Duskvein Survivors - Bloodline

Writing this review after only one run just as a first impression type thing (edit: got three runs in), and because there aren't any reviews yet. Saw the price for this game, figured I thoroughly enjoy "survivorlikes", so why not. It's a survivorlike at the barebones level, but that's not always a bad thing. But again, will probably edit the review once I get more runs in. Here's what came up that "bothered" me. In the menu you seem to have different characters, but there's no art. Your character running around seems to be some type of rogue by the way they dress, but that's it. A bit of lore always goes a long way for those who want to immerse themselves a bit more into these "mindless" type of games. This is also a purely fictional world, so you have absolute free rein to create some awesome lore about these characters (edit: just noticed the short description on the right. Still needs some explanation though for some things. For example, your first character has Ashen Resilience. What is that exactly? I'm assuming it's tied to health and defense, but a little information goes a long way). And again, the art. Have a portrait or something tied to the person we are playing, give them some personality (edit: I just noticed the AI disclaimer. I don't check that sort of things usually but I thought the backsplash looked really nice. More reason to add portraits for the characters then. If you are openly saying that you used AI for art, throw something into the oven to give these characters some personality). The next thing is the lack of "things to do" within a run. I'm all for blasting baddies away with different skills, but give me events. On the first map, there's a nice looking shack, can't that be a shop or something? Maybe have special baddies pop out and we need to eliminate within a certain time limit. There are SO MANY of these types of games out there, and the ones I am drawn to are the ones that have different sort of events popping up once in a while so that I don't completely go braindead while playing. Third thing that hit me was the sounds, or lack thereof. The only one I noticed, and it took me a while to notice, was the sound that occurs when the level up window pops up. It just feels empty without different sounds (edit: I finally noticed the barely noticeable "tick" when your attack lands. Most of the time you have little idea if your attack actually hits. I unlocked the crimson vortex which is a blade that spins around you and with the absence of a damage number or some sort of impact, I thought the vortex wasn't doing anything until I saw a baddie vaporize (edit: just noticed the orange flash when your attack hits, but for some reason it doesn't always happen, even if it was clear that my skill landed)). And this brings me to the music. If you aren't going with sound effects, then the music should carry the run. The game opens with a nice soundtrack basically telling you "oh ok, this is some dark **** right here", which is what the art is telling me as well. But in the run, we get this synthwave, similar to something The Midnight would write. While I adore The Midnight, I felt like I needed something darker to carry the theme. The game title has dusk in it, we're told survive the dusk or whatever, I see skeletons, bloodhounds, I'm an incognito fella (or girl?) throwing god knows what to blast these baddies, let me get the music that drives my adventure. And finally, weapon description. I unlocked something called the blood tornado or crimson tornado, I forget. Basically your character throws a red tornado at baddies. But what's the damage? What does it actually do? Does it cause bleed seeing it's a blood tornado? Provide a description of the skill or weapon when I have a chance to choose it. Skills have something like, 12% chance to cause burn. Awesome. But what the hell does the weapon do? (edit: I'm restating this as it truly bothers me. Just grabbed the crimson vortex. Description: you unlock the crimson vortex. Now I'm thinking, oh ****, like a black hole type thing, draws baddies in and deals DOT. Wrong. A circular blade spins around the character. Again, we need descriptions). Anyways, won't refund because I like this type of game and I like supporting these "obscure" games that come out of nowhere. Will for sure sink a lot of hours into it. But hopefully the dev reads the review and considers a few things. This coming from a consumer, let's be clear, not a dev. No idea how to build a videogame, but I sure know what I like in them. Still recommended, with changes in the future if possible.