unlucky mode: easier than easiest difficulty (by the factors that difficulty changes), but if possible, on your last turn, you will be likely to not draw any scoring cards. this means the minimum amount of card-drawing cards, all tools if you had at least 5 in your draw pile, or just not enough stuff to win if possible (unless you already have enough, in which case, you would draw only scorium-related cards). also you could make it so pandorite and stuff always gives the minimum amount, shield is always in the first hand after a reshuffle, and mole is always at the bottom of the deck, and draws special ores last. also, no reroll (i barely use it anyway)
this game mode would make for some interesting strategies
I absolutely love this concept, but my potato computer sometimes cant handle it, specifically at loading screens or after playing a card. I don't think it's a glitch, but who knows.
It’s totally possible to do it with a very minimal deck :)
I think the trick was to get the extra two scorium cards and the aquifer pretty early and just upgrade, upgrade, upgrade while trashing my worst ore/two worst scorium cards. I nabbed the creature around round 6-7 which was key to triggering big score hits with the katzite, even when it didn’t collide with the amber on the initial turn. By rounds 9-10 I never played my ore cards except to add value to the katzite.
One piece of feedback I'd say: When you have cards that Retain, they shouldn't reduce your card draw at the start of the next turn.
Oh actually, one more thing, unless I'm mistaken, in more cases than not, the higher cost card that triples its upgrade seems functionally the same as the cheaper cost card that adds 3 when its upgraded. This makes the higher cost card not worth it compared with the other. (but like I said, I may have just not found the use-case where it's better)
Agreed on the retain piece for sure, if retained cards are supposed to decrease the amount of cards drawn, this should at least be clarified somewhere on the card.
I largely agree with both of what you said but theres a few things to consider,if they dont stop your draw whats stopping you from taking every piece of quartz (retain resource) you see plus some draw and a aquifer or 2 ( action that upgrades every card in your hand by 1)? So it feels to me that they will need some kind of downside to make up for them not stopping draw
as corite (2cost +3 to your upgrades) vs cube (3 cost X3 on your upgrades) you can use tools to bypass the energy cost so paying the actual cost should be rare, for almost every upgrade card coreite actually upgrades more then cube 1+3 =4 vs 1*3 = 3 and that feels really dumb but there are some cards that do upgrade cube more though jerb ( the kangaroo rat thing) that hits random targets by 3 (3x3 = 9) you can control him kinda by removing ores with tools for example and having actions in your hand that they cant upgrade. Corkscrew 2 cost so expensive but 3 on the upgrade and hammer upgrade in the store.
overall i think that corite is better and thats the cheaper one so that feels very strange for me
Brutal: I often got (literally) within *1 point* and died :D, until I used Wrenches.
Wrenches: OP
Everything-not-wrenches: (that you can reliably 'choose'; so e.g. getting enough nmineshafts is great, but it requires a lot of luck to get enough): not good enough, no strategies really work; they *can* work but see below (basically: it becomes random luck more than strategy - one bad deal and you die)
Balancing still needed:
- more items in the shop (because you still can't choose your strat - escalating shop costs are just not good for balancing) ...
- ... and more cards (so that the previous item doesnt let players 100% choose their own strategy; your core game-design is 'prevent players choosing a strategy, force them to react to the random roll')
- reduce the cost of deletion: I lose SO MANY brutal rounds because I get 1 unlucky deal in the last level or penultimate level (this is a sign that there are too many cards in my deck, and I'm at the mercy of random deals, and that that is overshadowing my choice of purchases)
No offense but i think you need to think about your deck construction more if you can only win with wrenches they are really not that op compared to other top teir strats wrenches are good dont get me wrong but action combo strats just as good imo. Something that might help you if you have a ton of tools in your deck it is probably a good idea to take a few gems in the lategame for good resources and drawing
I literally did not say that. I have won multiple times on brutal without wrenches. But it requires a lot more luck - luck that the shop will give you the cards you need (with very little tolerance, most attempts fail because shop just never gives you enough) and luck that the large deck in midgame wont screw you with a bad deal that ends the game early.
