Collect tiles and seek ancient wisdom in Mosaic created by sunil and Corey Hardt for the 7DRL Challenge 2022.
Hi! I'm Bart Bonte, a Belgian independent game designer and bontegames.com is where I blog about new interesting browser and mobile games. My own games are all in the left column (or at the bottom of this page on mobile). More info about me and my games on bartbonte.com.
Get in touch: email - twitter - facebook - youtube - instagram
I don't have a clue, what is going on in this game... :-D :-O The only thing I figured is that I am the green man, but every other moving and dropping seems total random to me. I have a strong feeling that I am missing some information about something. :-D Can anyone please help?
ReplyDeleteI have the same comment: I have NO idea what I'm supposed to be doing. Yes, things happen as I move the green square around, the other squares drop into the space below if I bump them, and moving it over the rhombic spiral does some kind of reset. But beyond that? No f***ing clue at all.
ReplyDeleteIts a weird game.
ReplyDeleteFor Andy and esztenecs.
You are the green man.
To kill the enemy, you have to attack it by moving on to his square.
If a enemy moves to your square, you loose a heart.
Lower part of the game is a 3 in a row.
Make a row of 3, and the stones disappear.
Fill a whole column, and you loose.
This is kinda brilliant.. I've gradually gotten better to the point that I can now mostly get to 50+ points on a good run, with a high of 72. That said, I've got no idea how people are getting up to 260 points.
ReplyDeleteIf you're struggling, just know that every 5 floors or so you get to choose between two abilities, each of which can be used once per floor. You're not told what any of them do, but most can be figured out pretty quickly with a little experimentation.
Oh, I see! So everyone is my enemy! :-) Thank you for the help! This game is kind of hard, I like it. :-)
ReplyDeleteThe fact that you have to make a move before the enemies move means there are frequently situations where avoiding damage is completely impossible, which is irritating. It would be nice if there were some kind of wait button, like in Baba is You. In other games with turn-based systems like this, forcing enemies to approach you like that might be way too powerful, but in this game, it would have the built-in drawback of creating dangerous stacks that you have to clear out!
ReplyDeleteThis game is clearly pretty brilliant, though tbh I fail to find it *fun* yet
ReplyDeleteOne of the key strategies I've ended up at is planning when and where I'm going to get hit so that I can use the damage to clear up the grid below. This introduces a really interesting dilemma when the ability choices start to appear — are you going to focus on grid management, short-range movement enhancements or long-range mobility? Grid management includes the abilities to add or remove hearts and to clear diagonal rows; short range movement abilities include freezing all the enemies for one turn and a shield that protects you from one damage; and long-range movement includes zapping yourself to the center or from one side of the grid to the other.
ReplyDeleteI've had most success with the zap to the center of the board ability, as it gives me much more control over when and where I hit and get hit by enemies. But the diagonal wipe is situationally very powerful. A lot of these abilities also have the effect of leaving you in position while all the enemies move, which becomes quite important.
As with many Broughlikes, its minimalism hides a surprisingly deep, mechanically sophisticated, rewarding game.
Yeah, I started out completely confused too. After some trial and error...I started to enjoy the game play. Not that I got GOOD at it. :) My best score so far is 15, so I still have some serious learning to do.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I see now. Still, some comments and grumbles:
ReplyDelete* More instructions would be useful. "Learn by doing" isn't enough for a game like this.
* the board/field is too small, or maybe random chance is too significant; there isn't enough room for skill.
Sorry; not a fan.
I'm totally sympathetic to people that don't click with this genre of game (I mostly bounce off them as well) but the fact that people are getting scores of 200+ suggests that there is a higher skill ceiling than you're perhaps giving the game credit for.
ReplyDeleteI've adapted my strategy since the last post — I now try to focus on mobility upgrades, particularly the ability to teleport from horizontal edge to edge or vertical edge to edge, and the move-through-walls ability. These allow you to pick your battles to a much higher degree or just to keep making a run for the exit if necessary.
Once you've survived long enough to gain the fourth ability, progressing further then offers even more powerful abilities that then replace your first, second, third, etc abilities as you carry on.
While it definitely has its frustrations, the more I've played, the more I've grown to appreciate the depth of the design.
Top score is 45, great game, absolutely intriguing and complex, only marred by how every death feels like a let-down
ReplyDeleteI wish there was a way to play only at the lower difficulties, it's calming and fun at the points where you feel you could go on forever
ReplyDeleteI've managed to get to the score of 78! Thanks Frobisher for the tip that newer (and better?) abilities become available at some point. It may explain how 200+ scores are actually possible....
ReplyDelete