If anybody is looking for a fun minion build try out Naqui Zealot Mehtar. Go into poison and grab oozemancy. You can get a pretty sizeable army the further you get in the game as you summon oozes when you pray, early game that'll be three, late game that will be 28. You will also end up with a sizeable contingent of phantasms. The weakness to this is that most things that you need something that does fire, ice, or lightning as most things that are strong against astral and psychic damage are also strong against poison; especially around the time you reach the red tower. Grabbing a bunch of different elements is needed to cover your bases. This build also works with just praying enemies to death with all the offensive prayers you get.
A real hidden gem on itch and honestly possibly one of the best games available to play on the site. I've sunk dozens of hours into this already. I feel like I've gotten to the end (or at least what feels an intentional impossible wall) a number of times. I do have a few comments
After you finish the first map of areas and move onto the star map is it supposed to be such a massive spike in power for the enemies? I usually get killed on the first screen by demons that just pound me into dust no matter my build.
The fact that you can't change equipment in combat feels like you can end up in an inescapable trap, especially for elemental characters. After the first map, the demons you run into can have 100% damage resistance and if you can't switch equipment to change up damage types you're SOL.
Minion builds I've found really seem to struggle in this game. I've played a bunch of them but the minions die incredibly quickly and depending on the map they'll all get clogged up in rooms especially if ranged minions manage to be in front.
Most healing abilities feel like a joke, outside of the odd item that heals you #*will when you pray which can feel pretty powerful. Useful early game but late game cannot keep up with even the occasional chip damage from enemies.
The game heavily rewards single stat builds but so many things rely on will in the build that if you aren't playing a build that dumps a lot into it then most trees aren't worth dipping into.
I know this is a very early build (this applies to all criticisms of course) and a very good one at that, but I wish there was something to spend my glory on after I've unlocked everything. A glory shop would be nice, though that's a whole other thing and really just a suggestion.
Sorry if this is a bit much, don't get disheartened. I'm going to have my eye on this game and the moment it hits steam (or you finish it) I'll be buying it.
Thank you, and really glad you've enjoyed it. This is the kind of feedback that helps me a lot - it is received with gratitude.
In regards to character builds, I agree with all the things you've mentioned, and they've been bothering me as well. A couple build archetypes I'm immediately trying to make work are:
mixed attributes - not just all in one stat. Make this rewarding and unique. Being able to think of your hero as a "strength willpower guy" offers a ton of flavor but it's not heavily enough rewarded. I think this has to be addressed in some of the powers and also the glory-up rewards (which are probably the biggest culprit here for encouraging a stat-dump). In the short term it may be enough to include some things that scale off of STR * DEX etc
mass minions that fight --- currently, the only mass minion builds that really work are based on sacrificing them in some way, such as with Eresh and the fire / death priests. Minions as ammo. It would be nice to have a big fighting army and a LOT of players seem to want this. The game is still missing a lot of the minion power ups that I had intended to add, so stay tuned for that. I've accepted that an important option is to be able to play an autobattler where you get to watch your army fight lol
Thank you for your comments on the other stuff. Healing and the balance of it is in a constant state of flux. Equipment swapping is something I'd like to revisit - it is forbidden to prevent abuse of certain items that I haven't even made yet
The Void area with the demons was never really supposed to be beaten, although some people have, which has forced me to add more content to it, and now it's sort of the "true ending" but it has far less enemy diversity or thoughtful construction than the previous land of Achra. Hopefully, in time, it will get there
As for glory, I'll just have to add more things to unlock!
I would agree that the glory up mechanic discourages you from raising other stats. Funnily enough though the minion build I've had the most success with is usually one I run when I'm starting over the glory grind on a new computer with a Stran Amir Ashem.
Start with life and grab Piercing vines, they do incredible damage and scale incredibly well while also punishing anything moving into melee. Grab life cultists afterwards as soon as possible as they're some of the best summons for both damage and healing and are in fact the best mid battle healing power you can buy.
Next move into death and grab necromancy to get another front line fighter to go with your tugar, move back into life and grab invigoration to give your minions some survivability. Then grab the last power you're going to buy: nekrokinesis for a bit of extra damage (grab earlier if you haven't been able to get something that will deal more consistent damage off of will). After this all skill levels go into invigoration to make your summons as tanky as possible.
As for stat points, everything goes into will, wear whatever armor gives you the most benefits, don't worry about weight, you'll ideally be fighting within range of piercing vines and a high speed would actually get in the way of that.
