitely be a shop so we can sell our extra weapons/armor that we get in dungeons.

Last question, is it easily accessible?

Yes. UI is fine for a prototype.

If you want my genuine advice, you need to focus on the basics and make what you have CURRENTLY more fleshed out. Working on the story if you plan one is fine and dandy, but don't focus on adding more, more, and more when what you have right now is half baked (which is expected for a proof of concept/prototype).

I don't really write reviews for prototypes/proof of concepts like this (I mostly do playtests that have a generic level of polish at the very least). But I thought I would get out of my comfort zone and give it a shot. Let me know if you have any questions dev.

Okay. Well, I see the vision, unfortunately this has a very, VERY, long way to go. What I tend to do for my reviews is make them long and detailed, however, if I did that I think I would have over 3 pages of criticism. So to save everyone's time I am simplifying this. 

This game is clearly in a beta stage, so I understand why some things are the way they are, but this is egregious. 

My main points of contention:

The UI is SUPER small. The icons are small and it's hard to see what is going on up at the top of the screen. 

No music

The tutorial not only doesn't go at the players speed (it needs to have a button allowing the player to go at their own pace. As soon as I hovered over my inventory it moved on to the next section of the tutorial.) it also doesn't do a good job at being a tutorial half the time. You can't have a tutorial that goes over grass but doesn't go over drinking water. I didn't know I needed a campfire either. Like..??? 

AND WHAT IS WITH THE SHEEP STAT STUFF?? I'm not saying it's bad. I actually think the contrary, however it never went over WHY it mattered. What happens if I let them starve? Do they die? Do they not produce stuff? What is the incentive to keep them alive.

Although maybe the tutorial goes over that, I couldn't get through all of it since my SHEEP FROZE. 

I'm losing the plot. I'm staying true to my word and saving everyone the time. I don't like it, I understand the vision, however there is SO much that needs improving. If the dev actually does want to hear my 3 pages of criticism stored in my head then let me know.

Bugs encountered:

- Action jittering, seeking campfire and some other random action (moving to water, food, etc) seem to get caught up in each other a lot 

- UI Scale didn't make anything bigger, it just moved the icons southeast lol this also breaks the settings menu

Thank you for clarifying a lot of things (seriously, I needed that clarification for the drawing cards and the refill hand lol). Knowing what refill hand does, I think it's a fitting enough name- I just think a tooltip for it would be good. Something like "Hand size at the beginning of each round. Can be exceeded." Or something of that nature (you would know how to make this fit your game best). I'd add can be exceeded somewhere, simply incase something happens where someone only draws one and bases their opinion on all drawing cards on that one experience like me lol. 

I also didn't realize the Thrusters, Power, and Reactor were systems, but that makes complete sense! (Also didn't even think to hover on the Tunnel card, so that's my bad). 

Sorry if my response isn't super helpful, I can articulate well what is wrong with a game, but when it comes to solutions I crumble lol. Thank you for the response! I really look forward to following this game and seeing it grow! 

Now that I've put a good, I think, 2 hours into this game I am comfortable writing a review. Fair warning, my reviews are LONG. If you just want the TL;DR please scroll to the bottom of my review.

Let me start with how pleasantly surprised I am with this game. I was expecting something far less polished, but instead what I got was a shockingly fun deck builder that I know I'll come back to so I can beat the "hard" version of what is available (the one where you start with 0 RAM). However, there are a few faults in the game which should be mentioned.

I'll split this review into sections for the convenience of anyone reading.

TUTORIAL

Tutorials can be hard to implement. ESPECIALLY for a deck builder like this. The tutorial does a fantastic job explaining the core mechanics of the game (for the most part, I'll get into the exception to this in just a moment). You learn about the discard pile, how to use the cards in your deck, etc. HOWEVER, the tutorial is VERY condensed. This isn't a bad thing, the tutorial gives you a visual que of where to look with a yellow outline so you know what it's talking about. But this also means that you might miss something, as did I. 

Notably, what I'm talking about is the "refill hand". If you are like me and play a TON of deck builders and card games, the name can be misleading. Since I was just starting out I didn't understand if perhaps the refill hand meant that I could swap my hand 4 times in the run for a randomized hand. Of course, I found out the correct answer later (it's hand size), but it's still worth noting. Especially since I did not get information on what refill hand meant upon hover OR the question mark. 

LOGS

Thankfully, this game actually continues the tutorial in a way, so new people can learn how cards function and read up on what did what. The game does this through logs, which I actually think is fantastic (it also fits the aesthetic of the game very well). Unfortunately the logs feel underutilized and almost hard to understand...

