That seems to be the case, also happens to me. So, answers to some of my own questions, in case someone shares them: - Mid-game saves? Yes, at least between battles. Mid-battle it sadly doesn't save - Card mechanics: we get 5 cards from a pool of cards of all the characters we have available. Each card relates (so far, at least) to one character, so playing that means that the character will do something. You keep the remaining 4 cards, and get a new one. Pending questions: - Even though "attack forward" works for closest enemy if no enemy exists in current lane, the "interrupt forward enemy + vanish" card doesn't seem to work the same way, meaning, if there's no enemy in the lane, it doesn't seem to interrupt the nearest one. I expected that to happen. Is that a bug? - Rogue's "Interrupt and attack forward in one turn" causes vanish for one turn? - Do characters earn more cards throughout the campaign? In fact, is it possible to see the character decks at any point - how many, and which card types? - Does the deck cycle, or is the new card always random from the available character cards? Meaning, will I always cycle through all the cards before repeating them, or can I always get one random card of all the cards that the characters have? - Also, if I take an action that states that a character will attack next turn, and then in the next turn I choose to attack with the same character (or even block, for instance), will the attack that was set up from the first turn still take place or will it be interrupted? - I expected that attacks reduced or blocked by the Priest's defensive magic would count as "blocked" for the sake of the archer's "insult to injury" card. Is it only on parrying? - Also, would it be possible to highlight when an attack meets the extra bonus conditions (say, coloring the numbers differently - golden, for instance?)? Or is that what the special attack animations are for? They seem to happen most of the time, so I feel that's not the case, but I may be wrong. - What do the shining cards do? A few suggestions: - Mid battle it'd be great to learn how many remaining enemies are there. This is shown in the beginning, but not during the battle - it would be helpful for planning. Maybe just have a counter with circles or something, for remaining enemies. - When a character is stunned and we're offered the option to discard a card to break out of stun earlier, we can't read the details of the cards. It would be nice to be able to tap the card a second time and replace the "stunned" text by the actual card description. At this point in time I don't really know what each card does by its name, and I'm sure it'd be helpful to make those choices more relevant. - When a character is stunned, it may be worth considering showing how many turns are left until they recover (in case it's a fixed amount). In case it's random each time, then ignore the suggestion. Fun game so far, congratulations! Best of luck with the release!
I'm like $30 in this week and counting, so before I buy this (Kepa feel free to chime in too), I'd like to do this: If you like__________, you'll love FCQ! Please fill in the blank.. Thanks
How does the turns work exactly? Sometimes I can use 3 cards before enemy counter attack, an other time I can only take one action.
If you like cats in rockets, you'll love FCQ! Now, more seriously. I have a hard time saying something that's fully accurate, as it's an interesting little game on its own. Some suggestions for the blank space there that I feel are accurate: If you like... - ...the battle sequences in Keith Burgun's "Empire: The Deck Building Strategy Game"... (I know it's not an especially popular game, but it's really what it reminds me of to some extent. That reminds me that those battles were quite fun, I should go back to it). ...Dream Quest, to some extent, though it doesn't seem to be as deckbuilding heavy (much to my sadness ), and more tactical/turn-based combat inspired. ...the idea of card games and rogue-likes mixed together. ...you'll love FCQ. Hope these help, but I'm curious to see what others come up with.
