Tuning down the difficulty

As always, this update is live now and can be played for free in browser at https://isochronalgames.itch.io/timelinegame. Updates like this will be coming out every week, so please follow if you're interested in seeing future updates!

More balance and structural changes this week, mostly focused on rewards!

-The Grab base card has been replaced with Bash, a small damage and stun effect. I did this partially because of feedback that the grapple cards didn't seem very useful, something I experienced myself. I also wanted to add a defense effect between the full defense of the Dodge and the partial damage reduction of Defend. Stun is similar, in that it 'blocks' all effects, but only from the enemy it's applied to.

-Grapple cards have also all been disabled - they will make a comeback in a later update though!

-You now fully heal after every fight, not just after encounters. Feedback, and my experience, has been that without the game was nearly impossible. There is still definitely more fine tuning to do, and I expect to do more testing before the next update.

-You now get a choice of one of two random deck upgrade options after every fight, as well as the card reward.

-Money is no longer used to buy deck upgrades, but it still has a use! Between encounters you'll get access to a shop. At the moment you can only buy cards, but expect to see more items added soon!

-Money has been changed from dollars to cents, for reasons that will become clear as the theming progresses

One thing I've been thinking about a lot as I'm trying to balance this is the role of randomness in deckbuilder roguelites, and the way they almost all have multiple levels of randomness.

The first and most inherent, I would say, is card draw. You can't guarantee you'll have access to any particular card at any particular time. You can use things like card draw or smart moves to try and manipulate that chance however. This game is different than most in that once a card is in your hand you can hold it as long as you want, although that may change as things progress.

The second is card selection. You can't guarantee access to any particular card, but you can do things like maximize your number of card choice to try and find one. This isn't really a possibility in this game as it stands - every run is going to see the same number of cards.

The third, and one that was just added to this game in this update, is what upgrades you will see. Before every run got the same amount of money and had access to the same upgrades at the same prices. You could, if you wanted, always pick the same pattern of upgrades. With the new random choices after every fight, that's no longer the case - you could theoretically get no card removals in an entire run, although that would be very unlikely.

Is that good? Should those things be more under the players control, or more randomized? I think it depends on the game, and on the players tastes. For me I usually prefer games more on the player control end, so I'm guessing that's where this game will end up, but only time will tell!

I don't have much more to say this week besides thank you to the people who gave me feedback on the difficulty and other things! I appreciate it as I do my best to make this game the best I can. Critical feedback is crucial to that I would say, so feel free to leave a comment if you have anything to say!

In development - More shop and upgrade options are on their way, some that may seem familiar, and some using wholly new mechanics! I've also noticed some lag on the web version that I'm going to look into. Finally, I'm going to make tutorialization more of a priority, maybe adding a guided version of the ogre fight.

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