I've entered maps and had every monster die before I got a chance to do anything as my minions spawn in and wipe everything. This usually takes me through to the second map and gets me a bunch of unlocks really quickly. Not my favorite build, it can drag if you run into a group with healers and god help you if you can't avoid a golgoranth till you get strong enough, they'll roll your entire team and then one shot you.
I'm simply glad to hear, in a flavor sense, that "life and death" minions is such a solid strategy.
I'm kind of playing catch up with summons as there was very little for them to begin with (a lot planned), but players seemed to immediately gravitate towards them. So I hope to design some more powers that make strategies like this more dynamic.
For example, there should be a death summon that gets stat boosted whenever an ally dies. Maybe a Skeleton Golganth...
I love this so far. This is really like Rift Wizard, and honestly with more dev time, it'll probably be better. Rift wizard has a huge infuriating problem of locking you into specific builds if you want to beat the game, so please, I know it's hard but don't fall into the same trap.
Thank you! It is super hard, for sure. Really benefiting from everyone who plays and gives ideas - there are many, many ways for the game patterns to get trapped by mechanics, and the goal is definitely for a maximum diversity of strategies. Making that possible is an interesting discussion --- in a hero customization game, how do you make a ton of things work, and not feel locked in, while keeping that meaningful by having a relative amount of things that don't work? The feeling of being locked in, separate from the actuality, is probably the key, in some way
One of the keys could possibly be letting players know what's coming up next, back when Rift Wizard was in EA you had the ability to see what the next portals led to, allowing you to plan your build out. Then when they took that out, you basically just had to guess, and almost always get fucked over with what you were planning to build. Path of Achra has this to an extent (ability to see further is what I mean) thankfully, so at least I feel like I have a say in what I'm going for instead of just seeing ??? for gear and stuff.
I feel the main chokepoint when it comes to strategizing how to beat the game where you have control over the abilities you choose is the fact that there are some guaranteed encounters you will deal later on. You will always fight the final boss of the first world, you will always encounter death knights near the end of it, after the first world you will get random and strong elemental enemies which can easily kill you if you happen to have a build weak to their elements. Therefore, if you are sure you will meet those enemies, you need to prepare your build to deal with them, and the pool of build combinations which are able to deal with all of those becomes more and more limited.
I don't really see a good way to deal with this problem, because the alternative is the lack of structure and big chaotic randomness, when you never know what is to come at the end, which does not lock you into certain builds, but also requires a lot of sheer luck to actually beat the game or possibly this one universal build, which is simply more resistant to the randomness around and it's consistent in itself enough to be the one and most optimal.
Like Grassblazer mentioned, knowing what's to come next allows for planning, but honestly in the lategame, regardless of the enemies you are going to face, the build has already been decided. Theoretically, if you were to know enemies you will meet on the whole first world, on each branching choice and if those were more randomly placed, the problem of being locked in a build would be solved, because each run would require you to tinker on particular build to beat it due to the whole context and force the player to be elastic for each game - this however would require each person to do this big-brain planning instead of simply having fun.
Enjoyed the game. Two requests if it is not too much and one bug.
The bug is that after selecting some spells, like 2 or 3, later on even if we have the points for other spells, they are very dark, and I think the select button is greyed out but I can still click on it. So it is only visual.
The two requests are, can you by any chance allow for a lighter background? If this would be too much effort for you to change all textures, can you allow us to change the screen tint? I must be the only dungeon crawler player that uses light backgrounds, the dark ones really tire my eyes (I wish dcss webtiles allowed this as well...)
Last request, maybe easier to do, can you also build a mac version? Maybe its not too important since I see that the browser actually kinda seemed to save my progress (I don't know how). At least when I refreshed it still had progress.
1. This may have to do with being limited to 2 elements -- the other elements get darkened. This is actually a bug -- you shouldn't be able to buy those darkened traits. Will fix, and thank you!
2. I can for sure do this, I see your point
3. The mac version sets off some virus warnings and you have to quarantine it or something to run it -- I didn't want to deal with comments about that. I'll happily send you a mac export if you want though
Love this game! The progression is great, and I love the exitement of getting the perfect items to complete a build. Ulfsire, you are a wizard of the gaming industry. I have been playing for WEEKS.