Thanks everyone for all the comments so far! Deck per character, but all mixed into a common deck. So if you wanted to, you could try to only play Mage cards for example. There's no deck building for this one, but I'd like to tackle that next time. Not sure on the first part. Wither is a player attack that also damages the player, I think that's the only one. And there's some lane switch abilities that attack before or after the lane switch. What device? I think we can do something about that in an update we'll submit really soon. Or at least help with it on old devices. Parallax effects to the character select? Not sure how we'd go about that, maybe though. I'd also like to reintroduce the parallax effects to the characters, we had to take them out due to some bugs. I'm not sure if I'll do the HP enemies have left indicator or not! I kind of like that you have to guess, especially for abilities like Mercy. Will think about it, though. Yeah, same with enemies. For abilities that attack "forward", it'll look in a below lane if there's no enemy in the forward lane. Easy way to remember it is that "attacks roll downhill." Like their current attack that's coming at you, plus a turn indicator? Thanks, I'm really glad you like the game! - Dunno if we'll be able to do mid-battle saves for this one, it wasn't built for it. Definitely a missing feature, though. - Interrupt should act like other forward attacks and interrupt "downhill". So it wouldn't interrupt an enemy above you, but should do one below you. And it *should* interrupt an enemy if it's the only one left, too. So possibly a bug, but not sure without really accurate descriptions or seeing it. - Rogue's vanish is one turn so it's not very usable except as an interrupt for the most part. Archer's vanish is "as long as you want" I think off top of head, so you can do things with that. - No deck building. We were going to do a deck browsing thing, but decided not to for simplicity and because there's no deck building for this game. - It's supposed to cycle, but I think it actually doesn't right now? It's either a bug or something we forgot to do, I'll ask. - Usually it's supposed to add the new attack to the old planned attack. Such as, Vanish + another Rogue Attack usually has the Rogue attack next turn. Sometimes it seems to bug out, though. - Let me check/ask for Insult to Injury. - Good suggestion, let me add that to the pile. - Shining cards do double damage. - Ok, good suggestion. - It's 3 turns every time. Not sure if I'll do this though, I kind of like the uncertainty. Most enemies take 3 turns to attack. So, the turn where they start the attack, one more turn of waiting, and then they attack. Melee enemies are the easiest to see when they're going to attack, because they have to run up to you and also they play a "ready to attack" animation right before. Poachers also hold their bow up on the turn they're going to attack, but sometimes do an attack that only takes 2 turns so you get a one frame warning. Other enemies can be more vague on when their attack turn is. I like this concept personally, but then again I also designed the game so I know when everything attacks. So I'm thinking about adding a better turn indicator after all.
Thanks for the replies Kepa. By all means, loving it so far. Some replies, then: - Mid-battle saves: sure, no problem. Battles aren't that long, but I had a call earlier mid game, then went on with my day and forgot about it, and when I got back to it it started at the map screen. No problem, just a note. It also would be nice to have the map start with the page you previously were in when you load the game, but it's not a big thing. - Interrupt: I'll provide more details when I have them. Maybe it was because the enemy was a beast, and the card didn't explicitly call out beast? It's not fully clear for some cards what to expect in terms of effects. Also, it's not fully clear what's a beast and what's not - maybe deliberately different colors for beasts could help? Or something? - Rogue's vanish: no problem. I just wasn't expecting it as it wasn't mentioned. - No deck browsing: sounds good, I guess. I think it would be more to see what kind of things each character does, before selecting (i.e. card gallery style), but I guess we can also discover that during the game. - Cycling: sounds good. Ideally I'd imagine it'd cycle during the same battle, though for each new battle you'd reshuffle and start form the beginning. Meaning, it wouldn't cycle _across_ battles. But, once again, if there's no deck building and we don't really know how many cards of each type each character has, I can't tell whether it's random or cycling - Adding attacks: ok, I get what it's meant to do. If I run into examples of when it doesn't, I'll send them your way with details. - Adding counter for stun: not a problem, of course. Uncertainty is fine - I guess I just struggled because I didn't know what cards I was discarding, but I also didn't know how long the character would be stunned (I kind of expected it to be just one turn originally). Thanks, and great job!
Ok, once you beginning to understand what is all happening, the game has a great tactical depth. I like it so far, still have to figure some things out, but I m having a great time with this game. I like the interaction with the different classes.
- Mid-battle saves are still something we should have done though. I think it was a combination of forgetting and then deciding that it was a pretty good failsafe in case a crash happened. If we did mid-battle saves, crashing or freezing would completely ruin that run unless we came up with a good system for that too. I'll put it on the list, but it's a big feature so not sure. - A bestiary could clear that up, or a way to tap info on a monster to get some info, or something like that. I think we could do something really quick here actually, let me whip something up. (skipping the rest since they don't seem to require further elaboration) Thanks a ton! I'm pretty curious to hear what everyone's thoughts are on the best group combination. I really have no idea what the current best group is, since we did a lot of tweaks to everyone all the way to release. For example, the Mage and Guard both got pretty big buffs fairly recently.
