This game was something completely new to me, and I didn’t expect to get so hooked on it. The different aspects of the gameplay felt fresh and engaging, and before I knew it, I found myself coming back to it again and again. It has that addictive quality that makes you want to keep playing just a little longer every time.
It also reminded me a bit of Solo Leveling, especially in the way the progression and overall feeling are designed, which made it even more enjoyable for me.
However, I did feel that the game was missing a proper tutorial. At the beginning, it was a bit confusing to understand all the mechanics, and a guided introduction would have made the experience even better.
Overall, I would definitely recommend this game to everyone. It offers a unique experience and is truly enjoyable.
im sorry but...this game is gonna piss people off and it makes you look dumb Mr. Dev. Like you stand and hit 3 times...and nothing dies. One hour I tried. You gotta stop this bullshit and just let the mobs die. What is your issue man..did you make this high?
Yeah, we definitely need in-game tutorials. Fair point! We tried giving a few hints by adding the GIFs to the game's description here on itch but we can't expect everybody to check those.
In a nutshell: The character in the center of the screen is your companion, not you! He's basically the "tower" you need to defend. You are the cursor. Attacking works by swiping over monsters with your cursor.
"how do you move and attack. This game is ridiculous you have no instructions on how to actually play. I swear some devs act like they have never played a game before. Just do what you feel is necessary, when you play other dev's games....you know the ones who have common sense."
(moved your other comment here for reference)
Did you check the game's description? If so, what could we do to make it more obvious how to play the game?
In any case, thanks for your honest feedback. This helps a lot!
We're adding some options to either skip the talking in the beginning entirely or get a TLDR. This way it's up to the player whether or not they want to know more about the story/setting.
Cute incremental game with a unique attack mechanic. Played the game as soon as it was available here and the issues/difficulties I reported were quickly worked on. The game feels better with each patch.
Really great game considering it's the studio's first release.
I really enjoy playing this game - it's the first of this kind, never played it before; so full noob here! ♥
The first trys were the worst, I had no idea what to do and how to handle the game mechanics. But the learning curve is steep and fast as soon as you get into it, everything is easy to understand then. The story teaser is great and I'd love to learn more about the lore and charakters! I like the fast paced levels and the mouse handling. Until now I go well with fast mouse settings and full screen. The game is smooth, the sounds fit very well except for the repeating scream every starting encounter - this started to annoy me pretty fast.
Right now I made it to stage 8 - played for 103 days (I know I'm slow!) and nearly maxed the hell out of the skill tree (Flow Mastery I, and the rest of Agility III + IV is missing) and i just don't make it over Stage 7 on regular basis which seems to be a noob-problem I guess :D The archers just get me every time! At this point I'd love to have a little shortcut to go to stage 7 onwards.
But at some points it feels like a) I get stuck with the curser in the parts where our character will proceed to the next room (sometimes I also got stuck out of the stage, if that makes sense) and b) when playing in full screen and things get "rough" (level 7 and above), I slip out of the frame, so a locked full screen would be really helpful. For now I assume this is not possible because it's browser based! :) Can't wait for the Steam-Version!
"(...) i just don't make it over Stage 7 on regular basis which seems to be a noob-problem I guess :D"
Any chance you could share a recording of how you play? Our goal is to create a game anybody can play regarding of their skill level so it really helps being able to actually see how others are playing :)
"But at some points it feels like a) I get stuck with the curser in the parts where our character will proceed to the next room (sometimes I also got stuck out of the stage, if that makes sense)"
Did you actually get stuck and had to use the "Unstuck" button in the pause menu? Or was it just temporary and then the game teleported you back into the room?
"(...) when playing in full screen and things get "rough" (level 7 and above), I slip out of the frame, so a locked full screen would be really helpful. For now I assume this is not possible because it's browser based"
Yeah, I don't think we can avoid this within the browser, but I'll verify that to make sure!
Are you on Windows? If so, then you'll be able to play the non-browser version very soon!
I really like the game, it's super cute! It gives me some strong Undertale vibes, and I absolutely love the language and the overall style. Definitely a game my fiancée would really enjoy!
