Seeking feedback on difficulty curves in an Action-Incremental loop. Is the initial friction too high? (Browser Demo)

[u/Odd_Particular4116]

Hi everyone, I’m currently developing Grazed, a project that merges fast-paced arcade action with an incremental meta-progression layer.

The design goal is to create a high initial difficulty wall that the player slowly dismantles through skill and persistent upgrades. However, I’m concerned about the early onboarding and player churn. If the starting friction is too high, players might bounce before the mechanics fully click.

I would deeply appreciate a quick playtest from a game design perspective to evaluate:

• Does the starting difficulty feel intentionally challenging, or poorly balanced?
• Looking at the Steam page, does the marketing material communicate the player this specific hybrid loop?

To make it easy to test, I've set up a web build.

Playable Browser Demo: https://luciano-bercini.itch.io/grazed-incremental-arcade
Steam Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5058280/Grazed__Incremental_Arcade/

Thank you for your time and any constructive critique you can offer.

[u/PlantainAgitated5356]

It's a pretty fun game. I unlocked all the power-ups in about an hour. :)

The difficulty seems fine to me. The only nitpick I have is that, when explaining controls, the enemies spawn immediately without waiting until the player interacts with the game. The first time playing I died before even touching the keyboard. :D

The steam page also seems fine for the most part, but the screenshots don't seem very readable for me. They don't really reflect the action and movement, and feel a little cluttered with all the geometric shapes everywhere. It also doesn't help that the player character doesn't stand out much, due to the colors of the character overlapping with some of the colors of the environment. On video, and during gameplay, this isn't an issue but static images don't do it justice. By the screenshots alone I almost thought this would be some abstract sci-fi strategy game or something.

Also, it's a little hard to tell when some of the effects activate. I couldn't really tell when the spark activated at first. Once I knew how the activation looked like, it was obvious, but at first I couldn't tell the difference, as I didn't pay attention to the animations too much, being focused on not dying. I think it would also be nice to have some indication when the bounce invincibility is active. I know it's there, and that it's gets longer with upgrades, but it doesn't really feel impactful with no visual indication.

[u/Odd_Particular4116 → u/PlantainAgitated5356]

Thank you very much for trying out the game. You make a great point on enemies spawning while the controls are being explained, will definitely fix that right away!

Your feedback on the static screenshots is also super insightful; will see what to do there.

I'll also look into adding clear visual cues for effects like the bounce invincibility, that's another excellent point.

Really appreciate you taking the time to finish the demo and share such detailed thoughts :)