Are you lucky enough to survive at this casino that towers over the world?
Play a large amount of gambling mini-games - including classics like blackjack and poker, as well as several original games
Advance through the floors of a magical casino filled with all sorts of games, activities, people, information and opportunities
Your experiences in the game will depend heavily on your luck - everything happening in the game is more or less randomized
Public beta link: (removed)
This is my second Hosted Games project, and it’s more or less finished at this point. However, I’m sure there are still bugs left to be found - and other improvements to be made.
Here’s a list of my main concerns that feedback would be most appreciated about (although feel free to mention anything that comes to your mind!):
Any bugs / inconsistencies / weird things that you find (there’s a lot of pretty complex code in this game!)
If a certain mini-game is not so fun / enjoyable / interesting / fair / understandable, and what could perhaps be changed to improve it?
i played for a little longer than i’d like to admit, didn’t find any bugs which was great.
the first floor was waaay harder than the rest (i guess cause its literally pure luck), i ended up just taking out a loan of like 1000 tokens and spending it all on baccarat, mashing the button. i finished the blackjack floor in like a fifth of the time. maybe it should be easier, especially the 1% requirement for jackpot.
the most interesting part by far was the fortune teller in my opinion; the idea that you’re increasing your luck gives it a roguelite feel. maybe you can add more ways to make the player feel as though your odds are actually increasing (like the god of fortune is on your side). maybe you could receive certain blessings, like not losing your tokens on a certain bet or doubling your winnings occasionally.
i didn’t finish the poker floor cause it got way too complicated, but i looked at the code and thought the ending was pretty cool!
Yeah, you could well be right about the first floor. If you have bad luck, it can take forever to advance from there, and since there’s no skill element at all there, you can’t do anything about it except keep trying I suppose it should be somewhat faster on average since it’s perhaps the least interesting floor overall and relatively not as fun to spend a lot of time in…? Hmm. I’ll look over the numbers tomorrow.
Hm, I wonder if it would actually be a good idea to show when the luck factor effects are activated? Currently it works so that if your luck factor is 6%, for example, there’s a 6% chance of you gaining an advantage that pretty much guarantees your victory on that round etc. Otherwise the odds would be against you in all these games, so it’s a way to basically make the game possible to beat while maintaining sensible rules for all the games
Poker is indeed the most complicated game out of them all in some ways. Even though the bots are now playing with pretty simple rules… so quite easy to beat overall, compared to some of the other games.
I made one change to the beta files. The jackpot is now a 2% chance for 25x return prize (previously 1% chance for 50x return). That should reduce the chances of getting stuck on the first floor for too long.
I also considered adding notifications whenever any luck factor effects are activated, but decided against it for now. Mainly because those would have to be added to every mini-game, for consistency’s sake, and some of them have pretty weird implementations such as being determined long before the results are visible… not making it such a great experience for the player.
Well I was Stuck on the first floor because I had to PAY the bouncer… EVEN if I cleared all tables after an eternity… I need 600 + to just leave the first floor… It’s just boring after a While I mean the fortune teller can push your luck by 1%? That’s… Nothing special? I mean You can Lower the chance to get the yellow one if you want but a 1% biff is not worth it
Looks like the first floor is a lot more difficult than I intended it to be… with both of you being stuck there for a long time for various reasons. I think I’ll rebalance it completely today.
(the fastest strategy for the first floor, I think, is just borrowing a lot of tokens and spamming the games with 50 token bets per round - since luck is on your side, soon enough you should have a ton of tokens by winning more than losing - but with a streak of bad luck, it’s still possible to get stuck for some time)
reduced the difficulty of the game in various ways - especially the requirements to clear the first floor (no more token payment needed to advance & slightly better odds to clear all the trials etc.)
small improvements to the poker mini-game, although it’s still pretty much the same game
Played through it–very fun! one of the bold tags is broken but i don’t remember where exactly, sorry to be unhelpful. I’ll flag it if i play through again
At the moment floor 1 requires no token payment to advance. Floors 2-4 require you to have the required amount of tokens in your possession to advance (for example, if you need to have 500 tokens and currently own 700 tokens, you pass).
reaching the third level, the game is actually pretty addicting, and had to check and constrain myself from betting more after some straight wins, quite like if I’m in an actual casino
and reading the memory lanes option gives you a nice little backstory of the MC, which I liked, do you plan on making the MC more customizable?
and the option of buying luck charms to increase your luck is a nice addition, the luck factor is absolutely annoying and aggravating, but in my opinion, that’s what makes it more fun and enjoyable, and addicting
there were no bugs that I noticed, no spelling or grammar errors
I feel as though you need more interaction with the npcs, for instance, when reaching the third area, they’re just called contestants 1 and so on and so on, it would help if they had names and personalities, maybe a bit of romance? it would make the game much more interactive, and would increase the playability factor of the game itself, with or without the romance factor
all in all, a solid demo, very much enjoyed playing
I sort of wanted to leave the MC up to the player’s imagination, although in reality it’s an existing character with a predetermined history. I wonder if it would add some value for roleplay/immersion purposes if you could choose the name or something like that…? Hmm. Personally I’m not too much into character customization, but I do understand that it appeals to many players.
You’re right that the poker opponents are… bland. It’s mainly due to the fact that they are easily replaceable (after losing their whole stacks) bots that all play with the same rules. My original idea was to create some “personality types” who would play poker in different ways (such as cautious/reckless/rational), but the poker mini-game code already went over 20 000 words with a simplified approach I agree it could make that mini-game more enjoyable if the opponents had personalities though. I’ll think about the issue.
I don’t think there will be any romance or deeper relationships in the game. I agree that it could improve the experience in some ways, but my focus for this project idea was more on making a fun experience simulating a (unusually successful but otherwise realistic!) casino visit, mostly removing any extra factors such as lengthy conversations or descriptions, and hiding the lore behind optional choices (except on the final floor). It’s a question with no easy answers, but I do feel like extra content between the mini-games might drag down the feeling of being on a winning streak / making steady progress in a casino. Perhaps there could be further expanded optional events though…?
I suppose it should be somewhat faster on average since it’s perhaps the least interesting floor overall and relatively not as fun to spend a lot of time in…? Hmm. I’ll look over the numbers tomorrow.