Happy Grumps

Note about the "free product": I purchased this but refunded it because a bug made it unplayable for me. As a courtesy I notified the developer, and he offered a free copy in exchange for some help finding and fixing the bug, which he was able to do quickly. This review was not solicited. TLDR: It's good. It's unusual and a little confusing at first, but very much worth your time. Recommended. Happy Grumps confused me initially (even after we got the bug figured out). It may not be what you expect, especially if you were searching on the "roguelike" tag. I think I'd call it a "chesslike", since it's played on a square grid with "happy" units which are under your control, and "grumpy" ones which you need to remove. Each room of the dungeon is one of these chessboards, and the number of turns it takes to remove all the grumpies is deducted from your total, which is kind of like hit points, fuel, and money combined. Each room contains a reward chest that opens after you clear all the grumpies. Most chests give you some extra turns (typically fewer than you used up clearing the room), but sometimes you'll get a trinket, which gives you an ability or changes up something else about the gameplay. One room will contain a key, which is needed to unlock the boss room and progress to the next dungeon. You can also find a shop where you can buy/sell trinkets and buy a key for 10 turns. That could be a good deal if you think you'd spend more turns searching for the key, but on the other hand maybe you'd have found a trinket in the process. I haven't played long, but so far it feels like that's the way to get better at Happy Grumps--making those risk/reward judgment calls. And of course getting good at clearing rooms in fewer turns. Happy Grumps reminds me of ENYO and Hoplite, a couple of Android games that I've played a ton and really enjoyed, and that also are sometimes called rougelikes but are much closer to chess. If you're into that kind of game, or think you might enjoy this one, here are a few tips to ease the initial confusion. [list] [*]You remove grumpies by placing one of your units within line-of-sight, i.e. a straight line vertically, horizontally, or diagonally at any distance. There are some obstacles that can block sight, however. The game calls this "happiness": your units spread happiness to every square they can see. [*]There are two kinds of enemy unit: "grumps" that are converted to your side by happiness, and "monsters" that just disappear. There are different grumps with various movements and abilities. [*]You begin each room with only one unit under your control, but when you make grumps happy, they join your team. Each turn you can move one of your units. Then all the grumpies get to move. [*]The most common (so far?) monster is one that turns your happy grumps back to grumpy ones, which puts them back onto the enemy team. But if another one of your units is in line-of-sight, it'll immediately become happy again and come back to your side. So keeping your units within sight of one another is an important defensive strategy. [*]Similarly, when you make a grump happy, it immediately makes any other grumps happy within its own line of sight, and then those grumps...you get the idea. Chain reactions. [/list] Quality of Life and Overall: I appreciate that I can easily warp around the dungeon to any room I've previously cleared. And it's very easy to quit a run in progress and pick it up later right where I left off. I haven't seen any bugs, and the pixel art and music are pleasant and consistent. Overall verdict: Recommended!

This is an incredibly cute game. Cute characters and cute writing. I just wanna make the clouds happy. Game play wise, your objective is to get a direct line of sight on the enemies in each room, or indirectly by using the newly happy units to make others happy. The units move like chess pieces, and there are walls and other barriers that prevent movement and line of sight. The caveat is that you only have a certain amount of turns per level to find a key and defeat the boss. This means that the strategy comes from trying to use as few turns as possible to complete each room. This to me makes it feel kind of similar to match 3 games. You are trying to set up combos so you dont waste time moving things around individually. I think its pretty unique and fun. It is an Early Access game and I ran into a couple of issues. My game did crash once, but loaded up right at the turn I left off at. However I did have a room, when using the diagonally moving character, was unable to move away from the door because of an indestructible object and impassable object in both of the possible movement directions. This meant that I lost the run unfortunately. It is a rougelike so each run is a random level layout, and each room is pretty random. The roguelike elements are well done. The playable characters are unique, and the trinkets you can collect can impact your playstyle or make the game a tad easier. I do think it could use more variety of trinkets and such, but is fine as is. In terms of challenge, I think its fair. I managed to beat the only two levels currently in the game in roughly an hour; with a bit of luck of course. However there are two other unlockable characters which require clearing 100% of each level. After spending a few hours on it I have been unable to accomplish this. Because of the highly random layout of each room, using only a few turns per room for so long seems impossible. A couple rooms have an obvious 1 turn solution, and others take at least 6 because you can only immediately "attack" one enemy or future enemy. I think each room could stand to have either less enemies or walls, because having 8 different things barricaded in a corner is frustrating and feels like I had no chance. If the room doesn't allow for an ok start, things get out of hand quickly. As a personal preference, I find for a game about spreading happiness, the monochromatic art style makes it feel pretty lifeless, and gets to be a bore to look at after a while. I think the game could benefit from some more color. Overall I recommend the game if you are into puzzle games and roguelikes. I look forward to what will come from Early Access development.

