Show HN: Number Gacha, a gacha game distilled to its essence

Some suggestions:

Could use a little more color. Countdowns (like the ones for packs and events about to expire) should be red and bold when they get close to 0

It's unclear when charm shop items will become available to buy.

Locked battle levels should still show what the prizes will be to encourage players to unlock them early.

I've accidentally purchased packs I was trying to trash. Probably a good idea to keep that though!

Prices for packs, early refreshes/unlocks should be based on the amount of currency you currently. Charge people more for hording wealth. They can afford it and you'll profit when they're hurting for currency.

The price for early refreshes/unlocks should gradually increase over time at first if they are affordable to the player to make them feel like it's costing them to wait to spend their currency and then the cost can gradually start to decrease after a certain point. This encourages players to spend fast, and can cause them to end up spending more if they strategically wait unless they are willing to wait for the entire cool down.

If two or more packs in the shop are waiting on timers and a copycat pack comes up lower the odds of the other waiting packs being good ones unless the player can't afford them. Increase the odds of good packs appearing in the shop when the player can't afford them so that they spend more money/work harder to get the currency they need.

Right now my maim strategy for battles was to just pump high numbers. Detect this and lower the odds of 80s/90s pack and the number of copycats when 90s packs (or anything that looks like it's being being pumped) were the last packs used.

Events should be less frequent if the player has rolls available.

Timers should be longer in general.

Awesome game! I guess that makes the first (and probably the last) game I've played in that genre. Completed the collection in about 2 hours. Would like to know how many math problems (microtransactions) I had to do and how much resources I spent on rolls/packs/lost battles. The battle system is frustrating and I don't know if that's by design or not. Being able to block and heal with hotkeys would make it significantly easier, but there's still RNG. Loved the visuals, the sound effects, the quotes, and the general look and feel.

This is actually a very well-polished game and I think you've definitely got that core gacha distillation down pat!

I love that you can solve math problems to unlock more rolls and that you can buy packs and then the "slicing" of the packs is very satisfying too.

If the battle has numeric controls for blocking and other actions (assigned to 1,2,3...) the game would be more fun to try and optimize.

This is very well done. Where are the microtransactions? You could be rich beyond your wildest dreams, dear author, if only you let me buy gems.

Reminds me of NumberWang from Mitchell and Webb’s skits.

https://youtu.be/0obMRztklqU?si=CA5NWDE6FVSSM5Ih

OP probably made this as a joke on Gacha but all the comments are unironically enjoying it(including me, I got a legendary 3rd on my 2nd roll)

Love this! I wanna make parody games of all the game genres I don't like now, just to tease.

This game is inspiring. And reinforces my previous view that gacha is a silly genre.

Yet somehow addictive. What a let down it was when I finally managed to unlock the best number, 69, and it was just another number like the rest of them, because what else would it be?

There are layers to this parody. Love it!

Do people like "gacha"? I thought people played games for the game experience, story, etc, and the gacha is just the monetization mechanic. It's like making a big deal out of paying $20 bucks a month, or buying loads of DLCs for example.

Is there any way to decrease block cooldown??

Very fun! There seems to be an exception when using the 10-roll function that might need some attention.

    index-BwvgcC1c.js:62 Uncaught TypeError:
      C is not a function at zi (index-BwvgcC1c.js:62:150798)

    for (var oe = [], ce = 0; ce < 10; ce++)
      oe.push(C());

Having never played gacha games but getting a good laugh out of this, is this really a thing people play? How different is the real gameplay?

It's not a gacha essence unless there are numbers with increasingly sexy designs.

I love the sound design, and the dithered look is also great. Feels more polished than many "real" games.

This is so silly, but I’m really enjoying it lol. If you wanted to add some extra juice, haptic feedback on the rolls would be super cool!

I’m on level 11 and I’m now convinced the number 7 does not exist

Fun! On iOS I can drag numbers into my battle team - it tries to refresh the page when I drag outside a very short range.

Edit - refresh fixed it?

Its so satisfying to play

Pulled a 100, A tier for PVE but still holding out for a 69 and a 42.

3rd pvp round is 852 and seems quite difficult

Honestly the feedback loop of "do math to roll more" would make this an excellent game for kids IMO

I hate how addicted immediately got addicted to this game

This is really clever and one of those projects that strikes the delicate balance of “I could’ve done this” and “actually no.” When I look more closely, the details (which I wouldn’t have nailed) sell it. The slow down as it lands on a number, the way it displays, etc.

It really does distill the whole experience down. It’s so reductive yet somehow it makes me want to keep playing. Honestly the more I think about it the more impressive it is.

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