This is great stuff! I can see why some people would not endure the initial part (I myself let this be the last game cause of the commitment to play it through) but I'm so glad I stuck around!
I went into with low expectation, there are sadly not that many good deck builder games around, and the last one that tried to tie conversations to slay the spire lost me very quickly, this one plays more like an actual card game and I've been having a good time!
The story
The story-writing is ok, it didn't wow me but it's engaging and doesn't take me out of the immersion trying to sound too smart than it really is. The tutorial going about all the cleverly-named names of the mechanics on the other hand was great!
The dialog tree is really well done, nothing feels like it goes back to the same point (inciting my internal paranoia of "oh god what am I missing out? did I screw up??", this is great stuff!) yet it does. Because of a soft-lock I had to go back and tried some other options and I'm quite amazed by how creatively everything flows back into the main line.
I named myself "PCLMULHQHQDQ" and the game even gave me a last name all by itself!
The card game
This is a card game I like! The one-action-per-turn and fixed hand size is super reminiscent of Yu-Gi-Oh Forbidden Memories so I felt very much at home, I both praised and cursed the RNG multiple times (how come I always get only wrong color premises aaaaaaa) and the AI just seemed fair. The moments when you're almost there to get your rhetoric and just need one more turn, completely in the gutter knowing the AI is about to play yet another proposal to hack into your premises to have them just go "Discard 6" is the kind of heartbeat wrecking moments that make card games so exciting!
I felt on my edge during both boss fights and even though I won by a landslide they always felt close calls, that's some really good direction!
Overall I'm really impressed and will want to follow this closely. If I had to suggest any change to the devs: get nicer backdrops, just because the explorable world looks like minecraft doesn't mean everything should. I think you are already cutting a nice balance of pixel art, low-poly and crisp textboxes, so maybe you can experiment a bit more?
I went into with low expectation, there are sadly not that many good deck builder games around, and the last one that tried to tie conversations to slay the spire lost me very quickly, this one plays more like an actual card game and I've been having a good time!
The story
The story-writing is ok, it didn't wow me but it's engaging and doesn't take me out of the immersion trying to sound too smart than it really is. The tutorial going about all the cleverly-named names of the mechanics on the other hand was great!
The dialog tree is really well done, nothing feels like it goes back to the same point (inciting my internal paranoia of "oh god what am I missing out? did I screw up??", this is great stuff!) yet it does. Because of a soft-lock I had to go back and tried some other options and I'm quite amazed by how creatively everything flows back into the main line.
I named myself "PCLMULHQHQDQ" and the game even gave me a last name all by itself!
The card game
This is a card game I like! The one-action-per-turn and fixed hand size is super reminiscent of Yu-Gi-Oh Forbidden Memories so I felt very much at home, I both praised and cursed the RNG multiple times (how come I always get only wrong color premises aaaaaaa) and the AI just seemed fair. The moments when you're almost there to get your rhetoric and just need one more turn, completely in the gutter knowing the AI is about to play yet another proposal to hack into your premises to have them just go "Discard 6" is the kind of heartbeat wrecking moments that make card games so exciting!
I felt on my edge during both boss fights and even though I won by a landslide they always felt close calls, that's some really good direction!
Overall I'm really impressed and will want to follow this closely. If I had to suggest any change to the devs: get nicer backdrops, just because the explorable world looks like minecraft doesn't mean everything should. I think you are already cutting a nice balance of pixel art, low-poly and crisp textboxes, so maybe you can experiment a bit more?
Question, though: you mentioned a softlock? If it's not too much trouble, could you describe roughly what happened leading up to that, either here or in an email to support[at]realitylayerzero.com? Just a description of roughly where it happened and what you were doing at the time ought to be enough to start figuring out what went wrong and cook up a patch for it. If it is too much trouble, no worries! I appreciate you not quitting despite having encountered it!