Still waiting on some of the people who downloaded the game to get a shot at running it, just thought I would toss out some of my own notes so far:

-Firstly: the print-to-play test zip I uploaded *is* slightly tweaked from the deck I started with to reflect a few things I observed at first, mainly the Harpies being a game breaker and monsters overall having too much defense and too many HP (though my initial runs gave *everyone and everything* 5 HP while I got a feel for how easy dealing out damage would be.

-Monsters are intended to be more of an inconvenience than super lethal, something that you would do well not to let linger but you can still move on to other rooms if you’re willing to risk running into more encounters. I’ve described them before as essentially ‘status effects’ you can cure by beating on them. I’m still not totally sure what the best way to handle multiple encounters at once would be. ‘Stacking’ monsters seems like a lacking solution and just making multiple actions per opponent could bog things down.

-I’d dare say the game’s solo play mode is working smoother than the PVP, or maybe I just confuse myself too easily hopping from side to side of the table.

-The primary/support stats aren’t so confusing after a while, I just kind of worry about tossing too many numbers around. Having a flat Support stat may pump up leader stats a little too much since it meant attack AND defense go up at least 1 point per living party member rather than support characters providing a specific stat boost.

-One thing that stood out to me in my longest run was that if you open up the Healing Spring in solo play, there’s really nothing keeping a player from just going back and healing to full after each fight. Maybe a turn limit is in order, or some kind of cap on spring use.

-The skill system is also feeling a little bit flat. Part of it is probably only having like 1 to 3 of each equipment type in the test deck, but I’m considering flipping the way the cards work so that the Character Card will have all the character’s special attacks and you’ll need to ‘spend’ a corresponding item type to activate a special skill. (e.g.; giving the fighter card the description for Cleave, and having the player use a sword card to activate it.) I guess it comes down to whether it’s better to have a fairly basic character with access to a wide number of skills, or a more distinct but limited character.

-Next round I may give a more advanced wounding system a try as well- the current rule is that you receive 1 wound period per failed combat round.

Right now I’m trying to whip myself into doing more character art for the initial set, but I’d like to compile a revised edition next week if some of these changes test well. Otherwise, I may just add some more cards, period so some of the more ‘exotic’ classes can be tossed into the fray for testing. In particular, I’m looking forward to seeing how the Alchemist class will work out, a largely support focused character who can Transmute items and gear.

It’s been a little while since I checked in here; I’m kind of ashamed to admit I’ve been a bit more active on Tumblr than here lately since I’ve been sort of trying to save the ‘real’ updates for this page. Anyway! As mentioned last time, I started testing out my dungeon crawler card game after a lot of stalling since I’d hyped myself up about it a lot and didn’t know what the heck I would do if my first run proved it completely unsalvageable. I’ve been kind of sharing my pitch around a bit more to see how interested some of the other people I know would be in it and was surprised to get some enthusiastic response. Imagine, people liking an idea *I* had!

Anyway, now that I’ve got my coursework for the week caught up and have time to pick at it again tomorrow. I have a pretty big overhaul idea I’d like to try, but in the meantime I may go ahead and make the original one downloadable to try (I’ve been using blank cards printed out so I could pencil in changes or make notes as I go so sadly I didn’t have anything to give someone who said they were actually headed off to a game night the next day.) Basically, since I was getting a little confused myself with there being Attack and Defense stats, then secondary ones for characters providing support, I want to see how implementing a single basic Support stat. I considered just keeping Attack and Defense added up for the whole party, but it would kind of eliminate some of the strategy in arranging parties because your total attack and defense would remain constant no matter who was doing the actual battle. Having a Support rating would be a good way to still kind of show certain character types work better on the front lines or from afar but keeping the numbers reasonable. One of my major goals is to keep things as simple as possible so there’s no need for a ton of extra items like chits, dice, and so on, though I probably will wind up including a set of counters just for simplicity’s sake. They might be a little messy but there’s something just more fun about having fake cardboard coins or blood splatters to track things with.

Stay tuned, hopefully I’ll be able to get on this pretty steady and have something playable by PAX time!