e.g. won like this multple times - after wrenches, axes still dominate the game due to balancing issues (better to be able to shoot through the deck fast, since the game doesnt let you keep cards in hand and decide when to play them. This is the core balancing problem: player has very little control, so things that make up for the lack of control win much more often)
Card draw will always be strong in deck building games, especially in games like this where you stack all your upgrades on individual cards. Drawing your key cards more often is just makes sense. Axe isnt your only drawing option, mineshaft is a strong card (10-10 for 1 and refunds the energy and draws if in a action combo) and builds together quite well with minecarts (3-3 draw 2 cards cost 1 refunds itself if used in a action combo) compass plays well with these cards situationally it can be better then axe. Axe is by no means a bad card in fact it is quite strong but it also needs your deck to be strong to be good, in the first store i would take pickaxe, mineshaft even mybestfriend (the 15ore actioncard) and screwdriver before i would take axe
thank you for the feedback! and glad to hear you are liking the update as well!
wrenches are definitely OP right now and will be getting adjusted in the next patch
sorry to hear you are frustrated with dynamite prices - it's a very delicate balancing act, so i through trial and error and playtesting i am figuring out the right values
the next update will focus on "deck fixing" and ways to manipulate your deck in completely new ways that don't exist in the game right now, which should hopefully place more control and agency in the players hands, and hopefully will make you feel like you have more agency as a player!
Yay, balance patch! In the current version, winning without Hourglass feels a lot harder than before. To me, that sounds like the balance is in a better place now.
Is the issue Wrench or is the issue your Gem was already massive right from the shop (and then you Hammer'd it once or twice?) Big Gem = more and bigger Wrenches.
i'm glad you are enjoying the balance patch! and yeah i agree that wrench is definitely OP right now, will be definitely be getting an adjustment in the next update but enjoy it while you can! haha
Beat the game again after the balance patch and it's definitely less stressful and less RNG-dependent, relaxing the scorium requirement and the store prices definitely helped with that, and though the difficulty dropped I feel it balances out with the difficulty modes already in the game, I'd probably soon join the brutal camp with how frequently I check up on this.
What's surprising to me is that I didn't like prospect at all and apparently from reading the balance patch it's actually meta-defining??
Yeah I definitely never thought to use it much just cause I was put off by the energy cost, though thinking about it I can see how that played out, can't believe I didn't realize this before the patch went up!
you should make an endless mode where players can keep going with small challenge increments until they lose. maybe a leaderboard for like who can make it the furthest!
Hey if anyone's interested in helping make a wiki for Retromine, message me on discord! ccdg in the discord server gave their approval! I'm going to be making some mockups of what it could potentially look like in my freetime
my username is @joppyloppy; you can also find me in the Retromine discord server
I'm a bit disappointed that you block picking up cards when the deck runs out - most games will shuffle the deck at that point. Score would have been higher but I kept having to end turns early beacuse I ran out of cards.
the pile is meant to power some game mechanics (like wrench and mineshaft) but it also serves the purpose of preventing infinites, that way i can include some fun spammy draw cards like minecart. otherwise i can't have cards like that in the game, as you could basically beat the game by playing one card infinitely!
If reshuffles include played cards Brush + a few Dynamite (or card draw and leave the others in hand) = infinite Ore, infinite Score from 1 card purchase
Oh man. I love this game, played it a bunch in beta, and now it has so many improvements!
The good - More cards! I enjoy the balance of the cards, it feels a lot less easy to win.
Being able to buy an extra turn is nice, and I'm currently working on beating it with out buying an extra turn at all. 4 is the lowest I've gotten.
The game in general is wonderful. I enjoy the rouge like deck building, the score and money system, having to take risks sometimes when you need a certain card and have 6+ left to draw.
The bad -
Not really bad, just things that aren't good.
The reroll feels bad, since card prices go up with each level, there is a tipping point of spending the reroll not allowing you to buy any more cards.
I'm colorblind. Tools/action look the same. Thats frustrating to work with.
The "this is my opinion and doesnt reflect the mechanics, or game play since its just an opinion"
I struggle with the only 6 cards per shop, if i want to try new strategies, its next to impossible to do so with any of the cards that will require other cards to sync with.
Lastly other ideas-
Honestly just a mode where you have a certian amount to spend, and you have to beat the last level, or a sand box to test out new strategies and see how the cards work. could be cool.