Text is small. Now, I don't expect there to be a ton of accessibility features or polished graphics in a beta, that's silly. However, that doesn't mean it is absolved from criticism. Since the text is small and a lot of things are able to appear in the logs in quick succession (making it overwhelming to read the logs at times), there should be a way for people to find important information in the logs at a quick glance. Information such as power (system) being color coded (say blue as an example) would be helpful. An example being, "Thrusters: (In blue or whatever color text) +1 Power". 

This small change would make a world of difference, I have no idea if it would look good, but if there was even a toggleable option I think it would be amazing. Now that I mentioned Thrusters earlier... I would like to talk about something.

THRUSTERS, POWER, AND REACTOR

The game does not do a good job explaining these (BEFORE YOU READ ON, THIS SECTION IS VERY MUCH BASED ON HOW I PLAYED AND PROBABLY THE SECTION THAT COULD BE IGNORED/DISAGREED WITH MOST, BUT I'D STILL LIKE TO TALK ABOUT IT). 

I saw these as levels, each level requiring more energy than the last. And while they do serve that purpose, they also actually act as a booster of sorts, Thrusters adds one notch of system each round (system being the energy to complete the "level" for lack of a better word), and I forget what Power does despite just checking while writing this review. 

Now, what is the problem with this you might ask? I'm sure the tutorial went over this, and surely the log also details this. And you would be correct. However, as said in the tutorial section, the tutorial is very condensed (meaning it's easy to forget things by the amount of information you need to keep track of). And, because I didn't even THINK to hover over what I thought were just simple levels, this lead to me being very confused when the Thrusters activated and I thought it was a bug with a different card until I checked the logs.

"Well that's the answer right there! The logs! That helps!" Yes! You would be correct, the logs do help! Let's disregard and pretend that the logs are fine and there no flaws with it. Unfortunately, and this may seem nitpicky, if you have read the entire review so far you will remember this, "Thrusters: ...+1 Power" That wasn't something I made up (the color portion of course was), this is real text in the game. THE GAME CALLS IT POWER, IT DOESN'T EVEN USE SYSTEM. 

Again, nitpicky, however, if you did your best to learn the stupid mechanics by name like I did, this would screw you over. Wait.. I should talk about that one mechanic.

SHUFFLE/DRAWING CARDS

Lol. I probably used this the least. In fact, I viewed these cards as one thing and only one thing. Strategic discard pile cards. Since these cards add a card to your discard pile, this can be used as a fairly safe free RAM piece with a bit of gambling involved. I personally don't have a problem with this, although, it's a bit problematic that the play portion means nothing to me. Even the corrupt versions of this card don't scare me off. Maybe I'm just a bad player? I don't know, but I just never saw incentive for wasting RAM playing these cards. The only time I DID see incentive for drawing was with the one draw 2 card. However, I was very disappointed when I only drew one (this is how I found out what refill hand meant). I think an easy incentive would to make these cards ignore hand limit size. However, I don't know if that would work or not. I'm not a dev.

QOL AND BUGS/ERRORS

I decided to condense these two since I only have one QoL suggestion and only found 2 errors/bugs.

- I think it would be amazing QoL if we could save decks that we like. That way I don't have to keep clicking the same cards every time a new run starts.

- An error I found is on the Tunnel card, there is a "^" on the Discard thing. On no other cards does this exist, so I assume it is a typo.

- What I think is a bug, but didn't remember to check the logs on is that, on the regular difficulty, my starting RAM became 2 at one point and I am unsure as to why. Again, I assume it is a bug, but I don't know for sure.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

I like this game. I know I'm harsh, but it's just because I don't feel like going super super in depth. I think getting the bad out there is more important than gushing about the good. But I truly do believe this game is good. Again, it's a beta, I know it will improve. Do I think the log needs some work? Yes. Do I think some balance changes should be made to the draw/shuffle cards? Yeah. However do I also think that this game has a good bit of challenge and strategy? Yes. Do I think it's fun? Also yes. It's a solid game. Go try it.

TL;DR: Good game, has a few issues but nothing super extreme. I only found one bug, but I'm not even sure it's a bug. Game has a condensed tutorial but it's fine. You learn the game quickly and all it's mechanics (2-3 runs in you get a decent grasp on stuff).

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE (1.4): I'll keep this brief as I want this to be the last time I edit this comment. 