I got absolutely crushed in the dungeon on my first few runs 😅. I was a bit lost at first because I couldn't find the controls in the pause menu and kept getting a "not enough stamina" message when trying to hit enemies. But the "how to play" videos on this page definitely helped clear that up! Now that I know it's an incremental game, it makes total sense that you start off super weak and have to upgrade your way up.
As for the dungeon itself, it’s a bit dark and the environment feels a little bare right now, but I know it's still an early build. (It also ran a bit laggy on my work PC, but that might just be my hardware!).
I really like how the story is just teased at the beginning. It builds up great tension and makes you want to uncover the lore step by step. Great foundation, excited to see where you take this! Keep it up! 👏
An incredibly beautiful and exciting game with fascinating characters and fast-paced levels. The opportunities to constantly acquire new abilities and weapons are impressive. The music and sound effects perfectly complement the game. The graphics are very appealing and underscore the game's uniqueness. The final boss fight is a real challenge. The game is so captivating that it's hard to put down.
I’m curious to see what new developments this game will bring.
Right. Most of the info can be found via the task manager. I'll check if we can implement something directly in our game that allows players to export their hardware data so we don't have them to collect that info manually.
Something I forgot to ask earlier: I'm assuming you're on Windows, right?
I had a problem in that I bought all the faster spawn and more enemies upgrades in the beginning to farm chips/shards faster and then couldn't get past the 3rd room because of it. In the end I cheated by pausing the game, placing my cursor on the enemy, unpausing thus killing them and repeating that until whole room is cleared. After that I unlocked the knives and further upgrades and could resume playing normally. I'd split those upgrades for before and after getting a red key so players can't soft lock themselves.
No I don't, omg is there a hidden name plate lore??
But besides that love the visuals and the atmosphere. I think it would be interesting if it'd be possible to go back to the village and talk with some npc there. Maybe hidden npcs for additional progression paths (a blacksmith, an alchemist, etc.).
And the most annoying thing was if through all that visual clatter in further rooms some small attack (ex arrow) sneaked in and I had to go back all the way. It would be nice if you could unlock some type of barrier, to add addidtional hearths to our tank. Maybe some kind of shadow magic to keep with the lore?
It's definitely not that obvious. I'm pretty sure you'd have to do several tests to figure out how the color coding works lol
The idea was to have some subtle hints for the player to figure out whether they are struggling (difficulty-wise) because of not having enough attack damage and/or not having enough agility. This leads to the following:
Red name plates: Attack damage AND agility too low
Orange name plates: Attack damage OR agility too low
White name plates: Monsters can be killed with one hit
From what we've seen so far, not being able to clear room 3 usually is not an difficulty thing but rather a result of having not enough attack damage, thus taking too many hits to kill a monster which in turn leads to quite the stressful experience :D
Still... it's bad design to let that happen. At least that early in the game.
"I think it would be interesting if it'd be possible to go back to the village and talk with some npc there. Maybe hidden npcs for additional progression paths (a blacksmith, an alchemist, etc.)."
We're definitely adding a more immersive and more RPG-like version of the village in the future. I'm not so sure about hidden mechanics yet, but this is only because we haven't though about that yet.
What do you have in mind exactly?
Thanks for all the feedback and shaping the future of the game with us! :)
A great game that really draws me in. It combines speed, strategic thinking through the skill tree, suspense, and sparks my ambition. Not to mention, above all, it’s just a ton of fun. The graphics perfectly highlight the exciting and mysterious story, the characters are cool, and the soundtrack is very memorable. Please keep it up... I can’t wait to see what happens next.
It might be a additional motivational boost, say after about 5 levels, you received an additional incentive combined with a skill level that you must have reached at that time—so that you don’t have to start over at Level 1, but perhaps at Level 3, effectively gaining 2 levels.
