First impressions thread

• Was very impressed by the performance of Flash and the overall look of the game! Awesome as hell and love all the pen and paper references.
• At first It confused me that you only allocate some attacks. I think you should choose/click your target every time you attack, even though there is only one enemy to choose from - that's just how my gamer reflexes wanted it.
• Love the card-based combat mechanics, but got stuck several rounds with almost exclusively movement cards - and used several other rounds just moving around to spend them (to gain new cards next round)
• After a few hours of play I must admit it got a little repetitive and the only thought I had was: I need (NEED) to have this game in print for my group

 

Thanks Pengw1n. All right will give the imps another go.

Yes for the Ooze + Lizardmen encounter, either could be removed and I feel the encounter will still be challenging for my meek group at this stage

All right. If that yellow marking is decorative unlike the yellow squares which are victory areas. I suggest using another color for the former,... Red or pink or sumthing.

 

If you want, you can turn off auto-targeting in the Options menu. Here is their rationale for including it.

And Molotova, I find it interesting that you found the Imps challenging, but made no mention of the Troglodytes: we're used to new players saying Blue Manchu doesn't know how to balance a game because of how horrible the Troglodytes are! The response to those people, of course, is to discuss strategy; which you clearly must have handled as you didn't feel the need to complain about them.

As such, what each person finds "obvious" about strategy will differ, and we all get stuck somewhere. Me, I treat those Imps as easy loot. Avoid line of sight, rush up close, and enjoy their complete lack of defensive cards. Get right next to these ranged attackers, and some of them will run away from the victory squares, leaving their friends to die (and you to dominate the squares).

 

Oh, I don't want to spoil anyone's fun. That's for sure.

It's difficult to draw a dividing line between "here's a strategic thing you might not have considered" and "here's the solution"; after all, Molotov observed that getting in line-of-sight was lethal, so these thoughts were already floating around. (Also, assuming I went too far here (and I apologize if I did), there's still a gap between "I'm given the solution" and "Now I have to get the dumb thing to work in practice.")

The topic of difficulty and learning from the game is interesting, and I think Blue Manchu's choice to have "classic difficulty" (i.e., the player MIGHT ACTUALLY LOSE) is important. You can't JUST play the game and expect to win: if, in the case of the Troglodytes, you see that your "rush into range 1 and start hitting things" strategy doesn't work, it's your responsibility to figure out why . . . or ask for help. Perhaps some complicated coding could get Gary to give helpful strategic hints if people lose X number of times.

 

When I first signed on to play the beta and it jumped me into the level 18-20+ mission I was confused, since most games start you off at level 1. After I beat the green dragon it was revealed as to why I was playing a higher level character and so began my lower level career. After I realized what was happening, I thought that this was a very clever and original way to begin the game. It's like an attention grabber when writing a great story, a way to draw people into the game and give them a taste of all the great things your characters will be able to do. It was refreshing when I was expecting a hearty tutorial in the beginning, but you were left to figure some things out on your own, making you think a bit, and once you get a grasp on gameplay, you follow up with more detailed tutorial.

This game is super addicting, I love looting the treasure, in fact I love the inventory system in general where you drag and drop and arrange your gear however you want. ONe of my favorite things to do in the game is the act of selling items. I love dragging the item up into the seller's area and getting gold when I let go of the mouse, haha. I know it might be silly but little details like that go a long way with me. The bartering system has a fun dynamic to it, yet it is still very easy to use and understand.

There are a couple of things I noticed so far about the game that might offer a better gameplay experience. One is a simple error on the SPARK INDUCTOR card, there is a black box in the lower left of the card blocking a portion of the card's description text.

I really like the way you compare items when you are managing your character, how when you hover the item over the other it brings up a side-by-side comparison of the cards.
While this method is good to get a quick range and damage comparison, I didn't find a way to do a close up card comparison, like when I wanted to see if this one attack was harder for enemies to block than my compared item's attack card.
So someway to compare the cards details in a side by side format would be nice.

Lastly, it would be nice to have a way to sort out items based on the character I was trying to beef up. Say I had some slots open for my wizard class, I want an option that would sort all the items my wizard could use, once I had those I could easily hover over the items and see their stats and decide what I wanted.

If I think of anything else I will post in the appropriate forum rooms.
Thank you for an awesome experience, I've been telling my friends about this game at work and they are wanting to play as well. Thanks again for the beta key and the opportunity!

