Four Divine Abidings [alfa]

I just wanted to say that I really liked the ambience. It's contemplative. It's filled with little lessons and teachings, with peaceful imagery, and calm user interaction. It all works very well together.

Most idle games are built around a central combat system, so they're literally destructive. I loved how your encounters are always building up to something positive instead (like helping someone, or appreciative nature). The encounters are *constructive*. It's a nice change from the status quo.

Along those same lines: most games would have core attributes that would each serve a different purpose (e.g. strength increases the damage you deal, and constitution increases the damage you can receive). In your game, the four abidings are all essentially interchangeable: they are all equally important, and they are all equally necessary for solving encounters. You can temporarily boost one of the abidings, but it returns to its equilibrium value. The abidings are all more-or-less balanced by the end. I felt there was a lesson there. At any rate, it works very well with the overall theme of the middle way, and harmonious balance.

I also really liked how the Effort bar fills up like a slowly beating heart. It keeps a regular rhythm that never changes or stops. It keeps beating from one encounter to the next, and remains unchanged even when you're at home resting. I've never seen a game do anything like this, and it's *brilliant*. The rhythm of the Effort bar creates a calm, reassuring feeling that is almost meditative. I *really* liked it.

I understand that the Effort does replenish somewhat faster by the end of the game. But the change was gradual, and I didn't really notice it. To me, it felt like a regular heartbeat. It wasn't *really* necessary to make it beat faster, because the level-ups were accomplished in a different way: the impact changes as you level up (e.g. you replenish more energy with each completion as you level up). That is enough.

Anyway! It all fits together nicely: the message, the visuals, and the game play. I thought it was all very well done.

I really liked it!

The peaceful imagery combined with the slow, predictable recharge time of the "Effort" bar creates a calm feeling which was very nice.

I kept playing even after the end.

However, it was confusing at first, and the huge amounts of help text only made it worse.

There was a lot of text like this:

"You will learn the game basics in several simple steps..."

Okay, but this doesn't actually help me understand how the game works. It's just more text that I have to read, when I'm already feeling confused and frustrated!

Or this:

"Alternatively, the game will switch automatically when both Energies are deplete..."

Okay, but the game will do that for me automatically, so it's not something I need to know about! If you'll just let me play the game, I'll see it happen without needing to read about it!

Or:

"Click this icon now to see how Click Progress works."

Okay, but right now I don't even know what "Click Progress" is, so this means nothing to me. And the next help window has moved on to "Additional Energy Recovery," so I have no chance to stop and figure out what "Click Progress" meant. It's very frustrating!

Having played the game, I now know what would have helped me:

I needed to know what an "Abiding" was. If there were a label above the abiding list, that would have explained everything.

Likewise, I needed to know what an "Observation" was. If you put the word "Observation" somewhere on the observation window, that would have taken care of that.

I also needed easy access to the current Task and Milestones. I would have *loved* a "Milestones" button where the "Path," "Skills," and "Tools" buttons are! (The Milestones are hidden under a book icon in the "Path" menu--which makes it pretty hard to find. And you need it constantly!)

Also, I would have liked having the "Skills" button in the top left corner of the game, since that's where the "Skills" window appears. It would have made the navigation easy to remember.

Having said all that, I really did enjoy the game! It's very well made and has a nice ambience. It has a lot of potential--but it's already enjoyable and worth playing just the way it is. Thank you for making it.

The game is a little bit confusing even with the text tutorial, ive reached lvl 50 after playing for a few hours, there's almost no content, more than half the skills and perks are locked "available on release", the rebirth is also locked behind the game release, same for more than half the itens and you can only tier up once, since the second upgrade encounter tier is also locked for release.

Other than that i would say it's a ok prototype, as long the AI art is removed it could even be sold after a proper tutorial, maybe have some features locked and open as the player progress so players arent overwhelmed with too many features at once.

Lot's of unclear text. Confusing interface. Unclear instruction.

Clearly either not for me or strangely made.

Also, is the "pixel art" AI generated or just a voluntary with a strange Mixel filter ?