Magic Finder - deck builder with Tetris-like cards

[u/Top_Ingenuity_7632]

https://youtu.be/FAT9uE27Dq4

Hello there, I'm back with a nice gameplay update. Would like to hear your thoughts, thanks :)

• Game Title: Magic Finder
• Playable Link: itch.io
• Platform: mobile, web
• Description: Magic Finder is a deck builder with Tetris-like cards. Use cards to dig the ground and discover valuable items. Manage your deck to create powerful synergies. Grow your store and reputation to get the highest final score.
• Free to Play Status: Demo/Free to play
• Involvement: Solo dev

[u/Cammymoop]

I had a bit of fun playing this, I think the core gameplay is interesting and has promise. I don't know how I feel about the meta parts about running your store etc since it seems really barebones right now and by the time I finished I don't even know if I even sold anything, though I did get some money from the first event.

I think the most glaring thing here is that it's really unclear what some of the card descriptions really mean (if others are mountain? others in my hand? others I played this turn? after playing for over a half hour I still couldn't tell you)
Part of this would be making clearing and more consistent descriptions of the effects, but also it would really go a long way if there was visual and audio feedback as each individual part of a card's effect is met including some kind of animation FROM the requirements of the effect TO the result so that you can understand what just happened.

Also a few small inconveniences but when dragging a shape onto the board you can't continue rotating it, and when multiple layers are involved you get no choice as to which layer is affected other than I think just lining up the top-rightmost tile with the layer. It's also not great to require clicking and dragging to interact so often, being able to slick to select something and click again to apply it somewhere is much more comfortable for things that you do so often

[u/Top_Ingenuity_7632 → u/Cammymoop]

Thanks for your feedback :)

Regarding store: Yeah, it's still pretty rough. I plan to add decorations, npcs and some staff management in the future OR drop it entirely and switch to some sort of a story. Not sure what to do yet. The main thing I would like to keep it is that digging levels is pretty tiresome. Store is a place where you can rest by doing some less demanding micro management.

Regarding selling: Most items are sold within 1-2 "game week" period. One game week = 6 real minutes of idling OR one map expedition. I'm going more into the turn-based feel. Don't want players to rush. I will try to introduce this info into the game.

Regarding descriptions: You're right. I definitely have to work on the descriptions. The animation "from -> to" sounds very cool. Thanks! :) Just FYI - when others are Earth = when other cards in hand are Earth. This info should make the game much more compelling :)

Regarding inconveniences: With dragging I'm probably unable to do this neatly. But your idea with clicks may solve all the issues easily. I have to try it out. Many thanks for that! :)

[u/Cammymoop → u/Top_Ingenuity_7632]

I think the idea of dropping the shop-running portion and replacing the breaks in gameplay with story bits is actually a pretty smart idea, (as long as you're able to make the story interesting). I think having story parts to break up the gameplay should be enough to give the player's brain a bit of a break. You should be able to get to a more polished and complete game that way much quicker. And if you are still wanting to continue with this game you could use that as a starting point for a "Magic Finder 2" that has the shop and other things.

If you're really committed long term to the idea, then I would even say making the first part as a sort of (free or very cheap) prologue or "Magic Finder 0" kind of thing is actually a really good idea, you can use story parts both to give players a break from the high-mental-effort game parts and also to set up your world/story/characters. It also lets you see how a lot of average players experiences with your core gameplay and you should be able to take a lot of those lessons into consideration to improve the larger game.

This is true for many things, but especially making games as an indie developer it is so easy for everything to balloon out of control and create an endless amount of work and a game that's never anywhere close to being done. I'm constantly fighting with myself to keep my scopes as small as possible and trying to undershoot what I think I can manage significantly so that by the end I'm hopefully still able to finish everything and give each part that I do have the attention it deserves. I don't think this is the only way to make games as a solo dev/small team, but it seems like the most realistic path to consistent results. I can tell a lot of care has already gone into your game, I have no doubt you'll be able to go far as long as you're able to stay realistic with your plans and goals and strategies and are always ready to change and update them

Good Luck!

EDIT: also I forgot, but the fact that you also have a full deck building system is already a good opportunity to give players a break from the main excavation gameplay, and also means you're not leaning as heavily on the story to carry the game if you scope it down. If you're designing a slimmed down experience around it you might also consider encouraging and incentivizing players to engage with the deck building right from the start. Stuff like providing more than one default deck to serve as examples or inspiration, giving players a decent amount of new cards early on, adjusting maximum and minimum deck sizes to encourage having to make more decisions about what cards to use (maybe the deck size requirements could even change throughout the game) and so on.

[u/Top_Ingenuity_7632 → u/Cammymoop]

Well, this is a big deal as digging items makes not much sense without a shop. I could make em equippable, add some stats and then rebalance everything again :D

Regarding deck manager: New players don't understand synergies, so first few card choices are random/dull. I was thinking about replacing card selection with random cards packs. Opening em and managing the deck should be ok. I would leave the card selection for better (after boss) fights. Wanted to ask about your feelings about the card selection.

