Albatross

I'd love to hear your feedback either here, in the itch comments, or there is a google form that appears after you play the game once. And, idk, if you're curious about something send me an ask. I've never got an ask that wasn't a DM lol.

I don't really care about keeping this a secret. You can share this post, talk about it, tell other people the password, etc. In fact please do all of those things... But next Friday, after my 10:30am dentist appointment, I'll remove the password and post it other places.

#witching stone #gamedev #indie games #indie games of cohost

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in reply to @tayl1r's post:

typo23 @typo234/13/2024, 7:07 AM

this is nice!

typo23 @typo234/13/2024, 3:33 PM

something small:
a guide that says you can skip certain events (picking powerups) that you dont like
i thought that it was forced and then fought a bossfight with my main spell gone

Alex @tayl1r4/13/2024, 3:40 PM

ah, you replaced a spell and didn't want to?
yeah, that's interesting. maybe it needs to be more obvious.
could do another tut when you enter a node for the first time.

typo23 @typo234/13/2024, 5:07 PM

also, in bossfights can you show the effect of the added stones that the boss do? fighting a boss the first time is half blind

Alex @tayl1r4/13/2024, 5:22 PM

i can try to make it more clear! it does describe the effect on the gems and the boss intent, but it seems like it's not mentioned as part of the counter-buff.
(edit - i have done this but i'm going to be away for 24h so i'm not gonna push it)

Esteban 🦦@whitelotuz4/13/2024, 4:48 PM

Bookmarking for later when I'm on my PC but this trailer looks amazing! Bravoooo 👏👏✊

Alex @tayl1r4/13/2024, 5:23 PM

thank you!

Yuzu Adagio @Yuzu-Adagio4/13/2024, 5:45 PM

Artstyle is right up my alley! The boss seems like a bit of a harsh difficulty spike on my first attempt. Will play more.

Alex @tayl1r4/13/2024, 6:10 PM

Glad you like it. Good luck!

PleasingFungus @cavalcadeofcats4/13/2024, 6:46 PM

useless secret itch.io lore: you can include the password in the link so people don't have to type it in! https://tayl1r.itch.io/witching-stone?password=Jam 236S~D

game seems fun! i was a little unclear on how the "catalyst" spell worked when i bought it - i'd thought that "lost at start of turn" meant the spell was lost at the start of your next turn (ie you had to cast it on turn 1 or lose it), not that the str was lost. (Perhaps silly of me.)

i'm not sure if right-click to reset path is documented? I found it by guessing - not sure if i skimmed past an instruction for it or not.

badges are fun to play with :)

PleasingFungus @cavalcadeofcats4/13/2024, 6:56 PM

screenshot of fighting the floor 1 boss

i came into the boss fight at 5 hp, which made it very exciting :)

Alex @tayl1r4/14/2024, 12:56 AM

Oh thanks! I've added that to the post.

Yeah I could see how that's confusing. I think I'll leave it for now, but try to think of something nicer.

Yeah, right-click to regress and hold to cancel is undocumented. It's probably intuitive, but also I watched people at TGD4 play it and just hold LMB the whole time (more like a mobile game I guess) so it could be a lot more explicit.

I'm really happy with badges. There's a lot of complexity there but it's fun to play around with imho!

Noobee @noobeelive4/13/2024, 9:00 PM

i really enjoy the game and i love the art style 💚 but gosh, am i bad with bosses. 🥲

Alex @tayl1r4/13/2024, 11:57 PM

thank you! i was in bed at like 3am and saw you were streaming. i should've hit share! sorry about that... but i've got a big train journey today so i'll try to watch the vod!

Noobee @noobeelive4/14/2024, 12:38 AM

no need to apologise! i hope you had a good sleep. 💚

Rufia @RufiaArt4/14/2024, 10:01 AM

This demo is super neat! I already have a weakspot for these kinda' deck building games so was unsurprised that I instantly vibed with this.

I feel like the combat animations could stand to be sped up slightly at least as an optional thing. But other than that I'm super interested to try the full game when it comes out.

Alex @tayl1r4/14/2024, 12:01 PM

Glad you like it! Yeah, I'll see if I can get away with a simple speed up without breaking anything...

Rufia @RufiaArt4/15/2024, 2:25 PM

The 2x battle speed you added is perfect! This feels so much better - huge thank you for implementing it!

medibot @medibot4/18/2024, 10:16 PM

this was a lot of fun! no bugs encountered. the boss was really tough! i only managed to defeat them on my fourth attempt after specifically tailoring my build towards that fight.

one thing that would be useful is if badges would clearly indicate what kind of spells they can attach to. i picked up the general pattern of "damage goes on damage spells, block goes on not-damage spells", but it would be nice to be specifically indicated in case there are ever exceptions.

Alex @tayl1r4/19/2024, 4:22 AM

congratulations!

yeah, something i really like in some deckbuilding-adjacent roguelikes is preparing my build for checkpoints. asking myself "what am i gonna do if i get bone cats?" or "can i save my orange in tarantus?" rather than just optimising generally for dps. and so each act has its own spells, badges and bosses to allow for that.

i think whether or not that is a good design is probably subjective! but it's objective that i've failed if players feel restricted to a single build path - especially on default difficult with no mods!

on the badges, yep, this is fair enough. more than once i've picked a badge and then realised it doesn't fit on any of my spells. they're all crosses.

under the hood spells effects all go to the same target. so putting "block" on a damage spell means it'll just... add block to the enemy. but there are also exceptions when you want this to happen. like the spell Pact causes self-damage then gives you power equal to that amount. so sticking +1 damage on that is allowed.

i think for now i'll write up some simple text, only display it in the shop, and i'll think of someting more elegant later... maybe.

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