comments for Journey to Ascension
sort: go back
I beat this elsewhere. Fun, a bit grindy, but fun, and one of the better take on the "Skill up, reset life" game types. One thing that would have (to me) elevated it, would have been one-liner story elements on each activity, giving context for what's going on, and then a final one-or-two paragraph victory screen. Otherwise it's a fun play through!
@Polos: You're probably thinking of Prismatic Adventure, by Kuzzi. The dev of this one was explicitly inspired by that game, though there are a number of differences.
@ignDevi: One of those differences is that there is WAY less micromanagement of consumables in this game. If you're 100 loops in and still needing to micromanage items, I'd go out on a limb and say you're doing something very wrong. I've completed the game on itch.io, and only at very, very rare points when I was trying to push further than I probably should have did I ever have to do anything more complicated that "one run use no consumables, one run auto-use consumables". Bosses are usually something that you come back to when you're a little stronger, though girlvomit's point about many of them being a one-and-done to grab a perk is also a fair point. You also missed that one of the rewards for killing a boss is "power", which makes your combat speed faster across runs.
I'm wondering if one of the problems you're having is related to this statement: "having to completely disable item automation to save them for the right moment is stupidly annoying". That... shouldn't be the case. You mentioned Scroll of Haste, which is an artifact and isn't consumed by item automation. There are a total of four artifacts through the game, and those you hold until they're pertinent. As for "save them for the right moment"? The bonuses from consumables last the entire run that you use them. You should generally either be consuming everything as soon as you get it, or consuming nothing the entire run if you're collecting consumables for a push. If you are holding onto a consumable with a bonus until you "need" it, then you have wasted a bunch of energy prior to that point.
@ignDevi: One of those differences is that there is WAY less micromanagement of consumables in this game. If you're 100 loops in and still needing to micromanage items, I'd go out on a limb and say you're doing something very wrong. I've completed the game on itch.io, and only at very, very rare points when I was trying to push further than I probably should have did I ever have to do anything more complicated that "one run use no consumables, one run auto-use consumables". Bosses are usually something that you come back to when you're a little stronger, though girlvomit's point about many of them being a one-and-done to grab a perk is also a fair point. You also missed that one of the rewards for killing a boss is "power", which makes your combat speed faster across runs.
I'm wondering if one of the problems you're having is related to this statement: "having to completely disable item automation to save them for the right moment is stupidly annoying". That... shouldn't be the case. You mentioned Scroll of Haste, which is an artifact and isn't consumed by item automation. There are a total of four artifacts through the game, and those you hold until they're pertinent. As for "save them for the right moment"? The bonuses from consumables last the entire run that you use them. You should generally either be consuming everything as soon as you get it, or consuming nothing the entire run if you're collecting consumables for a push. If you are holding onto a consumable with a bonus until you "need" it, then you have wasted a bunch of energy prior to that point.
you don't have to beat the bosses every time, or at least not early on, the actual reward for doing them is the extra action that gets permanently unlocked which either grants a bonus perk or a new item type
for example for the goblin warlord just defeating him once & then doing "save the village" once to grab the perk is all you really need to do, you can ignore both of those actions afterwards in every run until you become strong enough that fighting the goblin only takes like 1-2 energy and you can afford to include that bossfight in each of your runs to farm a little bit of extra power
i also don't bother micromanaging item use either, i've been coasting along just fine by doing 1-2 loops with auto-item off, then turning it on for the next run & using everything all at once
for example for the goblin warlord just defeating him once & then doing "save the village" once to grab the perk is all you really need to do, you can ignore both of those actions afterwards in every run until you become strong enough that fighting the goblin only takes like 1-2 energy and you can afford to include that bossfight in each of your runs to farm a little bit of extra power
i also don't bother micromanaging item use either, i've been coasting along just fine by doing 1-2 loops with auto-item off, then turning it on for the next run & using everything all at once
We should be able to keep boss automation on between prestige runs.
developer response: An unlock in the Z20 prestige does change that behavior, since at that point beating bosses on the first reset is feasible. In retrospect though, I probably should have also made it an option. If I end up doing further changes to the game I'll definitely consider it.
