v1.11 - Tutorial Time!
Lost For Swords » Devlog
Hello there! :)
Before my vacation, I wanted to get one more upgrade in... here's what's new:
- Tutorial: I think the game is currently in a good state, but new players are having a hard time and can be overwhelmed. That’s why I devised a small tutorial that’s automatically started for first-time players. I hope it helps to explain what the game is all about!
- Rework of starting deck for Rogue and Rogue cards: with the recent change that allows enemies to move, ranged weapons were nerfed quite a bit. Which in turn made the Rogue much weaker. A rework was necessary to get the Rogue’s power level back up. The main goal is to make the Rogue stay squishy, but also give him enough tools to equalize this. A big problem is getting trapped by monsters against the board’s borders or other cards. I need to find a balance between allowing Rogues to escape these situations, but also encouraging players to forsee and avoid these entrapment situations, punishing them if they don’t. This will be an ongoing process, and while the changes in this version should help, they may not be enough.
- Tweaked algorithm for filling board, giving players a bit more space to gather a few gear cards before encountering monsters.
- Reworked Vanity: the card SHOULD be a negative one, but it never felt that negative. And with the movement change, it even gained the great upside of allowing players to sculpt the board and create tactical advantages that way. Especially Majestic Armor was incredibly strong. To counteract this, Vanity now does 2 damage to you (this damage can be blocked with armor).
- Re-Re-worked shift back to push: shifting made more sense in the old system, but was more complex to understand. Now that enemies move, pushing enemies away is useful, so it takes the place of shifting (again). Also, weapons that push deal their damage AFTER pushing, so it is possible to push monsters into explosive barrels (and vice versa).
- Other smaller card refinements
- Continued improvements to art style and making visuals more consistent
- Show an overlay at the start of each room
- Lots of new Cards:
- Blade Flurry
- Mjölnir
- Lance
- Bulwark Lance
- Infused Sword
- Mirage
- Timed Pillar
- Chest
As always, thanks for reading and see you at the next patch! :)
Bye! (ʘ‿ʘ)╯
Files
Lost For Swords Play in browser
Version 15 Jun 17, 2023
lost-for-swords-win.zip 47 MB
Version 16 Jun 17, 2023
Get Lost For Swords
Lost For Swords
Roguelike Deck-Building On The Go! Can you reach the top of the tower?
| Status | In development |
| Author | MaxBytes |
| Genre | Card Game, Strategy |
| Tags | Deck Building, Dungeon Crawler, Pixel Art, Roguelike, Roguelite, Turn-based, Turn-Based Combat, Turn-based Strategy |
| Languages | English |
More posts
- v1.33 - Rooms And Rogues6 days ago
- v1.32 - Who’s The Boss Now?33 days ago
- v1.29 - Sweeping Attack62 days ago
- v1.27 - More Content, More ControlFeb 05, 2024
- v1.26 - Balancing ActsJan 21, 2024
- v1.25 - Difficulty Modifiers and Starting DecksJan 10, 2024
- v1.24 - Language, please!Dec 27, 2023
- v1.23 - Player OnboardingDec 17, 2023
- v1.22 - Overworld Map, New Tower and JuiceNov 29, 2023
- v.1.21 - Unlocks, Sins and RetreatNov 09, 2023
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Tough as nails to beat, but rewarding every time.
Although I *do* wonder if adding 3 Fatigues to the deck is a bit much. In the later levels (7+) it slows down the gameplay a lot. Less weapons/armor will spawn in, (because of the fatigue cards) and you will have to backtrack a lot to get a decent hit in. That can end up feeling quite tedious.
I wonder if it would be better to either add just 2 fatigues, or to increase the "penalty free" room number in the last 3 or 4 levels to 4, rather then 3.
(Edit: In the run I screenshotted, I had 21 fatigues in my deck, plus the ones on board)
(Also my current favored strategy is to stockpile battle rods, but i do really like the pushing weapons as well)
Hello! :)
First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to write these comments, I really enjoy reading them <3 And congrats on the win! Beating the game is definitely very hard at the moment, well done!
What follows is me dumping my brain, so it's a long one. I totally understand if you don't care about the stuff, especially in this detail!
A bit of a sneak peak of what's going on with the game right now:
I did a lot of playtesting and thinking in the last two weeks myself and I also encountered some of the issues you mentioned, like the overwhelming and tedious "late" game where fatigue is stacking up more and more. I'm working on improvements for that.
Also, Rogue's raw damage output is currently way worse compared to the Knight... Rogue will get a buff in the next update for sure!
Additionally, there's some rather big issues I found in my playtests that I'm currently adressing:
That's why I have been experimenting with different movement designs, that make monster moves more... predictable. So that players have an easier time planing ahead. I have a solution I'm 90% happy with, that will be in the next update. I'm very curious what you think! :)
But the way it is currently set up has a huge flaw: the pacing is really uneven! The first room is always the hardest, because the Dungeon Deck is full of Monsters and they all are at full health. If players make it through the first room, they likely defeated and/or weakened some Monsters already, making the next room comparably easier, and so on. The last room on a floor often only has only 1 or 2 monsters in it, making it really easy, but also quite tedious. Your comment about the late game fatigue makes this very apparent too. So this is all very weird and unusual from a game design standpoint... and simply makes the game worse. If anything, I would want players to get stronger during a floor, and not reducing the challenge they have to face.
That's why the Dungeon Deck had to go. The latest build (not released yet) plays much more even and avoids a lot of the tediousness. It also allows me to design floors in a way so they get (slightly) harder towards the end... and design more cards that become better the longer a floor goes on to counter that, giving players some small-scale power trips.
I'm still ironing out a lot of details, like what the actual victory condition of a floor is. But you'll see that in the next update, if you like :)
Pfew... thanks for reading my long rant! I hope it was somewhat coherent. :)
Wow, thanks for that in-depth look into the development process! Always interesting to learn how things work behind the scenes.
I love the symmetry of the dungeon deck and the hero deck as well, but it's true that it can get incredibly overpowering.
I got circled by Grunts a LOT and the only way I have found to circumvent this is to stockpile battle rods to get out of tricky spots and even then I still got my little rogue beaten to a pulp 9/10 times.
I am super curious for the new build, cause there are so many tricky balancing challenges to face! Very happy to be able to experience the process
Today was the first day I beat the game since the update (as a rogue)!
It was tricky, but very satisfying. Playing as the rogue is so tense, but with the pushing weapons and the sleep mechanic, there are a lot of strategic options you can take.
Still can't figure out how to beat level 10 as a knight, I don't know if my strategy is bad or if it's a balancing issue
Oh wow, you're moving so fast! Testing right now, really excited about the new features, I really love the diagonal weapons
I love the new weapons, I love how dynamic everything is, but I cannot beat the 10th level, I always get killed by the grunts, no matter how strong my deck is.
I do love the new dungeon cards (chest, mirage, timed pillar), since they add a new element that i need to account for when planning my strategy.
As a rogue, I wasn't able to get much further than level 5 or so, but this might be a skill issue on my part, rather than a balancing issue