It is amazing how far this game has improved since the first time I played it (1.1 version). There are obvious things that need building on and polish of course (see my 1.2 review, bullet points 3, 6, and 10). But the overall feel of the game is pretty solid with the balance fixes. If I were to nitpick I would like separate music for each dungeon, but I have a feeling the dungeons will get far more polished as more updates come out lol. I realize I haven't complimented the game really in my previous reviews so let me do that.

The art is great, genuinely. It's impressive how good the game looks.  The soundtrack that has been added is solid and adds to the vibe of the game, and the gambling is a good way to get the player to feel more involved and add more risk. There is a real solid foundation here. Which is something that I couldn't say with the original version of the game  (1.1). Give the demo a shot, there's some real promise here.

I look forward to following the development of this game. You're doing really good Dev, can't wait to see more.



UPDATED REVIEW (1.2): Since the update I have replayed the game and it has vastly improved. Here is a bulleted list of thoughts I had during it. Bullet Points are a bit scattered about since I wrote this as I was playing the game as opposed to my original review where I wrote it afterwards.

1. I really like that the Dev added music. That has VASTLY improved the gameplay and feel to your game. Well done.

2. I also like the betting system. It definitely makes me feel far more involved as a player and not just a spectator. However, if there is a draw (push) then I do believe coins should be returned to the player and not lost. It feels unfair that I don't get the coins back on a draw. (I am coming back to this bullet after playing further and figuring out Star of David exploit (bullet point 6) and while now I understand implementing not to get coins back on draw with the exploit in mind, I think it punishes honest playing. There just needs to be some sort of balance put in place).

3. Dev should really, really have some tutorial/audio que/visual que that brings attention to the phone and square root symbol. Maybe the phone rings and flashes red if the player loses say 3 times in a row. I think it would just be more interactive and more incentivizing to check it out then. (Square root symbol could just be after a win or something).

4. I hope the betting system stays and gets more fleshed out. Maybe add an all in bet. That would be fun.

5. Text goes by too fast (this has not changed), really wish there was just a click to move on from the text and it wasn't automatic

6. Abilities don't seem all too integral or have much incentive at the beginning, however they actually work really nicely with the new betting mechanic (with excess money now players don't have to worry too much about being able to afford an ability when round ends and if they aren't too careful and splurge then it's on them. Again, very nice that the update includes the player more). HOWEVER, there is a very big balance thing where if the player chooses the Star of David then bets (or vice versa) it's a near guaranteed pay out with only benefits and it completely ruins that balance. Betting should probably not be useable/should be nerfed with abilities (Mostly Star of David because holy moly).

7. I strongly believe hitting new round should give the option to forfeit (again QoL thing if your hand is just abysmal or if you want to quickly restart a run since pausing doesn't give that option).

8. I don't know if it's intentional but you can still hit while at 21. I accidentally did it when I betted 50 coins and I hated myself lol.

9. Dungeon Collapse works but can be taken a second time that results in no change. Should probably be removed from the pull if it garners no further effect after being taken once. Expanding on this, after not taking it my wins reset back to 5 needed. I think that just means Dungeon Collapse should say it is only temporary since I was under the impression it was permanent.

10. I think currently, Busted's biggest issue is that there is no real sign of progression. Nothing that gives the player a clue when they "beat" the game. This leaves the player wondering if there is no end and it is just endless while there is little change to the actual game. (Signs of progression could be difficulty with the dealer climbing, some kind of narrative forming, etc etc). Obviously there is an end (I beat all the dungeons) but while playing you feel like it could just go on forever and ever. You know your game best Dev, so you would know what would be needed to fix and implement that sort of thing.

Can't think of anything else. I will complement the Dev once again that the game has vastly improved with the new (and shockingly quick) update. If this were a steam review it would go from not recommended to more of a mixed review with a hesitant recommend. Which I know sounds harsh, but considering bullet points 10, 6, and somewhat 2 I think it's fair.

ORIGINAL REVIEW (1.1): I am unfamiliar on the etiquette for reviews on itch but I do know I like reviews being public so anyone can read them so I will leave it here in the comments.

Before I get into the review I will preface that I LOVE games like this (Dungeon Raid, Balatro, Slay the Spire, etc etc). However, crucially there is a deck building element to these games that this game lacks which will be one of my main grievances.

I will go in the order that the information on the store page goes in.

Abilities:

I found abilities relatively useless. The game does not signal that these exist (you access them via the phone on the side which doesn't give any visual or audio indicator to go investigate it further) and when you do actually look at them you feel no need to use them. Saving up your coins is priority since the shop effects cost (a lot of) coin and the abilities are not only unnecessary to win but they are just a waste of coin. I especially don't feel any need to use a abilities when my first use of the Star of David actually ended in a draw with the dealer. (I know that is just RNG at play but honestly a tutorial round that shows everything and hard locked to prevent that possibility at the beginning would be good). 