Everyone else in the comments talking about Prismatic Adventure should go back and play that, this game contains soooo many quality of life changes, feels wayyy better to play, which isn't something I thought I'd say about a game where I literally only click on screen, and has a better looking UI. I was under the impression the other game was a finished, full game, but lol, this is a pretty different game off the top
As a big fan of Increlution, this satisfied me greatly.
Really excellent game; one of my new favorites here on Galaxy. Enjoyed it all the way through and has a ton of solid hours of gameplay in it.
The gameplay is surprisingly varied despite its simplistic premise. I found all sorts of strategies while playing the game like auto use runs to farm certain xp spots, hoarding items, doing mini buffed runs to smuggle powerful items, or using the dreamcatcher to get an extra item for my push run. I'm sure there are a ton more for an experienced player. There's also a ton of automation and methods to skip or make earlier sections much faster. By the end, you're basically doing Prestige runs on the last Zone and the last few tasks.
Personally, I enjoyed how some nodes have stronger XP rewards than others compared to something like Increlution. In there, I'm not the biggest fan of how the solution to every skill wall is to put a hundred resets into it to grind XP. Meanwhile here you feel encouraged to explore for future hidden tasks to allow you to get a new perk or beat a boss.
The lore is also surprisingly intriguing. It starts out pretty standard for this type of game but then the protagonist If you were to expand the game, I think some small or optional lore-text for each task would be nice to clarify things.
Also enjoyed how the ending was basically a victory lap with your power growing rapidly out of control. I feel like it's too common for incremental games to drop a massive grind wall at the end since the player will feel the sunk cost need to finish it anyways. But here, you kind of experience a new form of gameplay briefly which is nice.
The game also runs very smoothly despite a ton of stuff going on screen. I barely never had any issues besides a short freeze once in a blue moon.
I don't have any gripes about the game, but I could see how some players might feel like there could be more idle type automation, notably having to begin automation each run and not having a way to disable energy/prestige reset pages. To the game's favor, I think this helps to encourage players not to just grind for max energy / divine spark to solve their issues but instead find what they're missing. However, I think there should at least be a way to disable Prestige confirmation or have Auto Use by default on new Prestiges in the settings.
With just as it is now, I would definitely buy this game on Steam. Though adding a bit more visual diversity and adding automation could help to appeal it to a wider audience. Consider a progressive background theming for the various major zones. Maybe you could make runs start every 60s (could be reduced with a perk/upgrade) or reduce the number of clicks each reset to make it easier for people with autoclickers to grind/abuse. I also think it'd be nice if there were more hidden tasks to unlock by doing certain non-boss tasks, though it'd likely damage the game's already fine tuned balanced.
The gameplay is surprisingly varied despite its simplistic premise. I found all sorts of strategies while playing the game like auto use runs to farm certain xp spots, hoarding items, doing mini buffed runs to smuggle powerful items, or using the dreamcatcher to get an extra item for my push run. I'm sure there are a ton more for an experienced player. There's also a ton of automation and methods to skip or make earlier sections much faster. By the end, you're basically doing Prestige runs on the last Zone and the last few tasks.
Personally, I enjoyed how some nodes have stronger XP rewards than others compared to something like Increlution. In there, I'm not the biggest fan of how the solution to every skill wall is to put a hundred resets into it to grind XP. Meanwhile here you feel encouraged to explore for future hidden tasks to allow you to get a new perk or beat a boss.
The lore is also surprisingly intriguing. It starts out pretty standard for this type of game but then the protagonist If you were to expand the game, I think some small or optional lore-text for each task would be nice to clarify things.
Also enjoyed how the ending was basically a victory lap with your power growing rapidly out of control. I feel like it's too common for incremental games to drop a massive grind wall at the end since the player will feel the sunk cost need to finish it anyways. But here, you kind of experience a new form of gameplay briefly which is nice.
