Hi all,
I have been playing Pixel Dungeon since the days where there was only one class. And I love the game, so today I have some spare time and I thought it would be good to leave some feedback.
First, I have to say that having tried all the free games advertised as roguelikes in the play store, this is by far the best! Thanks a lot for developing this game and especially for distributing it for free and without ads. And also thanks for the plans to opensource it after finishing. I'd like to get into Android game development and I think there would be no better example to look at and get motivated!
I'd like to make some criticisms about the game though, so that it can be improved. Note that this criticism comes from someone who loves the game, i.e., I see many more positive things about the game (graphics, sounds, gameplay in general are superb) than negatives, but I think negatives are important for improvement.
I think the worst thing about this game is that the early game (first 5 levels) is rather unbalanced and surviving or not depends a lot on luck. I know this is a comment that newbies to roguelikes often make just because they don't know how to play, but I don't really think it's my case as I have finished Nethack, ADOM or Powder for example. ADOM has the fame of having a very difficult early game, but when you are experienced you can survive it the vast majority of the time, because there are many resources at your disposal that you can use.
In Pixel Dungeon I feel that too much depends on finding good weapons and armor in the first four levels. If you find a good set of weapons and armor, you are set for the boss at level 5 and likely to be able to descend much further, as by level 6 you'll begin to build up an inventory with various resources to deal with things. If you don't find weapons or armor and have to face the boss with cloth armor and the basic weapon (or something only marginally better than that), most of the time you are screwed. You are likely to need to use most of your consumable resources in order to get past crabs, and even if you don't, having three or four utility potions and three or four scrolls will likely still not help much against the boss. Those items can give you more chances to attack and less to get hit, but if you have very weak base damage and weak armor, it tends to just not be enough.
I think maybe part of the problem is that the difference between the starting items and even weak items that you find is pretty huge. Out of experience I find that even a +1 leather armor makes my chances to survive much greater than cloth armor: when you have a small amount of HP and attacks make a small amount of damage, shaving a couple of damage points off attacks is really a big deal. Maybe making some slightly-better-than-basic items (leather armor and quarterstaff?) guaranteed in the first levels could help a lot. Because now, my feeling is that surviving the first 5 levels is determined much more by whether I find some decent items or not than by my skill, skill plays a much larger role afterwards.
I don't know, maybe it's just me. It's an opinion and it can be ignored, but I think it could be helpful.
Anyway, I reiterate that this is a really great game. This is the only thing I would improve about it, but I keep playing again and again and that means something
