Setr's Auto Battler

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I will detail some thoughts on the game down below, but if you'd rather watch my first time playing the game, you can find it here: https://youtu.be/fx-eTbe96yQ Setr's Auto Battler is a puzzling game. While it is clearly inspired by games like Super Auto Pets, it does some things a little different. For one, levelling units is a much different process. Not only do you have to buy the initial unit, as expected, but you must also buy a second one to slot in to your line up. This has the unfortunate side effect of the player never really being able to run five distinct units, as you must always have two of the same units in order to get to a level 2 unit. Thankfully, the third unit needed to make the two in your lineup merge into one level 2 unit can just be bought even if there is no slot for it. I am unsure if level 3 units exist in this game, but if they do, getting them would require using a whopping four slots, if the same logic holds true there as well. Also, rerolls are expensive, so keeping an extra space for levelling up becomes even riskier, as you might not ever run into a second or even third version of the unit you wanna level up. You might be thinking at this point that I am focusing way too much on levelling units up, and you're right. That's because, as far as I understand, other than units which buff other units or themselves during the shop phase, this is the only way you can improve a unit's stats. There are no buffing items in the shop, so unless you level units up through this system that makes it hard to keep a full lineup or you run a buffing unit which usually requires not running a full lineup so you can effectively buy and sell units over and over and over to proc the buffing units, you're going to end up running four units you like and then some random garbage unit to fill space. Technical stuff aside, the game is cute. Unfortunately there is little to no music or sound effects, so it's often awkwardly silent while you play. Everyone should have volume options they can change in case they wanna listen to their own music, but no one should HAVE to play their own music cause the game has none at all. Other than these issues, the game is okay. It's free, so there's no reason not to give it a shot. Though the game is in its early stages, there is no early access tag anywhere, so I must judge it as a full release. The game has no team name character limit as far as I have seen, which worries me as far as foul team names making the game unsafe to stream or record. Lack of team name character limit shows a lack of care in that field, which means there are probably no filters on what can be typed, but I have not tested this. I am unsure if the player name field has a limit. One issue I had playing so early was going up against myself, as there were not enough ghosts on the cloud. This should resolve itself soon as more people play though. Unit balance is a concern, but I assume that will be looked at in the future. Overall, being a free game means there is almost no reason not to give this a shot. I have my qualms with it, but I am excited to see more games of this style come out. I am excited for this game's future, and will surely keep up with it. My focus on negatives is not to discourage the devs, but to provide a springboard for them to bounce off and begin working on tackling these issues if they feel the issues need to be tackled at all! Keep up the good work. I'll be watching. 👀