FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD26 → Bladeless

Bladeless

By kidevil

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CategoryRankScoreCount
Coolness277
Graphics274.38
Mood303.86
Overall553.75
Fun793.52
Innovation1073.48
Audio1393.38
Theme2263.40
Humor2772.12

Comments

minionstudios 2013-04-30 03:42

Love the Style! what a great game! I was intimidated by the controls, but after a short learning curve it was all skulls.

cason 2013-04-30 03:47

Very awesome. Addicting gameplay. The mid-blocks are tough...

almax27 2013-04-30 03:53

Awesome style, and well polished. Struggled with working out how and when to block but it added to the challenge :D

ilo 2013-04-30 04:15

Ultra-stylish with clever mechanics. I do wonder how it could be developed further though, because after half a dozen skulls I felt I had seen everything the game had to offer.

olkeencole 2013-04-30 04:20

Nice game! Really enjoy the art style and the game play. Fiendishly difficult at first, but very rewarding if you stick with it.

andrewves 2013-04-30 05:47

I love the visual style of this game, the silhouettes really shout minimal. Great job.

axcho 2013-04-30 05:49

Very cool to see something (perhaps?) inspired by Iaido. I found it difficult to learn the cues for which block would counter the coming attack, so I wonder if it might be a more enjoyable experience if it started with only one height level, then two different height levels, then three. Still very cool though.

kidevil 2013-04-30 06:31

Thanks for the comments everyone! Can't wait to get some time and run through all your games :)

ilo: Ah! I still had my testing values in for the difficulty scaling, so it went super slow. Fixed now.

axcho: that would have definitely made it more user friendly, but I wanted to add in the trial and error aspect, so you get to die a bit before figuring it out :)

angelk 2013-04-30 07:17

I couldn't get any sense of the timing so this ended up just being the prettiest version of rock-paper-scissors I've ever played, and I don't mind! The art is fantastic :)

ilo 2013-04-30 09:37

It does feel better now. There's a great flow to the combat, and the difficulty really kicks in around the seventh one. :)

kidevil 2013-04-30 10:17

Yea, the speed maxes out when you hit 10 kills now, and before it was at 25 :/ After that, it just keeps increasing counter percentage.

snakeeater 2013-04-30 20:14

As angelk said, I couldn't get any sense of the timing. Nice style, though.

qdowngames 2013-04-30 20:18

I love how the characters are randomly created. Really addicting once you get the hang of it!

bobiniki 2013-04-30 20:27

Great mood and artstyle. I kind of suck playing the game, but it is really well done and very polished.

martijn 2013-04-30 21:24

Awesome game, but difficult to get the hang of, but once you ¨get it" it is quite fun

muton 2013-04-30 21:36

Super stylish, and pretty fun.
It'd be nice to be able to change defensive posture, and a couple of times I hit a bug where the guy was stuck in a fighting stance after the opponent died - needed a page refresh to fix.

somenetworkguy 2013-04-30 21:37

This was fun... once I figured what to do. And it was still challenging. Nice work!

themightycomp 2013-04-30 21:39

I love the concept and the art style - overall, very well executed. My one complaint was that no matter what I did, I could never execute a high block. Despite mashing 'R' like a fiend, nothing happened (possibly due to the fact that I'm on Mac?) It was frustrating to be continually disemboweled because of this, but other than that, great game.

drgeraud 2013-04-30 21:40

Your game is really cool !

michail 2013-04-30 21:40

After a few replays I got it, very well done! And - it's hard not to mention it - awesome graphics!

ramoncb 2013-04-30 21:43

amazing game! and pretty complex! =O

vladimirdlc 2013-04-30 21:52

Gorgeous art, I like how the mechanics are not just pure luck but involve some thought.

jod 2013-04-30 21:54

I have walked the bloody path of the samurai for so long I have forgotten why I fight. There is only me, my enemy and our blades.

What a beautiful game, such atmosphere! Caught the minimalism theme very well indeed. A very good cohesion between audio, video and gameplay.

tacograveyard 2013-04-30 22:05

Great style! Controls were a bit tricky at first. I still don't love them, but I do love the game.

kidevil 2013-04-30 22:20

Thanks for the comments everyone :) Glad the art style works, and know what I need to do to make the controls more intuitive :)

muton: I'm right with you there. Changing guard positions is definitely something I want to add. Also the ability to strike first. Already had it in the game, but wasn't able to tweak it in time. Basically, you could spam attacks and win every fight. Will have to check out that bug too :(

mightycomp: Ah, looks like a font issue. The controls are a, s, d, but I can see how a caps A can look like a caps R.