Honestly all in all Amazing game, and i will keep working on getting the 3 turn victory
great game, love your general set up and theres a lot good going on. the music is fantastic, awesome choice i love it.
my only real complaint or critique, would be that the game feels extremely limiting, like when you know what you're supposed to be doing the games not HARD but it honestly feels like 80%+ of the card pool are either useless or actively detrimental to your ability to win.
if that was how it was on brutal sure, i wouldn't have a problem that's how it's supposed to work, but no that's how it is regardless of difficulty. even on relaxed you really can't fuck around if you want to get far/win. you have a bit of room but god forbid you pick up anything that isn't a cantrip, i got to the point where i honestly think prospect isn't worth it. the game is fun and interesting and worth it but boy does it need to be loosened up a bit.
my suggestion? increase the number of stops, so that you can allow the player a bit more leeway, on lower difficulties give the player more rounds and/or more energy to work with. make it so relaxed becomes hard to lose, and brutal really tests the limits of a players ability. and consider adding in a sort of infinite mode so you can see how far you can go with a deck.
one of my favorite things to find in games like this is broken strategies that let you push the game past what anyone thought plausable. i think that is here but i think some of the cards should probably be ballanced out a bit more because again as is, most of the cards just arn't really playable.
GL and TYVM for sharing this, its a great game with lots of potential that absolutly scratches that itch.
He's going Lens almost every turn + lots of Prospect along the way too. You can see he ended the run with over 200 ore remaining, so probably a lot of that upgrading came during the final stage as well.
He has 6 cards that don't draw cards, so occasionally the minecart will be on the bottom and he doesn't get to play his whole deck. But usually he'll have the option to play the whole thing each turn. So once he finishes the final stage score he has the option to go "draw whole deck, play Ore, Prospect Scorium" to run up the numbers for the screenshot. Maybe he will reply but I would guess something like 15 or 18 of the buff points came from the final stage, and probably 12 in the stage before. Once you get the deck very streamlined you can strongly accelerate the size of the resources because you can buff your best one (and play it if needed) every turn.
If you look at my gem and cube posts i use a combo that you get axe or in theory compass you draw your big card then prospect your big card then play it with trowel (0 cost tool play a resource) alternatively energy generation to play your big resource works too, lenses also are very helpful for it too but i didnt get offered them in my shops
"It honestly feels like 80%+ of the card pool are either useless or actively detrimental to your ability to win." I had the same initial impression but gradually more of the card pool opened up to me.
My picks for "Trash tier" either Quartz Ore that costs energy / wants lots of buffs (Quartz Ore is my pick for single worst card) Treasure Map Wrench Corkscrew (edit: updated to reflect further understanding)
Everything else I think is fine (or at least interesting to make work & feels good when you get there)
I think you'll find a wider range of cards than you realized are good for Prospect grinding (especially +Energy, buff targets & enablers), and many of the others can be built into viable decks that are not mostly about Prospect grinding.
First time trying out cube, to be honest i think cube is kinda meh even though i won with it I feel like overall its kinda weak because to work it needs tool support and other ores have comparable upsides or are better ( the +1 per upgrade seams to be similar numbers while not needing tool support, score pando has ore that also kinda scales with it, kaz support is stuff you basically always want anyways meteors and geodes and draw). Drill theoretically has good synergy with it but every time you use it you arnt going to have energy to upgrade the cube and feels bad to not upgrade it and also has its on energy issues that are harder to resolve because you cant cheat it out with a tool so you basically need a super thin deck or get really lucky with the most expensive card in the game? minecart. Corkscrew in theory works well with it to but corkscrew feels to similar to prospect for me to really want to add it, and seams like it would make prospect turn into a brick knowing theres a better version in my deck
← Return to game
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Idea for a new gamemode:
unlucky mode: easier than easiest difficulty (by the factors that difficulty changes), but if possible, on your last turn, you will be likely to not draw any scoring cards. this means the minimum amount of card-drawing cards, all tools if you had at least 5 in your draw pile, or just not enough stuff to win if possible (unless you already have enough, in which case, you would draw only scorium-related cards). also you could make it so pandorite and stuff always gives the minimum amount, shield is always in the first hand after a reshuffle, and mole is always at the bottom of the deck, and draws special ores last. also, no reroll (i barely use it anyway)
this game mode would make for some interesting strategies
every time
I beat my record, on a secret difficulty too :)
Presenting the ultra nightmare
part 2
part 3
Part 4 !
... I want this (nightmare difficulty) :D
I absolutely love this concept, but my potato computer sometimes cant handle it, specifically at loading screens or after playing a card. I don't think it's a glitch, but who knows.
Good luck beating this record
part 2
part 3
Excellent work. How many attempts to get the planets to align and give you the options you felt you needed in the shop to pull this off?
It’s totally possible to do it with a very minimal deck :)
I think the trick was to get the extra two scorium cards and the aquifer pretty early and just upgrade, upgrade, upgrade while trashing my worst ore/two worst scorium cards. I nabbed the creature around round 6-7 which was key to triggering big score hits with the katzite, even when it didn’t collide with the amber on the initial turn. By rounds 9-10 I never played my ore cards except to add value to the katzite.