 

Ok so as I was playing around in the shop I realized that you can click the Item slot you are wanting to fill or upgrade, and it automatically sorts your inventory and the shop inventory to that item you clicked on. I clicked on my wizards boots cause they were getting holes in the bottom, and the merchant came over and presented 6 possible boots for purchase. I told him no thanks cause i remembered i had 2 other pairs in my backpack.

 

And that little in-character narration is one of the best things I've read today.

 

Graphics
The animation and graphics in general are ridiculously good.
I play on a 30 inch monitor at 2560x1600 which causes some scale issues. Four or five boards the size of Workshop Apex could fit on the screen at the same time, so it feels a little like the board is floating in a sea of wood. It also means the size of the text ranges between quite and very small. It would be great if there was a scale option to size things up or down though this may be a big change (and not sure whether it would compromise the look of the game). Ideally, sizing UI/HUD elements seperately from the game board and figures, so that it could be tweaked.
The other problem playing at this size causes is that it jams Gary way up the top of the screen and I often don't see stuff up there. Something to make him "pop" a bit more might be helpful?

Sound
I have been mostly playing with the sound off, but I had some difficulty actually turning it off. Moving the slider didn't seem to immediately impact the volume of the sound. For example, I would normally tweak the slider and then listen to hear how loud sounds are after that tweak, but it seemed like the volume setting wasn't saved until after the options screen was closed. Confused me for a minute.

Tutorial
Jumping straight into the thick of things with the higher level characters was funny.

Gameplay
Difficulty is a bit variable. Most levels I have no problems with, but some (Workshop Apex) are thrashing me. Even having smashed through it once and done a bunch more levels, I still feel like this map is very hard.
Heals seem very weak. My characters are only level four and by comparison to the difference an attack card can make, the heals seems very underwhelming. Ideally, I'd think that even a minor heal should be similar, or maybe slightly smaller than a damaging hit for that level range. As it is, the two points I'd gain from a minor heal mean nothing compared to the 6 points of incoming damage.
I feel like this game would be absolutely banging with some randomly generated maps. Playing back through maps is fun, and handmade dungeons absolutely have their place, but having adventures that are made entirely of randomly generated map archetypes (dungeon, castle, wilderness, etc) and having some adventures with one or two randomly generated maps would seriously ramp up the re-playability for me (not that I'm not hopelessly addicted anyway, would just make it even more fun!)

Items
The whole character class specific items thing is sort of annoying. I can understand trying to prevent newbies from putting the wrong gear on the wrong dude, but it's really frustrating when I find some nice armour and my cleric can't wear it. It'd be nice even if it was a little more flexible (for example dual armour types that could be worn by warrior/cleric, warrior/rogue, cleric/wizard or rogue/wizard. Not ideal, but maybe?
In general my drops have been pretty decent, but I often don't know what to sell and what not to sell. I don't know if I should be saving items for new characters or what. It'd be great if I could "tag" items with a symbol to indicate whether I should hang onto them for the future, keep them for sentimental reasons or sell them.

Classes
More would be great.

Overall
Damn good fun.

 

Immediately I was a bit overwhelmed by the volume of the music playing. Gary appears and guided me along the way (albeit into certain danger, but such is the world of Cardhuntria). Having seen many others face the same enemies I did not expect to struggle to win as I had. I almost lost a character to Greenfang. That being said, I was pleased to know that I would have challenging times ahead.

Once I had a taste of what could be achieved, I was made to start anew, leaving me salivating for more.

Aesthetically the game is simply quality! The blend of 2d animation with the cardboard figuring and the gridded maps really gives a DND style board game sensation. I was drawn into the world and lost a good few hours (seven or eight the first time I played).

Once I embarked with my lone adventure I got swept up with what I would get next, from other party members to a new level and new loot. The tutorial adventures taught me how to play the card type I would next receive. This provided me the opportunity to learn how best to overcome and employ what I would moments latter be using too. That flow gave a truly consistent feel to the development of the game play.

Starting with the non-tutorial adventures I experience new challenge after new challenge in wrestling to overcome some new mechanic to the game (armor with the keep ability, burning, block, move + attack, etc.) Several times, I barely survived by the skin of my teeth (4 or less health points each on all of my characters).

I was shocked to learn how drastically different the game play can change when instead of three enemies all drawing from the same deck, you have three of the same enemies all drawing from individual decks. It is quirky aspects like this that flesh out the game and keep me wanting to see what’s next.

