Dance of Demons

The patch definitely made the game way more fun!! I found myself playing for several hours, testing new builds and also taking my time of course. Still getting my ass kicked on expert though!! Definitely love the two major things:

- First and foremost, the card descriptions. They're so not overwhelming now, and they let me understand the description way more and immediately for most cards. Some need a second reading but after that everything works, so no need to change anything there. I'm definitely making better builds now that I know by heart what each card does. Personally, I prefer a footwork-based build since I try my best to get as many perfects as possible, so the extra arrows let me do passive damage (and then active with arcane pull). I also favor chaosflame a lot, it's very fun. Overall, really loving this change!! 

- Enemies having lower health makes the game flow so much nicely at the beginning, and by movement 4 you're guaranteed to have a build that lets you make a lot of damage, which scales nicely with the health increase. This also has let me experiment more with said builds, considering I don't have to wait five minutes for movement three, and most movements take below a minute now. 

There are two things I noticed with mages, however: 

- The first one is something I'm not sure is on purpose or if it's not supposed to be this way. The encyclopedia says that touching the ring earlier than the 7th beat damages you instantly. However, most of the times I've done this I don't get damaged, my flow just gets reset back to one. It's definitely a nice clutch, but I don't know if it was intended this way.

- The second is more regarding readability. Some rings tick down in half beats, making them double as fast as default ones. This, however, becomes an issue when another ring spawns in at the same time. When a ring ticks down, it does a blinking animation, but since these are so fast, they mostly remain "lit up". Now of course, knowing this is their behavior would seem to help catch them, but a lot of times it doesn't. Perhaps making the ticking animation for those actually more flashy could help?? Or adjusting the blinking fade-ins and outs to the speed of the ticking perhaps?? Something that could let you know that one is the one you're looking at, because I've definitely dashed into the wrong ring a lot of times.

One last thing that I wanted to ask for is a button that lets you restart a run in the same difficulty without having to go back to the main menu!! It's kinda silly having to do that every time. 

Other than all of this, I've been having a lot of fun!! Definitely addicting in the best way as wilrnir said!! >:]

really really fun !!!! i ended up playing for aan hour ish straight, just trying to beat the demo on proficient. it's very very addicting in the best way

one thing that stood out to me was movement 4, where i learnt that instead of just focusing on dodging, i could fit exactly [1] barrage shot/ricochet shot between each dodge - it feels very good to find new openings between enemy attacks where you can counterattack >:]

I love playing rhythm games, so of course I went ahead and got this after seeing the announcement. While I do think that this game is a pretty interesting concept,  there are some things that I really would wish were different because they really detract from the experience as a whole. I do understand that this is a demo, but the game feels more like a proof-of-concept than a preview of what's to come. Please don't take this as me trying to establish some set-in-stone truths, but rather as the experience of a player who would be consuming your product.

My first gripe with this is the amount of text that's on-screen at a time. Almost every single screen has too much tiny text and it's visually and stimulatingly overwhelming. This brings me to my next point, which is the amount of text in general. There are so many things that I feel could just be either shortened, or outright shown and not told. The encyclopedia is the biggest example of this that I'll be talking about in different occasions, but I'll start with one thing that really popped out:

Examples. I really feel like you shouldn't give examples of how something works, because that means that the description itself isn't clear enough. I don't know how everything works internally but, for example, the critical strike description could just explain what a critical does and how damage increases. It's self-explanatory that stats that show something going up will increase a chance (especially if they have a percentage next to them), and if attacks specify they can't critically strike, then that's that. 

The tutorial screen gave me whiplash with the amount of text it had, but also because it does not feel that much like a tutorial once you read the encyclopedia. In fact, the encyclopedia itself feels like a game manual you're supposed to read before playing, which doesn't really sit that well with the flow of the game. The tutorial does not teach you about stats, imbuements, effects, or why flow is important at all. I feel like the tutorial could work way better by gradually introducing you to mechanics and the game itself, as well as giving a brief description of what everything does, instead of throwing a lot of things at once regarding not only gameplay, but the enemies themselves as well. Similarly, the "About the Dance" section could just be explained in the tutorial. The player should not have to look up how to play after having already played the tutorial.

Another issue with the game is the transition screens that show you cards. Since I assumed the tutorial would show me everything I had to know, I jumped right into the game and got blasted with even more text with definitions that were long and stats that didn't make sense. Additionally, the game introduced the four tarot suits as an important information element, but this is never shown in the encyclopedia at all, oddly enough. In many roguelikes, getting items/upgrades like these usually only takes one or two lines of text maximum. While I think it's nice to know what stats they raise, considering the game has different effects and attributes, I also think that specifying everything gets a little to overwhelming and even mechanical. One of the things that make these kinds of games fun is wondering what the short description entails and experimenting with it. In Voidigo, for example, Snake Egg Rehand's description is simply "Snake Egg Attack on Reload During Battle". We don't know how quickly it reloads, we don't know what snakes even do or what they are, how many are released, how much damage they do, etc. However, once you use it, it all falls into place. Upgrades to this powerup then show you these stats once you see them in a shop or otherwise. Of course this might be an extreme example for this game, but the simple aspect of it remains. This is also shown in every of the mutations in Nuclear Throne. 

Gameplay-wise, the game feels too... monotone and repetitive I'd say. And the encyclopedia itself acknowledges this. In the Summary section of abilities, the game tells you how to play, saying "Rinse and repeat?", and this is already not good. A game should not tell you the path to take, because that establishes a sort of "one right way" to do things, and that definitely shows while playing. It doesn't help that the fights take so long,  a lot of them reducing with the same steps described in the encyclopedia, and even then it takes too long. They also punish you for taking any damage at all. Even when you don't, the game can still give you a bad ranking. I think that if enemies had less health it would make the flow feel less constricted and you'd still be able to see a wide variety of choreographies.

Regarding the enemies, I think the different attack lengths are pretty cool. Hitting many perfects in a row with different rhythms is very satisfactory.  However, the encyclopedia telling you how they work sort of takes the wonder out of it?? In Crypt of the Necrodancer, the game doesn't tell you how enemies work beforehand, not even after defeating them. It throws a different pattern at you, a damage value, effect, etc., and it lets you fail over and over. This is aided with how quickly a battle can be decided from the get-go, creating this sort of trial-and-error feel in which you feel like you should be more aware of your surroundings, instead of feeling like you failed because you did not study what the encyclopedia detailed beforehand. 

This all being said, I don't think that this game should be copies of these other games, these are just examples of things that I've felt worked in this genre. Similarly, I'm still aware that this is an unfinished version and subject to change, which is why I have given this much feedback. 

I did have some fun, despite all I've said already!! Some of the things I liked are:

- The fact that there's off-beats. It really adds a lot of variation and spice and keeps you alert and tests your senses!! 

- The different patterns enemies follow make everything more musically cohesive and once again, test your reflexes. 

- The inclusion of attributes is interesting and can make for a dynamic playstyle with synergy builds. However, I do feel like a lot of resonances and imbuements err on the side of just increasing damage, which could end up making the game sort of stagnant if there is not a limit to them. I think that modifying other aspects could bring even more spice to the table!! 

All in all, I still see a lot of potential in this game and I'll definitely follow its progress!! There are not that many rhythm roguelikes, so it is always very welcome to see when a new one is introduced. Hoping the best for this project!!