FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD28 → "a sword game"

"a sword game"

By droqen

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CategoryRankScoreCount
Theme553.80
Innovation953.66
Overall1023.66
Fun1453.45
Mood1983.27
Graphics2093.56
Humor4372.36
Audio7241.76
Coolness123142

Comments

alanzucconi 2013-12-16 03:14

There are some strange characters in the page! :o

Anyway, the game has a flavour of Nuclear Throne! :p Did it inspire you? :D

alanzucconi 2013-12-16 03:59

OH! :O You're DROQEN! :D I didn't realised that! :p

loren 2013-12-16 04:24

great work man, solid gameplay. Really liked how the swords felt.

jakub 2013-12-16 08:38

The second one is a reliable piece of blade. ;)

chrstphrschulte 2013-12-17 01:42

Having tried all blades, number 1 is my Excalibur. Good fun trying all the swords. There's a really good planning aspect to the gameplay, choosing the best place to take action so if I lose the sword its not sitting in a pit of enemies. Well done.

vapgames 2013-12-17 12:30

Neat mechanics. I like the integrity of the game world and all the tiny details.

khahem 2013-12-17 18:27

I feel so stupid with my sword over the head, cowardly hitting enemies from the bottom. Really fun and good idea, I think I preferred sword n°2.

gabriel 2013-12-17 19:04

Fantastic, very clever mechanics! The idea of having to chose to which side to point the blade and how that fits with the level design really creates some interesting emergent gameplay. Also the idea of frequently losing your sword really creates emergent situations all the time!

At one playthrough, I lost my sword as it got stuck in a door - I couldn't get it back, but the door didn't open either, so I had to restart. Also, when you lose your sword at a certain part of the screen that makes you need to manouver through other screens to get it back, it feels a little oppressive that the enemies in both screens respawn. But of course, I understand it is probably a limitation caused by the short time available for development.

Anyway, one of the most interesting usages of the theme so far! I really loved how it was really embeded into the mechanics, and the game is entirely built around that mechanic. Congratulations, man!

rxi 2013-12-17 20:23

Really liked this one.

The graphics were minimalistic and cute, the chunky pixels worked well to add to the feel and the animations gave a nice bit of personality to the different creatures.

The game concept itself felt really original, once I got the hang of how things worked I realised there was a lot of strategy to playing the game. It was interesting how the sword worked as both your only weapon as well as a massive burden in having to recover it to progress if you dropped it. The idea that something you depend on is also something that makes life a difficult was interesting.

The choice of 3 swords added to the game's strategy even further. Each one acted noticeably different and had to be used in a different way. I found it really clever how you managed to pull this off.

It's a bit of a shame the game lacked sound and music, as I think even some basic sound effects could have really added to it.

Overall a really great effort. I had a lot of fun playing it.

jdpalmer 2013-12-18 17:32

I really liked the minimalism and level designs. Some sound would have been nice but it's good that your dog feels loved.

arrogant-gamer 2013-12-18 20:16

The biggest sword was clearly the winner for me (because it was the last sword I tried, so it was the one I was holding when I finally figured out how to fight with swords).

I really like games in which you have to learn something new in order to participate. At first, everything in a sword game was frustrating! My blade was falling al lover the place, I was never facing the right direction, and I thought the giant dudes were just invincible (actually, I thought the little ones were too). Once I learned the secret language of your game, and developed a fighting style that seemed to work, suddenly it was over all too soon!

I killed all the little dudes in the last room, by the way.

Also, I like to imagine that this game is set in the same world as that other game (the one with instructions). The other dude was a mysterious tune-wizard, and learning to control that little dude was fun too.

