Madcap Mosaic 100hrs

Hey, 1classydude.
I haven't played a game for 2 months. After reaching 100hrs of playtime I figured I have seen enough and decided to stop playing. Since then I've been wanting to write a post about the game but was procrastinating up until today.
There won't be much of a structure to this and english isn't my first language, so bear with me. I also might be a bit too critical, not because I want to be rude, but because I want to be open, and maybe you'll get some insights for your future games (which you should absolutely make).

So, I learned about the game from the Retromation's video and it immediately seemed interesting. I'm "something of a game developer myself" and I have tried to make a "tile-based card game" at least 3 times prior. So when I saw the game I immediately understood what you were trying to do. And was a bit disappointed that production value seemed to be low and the theme was very generic. I haven't watched the video in full but I remember a few things from it:
- Bear is ugly;
- negative numbers for stats felt so out of place;
- cursor that turns into arrows is super strange;
- wasd controls are nice;
- backtrack is a cute idea;
- boss that blocks movement in one direction is supercool;
- deck building mechanism with 7x9 base deck is genius;
- fog of war actually works (all prototypes I've made before didn't have it);

It's been a long time since I've seen the video. And I haven't watched the whole thing. But that was my first impression.

So after the video I didn't want to buy the game right away because I still wasn't sure that the game was actually good. I genuinely thought at the time that you stumbled into a great idea but lacked the ability to properly implement it (boy, was I wrong about that. I hope you have it in your heart to forgive my arrogance).
So a week or two later I decided to research the game some more and found another video (by Ic0n gaming) and started watching. This time Ic0n's sincere attempt to play well made me realize that there is strategic depth in the game. I was overwhelmed by the Lattice and thought that it's outright crazy to frontload this much information to the players, but at least I started getting the feeling that it might all be worth it. And the potential of the system has become obvious.

So I've decided to buy the game and see for myself what's going on. And I'm telling you this only because at the moment I've seen the first video I was already the perfect target audience representative. I've literally dreamed about the game like this. I love deckbuilders, rogue-likes, and indie-games. And still, one video wasn't enough to convince me that the game is worth my time and money. Unfortunately, the first impression that I had from the game is that it’s just some random low effort junk from itch.io with no depth. It's great that I was wrong about this, but it still sucks that too many potential buyers (or players) have walked away from the steam page, or even from Retro's video not convinced. It's sad indeed.

So, I bought the game and started playing. On one hand I was doing it "for science", and on the other hand I genuinely wanted to play the game after the Ic0n's video.
My first impression was that it's ruthless and too random. Now it's hard to get to terms with the fact that I was routinely losing 5-15hp to bear fights, but that 100% was a thing. I guess not heading straight into the corner, or maneuvering around fogs was too hard. But once again I blamed it on the game. Maybe for the first 20 hours I was under the impression that bear fights were overturned and I'm losing HP with no fault of my own (yeah, I'm an arrogant idiot, I know).
And some other mobs were even worse. I couldn't manage the Black Knight hits properly, goblin's 15 attack turn felt like an insult. I always loved Spider, cause it's the most interactive of the bunch and its attacks are low values.
Rats and Golem were ok. Not too fun, but not too unfair either. I rarely moved past Act 1 mobs.
Lattice was too much for me to handle at the time. I usually looked max in 5x5 square in the center. My default strat was to remove 1 Sword and 1 Shield after every fight, and sometimes two shields cause "I prefer to play aggro". And I thought that getting hearts is for pussies. Needless to say, with this approach it was hard to get past the mid game boss. And I quickly forgot that those are bosses, and once again assumed they are overturned mobs and even complained to you about the troll at the time.
About 30 hours in I already realized that defense is the king, and you should almost always remove swords after the fight. At that time I had only vague understanding of how the shrines work, or at least how to utilize a better half of them. But overall I had grasped 90% of the tiles and started discovering combos. It was a fun time, but too often it felt bittersweet. And the gods of the lattice weren't supportive. One time, maybe 10 hours in, I was dealt a Bard trait only to realize I have 0 tiles that make a Dance tile. It felt terrible. It made me say bad things about the game.