Needs a better tutorial and clearer visualization of what's happening on the board, but it has the potential to be a pretty fun game.

我在roguelike celebration中看到这款游戏，相比活动中的其他游戏，很难得地支持中文。玩过之后我明白了原因，我用了30分钟通过了现有的2关解锁了1个新角色，目前游戏内容和文本极少。 这是一个回合制走格子的游戏，在没有墙体阻挡的情况下，对角线或直线上心情不爽的敌方看到我方会瞬间happy并加入我方可以控制，运气好可以引发链式反应，房间里所有人都高兴了就进入选择方向下一个房间，直到BOSS房间。“机会”是游戏中人物的生命和行动次数，每次行动或被特殊敌人偷取会导致“机会”减少，“机会”为0会进行坚毅判定，成功会恢复5点“机会”，失败则游戏结束。游戏中有随机道具、小商店和给增益的老头，但目前道具数量可能不超过10个。游戏主要数值就是 “钥匙数量” “闪避率” “坚毅概率” “机会” “道具剩余有效回合数”，当然，道具中也有单局游戏内永久强化角色能力的“遗物”，可以带3个，通关后可选一个保留至下一局。 游戏寓意很可爱，但实际表现还不够可爱。游戏性一般，主要是内容太少。还有些比较诡异的逻辑，比如一回合中敌方所有人都可以行动一次，我方只能选一人行动一次；又或者是墙壁可以阻挡我感化敌人（敌人接受我感化）的视线，但敌人的子弹可以畅通无阻的穿过墙壁将我催眠，或者直接把我干掉。这些设定可能是为了游戏平衡性，但多少有些古怪。 [h1] 游戏机制还算有意思 [/h1] [b] 但是内容实在不多 [/b] 我玩了一会儿感觉不痛不痒，好像喝了几口白开水。可是，33元的白开水！我来错地方了？我来的不是时候？如果这款游戏正式版足够好玩，55元我必买。我支持作者更新内容，也支持大家支持作者更新内容。但是白开水能卖钱吗？游戏喜好因人而异，目前版本这个价格可以算支持一下作者，游戏本身比较鸡肋。

This review is written right after I beat the game in 100%. (90 mins playtime) Nice game! I enjoyed all the time I spent in the game, except the self-teaching game mechanics part. (I spent so much time learning about why I sometimes get happy grumps after I kill an enemy but sometime I don't, but considering the current state the game is in, I'm not gonna complain much about that) I first bought the game because of the art style. (in steam shop and in-game) The cartoon style drawing is fantastic, the pixel art is clean and consistent, just overall well-done. The base game design is simple but powerful and addictive. (Hero spread happiness by moving around the chessboard) Nice philosophy! And the gameplay it leads to is also fun, requires some logical thinking, but still straightforward. (Random stuff: The trinket that allows happy grumps to destroy all blocks around the destination they are moving towards is super op, simply a run-saver. The hammer that allows you to destroy all rocks in the map is also super op, can save around 10 turns by clearing multiple rooms in 1-2 turns.) There are still some minor problems I encounter, although not destroying my experience with the game. Here are my suggestions on the game: 1. The collapsing tiles should be more obvious in the map. There's one time I moved onto a tile without noticing, and I died instantly. I was super confused and thought the game crashed and restarted the run at first, until I realize the cause of the death. And even after this incident, I still forget that these tiles exist from time to time. I'll say it's mostly because how perfectly these tiles blend in with the other tiles. I think either making them obvious in the map or add a warning whenever you walk past or onto them could work. 2. The ice in world 2 is a bit unfair. Mostly because they're unpredictable. All enemies are predictable in movements, but a random ice spawning in the wrong place can destroy what I was planning to do. I think making them predictable like the enemies can make the game a bit less unfair to the players. 3. There's a bug that the map can spawn with the boss room in the way and no key in the path. Looking forward to new content!