Woah, super fun! I've played so many games of this style but this one has to be one of if not the best one yet. There were only a few things I would've like to see changed:
- Having to play the first couple levels every time gets super tedious and boring once you start getting to room 7 and higher. They are completely free and trivial, and it becomes a waiting game just waiting for everything to spawn. There are a few ways to combat this - you could add more upgrades that makes spawns faster, or upgrades that make the first stages harder and more rewarding. But what I would personally do is add an upgrade that lets you skip more rooms as you further buy the upgrade. There are plenty of details to work out with this, like how it would work lore-wise (I think something intimidation-related could be funny) or whether you still get the currency even though you never fought the enemies, and if so, how to prevent people from abusing it. I imagine that if you allow the player to collect the currency from the room they skipped, but ONLY if their previous run made it maybe 5 rooms past the room you skip to, it would work nicely and be tough to abuse, and would make the game much less grindy near the end. But ofc that's just my take. And maybe it works out better with some other systems and upgrade you have in the full game, and it becomes a non-issue. But yeah, the first few levels are annoying to have to play every time in the demo version.
- The bossfight was kind of underwhelming. It would've been cool if the boss was moving around at least a little, and I think it'd've been cool to have bro join the fight and we have to protect him from the boss' attacks or something. I also wish it was a bit more tactical than pure dps (my wrist was starting to get sore XD), like maybe he has a weak point he periodically reveals.
- The knives have HORRIBLE synergy with the frenzy upgrade. I was hoping "undamaged" just meant undamaged by the cursor, but nope, the knives that go everywhere and deal pitiful damage while also preventing me from doing the extra damage I rely on. This didn't end up being too big a deal, and by the end it was completely remedied, but it kind of hurt in the beginning. It would be nice if you could refund upgrades, or at least manually disable the knife ability until it makes sense to bring it back.
- I would've appreciated more upgrades that use the currency gained from leveling up. I thought the knife upgrades were really underwhelming, as they did little damage and tended to not hit any targets unless I really tried to aim them, but it took time that was better spent just frantically swiping everything. If the knife upgrades had more impact or something then maybe it'd be fine, but as it is I would've liked to be able to put the level points into something I actually thought useful (though the frenzy upgrade with the level currency in the end was super appreciated).
Well that was a lot of criticism lol, but there really was so much about this I enjoyed too. The art was great, the story was funny but not over-the-top, and it didn't linger any longer than it needed to. The gameplay feels smooth and crisp, and actions feel punchy and rewarding. Things were intuitive and made sense (except at the very beginning, I was making far too small strokes and wondering why it often didn't deal damage, but that was quickly figured out lol).
Congrats on making it all the way through the dungeon and thank you for all your feedback! That really helps a lot and also aligns quite well with what we are working on at the moment :)
Some spoilers regarding boss fights: The plan is to make them feel like boss fights in MMORPGs where you have to learn different mechanics, patterns and stages in order to win. There are infinite possibilities how this could look which should make every boss quite fun. But you - and the other adventurers - will be the judge of that eventually!
We'd love to have you join us on our Discord. This way you'll be among the first to know when new updates drop 🙌
So far, it’s a really great game. I like the style, and after a short learning curve, it’s very easy to control with the mouse. The skill tree keeps me coming back for more, wanting to get stronger and mow down the hordes of enemies. Overall, it’s an exciting project. I’m curious to see how it develops.
You're probably trying to play the game on a mobile device, right? Currently, the game is made for PC only.
If my guess is wrong and you have that issue on PC, please let me know which operating system (e.g. "Windows") and browser (e.g. "Google Chrome") you are using :)
Pretty good. The skill tree kind of reminds me of the incremental game with the penguin ancestors. Maybe give an option in the settings for the attackers to take slightly longer for their first attack.
And yeah, I was finding that the rats would attack quickly enough that it was hard to block. An Easy Mode, or something similar, would make it easier for that.
It'd be great to have you join us on Discord where you could maybe share a screen recording of you playing? The play styles are quite different from player to player and it really helps to actually see how others are handling different situations in game; escpecially when it comes to difficulty :)
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This game was something completely new to me, and I didn’t expect to get so hooked on it. The different aspects of the gameplay felt fresh and engaging, and before I knew it, I found myself coming back to it again and again. It has that addictive quality that makes you want to keep playing just a little longer every time.
It also reminded me a bit of Solo Leveling, especially in the way the progression and overall feeling are designed, which made it even more enjoyable for me.