The game also runs very smoothly despite a ton of stuff going on screen. I barely never had any issues besides a short freeze once in a blue moon.
I don't have any gripes about the game, but I could see how some players might feel like there could be more idle type automation, notably having to begin automation each run and not having a way to disable energy/prestige reset pages. To the game's favor, I think this helps to encourage players not to just grind for max energy / divine spark to solve their issues but instead find what they're missing. However, I think there should at least be a way to disable Prestige confirmation or have Auto Use by default on new Prestiges in the settings.
With just as it is now, I would definitely buy this game on Steam. Though adding a bit more visual diversity and adding automation could help to appeal it to a wider audience. Consider a progressive background theming for the various major zones. Maybe you could make runs start every 60s (could be reduced with a perk/upgrade) or reduce the number of clicks each reset to make it easier for people with autoclickers to grind/abuse. I also think it'd be nice if there were more hidden tasks to unlock by doing certain non-boss tasks, though it'd likely damage the game's already fine tuned balanced.
actually very fun for around the first 100 loops, besides the fact that the automation settings are very barebone and make it just not worth using a lot of the time, and then the item management just gets too unnessecarily tedious and you have to remember way too many things to actually progress/gain skills at a good pace. another thing is that beating bosses doesnt feel rewarding in the slightest, because they only give you one use items that more often than not arent actually that impactful for how much preparation you have to do (youre telling me i have to save a bunch of consumables AND a scroll of haste to beat the first boss, and the only thing i get is a one-time ??), and having to completely disable item automation to save them for the right moment is stupidly annoying. i really wish this part of the game was more refined. another problem i have is the visuals - why are the colors so acid-y? i usually dont experience this problem but it actually tires my eyes out playing this game. maybe add a dark mode setting?
other than that, the actual gameplay loop is quite enjoyable and i really like the fact that tasks feel somewhat different from eachother and there is an overarching story you can sort of follow through all the zones. a solid 3/5 but has a LOT of potential and room for improvement.
other than that, the actual gameplay loop is quite enjoyable and i really like the fact that tasks feel somewhat different from eachother and there is an overarching story you can sort of follow through all the zones. a solid 3/5 but has a LOT of potential and room for improvement.
I wish we had the ability to make a second set of automation tasks, so I can do something like "only grab the items and move on."
Two suggestions (well three if you count save to clipboard, as requested below): #1 I'd love to see a tally of how many of a particular item was used so far when you hover the mouse over that item or something like that, and #2 the greyed out items/perks are really hard to see which is which, making hovering to read descriptions cumbersome. I think maybe if the items/perks themselves stayed full color but the background changed more dramatically (such as no square behind items/perks you don't have yet vs a bright square behind when you do have it. Minor quibbles, but either way I really enjoy the game, thanks!
Please add mobile compatibility - right clicking on iPad does not exist
While I've not gotten far comparatively, this is already a game I'm enjoying simply because of how it has me constantly considering how to approach each energy reset.
you can get negative amount of rings by repeatedly clicking cast ring into fire
5/5 I finally beat the game! One of the best incremental game 👍
one of the best games on galaxy. the game play is fun and engaging. I've managed to beat my first run in 20 prestiges.
Surprisingly good balancing and engaging at every moment, with you always left questioning "Is there anything I can do to optimize my runs further?". Amazing game and amazing retake of Prismatic Adventure.
i really liked prismatic adventure's concept but it was so annoying to play and this is basically fixes all those problems and adds your own stuff into it, highly recommend this for people who like those types of games
i wish the task automation didnt turn off after i run out of energy. it is a bit tedious because i have to keep going back and pressing it every time i die.
It was a lot of fun. Beat the game in a few days. I like the balancing much more than in original PA, cause that was really grindy. Here progress was very meaningful and become even more as you understand what the flow better. Maybe a bit work or look, cause it's a bit motley/corrosive. But it's still a lot of fun. Thanks!
developer response: As I want the game to be essentially entirely active, that's not going to happen, no. Since then it'd be a valid strategy to just leave it automated for an hour instead of figuring out how to best progress.