Inkshade

After just finishing my first run through, can definitely say, love this game a ton! Definitely heavily inspired by Inscryption I feel, so if you like that atmosphere you'll love this. I also had a great time with the actual gameplay. Essentially like Fire Emblem, but without retaliation attacks and on a hex grid as a kind of simple explanation. Id say if you like either of those games, give this game a shot! Great soundtrack as well! Lots of love definitely went into it, keep up the great work!

Inkshade, a solid 6/10 The first couple hours of the game is by far the most enjoyable as you are getting use to the systems and the fact you can upgrade your pieces mid run prevents restarting runs just because you think you cant progress without upgrades. Not a puzzle game at all though, the puzzles are simplistic and dont require much thought at all bar one. The game is too dark, like i get why parts of it is dark and it is a good addition to the gameplay but the fact my pieces aren't visible in the darkness is just annoying. It doesn't result in me not playing them it just results in me scanning the screen with my mouse. The gameplay feels redundant near the end as there isn't many layers to the gameplay, get a tank and a ranged unit and you've won. I would of liked more use out of the map aswell, the question marks 9 times out of 10 were just lore points masqueraded as random encounters. I genuinely dont know why you do elite encounters, whenever i did them it was just harder for no noticeable reward. TLDR, Fun mix between Fire emblems character permadeath, general gameplay and inscryptions deck building. The game is not a puzzle game and you wont find engaging puzzles within while playing. But it overstays its welcome as it doesn't add new layers to gameplay as you progress.

Loved it, played through it multiple times trying to get all achievements and the skull mode was pretty fun!

This is a pretty game that is extremely shallow and endlessly tedious. The aesthetic is clearly trying to imitate Inscryption, but it lacks the charm of Inscryption in favor of having the game master talk incessantly while saying almost nothing interesting. The gameplay loop is a simple tactics game that also lacks any interesting twists. Units are solely differentiated by their stats with only a couple of them having abilities, so the entire strategy is just to find the most upgradable unit and upgrade it as much as you can so it's unstoppable. The way that attack and defense stats work means that it's very easy to build a unit that can one shot every enemy while they can do no damage to you. This is very easy to set up and trivializes the game, but if you don't realize this and spend your initial upgrade money in other ways then you'll have to spend ages grinding that money back up while you have nearly useless units until you reach the threshold of becoming unstoppable. There are also implied mechanics that never pay off. The entire game is super dark and some units carry lamps, but the light only determines how hard it is for you to see pieces. You'll never find an enemy that is scared of light or anything like that. The shallow aesthetics are neat, but there's not much past that.

Great dark atmospheric theme, i enjoyed the game throughly. Well balanced, rightfully challenging and with enjoyable puzzles and strategies to take. If anything i just wasn't satisfied with the ending, though hey, it's got some irony in it and mayhaps we did have it coming. Aye captain, until next time <33

С первых скринов сразу понятно, что авторы явно спиздили вдохновлялись шедевром под названием Inscryption (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1092790/Inscryption/) (про него можно смело накатать целую простыню, но здесь обойдемся коротко - это точно одна из самых лучших и интересных компьютерных игор в моей entire life, девачки). Очень сильно советую приобщиться к этому творению от Devolver Digital. То есть совмещение жанров "атмосферная creepy бродилка с загадками" + "какая-то настольная игра" в тот момент была реально в новинку, и вот подоспели последователи. Чернильная тень преуспевает в этом. Атмосфера с первых секунд цепляет, везде темнота такая, с тобой разговаривает бабайка витиеватыми фразочками, все как надо. Исследуешь комнаты, находишь секретики, с этой стороны мне кажется, что у них получилось. Но продумать глубокий и интересный геймплей настольной игры, так еще и сбалансировать его - у них не получилось. Это пошаговые бои миниатюрок на очень симпатичных и атмосферных локациях, суть которых улавливается очень быстро, однако с той же скоростью ты понимаешь, что скилла здесь недостаточно, придется просто уныло гриндить бои с пониманием, что вот сейчас ты тупо отъедешь от какого-то боя, чтобы пойти и прокачать свои миньки, чтобы потом пройти чуть дальше, прокачать их снова... казалось бы, в этом нет ничего криминального, но разрабы зачем-то прикрутили автобаланс для врагов, то есть когда ты прокачиваешь своих, прокачиваются и враги. По отзывам от других ребятишек стало понятно, что в итоге ты становишься дичайшим оверкачем и все сносишь без интереса, хотя в начале ты страдаешь. Есть стартовый отряд, за победу дают миньку, в начале боя у тебя как-то рандомно в "стартовой руке" появляются миньки, возможно даже не те, что ты хочешь видеть, но если в бою умрут те, которые сейчас на поле, то гейм овер, пиздуй в начало, спрашивается зачем мне их вообще дают.. Будем питать надежды, что следующие приемники инскрипшна сделают что-нибудь на уровне, ради атмосферы и истории можно поиграть, но только если Вы готовы по факту просто гриндить бои ради монеток. P.S. играл по Steam Family Sharing, то есть - не платил, но игра довольно дешевая, за что ей лайк.

Very immersive and satisfying to play

A helpful guide on how to piss off your ttrpg Game master ! Great game !

Amazing worldbuilding. So mysterious!

Eventually I will keep trying to get somewhere close to the Roguelite experience that clearly exists beyond this really unpleasant beginning but -- YUCK! Every button push has the dull narrator that is resting entirely upon the implications of a different game yank your camera away from the environmental storytelling that was of actual interest in said different game. This narrator who, again, you have no connection with or even hint of understanding of is one that is just an insult machine. Lesh-dog at least kept the majority of the rude behavior for other narrative figures in the game. This, I suppose, does a better job of presenting what it is like to be held hostage by a sociopath. Making a player walk through the mechanics via fail states is annoying since, don't worry gurl -- I will probably fail all on my own. What's the worst that would happen? You have tell a story off rails in the first hour of a game? In a ROUGELITE?_? How ever would they figure out how to do some sort of modular storytelling based upon a gameplay loop? It's just an entirely strange choice to make. So, no, I don't think that this game does itself any favors in this opening section that indeed, I just find myself getting annoyed at whenever I try to engage with. I don't think that others should slog through it either. I think that there's some very large, glaring and easy changes to what *squints at clock* is hopefully only the first hour~ of tutorialization. I don't get the impression that this is the sort of production team that self-reflects or takes advice from plebs, but anything is possible in the world of video games so fingers crossed. You'll know if you're someone who finds bad tutorials a deal breaker or not and this, for me at least, is one of the worst because it includes reading insults from, again, the figure who has literally trapped me into the situation both within the narrative and in actuality via game design that I find hard to believe wasn't critiqued more harshly prior to release. Only some attachment to 'atmosphere' that's full blown toxic smog explains it having remained in this state through into full release.