Sengodai

TheAwakening
3 days ago
4 min read

Overview

In Sengodai you must defeat the final boss of the land by creating a team of Gokai monsters and cleanse the land with the power of the elements. It is a difficult deckbuilder roguelite with turn-based combat, made in the Godot engine with Pokémon-like monsters. You must choose a path and cleanse it by defeating its god before it defeats you. With every victory you’ll collect coins and more cards that will add to your deck for the current run, with the coins used to upgrade your starting cards and your main card. It gets progressively difficult as you progress deeper in the game.

Gameplay

You only start the adventure with a selection of starter Gokai cards and your god card, which is your main. This card cannot be used directly in combat; its only purpose is explained further below. Every battle features a 3v3 set of Gokai cards already displayed in the field. Your opponent also plays their own set of cards, usually better than yours. Both players have drawn five cards or more; these cards can be elemental chargers or special condition cards that can affect any card in the field.

Your objective is to defeat your opponent by fully cleansing the land you both are contesting for. When I say fully, every land has three elemental charges that must be filled by any Gokai card within the turn. To this end, a Gokai can be charged with their element slot and then used on a land card. This will drain their stamina by one; if their stamina is depleted, they get stunned for three turns (you can use the card every other turn if it is on cooldown). You can also use special cards that will add an element to the land card. If a land card has been partially cleansed, it will be removed from the board, and it will give you special charges to your main card. If fully cleansed, it will also cost a life to your opponent.

You must use your cards that have been drawn in your hand; otherwise, when the turn ends, they will be discarded. Any discarded cards can be reused when your deck is out of cards (you can check which cards you have discarded by clicking the shrine above your deck card). However, a card that has been used cannot be used again for the rest of the duel, unless you have effectively used all your cards. Your main god card has two special abilities that can be used within your turn, for example, to remove up to two elements from your opponent’s Gokais or draw three cards from your deck. The duel will end only when either opponent has run out of lives.

After every victorious duel you will earn coins and more cards for your deck, or you can choose to not pick anything. If a new card is unlocked, it will be available to equip for your deck after a run has ended. The difficulty in this game lies in starting with three cards that have four elements but one, whereas your opponent always has at least one card with the element you’re missing, which is annoying. You are obliged to use a special card that can fill this element or partially cleanse the target land to avoid your opponent cursing that land against you. The coins allow you to upgrade either the main card to enable extra effects and additional lives or your set of Gokai cards to increase their stamina or evolve them. As long as you can cleanse lands more than your opponent can curse them, you’ll reach the further stages faster, where it gets increasingly difficult.

Bugs Found

· The HUD is somewhat unresponsive to my mouse clicks and doesn’t react properly when trying to select a specific card.

· The buttons in the upper right corner (my deck of cards and the options panel) don’t trigger at all. The options panel can be toggled by pressing Escape however.

· When pressing the drum to end the turn, it didn’t do anything. After I used a card, I was able to end my turn.

· Frame rates seem to drop constantly during any animation.

· The English language has some grammar mistakes, as if it was translated from another language.

Audio & Graphics

The music was okay, and the graphics reminded me of Minecraft somehow. Even if the game was done in the Godot engine, however, the graphics were somewhat poorly optimized, and I had lower fps. You can disable several effects and the game’s shadows, but it didn’t improve it too much.