However, I did feel that the game was missing a proper tutorial. At the beginning, it was a bit confusing to understand all the mechanics, and a guided introduction would have made the experience even better.
Overall, I would definitely recommend this game to everyone. It offers a unique experience and is truly enjoyable.
im sorry but...this game is gonna piss people off and it makes you look dumb Mr. Dev. Like you stand and hit 3 times...and nothing dies. One hour I tried. You gotta stop this bullshit and just let the mobs die. What is your issue man..did you make this high?
Yeah, we definitely need in-game tutorials. Fair point! We tried giving a few hints by adding the GIFs to the game's description here on itch but we can't expect everybody to check those.
In a nutshell: The character in the center of the screen is your companion, not you! He's basically the "tower" you need to defend. You are the cursor. Attacking works by swiping over monsters with your cursor.
(moved your other comment here for reference)
Did you check the game's description? If so, what could we do to make it more obvious how to play the game?
In any case, thanks for your honest feedback. This helps a lot!
Neat! However, WAY too much talking at the beginning, so I had to just skip it to actually play.
Thank you for playing! We're glad you had fun :)
We're adding some options to either skip the talking in the beginning entirely or get a TLDR. This way it's up to the player whether or not they want to know more about the story/setting.
good game a bit harder at first but the progess is smooth only thing i hated that it force fullscreen without an option to make it windowed
Thanks for your feedback! We'll definitely add display/window settings soon :)
Out of curiosity: In what way would you benefit from the game not being in fullscreen?
Cute incremental game with a unique attack mechanic. Played the game as soon as it was available here and the issues/difficulties I reported were quickly worked on. The game feels better with each patch.
Really great game considering it's the studio's first release.
Thank you for your feedback and for being part of our journey!
I really enjoy playing this game - it's the first of this kind, never played it before; so full noob here! ♥
The first trys were the worst, I had no idea what to do and how to handle the game mechanics. But the learning curve is steep and fast as soon as you get into it, everything is easy to understand then. The story teaser is great and I'd love to learn more about the lore and charakters! I like the fast paced levels and the mouse handling. Until now I go well with fast mouse settings and full screen. The game is smooth, the sounds fit very well except for the repeating scream every starting encounter - this started to annoy me pretty fast.
Right now I made it to stage 8 - played for 103 days (I know I'm slow!) and nearly maxed the hell out of the skill tree (Flow Mastery I, and the rest of Agility III + IV is missing) and i just don't make it over Stage 7 on regular basis which seems to be a noob-problem I guess :D The archers just get me every time! At this point I'd love to have a little shortcut to go to stage 7 onwards.
But at some points it feels like a) I get stuck with the curser in the parts where our character will proceed to the next room (sometimes I also got stuck out of the stage, if that makes sense) and b) when playing in full screen and things get "rough" (level 7 and above), I slip out of the frame, so a locked full screen would be really helpful. For now I assume this is not possible because it's browser based! :) Can't wait for the Steam-Version!
Thanks for giving our game a try!
Any chance you could share a recording of how you play? Our goal is to create a game anybody can play regarding of their skill level so it really helps being able to actually see how others are playing :)
Did you actually get stuck and had to use the "Unstuck" button in the pause menu? Or was it just temporary and then the game teleported you back into the room?
Yeah, I don't think we can avoid this within the browser, but I'll verify that to make sure!
Are you on Windows? If so, then you'll be able to play the non-browser version very soon!
We just uploaded the Windows build of the game which can be downloaded here: https://ipponi.itch.io/outliers-incrementum#download
I really like the game, it's super cute! It gives me some strong Undertale vibes, and I absolutely love the language and the overall style. Definitely a game my fiancée would really enjoy!
I got absolutely crushed in the dungeon on my first few runs 😅. I was a bit lost at first because I couldn't find the controls in the pause menu and kept getting a "not enough stamina" message when trying to hit enemies. But the "how to play" videos on this page definitely helped clear that up! Now that I know it's an incremental game, it makes total sense that you start off super weak and have to upgrade your way up.
As for the dungeon itself, it’s a bit dark and the environment feels a little bare right now, but I know it's still an early build. (It also ran a bit laggy on my work PC, but that might just be my hardware!).