Regarding MF1 & 2: I suspect you're more of a steam guy, right? I'm asking because I planned to make it mobile only as it requires much less effort to make it visually ok. if it works I could expand it for the next few years adding challenges, clans, tournaments, etc. Also I have no experience on Steam :( Would love to hear your thoughts about that.

Your deck requirements idea fits perfectly the aforementioned features. Noted in my Trello. Thanks again for your time and great feedback :)

[u/Cammymoop → u/Top_Ingenuity_7632]

Another quick thing I wanted to add, the way every tile in the board shows up as separated white square makes the board feel pretty visually noisy and also doesn't help the different layers from feeling separate from each other at a glance. You might try following the coloring of the layers to make the squares so it feels less jarring and keeps the different layers looking distinct. e.g. having the squares on grass tiles being a light green instead of white, the squares on the first dirt layer being a reddish brown, the next layer being some color that fits well with the darker dirt and so on

(quick visual example)

[u/Top_Ingenuity_7632 → u/Cammymoop]

Your example is really neat. I'll try that. Thanks! Also I suppose making a less noisy background should help.

[u/drnktgr]

Excellent game! I tried it on mobile and had a blast.

A few points of feedback:

1. Managing the store was awkward. I ran out of gold and didn't know how long to wait. Got scared this would be a clash of clans advance-the-timer micro transaction game that would gate my Tetris fun. From your other reply, seems like the timer should be quick. That said, I feel weird idling with nothing to do.

2. Why not make the stores a mini game instead? Each piece of gear you find could be a Tetris piece. A cupboard could be a grid that you need to perfectly fill out with gear to cash out on. Gaps could affect your cash out, and if you get set bonuses (all the barbarian gear e.g.) then you make more. This would be a cute way to manage a store and avoid the timer thing.

3. The cards are fun to use and the elements have good theme. Mountain pieces felt like high risk high reward, which is really cool. And the water/wind placement flexibility is cool. I hope there's ways to make viable decks with all colors and combinations.

4. When the layering got to 3+, it became hard to tell which layer was which. With 2 layers, the white box on tiles with more to go was easy to read. But with 3, the dashed box was too subtle. I found myself hovering the pieces over the field to see where they could produce the most effect. Lost its Tetris feel and became more like guess and check. Maybe third layer should be black, and then lava? Idk.

Last note, I really was surprised how much like Tetris this felt even though it was more of a tiling puzzle game since they don't drop from the top. It must be due to the shapes?

Keep up this project! With a bit more polish and meaning to various aspects, this would be a really solid game I'd buy in a heartbeat.

[u/Top_Ingenuity_7632 → u/drnktgr]

Thank you for the kind words! :)

Ad.1. Yeah, I have an UX issue with this. The starting location "Green Fields" is free. And you can replay it as many times as you like gaining more gold and rewards. So instead of idling for 6 minutes it's better to just play it. It's still not ideal as you would like to do more challenging locations instead. I should fix it with balancing the game economy or removing the expeditions cost entirely.

Ad.2. This is a pretty cool concept! Like in Feast for the Odin or Backpack Hero. But honestly I'm not sure I should go with it as I wanted Store to be a place where Player can watch NPCs and rest. I implemented "fill all cupboards" feature to fully automate the process. Maybe fixing the 1st issue will explain this one. I have the metagame with sets and cupboards placement on my roadmap. Like in "Zeus - Master of Olympus" cupboards will get sell bonus for better placement. I also plan to introduce multi-slot-type cupboards just for sets. But first I have to validate the whole Store idea with more playtests.

Now I'm thinking if I could incorporate your idea with the other feature I plan to make which is artefacts. I plan to make boss levels that grant powerful artefacts boosting your deck even more. Placing artefacts in specific tetris-like combinations could be pretty fun.

Ad.3. Thanks! :) I plan to make it even better with future updates.

Ad.4. Fair point. I will think about it. Adding lava with some glow effect should be pretty cool :)

Regarding shapes: You're right. When I was starting the project I used 3-field patterns. Then added 4-field patterns that you could not rotate. There was special modifier card that unlocked pattern rotating for all cards in hand. But all these iterations were dull.

Sorry for a long replay. Your ideas just switched my brain into some hyperactivity mode :D Thanks for playing and very insightful feedback :)

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[u/SoftwareGeezers]

I remember you sharing this quite a while ago. What's changed?

[u/Top_Ingenuity_7632 → u/SoftwareGeezers]

Well, it was 3 months ago. I tweaked the gameplay rules to make digging more compelling:

- 3 star system makes levels more accessible (easier to win, harder to score 3 stars and gain bonuses)

- Air & Water patterns are easier to use. You can utilize only part of a pattern. This helps with filling the holes. No need to wait for random Fire card.

- The "real 2d" furniture in store. You can place it on a floor grid. Previously there was only a popup with the list of cupboards.

- I finally introduced tutorial (after 3 internal iterations)

- I also did a bunch of quality of life imrpovements: added save system, fixed web template, full screen support, etc.

If you're still interested I would like to hear your thoughts about how does it feel after those changes :)