Star Spark Demo
This is a demo of the game's roguelite mode. I'd love to get your feedback on what's here so far.
There are 4 different locations, 6 normal enemies, 1 elite enemy, 6 skills obtainable in a run, 3 different events, and 2 characters to select from in this demo, with more planned on the way.
Feel free to let me know what you think about it in the comments!
NOTE: This browser build may stutter at times (usually when playing a track for the first time). I'll get this fixed in a future build!
About
Winning all rounds allows one to proceed to the final match against the reigning champion.
Think you can make it?
Controls
These can be rebound under the OPTIONS menu (gamepads are supported).
| ACTION | KEY |
| UP/DOWN/LEFT/RIGHT | Arrow Keys |
| CONFIRM | Z |
| CANCEL | X |
| PAUSE | Enter |
Combat
Combat takes place at a side view as seen in traditional fighting games where both opponents have life bars at the top of the screen. When you reach 0 HP, the game is over.
Turns consist of an ATTACK phase and a DEFENSE phase. At the moment the player (you) always attacks first. During your ATTACK phase, your opponent will be using their DEFENSE actions and vice versa.
Some combat actions require Ability Points. Each opponent starts with 10 AP. You gain 3 AP at the start of your Attack Turn and for 1 AP for each successful combo input that lands on the opponent when using the <N> Hit Combo action.
Basic actions like combo attacks, gathering power, guarding, and moving do not cost AP.
Some combat actions also have cooldown periods to prevent spamming.
Your position on the screen also matters. You get +8 ATK at the front, +8 DEF at the back, and the starting position in the center gives you an extra 0.3 seconds to input combo commands.
If you gain a skill, you can equip it via the SKILL menu on the PAUSE screen while on the map.
Future Plans
This has been a passion project of mine and I'll continue to iterate on it until it's done.
The current roadmap includes:
- More characters with their own specials
- More equipable skills
- More enemies (and sprite updates for them to make them more unique)
- More locations (these are almost ready, some maps need a little more tweaking)
- More events
...and much more.
Comments
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I like this! Legendary Super Warriors is fresh in my mind having played it to the end for the first time a couple weeks ago, so I’m pleasantly surprised to see that anyone is making something like it!
Game Critiques (Preface: I have a lot of words):
- Meter to show how many turns are left on being Powered Up is appreciated. (The flickering from the original was a tad hard to catch, though I think adding it here would not be bad)
Powering up is no longer linked to Limited Abilities OR Stage attacks, though. This makes it feel kinda weak! (Though it was very centralizing in LSW so that’s not inherently bad.)
- Any chance to add the mechanic from LSW that lets you salvage failed Commands (or in this case, Combos) by pressing [A] at a certain time? Not to allow your combo to still increase rank, which I love, but just make your turn feel a little less wasted, which I think a roguelike would benefit from.
- Does getting hit particularly hard give you AP? I didn't get hit by anything of super high strength, so I wanted to know if this was in this game.
- Defending feels a tad stale? The lack of aerial positions (or suitable replacement), inability to force a movement out of your opponent (by moving into "their" area) don’t do so well to keep defense engaging.
On top of that, Burst/Sidestep are just 1 turn, all-or-nothing guesses you spend resources on, which are kind of fatal in a roguelike!
- Speaking of positions, the CPU doesn't seem to have a reason to stay in neutral? Heck, there's little reason to be in neutral as the player. The Attack boost felt really high, so when the CPU doesn’t move from there they get smacked hard for free.
In addition, the input time increase isn’t exceptionally high: when I switched to a gamepad from keyboard, I lost all need for neutral. In LSW was based on everyone’s position, which made it matter a lot more.
I don't think it needs to be removed, but it has room for improvement.
And if it weren’t for the carried HP across battles, I wouldn’t bother moving backwards as much either.
This part goes back to the above bullet point; In LSW, using Shockwave/Avoiding was a risk/reward move, but moving up or down was a “safe” one with a lower reward. Star Spark lacks a safe defending movement against particular attack types due to this. I would even settle for an Endurance equivalent. I never did get Counter though, so I can’t say if that fits the bill.
- Roguelike card game is a bit overdone now, but I'm surprised it's not here, ha. I did notice the skills you get as attacks generally feeling a bit lesser to your initial set, and expected to be able to swap them with your starters like cards assuming late-game ones would be as good/better.
- It would be nice to be able to check the player's current stats to help plan for turns.
- I'm not against Ki and Strength stats being merged into Atk, but it added on to specific attack types feeling like an unnecessary detail
- Throw is VERY cool but it costs a lot, including an attacking turn. I generally found it not worth doing.
Visuals:
I have an eye for pixel work, I'm told; overall the game looks nice, good animations, and captures the feel of the inspiration without being too stuck in the source. I liked the map for the areas!
However! The visuals are an odd in between of "SNES/GBA" and "Incorrectly Colored GBC game", which is kind of weird. This ranges from the sprite dimensions being slightly big/small for one of those, or just odd palette choices.
It's also super apparent when the pixel scales and positions don't match or align, which makes the game look amateur-ish, when its quality is actually way higher! You can see this particularly in the mismatched text sizes on the menus, as well as the hit and gather power effects. (Also I can tell that's the Emerald font.)
