Lucky Hunter

Game would be great if endless mode didn't punish for being efficient. Enemy HP scales with your damage done? Enemy damage done scales with your armor? What's the bloody point of upgrading your deck then? Am I supposed to intentionally play bad for 100 rounds and only upgrade 1 piece after every battle to not be out scaled just to make it further? No thanks. Why the hell make a game punish your player? "Endless is tough to balance" - Well, it shouldn't be balanced. It should be a constantly rising challenge. And the better you build your deck, the further you get. Not the better you build, the stronger your enemies are.

I also fail to see how this is "automation", "creature collector", "auto battler", or "idle", tags added to cover more exposure?

Well I certainly played it enough that me giving it a thumbs down is a bit disingenuous, but it's always the things you like that disappoint you the most, you know? I'll give it a thumbs up, but I'm not really happy about it. I just don't think downing on a well-made indie game has any merit if it managed to entertain me for this long. The creator is doing a decent job of creating new content and keeping the ball rolling, and I don't mind that there's basically only one mode (endless, cause once you beat it on normal there's no real point in doing anything else). However, this is ultimately a story of poor balance and missed opportunity.

1. Many elements were haphazardly thrown together without much thought. Enchantments are terrible unless you're doing the build that lets you scale to thousands of them randomly. Most advanced piece combinations don't make any sense to do, and a lot of potentially good ones aren't even options. Some pieces, like the dumbells, are straight up useless (you can max out your crit in so many ways). Due to confusing wording, it's very difficult to even know what a lot of things even mean, especially the coder/maid, because the piece combinations get so complex to the point of arbitrary results. I could go on, but the point is a great idea was really lost in the lack of details.

2. The game just doesn't scale well. First of all, I despise fusion pills with a passion. They screw up any semblance of a rational/controlled build, but they're also necessary to get past a certain point. Also, the fact that enemy health/damage scales with YOU means no build or strategy really matters because the enemy always rises to meet it. If the game had just been balanced to begin with, that wouldn't be necessary. I could definitely get to stage 500 and possibly beyond, but it'd be the result of thousands of nonsensical combinations fused together outward into infinity. It stops being fun by stage 300, as fights drag on and you stop planning out your build so there's nothing really left to do. Then your computer starts to lag because a thousand pieces fused together with a thousand enchantments each does not a happy make the CPU happy.

So yeah, that's my gripe. A game I like has a terrible end game and strategy component, and I want to keep playing but I feel like there's no satisfaction to be had in doing so.

Lucky Hunter by 159 Studio is an outstanding deck-building auto battler rogue-like game. In this game, pieces are automatically placed on the battlefield, and matching three of them levels them up for the next round, making you stronger to face the final boss. You have the freedom to choose your path on each procedurally generated hunting map. Choose wisely, as each node can lead to a battle, various shops, cool enchantments, events, and more. Beat the game to unlock endless mode.

Settings: The game offers a variety of screen resolutions, allowing you to play in windowed mode or full screen. You can adjust the overall music and game sounds. Five languages are available. There is an option to enable casual mode and colourblind mode, which I have not tried. A short tutorial is available by clicking on the question mark button. The save button allows you to have 5 game saves. The flower button is the credits, and if you click on each piece, you will get an insight into who developed and tested this awesome game. The menu includes normal mode, endless mode (when unlocked), talent, collection, and hunter record buttons.

Talent: There are eight talents that you can level to the max with points (looks like a fan). The same goes for Packs. The more packs you unlock, the more pieces you have in play, making the game more challenging. There are 11 interesting packs in total.

Collection: You are presented with a very informative book with many tabs such as NPC, Piece(s), Advanced Piece, Artifact, Advanced Artifact, Village Chief, Blacksmith, Peddler, Demon Merchant, Gambler, and Enchanter. The NPC tab has a lot of info about the 6 different NPCs - you cannot scroll with the mouse wheel to see the remainder of the page. Hold the left mouse button to move the page up or down to see the rest. The Pieces Tab shows you pieces you have gotten so far, and blue question marks indicate pieces you still need to get. There are four pages of pieces and four pages of advanced pieces. Remember to click on all of them to get some basic info on what they do. There are also four pages of artifacts for you to click on for basic info, and some have question marks that you still have to get. Advanced Artifacts have three pages of legendary pieces, so click on those too for basic info.

Hunter Record: This shows your best record and also your last round record. My best record is 34 so far. For both of these, you can also view pieces and artifacts that you have played. There are 48 achievements, and I have achieved 15 so far in the 20 plus hours that I have played.

Graphics: The characters are cute, and there is a variety of pretty backgrounds for each battle.

Music: A very nice chill song that loops well and does not get annoying after a while.

Gameplay: Although it says the game does not work with a controller, it works fine with my Xbox controller, which I am very happy with. It works great with the mouse too. There is an option to change battle speed from 1-5.

Sound: You can adjust the music and game sounds separately, which is nice. Maybe a different song for the final boss battle would be good. The sound of the pieces battling can get quite loud if a whole bunch of them hit the target at the same time, so I have the sound level very low.

Replay Value: This game has a lot to offer for a very cheap price. It is a game you will come back to as there is loads of stuff to max out, pieces to get, and packs, etc. I forgot to mention the Collection button under the NPC tab. You can use the honey pots to achieve the max of 5 hearts to get better deals from the Village Chief, Blacksmith, Peddler, Demon Merchant, Gambler, and Enchanter.

Is this game worth your time, and would I recommend it? Absolutely! I love everything about it. The only thing I would change is the battling sound of the pieces hitting the target, as it can get quite loud when a pile of them hit together at once. And maybe another song for the final boss battle fight.