Shop effects:

Pretty sure these don't work lol. They aren't useless, don't get me misconstrued, they literally do not work. I took Dungeon Collapse and the wins I needed STAYED at 5. They didn't reduce the wins I needed whatsoever. I took numerous Arcane Vision and I also couldn't tell any noticeable difference, however that is harder to actually check if it's bugged or my luck is that abhorrent.

Levels:

You can go left, right, or down to the next level after finishing a round against the dealer. I have no idea why you would go left/right. Tell the player some things they can get or something. Because currently it feels like there is no incentive.

(Lack of) Music:

The lack of music makes this game lackluster and is actively hurting it. I am not someone who thinks about music in games, I don't actively focus on it nor am I a critic on it. However, it being gone is abysmal. Games like these NEED music, it makes things more exciting. There needs to be sound effects for getting a 21, some hyper music to match some casino vibe, you NEED to hit the dopamine receptors for a game like this. It is integral. Unfortunately the game suffers greatly because it doesn't do that. 

Player Involvement: 

Speaking of dopamine, this game doesn't really make the player feel involved in the game. Blackjack in of itself isn't the most exciting game in existence. The easiest way to make the player feel involved is adding a deckbuilding aspect. Let me add more negative cards to my deck, let me destroy cards in my deck, let me do ANYTHING with the deck. At the very least let me see the cards in my deck! As I go down the levels you could make it so the difficulty spikes with the introduction of new cards being forcefully added to the deck so each playthrough the player learns and builds upon their knowledge (spitballing here, have no idea how probable or even possible that is). 

Lets say you really, REALLY hate the idea of a deckbuilding element. Fine. Then let me choose how many coins I bet. Give me something. Because right now I feel like I am just a spectator and I just have to hope the RNG is nice to me while I hit the new round button over and over again.

MISC QOL I would like:

- Text goes by too quickly, let the player click to move the text away (so they can read at their own pace).

- Visual indicators would be nice. Like if I am at 21 then highlight the stand button or something. 

- Speaking of the buttons, this is just a visual preference on my part and has no baring on anything but the buttons being at the bottom would be nice (this would also open up the left side if you wanted to add some mechanic there).

- Let me forfeit the round by hitting New Round. I remember being on like 3 lives and just wanting to end the run but I had to let the animations keep playing out to officially end the run.

Overall, this game struggles from a lack of player involvement and lack of music. I do think there is potential, but in it's current state it isn't a game I would recommend to anyone.

Incase you are interested I found your game in the playtesting subreddit Dev. (Ik some Dev's are interested where people are discovering their game so added on the info here lol)

I've never reviewed on Itch (I basically only play games that are on Steam or console) and when it allows the rating it won't allow me to copy and paste. So for anybody passing through, here is my very thorough and long review:

I want to like this game so badly.

It's visuals are beautiful, it has an interesting mechanic that I think could be really fun, but unfortunately I find even attempting to enjoy this game so infuriatingly annoying that the good points quickly get outnumbered by the frustrating moments.

I'll begin with the most egregious thing first. This game has very obviously not been playtested with a controller before. I will preface I only have an Xbox controller, so I was only able to test this game with that and not a Playstation controller (which is very clearly the only controller used for this game). As soon as you boot up the game with a controller you are immediately able to move the character in the background with the joystick. Neat! That's awesome. One problem though....you can't interact with the actual words on the start screen. Yup. That's right. No matter what you press, you only get to interact with the background. To interact with the starting menu you have to DISCONNECT the controller and use your mouse. Just fantastic.

Okay. I've started a new game now and have reconnected my controller. I climb up the dirt and now I'm staring down a rock. The man tells me that rocks will repel me. Got it. I hit the spear against the rock and...nothing happens. No. That isn't a joke. The spear will literally go THROUGH the rock. It won't latch onto the stone, it does nothing. You will once again have to DISCONNECT the controller to progress. At this point, now that you have disconnected the controller (and if you didn't realize back on the start screen), you will realize you can move the spear in the direction you want! Handy! If only the game TOLD ME THAT. If you play on controller you have no way to know that the right joystick can control the spear. Which is something most games would tell you immediately. Not this game. On the other hand, mouse and keyboard you get to know immediately. How unfortunate for us controller folk.