Particle effects and such also save time but they ultimately Just Look Weird. For example, Chantico’s battle arena has a generally nice look but the particle effect on the volcano looks odd. Inversely, the purple swirling around Viola’s hand looks great, since it avoids this.
Obviously on the art side this is taxing, but I think images to go along with the events would help a lot with making them feel more important!
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I had a lot to say, but my mind is just very attentive on details. I can’t stress enough that I actually enjoyed the demo quite a bit, and played it several times!
Hey, thanks for playing! The demo is almost 6 months old now and the game has changed a bit since then, but this is still great and detailed feedback!
There's definitely room for visual improvements, and I've got plans to take care of most of what you mentioned there like the text sizing, arena art, and some visuals for the events.
There's also stuff that's done that's just not been updated yet in the demo, but I hope to have a newer demo up sometime in the next month or two. There are more defensive skills in now (even endurance!), the stats show below the character's HP bars, and I'm showing enemy intent (so that you don't waste your shots guessing with sidestep/burst). There's more, but I don't wanna cram everything in this paragraph :)
Any chance to add the mechanic from LSW that lets you salvage failed Commands (or in this case, Combos) by pressing [A] at a certain time? Not to allow your combo to still increase rank, which I love, but just make your turn feel a little less wasted, which I think a roguelike would benefit from.
I don't have any plans to implement this right now, but I have taken a different approach that I wanna get some feedback on once I update the demo here. Basically, instead of potentially wasting your turn like you mentioned, what happens now is that you do some amount of base damage and get AP even if you mess up or time runs out, but your combo level doesn't increase. If you do get all the inputs in you'll do some extra damage and your combo rank will go up allowing you to get more AP on your next turn. It's not as a challenging or as close to what LSW did, but I think it reduces some friction that probably caused a lot of people who would have enjoyed LSW to bounce off of it while still maintaining the feel from the part of the game. I know some people will probably like what I have here more where the combo goes up or down based on whether or not it was completed, but we'll see.
Does getting hit particularly hard give you AP? I didn't get hit by anything of super high strength, so I wanted to know if this was in this game.
It doesn't, I've gone back and forth on whether to implement something like that or not. I know if you take so much damage in LSW that you get an extra 2 CC. If I decide to add this, it wouldn't take much to do so.
Again, thanks for taking the time to play and for the detailed feedback. I'm glad you liked it so far!
I'm usually pretty good at quick time events, but i failed the 4 hit combo a lot which felt extremely punishing. Less damage, less ap charge, and the combo goes down next turn. In the Slay the Spire formula, taking any extra damage is extremely punishing. The QTE's could be made easier or clearer, but I'd personally love to see them replaced by something with more thematic relevance and that doesn't pose as much of an accessibility hurdle.
Maybe an out there suggestion, but smaller health pools that regenerate between fights might capture the feeling of a fighting game better, where it's okay to take risks as long as you maintain an edge of skill over your opponent.
One thing that bothered me a lot was going through the pause menu to set skills, which paused the music. It makes setting skills feel like changing a setting rather than a gameplay mechanic
1. Thanks for playing! :D
2. This is really good feedback, so thanks for taking the time to tell me about your experience here.
I think you're right about the inputs. While the combo inputs are meant to be skill based, they're probably a bit too punishing as is. This game is very much inspired by DBZ: Legendary Super Warriors and its combat, which is where this input system comes from. Despite that game's fans liking them, I know they're not for everyone and I do intend on doing something to further improve that experience.
Regenerating health to make it feel more like a fighting game isn't an out there suggestion at all. In fact, the ARCADE mode (not in this demo) actually restores health fully between battles like in a normal fighter and doesn't contain any roguelite elements. Perhaps I can experiment with smaller pools and/or partially restoring health after combat during the roguelite mode though :)
What you mentioned about the music -- you're right, that just flat out sucks, I'll fix that ASAP.
Again, thank you so much for playing and for leaving such great feedback for me!
Very fun
Glad to hear it! :)
Wow, polished stuff! I really liked it, and the UI was pleasant to use. I felt like I didn't have much to do in the defense phase, and was hoping for some kind of way to further mitigate incoming damage, like dodging etc. but maybe I just didn't engage with the position switching as much as I should've. Very cool either way!
Thank you so much for playing! I'm glad you enjoyed it <3
About mitigating damage further, there are three skills available in the demo for that purpose:
Counter - Prevents an incoming attack and deals a small amount of damage to the opponent.
Sidestep - Dodge a projectile attack.
Burst - Prevents melee damage.
You may not have gotten any skills during your run (from either treasure chests or vending machines) or at least not any of the defensive ones -- sorry about that :(
Ooh, ok! Never mind my comment then. They just didn't come up during my run.
Definitely enjoyed the demo! I think an optional tutorial to cover the basics of the game may be appreciated, like the other comment noted. Otherwise, pretty great game you have so far!
Thank you! I’m glad you liked it! :D
Hard agree, I think I’ll need an optional tutorial battle.
I finished the demo winning, I think that’s an excellent start :) One thing to improve: the role or effect of changing positions is not clear to me.
Thanks for the kind words and thanks for playing! It means a lot :D
So, in the starting position (center) you get a short timer boost of 0.3 seconds while inputting combos. The front position gives you +8 ATK and the back position gives you +8 DEF.
I'll work on making that more apparent in game.