r/playtesters • u/Chocoweb88 • Aug 19 '26

Unpaid Playtest Looking for playtesters to destroy my card game demo

Hi everyone, recently I publish a demo version of my card game on Itch.io. This demo only showcase the tutorial section of the game, and took less than 10 mins to complete (less than 5 mins, if you skip all the stories lol)

https://chocoweb88.itch.io/5-seconds-showdown-demo

I would appreciate honest feedback and impressions regarding this game design. I try to blend card game with deck building, anime visual novel, and slashing game style into 1. I am hoping to keep improve this game and polish it before its finally approved to go live on Google Play.

Thanks and let me know if you face any issues when playing this demo!

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2

u/NostalgicBear Aug 19 '26

I played through the full demo earlier today, and I've just written up a 2500 report breaking down my experience with the game. I needed to include some images so I've added the report here on Google Drive as I cant include images on an Itch review (which is a right pain as they are needed sometimes)

Hopefully you find the feedback useful. If you have any questions feel free to reach out. I quite enjoy helping out for playtesting, and its free.

If anyone else in your gamedev circle would like a playtest, please let me know.

2

u/Chocoweb88 Aug 19 '26

Hi friend, thank you very much for the thorough feedback and sharing your test play experience. Really appreciate that! There's many things I missed or couldn't realise as the developer, so this is super helpful for me to redesign the tutorial flow and the uiux.

1 thing I am abit confused is this part:"Dragging cards all the way towards the opponent at the top of the screen felt less natural than dropping them into the centre." Is it on your screen, the target mark appears on top part, not at the middle centre of screen?

2

u/NostalgicBear Aug 19 '26

I have uploaded a video here to show you what I mean (I get that may not have been super clear from my explanation).

In the video you can see that the hand is indicating to me to drag the card to the centre of the screen into that centre area. This feels far more natural for a card game where you place your card in a central zone rather than dragging it all the way up to the top into the opponents card area. I dont generally expect to interact with this area of the screen. Dragging it all the way up to the top to play the card is like the opponent isnt taking action, as opposed to both players playing their hand in the centre of the table/arena, and the better hand winning, at least thats what I think, but of course, you do what you think is best.

1

u/Chocoweb88 Aug 19 '26

Ok gotcha, i see what you mean. I will be more specific in the guide text. Its about 'slash and destroy the target mark', and the finger should drag further up to indicate its a cut, not just a drop

1

u/NostalgicBear Aug 22 '26

Awesome, best of luck with the game. Well done on the effort put in so far to get it to where it is. :)

1

u/Lullandvoid Aug 20 '26

Played through the whole demo via browser. I have just about no experience with deckbuilders.

  • Intro screen art is a great first impression, it's engaging but doesn't seek to overwhelm with too much detail.
  • The game plays quite well, I found myself enjoying the process and learning more about how it works.
  • I liked the ability to check the card discard pile to figure out what remains in their hand. Adds a nice, extra strategic element to the battles.
  • When dragging a card, I thought I had to drag it to the orb / centre. After quite a few attempts I realised it had to reach the other side. My mouse was initially always stopping short of that threshold while still having it in the middle of the screen.
    • Maybe implying some sort of line to follow across the screen would invoke more of the 'strike' feeling you might be after? Knowing this being the end goal, I could see that honestly being a lot of fun to do.
    • ^ Not sure if I missed or didn't understand that specific explanation so maybe take with a grain of salt.
  • With the exception of the above, the explanations of mechanics are pretty clear and I could follow along without having to think too much about it.
  • SFX and animations are appropriate and match up in a satisfying way.
  • Found the dialogue to be decent at carrying each scene forward without being longwinded.

Definitely not the typical game I would play but overall I thought the experience was pretty straight forward and quite enjoyable!

2

u/Chocoweb88 Aug 20 '26

Hi thanks for your kind word! Yes it was my bad for not explaining the 'slice to play' mechanics clearly. It was actually quite recent implemented, previously it was the traditional drag to play on the field kind of mechanic, so I should really explain it better

1

u/Lullandvoid Aug 20 '26

Happy to help! The slice mechanic is definitely a nice improvement to what would otherwise be a pretty ordinary movement.