Cut for Power by hexkritor
GAME PLOT
"According to rumors, not far from the village where I am, a gang of cultists who worship Serpent God have decided to perform a summoning ritual to our world. I just became aware of this, that means the ritual is already on. I've already sent a message to the Order, but it's unlikely they'll have time to stop it. I need to hold them off, or at least distract them from the ritual while help is coming from the Order. There aren't many scrolls, but by cutting and combining them, the odds can be even"
-Astorus, mage of the Order of Order
GAME DESCRIPTION
As Astorus the mage, you have to stop the ritual. By casting spells from the scrolls, Astorus can deal damage to enemies or create a damage-absorbing barrier
Astorus can also cut one of the scrolls into two pieces by pressing the "Cut" button (costs 1 mana). You can adjust how the card will be cut by turning the cut line on the scroll
The resulting pieces Astorus can combine into a whole scroll, which goes into his hand
Authors
Hexkritor - programmer
Desm1t - gamedesigner
Julia L. - artist (characters, backgrounds)
TrolliusАля - artist (UI)
KaterinaEl - artist-animator
| HTML (rus) | https://hexkritor.itch.io/cut-for-power |
| HTML (eng) | https://hexkritor.itch.io/cut-for-power-en |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/cut-for-power |
Ratings
| Overall | 725th | 3.5⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 684th | 3.386⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 472th | 3.523⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1253th | 2.977⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 665th | 3.682⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 670th | 3.19⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 832th | 3.364⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 13🗳️ | 13🗨️ |
I somehow got stuck on this screen: I couldn't press the green button anymore, no mather what I selected.

We now have the english version of the game, so you can make another try to beat the game :)
We apologize for delaying the english version of the game :(
I agree with you that this game needs more variety in mechanics and enemies. In fact, some of mechanics are already implemented in the game. But we decided not to add them in case of making the game really unbalanced
For the card game itself, it would have been nice if we had some animations or feedback of the actual cards doing something like when the enemies perform their actions. Also having more mana that changes through out the game would have been also cool. Like cards that increase max mana for some number of turns. Or have you hold some mana and/or cards for the next turn. Like a bank for mana or cards.
Anyways, really cool concept, great game, thank you for submitting. Awesome!
I totally agree that the Cut/Combine has a potential to be expanded. I hope that someday it will expand into a finished game
I agree with you that the game has a lack of visual feedback and UI elements, which turns out not understanding what's going on and what should be done now
About mana banks and maximum mana manipulations, that's a cool idea, but it needs to be checked in practice
About the cheesy moment you mentioned, yes, you can make these type of cards. But by adding lots of empty cards you will lower your chance to get a card with effect. Also making one card with great ammount of symbols can't help you either, because it's mana cost will increased too. So it's about making low-cost cards with good efficiency
And I agree that the game has UI/UX problems, which can cause misunderstanding how to use Cut/Combine mechanic and other stuff
While I'm absolutely in love with the smooth enemy animations, the game lacks some polish in the UI department. Some indication of what enemy is about to do could add some tactical aspect to the game. And a cancel button for a cut screen would be nice. ^_^ That said, the game is solid and interesting to play, I'm curious to see a post-jam version. Very cool! :thumbsup:
I've recorded a playthrough, in case you're interested:
https://youtu.be/4hFHwCutQ00
Yes, the Cut/Combine mechanic is the intended way to finish the game. If it wasn't then it would be pointless for use. And it also mentioned in game plot, so you will delay the inevitable: trying to cut the cards :)
For cancelling the Cut, it follows the Touch-move rule like in chess. Also, in case of random appearance of symbols when you try to cut the card, with cancel button it could be heavily abused for rolling better symbol positions
I like the lore/story as well.
My main criticism is that the instructions could be clearer, I felt like I was chucked in the deep end at first. The fact that there is no visual indication of whats happening when you click a card besides numbers going down made it harder to pick up and play as well. Just a small slash animation or something when attacking would've helped a lot.
I did manage to pick it up though, so I guess it is good enough. But someone who's never played something like slay the spire would struggle to understand how it works, I think.
The main cut/combine mechanic is a really cool idea, with some more work it could be the basis of a cool game. The card cost seems to automatically scale appropriately, which is nice. It would be nice to be able to see what the cost of the resulting card would be (perhaps it is shown, but I missed it...)
The audio is appropriate, if a bit repetitive. As others have said, having more enemies/cards would be cool, but I'm sure there would be if you had more time
I totally agree that the game needs more instructions on how to play to users, who play card roguelike genre at first time, but it takes not so much time to understand what's going on
The card's cost depends on card's difficulty which based on used symbols in the card. Some symbols can increase or decreace the difficulty for sertain ammount
Yeah, it takes some time to understand Cut/Combine, but it's worth it