After exhaustion set in I was forced to push forward into uncertainty. Exhaustion provided a minor inconvenience. I learned that so long as you abandon the adventure before the last encounter you can still loot farm. Where it not for this I would surely have been defeated long before Forest Edge, the second encounter from Highway robbery.

Utilizing that aforementioned method of item farming can really be an asset when looking to find or to fund the acquisition of new items. That leads me to my main source of frustration, the buy sell exchange rate. At a rate of twenty percent of the items value, it doesn’t seem worth it most of the time to sell anything.

Additionally, the class and race system is really stellar, and I look forward to getting to pvp to see what that is like. On a side note, I’ve been unable to get into the Tournament Keep, due to the white screen of death.

So, aside from that issue my first impression is certainly a good one. After all the hype my expectations were still met or exceeded. Great job everyone and keep up the awesome work!​

 

First impressions of the Card Hunter!

After playing a few matches, the game really just throws you into it head first. Only after you kinda stumble your way past the green dragon does it take a step back to teach you whats going on. I figured out what to do after a round or two, but I try to think that if my wife or some of my "not-so-nerdy" friends were try it out they may be a little lost when they start things out. I know everything is still a work in progress. Overall first impression? The game is fun and it can be great. I think that when you start the game the mood should be set a little better to give the feel of hunkering down for a night of adventure game fun!

 

Oh my goodness Gary's text toward the start of Beneath the Frozen Earth is SPOT ON.

(This counts as a "first impression." Y'all changed the game on me.)

 

you can sort items by slot once you have said items/they appear in shop . Arcane items, robes,staves,ect. (only wizards use these).

Edit: nvm seems you found out guess i should read more

 

So I played a bit of Card Hunter after knocking off Heart of the Swarm over the weekend.

That first greenfang tutorial was totally overwhelming and confusing in the context. Perhaps I was rushing through and probably didnt read enough, but seriously, it was a bit jarring and felt like information overload - though I understand its put there so you can see what the game will look like with a bit of time investment on behalf of the player. It just felt like lets start a game nice and easy but get dropped in at the deep end.

Anyway, I struggled with the "only play one card from one character at a time", but I know understand the mechanic and am doing a bit better. Those dwarves dont bloody move much! Though against the copper? golem, my mage was the only survivor due to her endless supply of dash cards. However, I'm not sure where the tutorial has ended and where the game begins either. I'm hoping that my dwarf warrior, dwarf priest and elvish mage all get to continue merrily without suddenly having to re-roll. Also, is there a level cap for beta?

I dont think the skills were explained very well. Perhaps include a weak level 1 skill to demonstrate?

Oh, and the "Your Name" field for rego implied that we had to put our real life name in there, not that it would be used as the player name in the game.

Is the sound adjustable on the fly, or does it require a restart? Seemed to only work for restarting on my macine.

I also found the ember spray to be a little confusing. At one stage I couldn't use it because the directional arrows wouldnt appear and I didn't know how to turn my characters facing.

Overall, I'm enjoying the experience. The artwork is excellent as is the sound. The fact it works in a browser is a great idea. Play at home and at work

 

Yeah I'll be honest, I almost did the same thing. Only reason I didn't is I give my gamertag to the internet wherever I can get away with it. My wife put her real name in too. Is there a way to change account names?

 

To try and help:

You should be able to adjust it whenever there's an Options menu in the top right. Though even that doesn't always appear; I hope this is revised in the future.

All Cone attacks suffer problems, and Blue Manchu is considering revising. (See here.)

But I'm having a hard time responding to this:

What, exactly, needs explanation? How to add and remove items? Skills and items are treated the same: do you feel this fact itself needs explanation?

 

At this point in time, my characters are level 3 or 4. The available skills that were rewarded or given are at 9 or above. I would have thought that in the tutorial there would be a low level skill that could be applied so that a player could attach it just to get the feeling of how skills are used and applied. Like a level 1 skill where the player gets 1x extra movement square or something while equipped, so they can apply it and try it out - just like low level weapons and armour etc. I have to wait for a lot more adventuring to get through to level 9 and use the skills.

It appeared as if there were boxes in the character inventory for obvious drag and drop functionality for other items. I don't believe I saw such a box for skills, hence the confusion and why I posted. Sorry if its obvious to others. There'll always be someone particularly dopey in a beta.