Mani-Creatures by DrgCandle
Hail and well met, traveler, to the wondrous domain of Mani-Creatures. Within these hallowed halls, thou art invited to bear the nails ensconced with the spirits of diminutive creatures as thine armaments, and thus partake in duels of grandeur and arcane secrecy.Before thou dost engage in the wagered combat, be ever vigilant, for thine adversary shall possess a mind ever-changing with each turn of the round.
Sometimes, it shall directly deplete thy "HP(Hallucination Points)".
Sometimes, it shall augment its own fashionability to shield itself from harm.
Sometimes, it shall cast upon thee a myriad of peculiar curses.
In such moments, thou canst rely only upon thine own manicured nails!
In each round of the wagered duel, thou shalt be granted five manicured nail plates. Yet, take heed, for within thine nails are sealed creatures diverse, both wondrous and perilous. Thou must ponder with care whereon to place them upon thy fingers, to achieve the most efficacious outcome.
（此处应有游戏界面UI动图，匹配指甲和手指）
Aye, each finger thou possesses doth serve a distinct purpose:
The thumb, a symbol of power, if its nail plate inflicts harm, shall deal damage once more.
The index finger, a symbol of wisdom, if its nail plate fails to wound, can strip some armor from thine adversary.
The middle finger, a symbol of valor, if the foe is beset by afflictions, its nail plate shall trigger an additional time.
The ring finger, a symbol of compassion, if its nail plate causes harm, shall restore a measure of thy HP.
The little finger, a symbol of prudence, if its nail plate grants thee armor, shall bestow it once again.
Yet, remember well, the function of each finger may but activate but once per round.
Beyond these, perchance thou mayest discover that certain special gestures hold additional effects.
Shouldst thou employ but the middle finger, it shall inflict a great deal of harm, yet likewise "provoke" thine adversary.
For instance, if thou bestowest a compliment upon thine opponent, and should thy strike find its mark, thou shalt receive additional currency.
Assuredly, there exist other enigmatic gestures, ripe for discovery.
Upon vanquishing thine adversary, thou shalt be bestowed with trove of tokens. With these, thou mayest venture to the marketplace and expend thy wealth, purchasing new manicures or perhaps selling those thou dost find displeasing.
Indeed, thou art on the cusp of the next wagered contest; mayhap thou hast made ready.
Team Member
Programmer:@breyce,@atsukko,@z-aralf
Artist:@kerosuta,@white221b,@atwell-y,@duanpu,@one-one
Technical Artist:@pancake429
Sound Designer:@uzz2z
Designer:@mr-six,@drgcandle
| Link | https://drgcandle.itch.io/mani-creatures |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/mani-creatures |
Ratings
| Overall | 808th | 3.275⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 946th | 2.825⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 156th | 3.81⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 983th | 2.857⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 103th | 4.405⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 374th | 3.45⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 191th | 3.675⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 549th | 3.5⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 23🗳️ | 24🗨️ |
Seriously though, the hand gesture is a great idea but poorly implemented, and art is funny but too complex for a card game, should keep it simple
-The concept is very unique. Manicure battles sound hilarious, and also cool. It kinda reminds me of Forspoken, in that Frey's nails would provide her with some basic buffs...but this is next level thinking.
-The vibe. The art's great. All around, everything looks and feels funky/mysterious. It's a mood, and it's a good one.
-The battle system. Once I got a bit of a grip on how it worked and what each nail did, I had a lot of fun.
-The cool mouse pointer. Very Halloween-y.
Some problematic stuff that you probably fixed in the post-Jam version:
-Lack of clear explanations. The general explanation was helpful, but not knowing what the individual symbols appearing in the speech bubble meant led to a lot of guessing.
-Lack of ability to hover the mouse over the cards to get a summary of what they did meant I had to learn a lot very quickly and in a somewhat unfriendly way. Ultimately, it was fine, but I would've loved an easy way to access the info.
Overall? Great job. I can see the thought y'all put into this, and it handles well. Good job!
在这么短时间里融合了一点roguelike+卡牌的玩法很厉害了
用美甲来作为“卡片”使用的设计很独特，尤其是翻出手指来出牌的设计也很有创意
美术风格也很独特，自成一派（我的话就是被克苏鲁二次元角色吸引过来的）
总体来说很棒的作品！
Unfortunately the game is really unclear to the player, it would've been a lot better if I could mouse over each of the cards and get a tooltip with information to determine what they were all supposed to do. Similarly I felt there was a lack of feedback to the player between rounds, it was really hard to tell at a glance if I was doing well or if the opponent had gotten the upper hand (pun fully intendeD) on me. It was a really solid entry overall and I really enjoyed playing once I got used to things!
Perhaps one thing that could be enhanced is some kind of gameplay, it feels like the mechanics weren’t fully brought to life, it looks more like a nail painting game. I’m not sure if it’s by design, but I could only select 5 types of nails per round, and there didn’t seem to be any noticeable effects—no health, attack feedback, or anything like that.
Good job on a good start!
I do like the humour in the game too, also with the gestures and so on, but maybe choosing to commit to this old-english thing in your tutorial texts wasn't the best idea when it comes to clarity.
Which brings me to the point that I struggled with the most: The game desparately needs a way of easing me into it. It immediately overwhelms you with complexity rather than introducing things slowly bit by bit. And another thing is that the game lacks clear feedback of what is happening with all my fingers and nails and the enemy's HP and actions etc. There just need to be some animations upon finishing my preparation phase that show me clearly what the results of my actions were.
Clearly your game designers did quite a lot of work to come up with quite the unique and complex battle system, but it's wasted effort as the game fails to make itself clear enough to me as a player. And yet, I was consistently unable to lose any battle due to overly forgiving balancing. I didn't understand what I was doing - but the game design and balancing also made it so that I didn't have to understand anything to succeed either.
The audio is alright. I liked the sounds going along with some of the gestures. It's a bit annoying that the music keeps starting over and over again. It'd be nicer if it just played through.
I think your UI also looks gorgeous like all the other graphics did, but in the shop, the text flows out of the boxes of the tooltips, making it impossible to read it all.