I really like how the story is just teased at the beginning. It builds up great tension and makes you want to uncover the lore step by step. Great foundation, excited to see where you take this! Keep it up! 👏
Thank you for playing our demo! Your feedback helps a lot :)
An incredibly beautiful and exciting game with fascinating characters and fast-paced levels. The opportunities to constantly acquire new abilities and weapons are impressive. The music and sound effects perfectly complement the game. The graphics are very appealing and underscore the game's uniqueness. The final boss fight is a real challenge. The game is so captivating that it's hard to put down.
I’m curious to see what new developments this game will bring.
Thanks for checking out our game!
Any suggestions or areas you think we should improve?
Any chance of a desktop version of this? Browser is just so laggy
We'll release the desktop (and Steam) version next week. Feel free to join our Discord so we can notify you as soon as it's ready :)
Some follow-ups regarding the lags:
Both but its worse in fullscreen.
Chrome
you mean cpu and stuff? idk how to check that
Thanks for the insights!
Right. Most of the info can be found via the task manager. I'll check if we can implement something directly in our game that allows players to export their hardware data so we don't have them to collect that info manually.
Something I forgot to ask earlier: I'm assuming you're on Windows, right?
We just uploaded the Windows build of the game which can be downloaded here: https://ipponi.itch.io/outliers-incrementum#download
I had a problem in that I bought all the faster spawn and more enemies upgrades in the beginning to farm chips/shards faster and then couldn't get past the 3rd room because of it. In the end I cheated by pausing the game, placing my cursor on the enemy, unpausing thus killing them and repeating that until whole room is cleared. After that I unlocked the knives and further upgrades and could resume playing normally. I'd split those upgrades for before and after getting a red key so players can't soft lock themselves.
Bad game design requires creative solutions. Well done! :D
This is one of the most mentioned pain points at the moment and definitely something we'll improve.
Do you recall the color of the rat's name plates by any chance? Was it red?
No I don't, omg is there a hidden name plate lore??
But besides that love the visuals and the atmosphere. I think it would be interesting if it'd be possible to go back to the village and talk with some npc there. Maybe hidden npcs for additional progression paths (a blacksmith, an alchemist, etc.).
And the most annoying thing was if through all that visual clatter in further rooms some small attack (ex arrow) sneaked in and I had to go back all the way. It would be nice if you could unlock some type of barrier, to add addidtional hearths to our tank. Maybe some kind of shadow magic to keep with the lore?
It's definitely not that obvious. I'm pretty sure you'd have to do several tests to figure out how the color coding works lol
The idea was to have some subtle hints for the player to figure out whether they are struggling (difficulty-wise) because of not having enough attack damage and/or not having enough agility. This leads to the following:
From what we've seen so far, not being able to clear room 3 usually is not an difficulty thing but rather a result of having not enough attack damage, thus taking too many hits to kill a monster which in turn leads to quite the stressful experience :D
Still... it's bad design to let that happen. At least that early in the game.
We're definitely adding a more immersive and more RPG-like version of the village in the future. I'm not so sure about hidden mechanics yet, but this is only because we haven't though about that yet.
What do you have in mind exactly?
Thanks for all the feedback and shaping the future of the game with us! :)
A great game that really draws me in. It combines speed, strategic thinking through the skill tree, suspense, and sparks my ambition. Not to mention, above all, it’s just a ton of fun. The graphics perfectly highlight the exciting and mysterious story, the characters are cool, and the soundtrack is very memorable. Please keep it up... I can’t wait to see what happens next.
Thank you for playing our game! :)
Was there anything you did not like or feel like it can be improved?
It might be a additional motivational boost, say after about 5 levels, you received an additional incentive combined with a skill level that you must have reached at that time—so that you don’t have to start over at Level 1, but perhaps at Level 3, effectively gaining 2 levels.
