First Dawncaster, which I declared the best game so far in 2021, then this drops. I haven’t played anything else since installing IL. This is far and away the slickest and best card-based video game I’ve played on any platform. @Laurenxy congratulations on an awesome game! Don’t worry about balance issues too much, it gets way harder as you progress. Like the best roguelites there will be some degree of luck involved no matter how solid your build. You’ve already got dorks like me, but as I’m sure my partners around here will attest I personally know a handful of other dorks who would pay for the DLC and install this right away if it was made available offline!
Quick first impression: I'm a pretty much Slay the Spire nut. I've spent hours on my PC years ago, and hours on my mobile since then, which I still play regularly. Indies' Lies is pretty well made clone. A lot of cards and mechanics are just a straight copy of what's in StS. The balance is also different to StS. In StS, you start off a little weak, mid-game is pretty much make or break, and endgame you pretty much know if you are gonna walk all over the boss or get obliterated. In IL, early-mid game is quite easy, just gets hard at endgame, depending on your card decisions. One of the biggest difference is not being able to upgrade your cards (runes are too rng). So the common cards that deals 10 dmg at the first fight is still doing 10 dmg at last fight. Some cards scale massively with no drawback and doesnt need other cards, while remaining cards have basically 0 scaling. So the balance to me, feels a little jarring coming from StS, but I'm not saying it's a good or bad thing, just different (StS is often criticised for being "too balanced", but sometimes you just want a game to give you a little bit of extra fun). This comes at an expense though, as you will always end up picking these cards regardless of your strategy. I like the fact you can get companions and get a small selection of their cards, making each run really unique. I will give it a few more runs to see if I end up liking the game or not. But right now it's not going to replace StS for me yet.
Yes there're plans for new characters but not anytime too soon. For this year the team is focused on developing the PC version. Stay tuned!
Yep. Thank you Laurenxy and Team for accommodating us none cellular iPad users. I Really appreciate your hard work.
I'm curious what the offline requirements means. "1. Supports offline gaming (Ps: Network is needed for the first time log-in, unlocking new levels, new chapters and achievements.)" Does this mean that you have to be online to open the app each time? And does this mean that nothing unlocks when you beat the game offline? Or are they referring unlocking levels and chapters with IAP? I don't quite understand the restrictions. I hope it's just referring to IAP and not "no progression when offline". And then lastly, I wish I knew why it identifies / tracks users through location data, identifiers, and usage data. I asked the dev about it elsewhere and they ignore that part.
I would say that the tame isn’t even close to being offline. So don’t be so hasty to close this one! As Lawliet mentioned it, the game still requires you to be online for: launching the game, using DLCs, uploading on the leaderboard AND to progress in levels. So basically, you have to be online pretty much all the time... The only difference now is that you can launch a new run without connection. But it won’t take into account your win if you stay offline then? So basically you can replay the run but not make progress? And I would also be curious to know more about the data gathering. Because some parts aren’t clear as to how they are used for a deck building rogue like game.
As far as my experience goes. It is fully offline. I don’t know yet about the leaderboards, maybe it updates itself once back online. Will have to finish my game while on break to see about that. Otherwise I think they did it. You don’t need to be online to launch the game, neither to progress in levels. You cannot unlock new levels, wich is a little bummer. Hope it updates once online too.
I think the truth is somewhere in the middle (which is a bit confusing to be honest). It's hard to say that the game is fully offline when, if you never connected, you wouldn't be able to progress through levels (to be clear, levels being the equivalent of Ascension in StS, not map to map). At the same time, saying you have to be online all the time is definitely not true either. You can login and play full games with any level, character, map, etc. that you've already unlocked. It's a bit of a weird mix, but it sounds like they're going to continue to refine the offline experience and hopefully they get to a place where the full game experience is available offline. Given that they removed (arguably) the biggest hurdle of the internet check when loading the game, I don't see any reason to believe they won't continue to make progress in this area.
@NonSoft You formulated it better than both of us Indeed, progressing in the game levels (aka, climbing the ladder) is the main point of the game (if not the only one) since most cards are already unlocked from the start. Apart from talents you unlock from the story quest of course. Which is an interesting point to know: are the clues unlocked offline as well or not? But you are right, they said on their Discord that they will continue improving the offline mode so that's some really good news. Especially when looking at this last update content showing that they do care about this part.
Played this game waaaay too much last night. There is a LOT of content with just the 3 characters alone (the story chapters PER CHARACTER alone jeez). I feel rightly obliged to shell out on at least one dlc (but let’s be honest, I’ll probably end up buying both). This game is ridiculously generous.
I liked the old app icon a lot. The new one’s ok, but the previous one was super cool looking. That’s it.