kidevil 2013-04-30 22:35

update: muton: figured out the glitch. If you keep hitting one of the block buttons after killing the guy, it will play the block animation and you get stuck in it. Good catch and an easy fix :)

dmitrix 2013-04-30 23:42

Interesting game play, nice graphics and sounds.

zazery 2013-05-01 02:30

Once you get the hang of blocking and countering it's pretty fun. I'm terrible at figuring out where to block. Solid game.

kazukishida 2013-05-01 02:40

First thing i noticed was the art! cool art and very smooth movements for the characters in the game. i had a hard time timing the buttons tho but still good enough! i'll continue on playing this. Great game!

kidevil 2013-05-01 05:25

I think the timing thing is throwing everyone off. It's not so much about timing the block as it is about recognizing what direction and hitting the block asap.

I think axcho had it right at the start...this thing needs a quick tutorial level to start er off :)

8bitpimp 2013-05-01 10:13

I like it a lot. Nice concept, and not as hard as I thought it would be. Only complaint is that it was too easy to set your next stance immediately after a fight before the enemy has moved in the next round. Hmm, I hope you know what I mean :S.

pereubu 2013-05-01 11:00

great job. The feedbacks are really hard to understand and anticipate at the start ( it was very frustrating ), but I really like the concept :3

casino-jack 2013-05-01 16:47

Looks amazing, but I found it practically impossible (more like rock-paper-scissors as someone else mentioned) until I came back here and saw the tutorial image. I think it'd be much better if you fought increasingly difficult opponents which slowly introduced the different blocks/counters.

smilingrob 2013-05-01 18:52

I like how the menu doesn't exist and you just walk away from the title screen. Nice ambiance.

nate427 2013-05-01 19:46

Very cool, loved the gameplay! I hope you expand upon it and make it into a full game.

dohan 2013-05-01 20:10

Awesome art & mechanic! The only issue I've had with the game is that you can't change the defense stance once you've chosen one.

kill0u 2013-05-01 20:46

Awesome :)

kidevil 2013-05-01 21:30

Thanks for the feedback!

N427: definitely plan to fix it and build on it in the next few weeks. Think it has some potential once all the kinks are worked out:)

Dohan: I agree! You NEED to be able to switch the block, and it just makes more sense for the gameplay.

derosa 2013-05-01 23:09

Wow, tried to play without reading the tutorial and got really wasted :D After having a look at it it was easier to play, but not to defeat.

A pity the defense can't be changed, it leads to a bit of frustration.

Thanks for the game!

vilya 2013-05-01 23:59

Very atmospheric & nice mechanic. Like it!

polar 2013-05-02 16:12

Quite a nice little game, although sometimes my character didn't attack after a successful block - I'll presume I missed something in the instructions :) I also agree with a gentler difficulty curve - the game is *unbelievably* hard at first :P

kidevil 2013-05-03 19:11

polar: I think it's more of an animation issue here. After you block, you always counter attack, but the animation jumps right to the sword clash animation if the enemy blocks you as well. It may look more like a double block than a block and attack.

sonnybone 2013-05-03 19:25

Really awesome execution! It's very satisfying to get a kill, and you always kick yourself when you screw up reading the block. Nice risk vs reward. Love the minimalist look!

ghostinthesoft 2013-05-05 07:29

Pretty nice. I didn't get it before I saw your tutorial, but after this it was fun.

arrogant-gamer 2013-05-05 23:53

Pretty cool, but I think I prefer Karateka.

colapsydo 2013-05-06 09:13

Characters and animation are incredible here, I like their diversity.

I first thought the game was casual, then I read the tutorial picture. It could be a good thing to introduce a small tutorial in the game, it would be a pity that people don't catch it because this game worth some playing time from them.

someone 2013-05-10 15:48

Excellent game. Love all the characters. Really great animation.
It was irritating that you cant change which block you choose though.

heuermh 2013-05-14 04:15

Very cool, nice work on generated graphics.

orni 2013-05-15 07:07

brilliant game

well done :D

zkenshin 2013-05-15 15:35

Neat game. Had fun testing this one. :)

kidevil 2013-05-15 19:51

Thanks all :) Working on an updated now based on feedback and adding a bunch of stuff I didn't have time for originally.

gravel 2013-05-17 14:35

Really nice gameplay. Great style.
Nice job!

voxel 2013-05-18 10:03

Amazing visuals, found it difficult to work out but maybe I'm just a little dumb

jhelle 2013-05-20 12:49

Nice art. But controls could be a bit more intuitive by placing them vertical instead of horizontal.