Deck Deployment

I read through the feedback here, and many of the other devs nailed the points I was going to make. Balance is hard! We still had fun playing it. Here's a clip of me playing!

Pretty cool idea I'd say, reminds me of C L A S H R O Y A L E. Seriously though, balance is really off and the game gets pretty repetitive rather fast (I tried not to abuse the rushing thing). I've took my time and fully completed the game though Maybe some variety in troops/some tactical spells would help, I don't know. Also UI doesn't show the troops' hp, which would be helpful.

Overall I like the simplistic visual style and the chess-like approach to gameplay, but the balance is really off and that's a pretty major thing. Maybe consider spending more time on it the next jam (I'm not the guy who should tell you about it though XD my game is broken)

Interesting game, other than the absence of music, it was overall very pleasant. On a technical level, I think the turn could go slightly faster.

Now, as other have said, the biggest issue is the balance, which is not unusual for games made in 48h :) Here the player has too much of an advantage against the AI, and it kinda takes away the fun since the same easy strategy will win every battle. So, what I've noted:

• First, as you said the pattern won't change, which means some column will always be free. The AI could still have a set of units in a specific order, but it could try to used them to defend lanes or reinforce an attack depending on the unit.
• Rushing forward is too strong. Maybe not having "free" lanes would be enough, but the soldiers could also stop as soon as someone enters their zone of attack. It could also help prepare some attacks, because if you cross the path of the enemy on another lane, it's pretty hard to calculate how each unit will move. That's what I tried to do at first until I noticed I could juste go and attack the fort.
• The order of action is too favorable for the player. First, both turn happen at once, so enemy tends to advance without attacking while being open for your attacks later. But it also mean that columns of enemies won't move since another unit is in front of them (enemy healers often lose one turn because of that). So I think turns should be separate, with the AI acting first, from bottom to top, then the player, from top to bottom, then both forts could attack. That way movement would be a little more predictable too!

Cool game, it's just a shame that there's no need for strategy considering just ruching the opponent with knights (and blocking opponent knights here and there) results in a quick win every time.

This is a great start to what feels a lot like a board game like chess. The priest in particular is an interesting unit since they're expensive and 100% useless when placed in a bad way, but really strong when placed right behind a knight. I also like the responsiveness of the cards, the way they highlight, shuffle around, move to the discard pile smoothly, all that stuff looks nice.

As others have said, the AI definitely needs to place units in more places on the board than just 3 lanes, otherwise they're pretty much helpless against you. I think there's also some more opportunities for depth in the board and units too, like a unit that moves diagonally instead of straight up, or if the rows where you can place units moves up as you gain more control of the board. But I know that it's often not easy to give depth to a jam game. My own entry is pretty much only half finished!

I would loved to have more gameplay here, it felt nice and 'gameboyish', though color palette isn't quite right. More feedback I gave in stream, which you did follow :) (Here is link https://youtu.be/P-r0wmUQe1g?t=8851 )

I love the idea and the graphics. However, I found it WAY too easy. I beat the first 3 levels with only two swordsmen and the last 2 levels with only two swordsmen and a single other unit to block one of their swordsmen. I think the "AI" needs to respond to where you put your units and block them.

A standard chesser, fun and each round was quick which was enjoyable.

This was pretty neat! It took me a moment to get my bearings, but the way you labelled the cards made it very intuitive, at least to understand what the units do.

It took me a while longer to learn how to properly use them. But the levels were pretty forgiving, so I manage to eek through XD. I could never quite figure out how to keep the mages in a spot to heal, unless they were directly behind a unit. But that's no fault to the game.

I liked the cohesiveness of the art, that was well done.

No music, but that can be difficult to get when you're solo.

If you had time to spare on it, it might've been nice if the player could see what the enemy was about to do.

Nicely done!

PS. I uploaded a video of my playthrough

I finished the game with a strategy of rushing knights towards the enemy castle while maintaining a minimum defense. The fighting was fierce and many men died in battle but in the end we were victorious. Fun game, I love the concept, gameplay and the artwork

Its funny that we both took the theme in similar directions. The minimalistic style of this game is great, and lends to an appealing style that is still achievable in such a short time.

I was a bit confused how the mechanics worked when I first started playing, and honestly I still am now. The icons on the cards are helpful, but the difference in color between the "move" pixels and "attack" pixels was too slight for me to notice for a while.

In terms of balance, I appreciate that it's difficult to balance a game in 48 hours, but the warrior felt like clearly the best unit. Being able to attack in other lanes was just too powerful. I don't know if I'm blind, but it seemed like the ranger couldn't attack over allied units. While probably not very realistic, I think this would have made it better. I appreciate that it was better at clearing out a large column of enemies, but honestly the AI was dumb enough that you could just place warriors in empty lanes and they'd march down them uncontested, ignoring the clogged lanes besides a token defense to hold them off while you destroyed their base.

I also had a bit of an issue with telling the order units would move. It seemed random to me, and that made making strategic decisions difficult (for example, if I knew the enemy would move first I would place a unit in one place, but if I knew they would move after the one I placed I would want to place it differently.) I honestly have no idea how you would solve this problem, since that's a lot of information. Still, I felt like it detracted from the "strategic" expeirence.

Overall though, I felt like this was a really solid game for 48 hours. The art looked great, the sound was decent, and I feel like it fit the theme. I'd love to see this expanded, although I feel like you'd need to address some difficult issues if you decided to go that route. Overall though, one of my favorites I've played so far!

Loved the graphics and sound fx. well executed and beautiful. Would have loved a quick tutorial on what the UI and card UI meant, but was able to figure it out. Lots of fun. Make a campaign and release this!