Anyway, at around 30 hours I had my first winning run versus the Black Dragon. I started to think that I understood the game at least a little bit, but still felt it was too random, chaotic and unforgiving. I took a break, and haven't played it for a week or so. When I returned I had accepted most things about the game and at 50 hours I had my first 3 runs streak. And that's when I started to realize that the game is actually really really good. And not just good, but an actual masterpiece.  I still thought that the game was overturned (I still do), but previously I just assumed it's because you were ignorant and didn't care, but at 50 hrs it was clear that it's overturned in exactly the right way you wanted it to be, and it's not the lack of thought or care that made the game hard. I mean, you had my respect from the very beginning, because it's a cool release and I wanted this game to exist, and a lot of the game was intimately close to my gaming tastes. But at 50 hours I was sure you are a one of a kind genius and deserve a place in the pantheon next to Richard Garfield, or at least Michael Brough.
Anyway, at 50 hours I decided that I want to master the game and achieve this 6 win streak thing.
It took me another 50 hours to do so, and I'm glad that it did, cause it allowed me to spend more time with the game. I got to tell you I had some nasty 4th or 5th losses, but I always tried to play at least a little bit for fun without pushing it too hard.
I don't think I'm very good at the game. But I'm not bad either. I guess my try-hard WR is around 80%-85%, my comfort is ~65-75%, and if I am on full don't-look-past-two-squares-at-the-laatice-autopilot then maybe it's ~50%.
It's alright. And I guess Fusha showed us all that 90-95% win rate is doable.
But still I had so many runs where I had an absolutely beautiful deck. And I'had lost with it. And it felt so, so, so bad. I don't care about balance, and gaming culture, and old-school roots, or even win streaks. I care about insanely cool (and effective) combos and being able to win with them while playing at slightly above average level in a sei-relaxed way. And the game rarely allows that. This is just not right. I’ve won with some cool decks too. And it felt great. But some of my losses I just can’t forgive.
I guess my point here is that the "base game" of Madcap Mosaic feels like making high Ascension Runs in Slay the Spire. And I don't do Ascension Runs because I don't care for them much. I've watched a few streams on A20, but I have no desire to play it myself.
Madcap is not A20. But it's not A0 either. Maybe it's A10 or A15(i don’t know). This is rough for new players. And I'm not sure I understand why.

Overall, I really think that Madcap Mosaic is a fantastic game. It's certainly in my top 10 digital gaming experiences of the past decade. In fact I just checked and 100 hrs makes it the most played game in my Steam library. I’ll be honest, I have started playing and kept playing because I wanted to study the game, to make my own games better. But in the process I fell in love with it. But at the same time our relationship isn’t all smooth. I’m still salty about some losses. I still hate both Red Dragon and Troll. It’s still painful to process the Lattice as a whole. And I'm still looking for every opportunity to remove shields from the deck. I don’t know. I have complicated feelings about all of it.
It saddens me that I can’t even recommend the game without mentioning a couple of “but”s right after.

To counterbalance all the nagging here are some interactions or design titbits in no particular order for which I love this game:
- It takes an even number of moves to return to a tile or move from one adjacent to another, but you only have 3 moves, which self-balances Tower and all tiles with adjacency.
- No End of Turn button with WASD controls help to maintain the flow state;
- Dimensional Shizm had my mind blown the first time I’ve used it;
- Initiative and Scout show how much design space you have explored. I prefer the game with both of them btw;
- traits like Overheating, Antipode, Nomad, Long Reach, Cemetarian;
- crazy pulls out of the Puzzlebox;
- Chill. I don’t know why. I just love it every time even when it’s bad and doesn’t fit;
- Shuffling in hopes of getting particular reveal effect;
- exhaust builds, reveal-builds, shuffle-builds, multihit-builds etc;
- swap into a huge combo;
- no econ, no rarities, almost no meta. It's as pure as it could possible be;
- etc, etc, etc;

Thank you for making the game, dude.

Ps: now that I’m not interested in discovering the game for myself I should start watching your playthrough videos. I hope I don’t realize I’m still terrible.