While I really like the elegant simplicity of the ui and the game's lack of hand-holding in terms of explaining everything at the outset, I do think a more obvious turn indicator would help. I'm personally fine with the uncertainty of enemies' hp and attack stats, though. I've only completed one game, so apologies if these questions are answered at some point and/or obvious: 1. I'd assumed the player's team consisted of 3 members. At the start, though, it seems we only select 1 main and 1 supporting character. Not sure how this works yet. 2. Each character has 8 cards, 5 of which are taken into battle. So there should be 10 different cards to choose from with 2 characters on your side? Or 5 total? I know this has an obvious answer I could figure out if i played right now but thought a clarification might be in order. Otherwise, really liking the game overall and looking forward grasping more of its mechanics and subtleties. Keep rocking, Kepa.
1. You pick two to start, and you find a new character each floor. You can keep swapping them as you find more powerful people, or just want to change to a more preferred group composition, or some a couple other reasons. 2. Each character has 8 cards, but all are taken into battle. They're all combined into a deck (usually of 24 cards but you can also bring in item cards for example), and you draw 5 cards to start. Then for every card you use, you draw a replacement at random.
I don't understand what the coins are for and how to get more items or boons. When my party does I lose them all, I think. Oh I see, I just ran into a guy who sells stuff.
You can find one boon in each level, except the final level. Coins are for buying stuff in shops, and your final score. Shops are the source of all items, the different shopkeepers have different inventories.
Glad to see Kepa and team back at it after they're brief absence. Few questions about FCQ: 1. Is this endless, or are there a set amount of levels? 2. You mentioned towards the beginning of the thread that you have one update planned, and depending on how well the game does, you might have more. Are you planning on having previous games DLC sized content, or just little things here or there? 3. Please tell me Gnomey is somewhere in this game... (if not possible DLC ) Keep at it amigo!
1. There's 5 levels. What we're trying this time is having a perfect score be pretty hard to do, since there's optional rooms and buying items hurts your score. 2. Probably little things here and there to be honest. It's supposed to be a simple, streamlined game, so I don't want to bloat it too much. Also, this game's pretty experimental design-wise for me, and I'd like to use feedback we get on this one to work on a follow-up with a different design. The next one would be more story-based and less randomized, think kind of like Chrono Trigger except with this one's battle system but tweaked a bit (and possibly dungeon system?) 3. I would absolutely love to make a secret Gnomey character (OR SECRET TRUE BOSS). If the game does well I will make sure this happens haha. We're trying to submit an update tonight that covers feedback we've gotten so far, so please keep your impressions coming! Also in about a week I think I'll start asking what people would like to see in the next more story-based game (if we do the next game like I want to). I think a big thing that people want to see is probably deck building. I think I'd like to tackle that, but probably get rid of Five Card's "discards" system or keep it limited to one character maybe.
Last ?--Are the Game Center leaderboards meant to be reversed, where the lowest number of coins are ranked highest? If so, wait whaaat?
We're working on an update, might submit it tonight. Here's some stuff that will probably show up in it so far: We found a subtle bug that slowed down the gameplay more than it needed to be, especially on older devices. So waiting between turns should be way, way faster in this update. Enemy fight screen revamped to show their portraits along with a short description of each monster. Did this as a way to provide more hints! Attempted fix for life bar problems, it's hard for us to test this though so it's a blind stab at it. Improvements to how many of the menus look on all devices. Quick little "tap here" thing when first starting the game, so you know to tap on a room. Quick story introduction bit when starting a new game from the title screen. You can now choose not to get a new recruit by closing the window on them. Poison Flyer gets an aura now when it's invulnerable. Fix for Banner of Victory not acting quite right. 10. Fixing the scoreboard, which is in reverse order right now. 11. Removed or at least severely restricted the "unnecessary fading animation for the cards, as if it's the enemy's turn, when prompted to choose another lane." I'd like to see what else we can squeeze in, too. Let me know what you think!
Five Card Quest - Tactical RPG Battles (By Rocketcat LLC) Thanks Kepa. If I may suggest one practical thing is that sometimes there's a subtle yet unnecessary fading animation for the cards, as if it's the enemy's turn, when prompted to choose another lane. It comes up in Armor Break, for instance. Might be worth removing that in those occasions. As for ideas for future games or small tweaks for this one, I'd recommend: - subtle, slightly different random quest story introductions like Dungeon Raid. Go play it to see what I mean. - play the Empire game battle sequences that I mentioned earlier, and Dream Quest, in order to have a few more ideas of games that could inspire some aspects of a future, more fleshed out game. Other than that, great job so far!
