Summoning Master by JamesW
Hello guys!
This is literally a deck-building game.
You're summoned to be the summoning master. Cards are mainly used to summon minions, add their quantity or change their attributes. Build your deck carefully and beat the final boss.
There are 7 levels in total. Levels are preset and fixed. Card rewards are randomly generated.
Controls
- Space - End turn
- Esc - Open menu or close all pop-up canvases
- Right Click - Close all pop-up canvases
- Left Click - Click on buttons or drag a card to play
Tips
- Your max mana is 4 and you get 3 mana recovered each turn.
- You can have at most 10 cards in your hand.
- You draw 5 cards each turn.
- You can have at most 30 minions
- Some minions have taunt attributes, enemies always attack them first.
- Units attack randomly, you can't control their attack behavior.
Note
- The default game volume seems to be a bit low, you may need to turn up the volume outside the game.
Credits
- Game Design - James Weng
- Programming - James Weng
- Graphics - RedLeaves & James Weng
- Audio - James Weng
That’s it!
Warning: Due to time limit, the deck-building process is a bit short and the game is not well-balanced.
But I still hope you guys can find something fun in the game and enjoy it!
Bug Fix
- Fixed UI text disappearing issue (caused by damage popup text object sharing the same material with UI text)
- Fixed mana card incorrectly recovering issue (caused by card effects taking place before mana spending)
| Itch | https://jameswxw.itch.io/summoning-master |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/55/summoning-master |
Ratings
| Overall | 873th | 3.308⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 604th | 3.423⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 809th | 3.115⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 471th | 3.808⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 963th | 3⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 594th | 3.173⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 980th | 2.271⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 1053th | 2.962⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 19🗳️ | 41🗨️ |
~~For anyone else who comes to play here, I am working on fixing the bug right now. Please wait until it's fixed.~~
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**Update:** bug fixed, please feel free to have a try on the game
Right, this game somehow heavily depends on luck. I think your idea of getting 2 cards instead of 1 is such a genius idea and will help this game become more fun a lot!
And yes you find another bug because I made the card's effect take place before mana was spent... Not sure if fixing such a bug is allowed before rating ends.
- I had a bit of trouble at first to fully understand some cards, like the one where you needed to have a "summoning unit" to play them, I only understood it later just my forgetting to summon my attacker before picking another card (and it was actually a nice surprise to see 3 of them pop up, I liked this mechanic, but I really feel the card description, or the visual feedback could be clearer).
- Talking about feedbacks, would be nice to have some visual or audio feedback when playing bonus: I barely noticed I buffed my units health
- I think before round 3 or 4 all my new cards options were cards that decreased my life of my health, don't know if it's normal ?
- I lost in the end in one turn, I had nothing I can summon (only buffs) and my character got one shotted which is a bit frustrating.
Otherwise the audio is nice ! And so are the graphics, simple, but cute (I just think the background does not fit really properly with the rest of the assets and maybe the dithering effects reduce readibility of the game).
Anyway, I really think it could be very fun with just a few tweaks and balancing, so good job !
@uthie Thanks for playing! Yeah, we didn't spend much time on the VFX part of the game including the refreshing feel, this could be improved a lot.
As for things you could improve on: I think making the background some kind of place in a world (i.e. grass land or something like that) would add to the atmosphere of the game.
Another thing which isn't a huge deal I just am bad at noticing things is the mana if you made that a little more pronounced, I think that would help with readability! Overall, it was a fun game nice work!
I think all of your points are valid.
- Right, some of the descriptions are a bit confusing without an example, perhaps adding a tutorial or visual feedback that you mentioned would make it more clear, also I think the two-step summoning process might be a bit counter-intuition (which make it hard to explain those cards clear).
- Yeah, the game is lacking of some necessary effects for feedbacks, especially for the buffs.
- The new cards options are totally random, they're just simply generated from one card pool, there is no factors like level factor at all.
- Yeah, this is a notable problem which could harm user experience a lot. I think keeping all hand cards (as @lisek-gagatek said) or adding an always-available hero ability might mitigate this issue.
The background actually bothers me a lot, but we just ran out of time, we should have replaced it in earlier stage. And you might also noticed, some sprites are much darker than others, we should also have adjusted them.
Finally, thanks for praising the audio! This is exactly the first time I composed the music myself :)
I found the card's a bit hard to understand at first. Once I got into things it did get a little more familiar, but they still feel not easily distinguishable or clear in some ways.
Tackling a deckbuilder in a short window like this is definitely ambitious. Particularly when it comes to balancing, since that is such a key aspect that deckbuilders really need to get right.
While I probably didn't invest enough time to get a great idea of how things are balanced, it felt better than I expected it would, having been put together in 3 days!
Great job!
I can't comment on the difficulty and balance of the mechanics, as I don't have much experience with this kind of card game, but it wasn't easy for me.
On the other hand, the pixel art is top-notch!
@aj-atkinson Yeah, I have the same feeling, the difference between same kind of cards are not straightforward. Speaking of balance, I feel like one key is the HP of all units should be increased, giving player more chance to buff units. And you're right, it's super hard to achieve a good balance in 3 days. I was thinking of making a simple game, however it turns out this one is still more complicated than I thought.
@bochinator You've reached the last level! Damn the boss!
@k-toll Yeah, this game is not very accessible, especially for those who are relatively new to this type of this game. Thanks for praising the art!
@karlo5o Thanks for playing and commenting! Right, the UI and the description could be improved a lot to make the game more accessible.
@blazejmg917 Not easy at all! I also feel like allowing damage to go into negatives could be a super fun option, will take note of it.
@verbante Totally agreed with the desciption suggestion. And congrats! You're one of the few lucky guys who were able to finish the game :D