Excellent game! Loving it! Feels really good to play. I like the allies you get, it's always fun to have team mates. The only thing I noticed was that the background (non-play-area) is black, but there's also black "non-play" areas within the bounds of the map, which feels a bit strange. But all together I'm quite impressed. Keep up the great work! I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this title!
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If anybody is looking for a fun minion build try out Naqui Zealot Mehtar. Go into poison and grab oozemancy. You can get a pretty sizeable army the further you get in the game as you summon oozes when you pray, early game that'll be three, late game that will be 28. You will also end up with a sizeable contingent of phantasms. The weakness to this is that most things that you need something that does fire, ice, or lightning as most things that are strong against astral and psychic damage are also strong against poison; especially around the time you reach the red tower. Grabbing a bunch of different elements is needed to cover your bases. This build also works with just praying enemies to death with all the offensive prayers you get.
I've had a longstanding desire to add a "Dream Ooze" and this has inflamed it
A real hidden gem on itch and honestly possibly one of the best games available to play on the site. I've sunk dozens of hours into this already. I feel like I've gotten to the end (or at least what feels an intentional impossible wall) a number of times. I do have a few comments
After you finish the first map of areas and move onto the star map is it supposed to be such a massive spike in power for the enemies? I usually get killed on the first screen by demons that just pound me into dust no matter my build.
The fact that you can't change equipment in combat feels like you can end up in an inescapable trap, especially for elemental characters. After the first map, the demons you run into can have 100% damage resistance and if you can't switch equipment to change up damage types you're SOL.
Minion builds I've found really seem to struggle in this game. I've played a bunch of them but the minions die incredibly quickly and depending on the map they'll all get clogged up in rooms especially if ranged minions manage to be in front.
Most healing abilities feel like a joke, outside of the odd item that heals you #*will when you pray which can feel pretty powerful. Useful early game but late game cannot keep up with even the occasional chip damage from enemies.
The game heavily rewards single stat builds but so many things rely on will in the build that if you aren't playing a build that dumps a lot into it then most trees aren't worth dipping into.
I know this is a very early build (this applies to all criticisms of course) and a very good one at that, but I wish there was something to spend my glory on after I've unlocked everything. A glory shop would be nice, though that's a whole other thing and really just a suggestion.
Sorry if this is a bit much, don't get disheartened. I'm going to have my eye on this game and the moment it hits steam (or you finish it) I'll be buying it.
Thank you, and really glad you've enjoyed it. This is the kind of feedback that helps me a lot - it is received with gratitude.
In regards to character builds, I agree with all the things you've mentioned, and they've been bothering me as well. A couple build archetypes I'm immediately trying to make work are:
Thank you for your comments on the other stuff. Healing and the balance of it is in a constant state of flux. Equipment swapping is something I'd like to revisit - it is forbidden to prevent abuse of certain items that I haven't even made yet
The Void area with the demons was never really supposed to be beaten, although some people have, which has forced me to add more content to it, and now it's sort of the "true ending" but it has far less enemy diversity or thoughtful construction than the previous land of Achra. Hopefully, in time, it will get there
As for glory, I'll just have to add more things to unlock!
I would agree that the glory up mechanic discourages you from raising other stats. Funnily enough though the minion build I've had the most success with is usually one I run when I'm starting over the glory grind on a new computer with a Stran Amir Ashem.
Start with life and grab Piercing vines, they do incredible damage and scale incredibly well while also punishing anything moving into melee. Grab life cultists afterwards as soon as possible as they're some of the best summons for both damage and healing and are in fact the best mid battle healing power you can buy.
Next move into death and grab necromancy to get another front line fighter to go with your tugar, move back into life and grab invigoration to give your minions some survivability. Then grab the last power you're going to buy: nekrokinesis for a bit of extra damage (grab earlier if you haven't been able to get something that will deal more consistent damage off of will). After this all skill levels go into invigoration to make your summons as tanky as possible.
As for stat points, everything goes into will, wear whatever armor gives you the most benefits, don't worry about weight, you'll ideally be fighting within range of piercing vines and a high speed would actually get in the way of that.
I've entered maps and had every monster die before I got a chance to do anything as my minions spawn in and wipe everything. This usually takes me through to the second map and gets me a bunch of unlocks really quickly. Not my favorite build, it can drag if you run into a group with healers and god help you if you can't avoid a golgoranth till you get strong enough, they'll roll your entire team and then one shot you.
I'm simply glad to hear, in a flavor sense, that "life and death" minions is such a solid strategy.