One piece of feedback I'd say: When you have cards that Retain, they shouldn't reduce your card draw at the start of the next turn.
Oh actually, one more thing, unless I'm mistaken, in more cases than not, the higher cost card that triples its upgrade seems functionally the same as the cheaper cost card that adds 3 when its upgraded. This makes the higher cost card not worth it compared with the other.
(but like I said, I may have just not found the use-case where it's better)
Agreed on the retain piece for sure, if retained cards are supposed to decrease the amount of cards drawn, this should at least be clarified somewhere on the card.
I largely agree with both of what you said but theres a few things to consider,if they dont stop your draw whats stopping you from taking every piece of quartz (retain resource) you see plus some draw and a aquifer or 2 ( action that upgrades every card in your hand by 1)? So it feels to me that they will need some kind of downside to make up for them not stopping draw
as corite (2cost +3 to your upgrades) vs cube (3 cost X3 on your upgrades)
you can use tools to bypass the energy cost so paying the actual cost should be rare, for almost every upgrade card coreite actually upgrades more then cube 1+3 =4 vs 1*3 = 3 and that feels really dumb but there are some cards that do upgrade cube more though jerb ( the kangaroo rat thing) that hits random targets by 3 (3x3 = 9) you can control him kinda by removing ores with tools for example and having actions in your hand that they cant upgrade. Corkscrew 2 cost so expensive but 3 on the upgrade and hammer upgrade in the store.
overall i think that corite is better and thats the cheaper one so that feels very strange for me
Just a quick point, the hammer in the shop says upgrade by 3, but is actually 3 instances of 1
What happens if you Hammer Corite?
I think that's the only card that makes a difference between 1x3 or 3x1
Edit: I believe it shows 3 animations but gets +6 total rather than +15.
Despite the animation I believe Hammer is actually 1 instance of upgrade 3.
had a jerboa run
First brutal run through!
congrats <3 thanks for playing!
Literally been playing none stop, and finally won!
The Omega Run
Balancing: much better
Brutal: I often got (literally) within *1 point* and died :D, until I used Wrenches.
Wrenches: OP
Everything-not-wrenches: (that you can reliably 'choose'; so e.g. getting enough nmineshafts is great, but it requires a lot of luck to get enough): not good enough, no strategies really work; they *can* work but see below (basically: it becomes random luck more than strategy - one bad deal and you die)
Balancing still needed:
- more items in the shop (because you still can't choose your strat - escalating shop costs are just not good for balancing) ...
- ... and more cards (so that the previous item doesnt let players 100% choose their own strategy; your core game-design is 'prevent players choosing a strategy, force them to react to the random roll')
- reduce the cost of deletion: I lose SO MANY brutal rounds because I get 1 unlucky deal in the last level or penultimate level (this is a sign that there are too many cards in my deck, and I'm at the mercy of random deals, and that that is overshadowing my choice of purchases)
forgot victory shot:
No offense but i think you need to think about your deck construction more if you can only win with wrenches they are really not that op compared to other top teir strats wrenches are good dont get me wrong but action combo strats just as good imo. Something that might help you if you have a ton of tools in your deck it is probably a good idea to take a few gems in the lategame for good resources and drawing
I literally did not say that. I have won multiple times on brutal without wrenches. But it requires a lot more luck - luck that the shop will give you the cards you need (with very little tolerance, most attempts fail because shop just never gives you enough) and luck that the large deck in midgame wont screw you with a bad deal that ends the game early.
Wrenches do not have this problem.
e.g. won like this multple times - after wrenches, axes still dominate the game due to balancing issues (better to be able to shoot through the deck fast, since the game doesnt let you keep cards in hand and decide when to play them. This is the core balancing problem: player has very little control, so things that make up for the lack of control win much more often)
Card draw will always be strong in deck building games, especially in games like this where you stack all your upgrades on individual cards. Drawing your key cards more often is just makes sense. Axe isnt your only drawing option, mineshaft is a strong card (10-10 for 1 and refunds the energy and draws if in a action combo) and builds together quite well with minecarts (3-3 draw 2 cards cost 1 refunds itself if used in a action combo) compass plays well with these cards situationally it can be better then axe. Axe is by no means a bad card in fact it is quite strong but it also needs your deck to be strong to be good, in the first store i would take pickaxe, mineshaft even mybestfriend (the 15ore actioncard) and screwdriver before i would take axe
thank you for the feedback! and glad to hear you are liking the update as well!
wrenches are definitely OP right now and will be getting adjusted in the next patch
sorry to hear you are frustrated with dynamite prices - it's a very delicate balancing act, so i through trial and error and playtesting i am figuring out the right values
the next update will focus on "deck fixing" and ways to manipulate your deck in completely new ways that don't exist in the game right now, which should hopefully place more control and agency in the players hands, and hopefully will make you feel like you have more agency as a player!
