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[nbilling]

TetraMage is a falling block game with tetrominoes, which is similar to Tetris as far as rules for "clearing" lines goes.

• The gameplay loop is (battle monsters in encounter) -> (get XP and items) -> (choose a path on the overworld map) -> (battle more encounters), like in FtL.
• The aim in a battle is to line specific sequences of blocks up, horizontally, to trigger spells-- which can be offensive, defensive, or utility.
• The power of a cast spell is scaled by the number of symbol blocks consumed by casting. The blocks consumed in a spell spread out from a "nucleation point" where the horizontal sequence of symbols occurred.
• The player can get different charge ability items (activate with F), which are charged by blocks destroyed on a line clear.
• The player gets consumable items which can be used with the '1', '2', and '3' keys in battle.
  
• The player levels up to increase their stats and learn new spells.
• The demo has two (randomly generated) overworld map screens, the second one ends in a demo boss.

Windows demo link : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Lylw3bf8SojosxKrOaVZl-0qMcBbGSur/view?usp=share_link
[Note: alt-tabbing can break the controls, I'm trying to fix this right now]

Video (a bit old but gets the main point across):




Screenshots:




Thank you in advance to anyone who playtests and reports back!!!

[jbarrios]

Hey nbilling,

I played your game

What I liked
- I have a soft spot for rogue-likes
- Replacing the somewhat dull RPG turn based combat with Tetris is a smart idea
- I like that enemies taunt you

What could use some work
- The tetris gameplay and the RPG combat felt a little disconnected.  I did like it when I was fighting some green zombies in purple that started throwing things onto the tetris board.  I'd like to see more of that
- I never fully understood when I could attack
- The game crashed.  I was fighting a mushroom. I finished my turn and the game crashed.

Overall it has potential.  I look forward to seeing how this improves

[Panic]

Hi, I played your game and had some thoughts.

-I like the pixel art. Pretty cute stuff.

-It seems like there are light story elements but I don't know what's going on. Is my character in heaven?

-I could not make out what the red, yellow and purple icons under the weapon/spell icons were. I could not read the symbols on them.

-Shift key + up arrow to swap tetrominoes, and shift key + down arrow to drop tetrominoes immediately (per the written guide) did not work for me. I tried with both left and right shift key but nothing
happened.

-After killing the snake and gaining experience, no key press would advance the game. However,
the tab key did still toggle what I believe was an inventory window. F1 key also still toggled the help window.
This did not happen on the second play through and I was able to continue by pressing the enter key.

-The branching paths after the tetris segment is an interesting choice and helped me engage with the game.
 I like that the player HP is persistent across battles, it definitely adds to the challenge and feeling
 of stakes. The light resource management aspect is nice to have.

-I like that you can make multiple color matches with one tetromino placement, and reap the benefits of both the shield and the arrow in one play. The high value plays make me feel like I did a good job and it's satisfying to get the damage off and know I will not take any damage on the next turn.

-I was confused initially, having played tetris, that clearing the lines horizontally is not the
primary goal and instead grants more of a bonus via the chosen token. My impulse is to clear the lines first.

-The game froze when I was playing the second battle (elite battle versus one snake and two mushrooms.) The game froze when I was fighting the last mushroom - I cannot remember my last action. This time, none of the input worked including the tab and escape key, and I assume the game was stuck in a loop and cycle spinning the cpu because my laptop fan went into overdrive at this point.

Thanks for sharing!

[nbilling]

Thanks jbarrios and Panic! The freeze/crash that you both experienced was a very silly thing-- that enemy had only a single move and would go into an infinite loop trying to find a different move to use after it had used it twice.

The input problem you experienced Panic I think was caused by alt-tabbbing (let me know if not, means I have another bug) and that was a known bug in the unity new input system that was fixed by upgrading the engine.

All of the feedback is really helpful and I will add to my todo list!

[Panic]

Aha, yeah I can confirm I was alt-tabbing a lot as I was switching between the game and notepad constantly