Woah, super fun! I've played so many games of this style but this one has to be one of if not the best one yet. There were only a few things I would've like to see changed:
- Having to play the first couple levels every time gets super tedious and boring once you start getting to room 7 and higher. They are completely free and trivial, and it becomes a waiting game just waiting for everything to spawn. There are a few ways to combat this - you could add more upgrades that makes spawns faster, or upgrades that make the first stages harder and more rewarding. But what I would personally do is add an upgrade that lets you skip more rooms as you further buy the upgrade. There are plenty of details to work out with this, like how it would work lore-wise (I think something intimidation-related could be funny) or whether you still get the currency even though you never fought the enemies, and if so, how to prevent people from abusing it. I imagine that if you allow the player to collect the currency from the room they skipped, but ONLY if their previous run made it maybe 5 rooms past the room you skip to, it would work nicely and be tough to abuse, and would make the game much less grindy near the end. But ofc that's just my take. And maybe it works out better with some other systems and upgrade you have in the full game, and it becomes a non-issue. But yeah, the first few levels are annoying to have to play every time in the demo version.
- The bossfight was kind of underwhelming. It would've been cool if the boss was moving around at least a little, and I think it'd've been cool to have bro join the fight and we have to protect him from the boss' attacks or something. I also wish it was a bit more tactical than pure dps (my wrist was starting to get sore XD), like maybe he has a weak point he periodically reveals.
- The knives have HORRIBLE synergy with the frenzy upgrade. I was hoping "undamaged" just meant undamaged by the cursor, but nope, the knives that go everywhere and deal pitiful damage while also preventing me from doing the extra damage I rely on. This didn't end up being too big a deal, and by the end it was completely remedied, but it kind of hurt in the beginning. It would be nice if you could refund upgrades, or at least manually disable the knife ability until it makes sense to bring it back.
- I would've appreciated more upgrades that use the currency gained from leveling up. I thought the knife upgrades were really underwhelming, as they did little damage and tended to not hit any targets unless I really tried to aim them, but it took time that was better spent just frantically swiping everything. If the knife upgrades had more impact or something then maybe it'd be fine, but as it is I would've liked to be able to put the level points into something I actually thought useful (though the frenzy upgrade with the level currency in the end was super appreciated).
Well that was a lot of criticism lol, but there really was so much about this I enjoyed too. The art was great, the story was funny but not over-the-top, and it didn't linger any longer than it needed to. The gameplay feels smooth and crisp, and actions feel punchy and rewarding. Things were intuitive and made sense (except at the very beginning, I was making far too small strokes and wondering why it often didn't deal damage, but that was quickly figured out lol).
Can't wait for the full release!
Congrats on making it all the way through the dungeon and thank you for all your feedback! That really helps a lot and also aligns quite well with what we are working on at the moment :)
Some spoilers regarding boss fights: The plan is to make them feel like boss fights in MMORPGs where you have to learn different mechanics, patterns and stages in order to win. There are infinite possibilities how this could look which should make every boss quite fun. But you - and the other adventurers - will be the judge of that eventually!
We'd love to have you join us on our Discord. This way you'll be among the first to know when new updates drop 🙌
So far, it’s a really great game. I like the style, and after a short learning curve, it’s very easy to control with the mouse. The skill tree keeps me coming back for more, wanting to get stronger and mow down the hordes of enemies. Overall, it’s an exciting project. I’m curious to see how it develops.
Thank you for your feedback :)
What did you enjoy the most/least?
it's not allowing me to enter my party's name, I'm just stuck there
You're probably trying to play the game on a mobile device, right? Currently, the game is made for PC only.
If my guess is wrong and you have that issue on PC, please let me know which operating system (e.g. "Windows") and browser (e.g. "Google Chrome") you are using :)
Pretty good. The skill tree kind of reminds me of the incremental game with the penguin ancestors. Maybe give an option in the settings for the attackers to take slightly longer for their first attack.
Thank you for your feedback! :)
Do you know the name of the penguin game you are referring to by any chance?
Basically a delay between reaching Boris and actually attacking so it's a little more forgiving?
The penguin game is Ultratrap.
And yeah, I was finding that the rats would attack quickly enough that it was hard to block. An Easy Mode, or something similar, would make it easier for that.
Thanks for the clarification!
It'd be great to have you join us on Discord where you could maybe share a screen recording of you playing? The play styles are quite different from player to player and it really helps to actually see how others are handling different situations in game; escpecially when it comes to difficulty :)