Yay, balance patch!
In the current version, winning without Hourglass feels a lot harder than before.
To me, that sounds like the balance is in a better place now.
The new Wrench is really fun! I think it might be a bit OP.
I agree, it's completely broken.
Is the issue Wrench or is the issue your Gem was already massive right from the shop (and then you Hammer'd it once or twice?)
Big Gem = more and bigger Wrenches.
I think you are severely underestimating how good action combo is i think wrench makes it comparable in strength
i'm glad you are enjoying the balance patch! and yeah i agree that wrench is definitely OP right now, will be definitely be getting an adjustment in the next update but enjoy it while you can! haha
Beat the game again after the balance patch and it's definitely less stressful and less RNG-dependent, relaxing the scorium requirement and the store prices definitely helped with that, and though the difficulty dropped I feel it balances out with the difficulty modes already in the game, I'd probably soon join the brutal camp with how frequently I check up on this.
What's surprising to me is that I didn't like prospect at all and apparently from reading the balance patch it's actually meta-defining??
It was so meta defining that you could win on adventure reliably adding no cards to your deck and unreliably on brutal
Yeah I definitely never thought to use it much just cause I was put off by the energy cost, though thinking about it I can see how that played out, can't believe I didn't realize this before the patch went up!
happy to hear you like the new balance patch! more updates coming soon <3
Took me a while, but I finally did it. Really cool game, already in my wishlist <3
thanks for wishlisting! so glad you enjoyed the game!
Btw for anybody playing browser version firefox has fullscreen if you care about that
That took longer than I thought but I've beaten it! (~3 hours)
glad you enjoyed the game <3
The elusive 7 turns
this cube deck was sick
Yay I finaly beat it!!
I did it!
you should make an endless mode where players can keep going with small challenge increments until they lose. maybe a leaderboard for like who can make it the furthest!
Hey if anyone's interested in helping make a wiki for Retromine, message me on discord! ccdg in the discord server gave their approval! I'm going to be making some mockups of what it could potentially look like in my freetime
my username is @joppyloppy; you can also find me in the Retromine discord server
I'm a bit disappointed that you block picking up cards when the deck runs out - most games will shuffle the deck at that point. Score would have been higher but I kept having to end turns early beacuse I ran out of cards.
the pile is meant to power some game mechanics (like wrench and mineshaft) but it also serves the purpose of preventing infinites, that way i can include some fun spammy draw cards like minecart. otherwise i can't have cards like that in the game, as you could basically beat the game by playing one card infinitely!
If reshuffles include played cards
Brush + a few Dynamite (or card draw and leave the others in hand) = infinite Ore, infinite Score
from 1 card purchase
I finally beat it!
love the game but i wish rerolls didn't cost so much initially
Agree! I find the game has quite a bit of RNG, so this would be an easy way to feel more agency.
rerolls will be cheaper in the next balance patch ^^
The good -
More cards! I enjoy the balance of the cards, it feels a lot less easy to win.
Being able to buy an extra turn is nice, and I'm currently working on beating it with out buying an extra turn at all. 4 is the lowest I've gotten.
The game in general is wonderful. I enjoy the rouge like deck building, the score and money system, having to take risks sometimes when you need a certain card and have 6+ left to draw.
The bad -
Not really bad, just things that aren't good.
The reroll feels bad, since card prices go up with each level, there is a tipping point of spending the reroll not allowing you to buy any more cards.
I'm colorblind. Tools/action look the same. Thats frustrating to work with.
The "this is my opinion and doesnt reflect the mechanics, or game play since its just an opinion"
I struggle with the only 6 cards per shop, if i want to try new strategies, its next to impossible to do so with any of the cards that will require other cards to sync with.
Lastly other ideas-
Honestly just a mode where you have a certian amount to spend, and you have to beat the last level, or a sand box to test out new strategies and see how the cards work. could be cool.