I'm kind of playing catch up with summons as there was very little for them to begin with (a lot planned), but players seemed to immediately gravitate towards them. So I hope to design some more powers that make strategies like this more dynamic.
For example, there should be a death summon that gets stat boosted whenever an ally dies. Maybe a Skeleton Golganth...
I love this so far. This is really like Rift Wizard, and honestly with more dev time, it'll probably be better. Rift wizard has a huge infuriating problem of locking you into specific builds if you want to beat the game, so please, I know it's hard but don't fall into the same trap.
Thank you! It is super hard, for sure. Really benefiting from everyone who plays and gives ideas - there are many, many ways for the game patterns to get trapped by mechanics, and the goal is definitely for a maximum diversity of strategies. Making that possible is an interesting discussion --- in a hero customization game, how do you make a ton of things work, and not feel locked in, while keeping that meaningful by having a relative amount of things that don't work? The feeling of being locked in, separate from the actuality, is probably the key, in some way
One of the keys could possibly be letting players know what's coming up next, back when Rift Wizard was in EA you had the ability to see what the next portals led to, allowing you to plan your build out. Then when they took that out, you basically just had to guess, and almost always get fucked over with what you were planning to build. Path of Achra has this to an extent (ability to see further is what I mean) thankfully, so at least I feel like I have a say in what I'm going for instead of just seeing ??? for gear and stuff.
I feel the main chokepoint when it comes to strategizing how to beat the game where you have control over the abilities you choose is the fact that there are some guaranteed encounters you will deal later on. You will always fight the final boss of the first world, you will always encounter death knights near the end of it, after the first world you will get random and strong elemental enemies which can easily kill you if you happen to have a build weak to their elements. Therefore, if you are sure you will meet those enemies, you need to prepare your build to deal with them, and the pool of build combinations which are able to deal with all of those becomes more and more limited.
I don't really see a good way to deal with this problem, because the alternative is the lack of structure and big chaotic randomness, when you never know what is to come at the end, which does not lock you into certain builds, but also requires a lot of sheer luck to actually beat the game or possibly this one universal build, which is simply more resistant to the randomness around and it's consistent in itself enough to be the one and most optimal.
Like Grassblazer mentioned, knowing what's to come next allows for planning, but honestly in the lategame, regardless of the enemies you are going to face, the build has already been decided. Theoretically, if you were to know enemies you will meet on the whole first world, on each branching choice and if those were more randomly placed, the problem of being locked in a build would be solved, because each run would require you to tinker on particular build to beat it due to the whole context and force the player to be elastic for each game - this however would require each person to do this big-brain planning instead of simply having fun.
Enjoyed the game. Two requests if it is not too much and one bug.
The bug is that after selecting some spells, like 2 or 3, later on even if we have the points for other spells, they are very dark, and I think the select button is greyed out but I can still click on it. So it is only visual.
The two requests are, can you by any chance allow for a lighter background? If this would be too much effort for you to change all textures, can you allow us to change the screen tint? I must be the only dungeon crawler player that uses light backgrounds, the dark ones really tire my eyes (I wish dcss webtiles allowed this as well...)
Last request, maybe easier to do, can you also build a mac version? Maybe its not too important since I see that the browser actually kinda seemed to save my progress (I don't know how). At least when I refreshed it still had progress.
1. This may have to do with being limited to 2 elements -- the other elements get darkened. This is actually a bug -- you shouldn't be able to buy those darkened traits. Will fix, and thank you!
2. I can for sure do this, I see your point
3. The mac version sets off some virus warnings and you have to quarantine it or something to run it -- I didn't want to deal with comments about that. I'll happily send you a mac export if you want though
Update -- wanted to thank you for this comment, it's encouraged me to implement background color options, which are feeling nicer on my eyes as well
Love this game! The progression is great, and I love the exitement of getting the perfect items to complete a build. Ulfsire, you are a wizard of the gaming industry. I have been playing for WEEKS.
Thank you, friend. This is very motivating!
Here is a chunk of footage of this lovely little gem.
Thank you. Am hard at work binding a key to "select target in range" lol
Excellent game! Loving it! Feels really good to play. I like the allies you get, it's always fun to have team mates. The only thing I noticed was that the background (non-play-area) is black, but there's also black "non-play" areas within the bounds of the map, which feels a bit strange. But all together I'm quite impressed. Keep up the great work! I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this title!
Thank you, and noted