At this point I had mostly given up on the controller and just went with mouse and keyboard (Something I am significantly worse with) because of how unoptimized the game was for the controller. So now let's talk about the main thing that made this game so unbearable for me. The spikes (the obstacles, not like difficulty spikes lol). I have played multiple platformers and metroidvanias, I have seen numerous spikes, these spikes are probably the most poorly thought out compared to all the other games I have played. It always feels completely unfair when I die to spikes, and I figured out why; it's because the hit boxes aren't forgiving whatsoever. It always feels as though I absolutely shouldn't have gotten hit by a spike, then when I look back on my video footage, it turns out I was a PIXEL on the spike so I died. This is so frustrating and rage inducing. Perhaps it's a skill issue! Maybe that's what all my complaints boil down to, who knows! But I do know for a fact that these hit boxes are absolutely a problem. Inbound Shovel made a fantastic short about this, watch it if you're interested in what exactly I'm talking about. https://youtube.com/shorts/X0jy94VP_Ko

This game seems to pride itself on the player learning the controls and getting better as they play. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to do so when the player isn't given any real movement variety beyond the spear. Let me use Celeste as an example here. In Celeste you jump, you can control how high you jump and this can help with obstacles- like spikes. In Spear It Up, you can't control how high you jump, it's always a set height, so, if you wanted to, I don't know, try to avoid the pixel perfect spikes....you don't get to! There are numerous instances where you must jump off walls, but you don't get to control your jump whatsoever. So in all likelihood, you jump too high and you get spiked.

Alright, alright. I know what you're thinking. So it's not the best platformer, whatever. This is labelled a metroidvania! The exploration! The enemies! What about those things!? Well, first there are no enemies. Which is fine. Whatever. However, this game just doesn't understand the reason why metroidvanias are fun to explore, it doesn't understand there needs to be some sort of direction, some incentive. When I play Dead Cells, I know that there is a door I need to go to, but if I explore a bit in the room then I can get some loot and weapons and etc etc, when I play Hollow Knight, I can find geos, new area's to explore, new characters, yada yada. When I play Spear It Up I get....a gem. Alright I guess....

I know what you're thinking, "But! But! You brought up Celeste earlier and Celeste only has Strawberries, so isn't your point a bit hypocritical?". Well dear stranger, Celeste has a destination and a story with extremely fun and challenging platforming that makes me want to get the strawberries to prove I can beat the challenge of getting them. Celeste also makes these strawberries completely optional. According to Spear It Up's description, although I have yet to experience it in the game, these gems aren't going to be optional and will be required for the story. Which then, once again, begs the question as why I should explore at all.

Alright, okay, well we just mentioned the story and the gems. What about that? Is that any good? Well, there is an old man that magically appears after you reach certain points (of which he actually has multiple twins that you get to see when you press M lol) and he is where we get our story from. MC meets old man, old man is teaching her how to navigate the cave. However, because players like me like to go off the beaten path (and because this game wants to be a metroidvania) you will get dialogue out of order. The old man knew my name before I told him for example. Which is a bit of a problem when a game's story seems quite narrow. The reason metroidvanias can have stories is because it tends to be pieces of information that don't need a specified order. Clearly the old man is more narrow and you do need a specified order for it.

Do you know what this game actually reminds me of? Jump King. Jump King the rage platformer game. However, unlike Jump King, this game doesn't have the controls to make it feel fair. When I lose height in Jump King, I know it's because I didn't hold space long enough or held it too long. When I play Spear It Up, I just think the game is designed poorly.

UI wise here are some things I would really like since it would be nice QoL:
- When starting the game I wish text faded on screen that said space to jump, WASD to move, mouse to hit, etc
- In the settings, instead of putting the arrow keys in the corner, put the left and right arrow key next to whatever menu box we are on so I know I can switch menu boxes. I thought there was only one menu and I couldn't turn off rumble until I watched the video attached to the reddit post.
- When in dialogue let me know that I need to press space to progress it. I thought I ran into a bug when clicking E wasn't progressing dialogue

Bugs not mentioned in the above but that I found:
- In one section the old man and the MC repeat the same dialogue numerous times
- Settings Menu appeared at the top of the screen for a little while after starting a new game using the controller.

Overall..... Spear It Up is a rage game that doesn't understand the fundamentals of the games it's trying to emulate. It has beautiful art and there is clearly passion in the project. But unfortunately in the state that it's in, it's a project that I will be passing on.

I will state that I had not heard of the game Pokey Poke until now, but after writing this review, this game seems like a very close copy of it, but once again it just doesn't understand the fundamentals of why Pokey Poke works. (I watched a video of it, and Pokey Poke actually has direction to it).