Honestly all in all Amazing game, and i will keep working on getting the 3 turn victory
great game, love your general set up and theres a lot good going on. the music is fantastic, awesome choice i love it.
my only real complaint or critique, would be that the game feels extremely limiting, like when you know what you're supposed to be doing the games not HARD but it honestly feels like 80%+ of the card pool are either useless or actively detrimental to your ability to win.
if that was how it was on brutal sure, i wouldn't have a problem that's how it's supposed to work, but no that's how it is regardless of difficulty. even on relaxed you really can't fuck around if you want to get far/win. you have a bit of room but god forbid you pick up anything that isn't a cantrip, i got to the point where i honestly think prospect isn't worth it. the game is fun and interesting and worth it but boy does it need to be loosened up a bit.
my suggestion? increase the number of stops, so that you can allow the player a bit more leeway, on lower difficulties give the player more rounds and/or more energy to work with. make it so relaxed becomes hard to lose, and brutal really tests the limits of a players ability. and consider adding in a sort of infinite mode so you can see how far you can go with a deck.
one of my favorite things to find in games like this is broken strategies that let you push the game past what anyone thought plausable. i think that is here but i think some of the cards should probably be ballanced out a bit more because again as is, most of the cards just arn't really playable.
GL and TYVM for sharing this, its a great game with lots of potential that absolutly scratches that itch.
What was your strat on that run to get such high scorium card? Minecart to repeatedly get the lens and upgrade a lot of times in one round?
I'm not Capri but my biggest resource was a 167.
He's going Lens almost every turn + lots of Prospect along the way too.
You can see he ended the run with over 200 ore remaining, so probably a lot of that upgrading came during the final stage as well.
He has 6 cards that don't draw cards, so occasionally the minecart will be on the bottom and he doesn't get to play his whole deck.
But usually he'll have the option to play the whole thing each turn.
So once he finishes the final stage score he has the option to go "draw whole deck, play Ore, Prospect Scorium" to run up the numbers for the screenshot.
Maybe he will reply but I would guess something like 15 or 18 of the buff points came from the final stage, and probably 12 in the stage before.
Once you get the deck very streamlined you can strongly accelerate the size of the resources because you can buff your best one (and play it if needed) every turn.
If you look at my gem and cube posts i use a combo that you get axe or in theory compass you draw your big card then prospect your big card then play it with trowel (0 cost tool play a resource) alternatively energy generation to play your big resource works too, lenses also are very helpful for it too but i didnt get offered them in my shops
"It honestly feels like 80%+ of the card pool are either useless or actively detrimental to your ability to win."
I had the same initial impression but gradually more of the card pool opened up to me.
My picks for "Trash tier"
either Quartz
Ore that costs energy / wants lots of buffs
(Quartz Ore is my pick for single worst card)
Treasure Map
Wrench
Corkscrew
(edit: updated to reflect further understanding)
Everything else I think is fine (or at least interesting to make work & feels good when you get there)
I think you'll find a wider range of cards than you realized are good for Prospect grinding (especially +Energy, buff targets & enablers), and many of the others can be built into viable decks that are not mostly about Prospect grinding.
I made a gem that draws my whole deck when i play it
Great game!
This game is a lot of fun! I wish there was an option for fullscreen for the browser version though. Below is my favourite winning deck so far :D
There is you just didnt find it :P
I didnt realize until i checked but apparently fullscreen doesnt show up on chrome but does on firefox
First time trying out cube, to be honest i think cube is kinda meh even though i won with it I feel like overall its kinda weak because to work it needs tool support and other ores have comparable upsides or are better ( the +1 per upgrade seams to be similar numbers while not needing tool support, score pando has ore that also kinda scales with it, kaz support is stuff you basically always want anyways meteors and geodes and draw). Drill theoretically has good synergy with it but every time you use it you arnt going to have energy to upgrade the cube and feels bad to not upgrade it and also has its on energy issues that are harder to resolve because you cant cheat it out with a tool so you basically need a super thin deck or get really lucky with the most expensive card in the game? minecart. Corkscrew in theory works well with it to but corkscrew feels to similar to prospect for me to really want to add it, and seams like it would make prospect turn into a brick knowing theres a better version in my deck
Game is fantastic but is waaay too difficult. The Easy mode doesn't appear to have any difference other than the lower requirement for leveling up.
It's like the modes are Blue Stake vs Purple Stake Balatro (If you don't mind that comparison I'm sure you're getting a lot of.)
Easy should have an extra turn as it stands now it seems like 2+ extra turns is required to complete the easy mode.
Adventure and Relaxed just feel identical in terms of difficulty.