Have you played Heavy Sword? Puzzle(action adventure)script.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/puzzlescript/Heavy/puzzlescript/hgBFjWFHfOI/cQrIhl9Pc4sJ

syawqy 2013-12-19 09:24

simple, yet complex

william_edwards 2013-12-19 22:05

I managed to get the sword to land places I couldn't reach it. Nice to see Haxe getting an outing :)

jupiter_hadley 2013-12-20 00:26

Cute little game. I loved it. I included this game in my Ludum Dare Compilation series, if you'd like to check it out :) http://youtu.be/OVru4uI3W-s

danielsnd 2013-12-20 00:33

Nice Graphics! Well done!

pixelulsar 2013-12-20 02:25

My favourite sword was number 3. Interesting concept, I liked the one sword take on the theme, this is the first and probably only game that used that.

kirbytails7 2013-12-20 08:34

I liked the dagger/1 for throwing the farthest (although I think the rapier/3 you could stand on by attacking straight down?). It feels a little uncontrollable in a very fun way, and I appreciate having the enemy health bar be a part of their design.

jsjwooowooo 2013-12-21 03:50

Interesting game mechanic, I hated dropping my sword!

lekochen 2013-12-21 09:04

Nice one! My favorite sword is the third. Is there a good ending, or just rooms with numbers (I reached 0,1,2,3)

droqen 2013-12-21 18:10

thanks for all your responses! :D backwards,

There are just those numbered endings (you got 'em all)!

I'm really shocked nobody liked #2 the most - I do, and this has me wondering if I have bad taste.

Thanks Pixelulsar! This has actually been an idea very loosely floating in the back of my mind for a long long time... so I'm glad I got it out.

Jupiter, cool video! :D & thanks! (I doubt you'll come back to see this, but... your voice was a little inaudible over the first game!)

arrogant.gamer: thanks for sharing your thought process going though this sword game :3 Heavy Sword is really cool, and I love the thought that this and Notes might take place in the same world o:

rxi, There's sound in a new version - not the compo version, but it does really add to it! Thanks for your comments.

khahem I just noticed you said #2 is your favourite! yayyyy
I'm glad that you felt cowardly choosing the easy way out x)

Hold on, so did Jakub. I'm just not perceptive.

Thanks Loren & Alan (hahaha Alan you didn't notice it was mine x3 honestly that's awesome)

ok

too much comment reply, sorry if I didn't respond to you personally u_u

droqen 2013-12-21 18:17

also: totally not inspired by Nuclear Throne. It's a cool game but I honestly can't see the similarities o-o

rubna 2013-12-22 10:44

Droqen man this is GREAT! I love these kinds of games! I really felt like I was in some kind of dungeon with the doors slowly opening and stuff like that! Really great job :D

ditto 2013-12-22 13:37

So damn cool! Simple mechanic that works flawlessly, sometimes a bit annoying to lose your sword from walking into a wall, but it's part of the charm, after a while I got pretty good at handling it, and it felt sooo good! Could maybe be a bit more fastpaced, but maybe that would just make it harder.. Anwyays, great game!

potomak 2013-12-23 00:19

Really nice game!

tompudding 2013-12-23 00:31

I loved the look of the characters, and the red pixels to indicate health. The mechanics and level design are impressive too. Damn good job.

glovecat 2013-12-23 11:36

Great gameplay but the first tries is hard to master.
I really love the sword mechanic.

aslai 2013-12-23 12:07

Bigger is better, right?

diptoman 2013-12-23 14:44

Very interesting and innovative. I don't think I've EVER seen a game with sword mechanics like this before. I quickly found out that the Rapier, while great for combat, was difficult to walk around with. Seriously great concept. And I dig the minimalistic graphics, too.
Btw my favourite was the Dagger because less movement restriction. The Rapier could impale enemies like a joust, I loved that xD

stigmawall 2013-12-23 15:56

I like this tiny-gameboy-like graphics. But the game annoy me when I get closer to the wall and the sowrd simply fly away from my hand. Maybe this was planned, but annoy anyway.

undonedevs 2013-12-23 16:39

Cool!

matx 2013-12-23 20:06

Quite hard, and very nice idea.

bradleysmith 2013-12-23 21:47

I love the pixel art style and enemy animations in this entry, really awesome work for 48 hours! Rated highly. :)

ointment 2013-12-25 16:16

Pretty indie. A bit of awkwardness in the controls, like the way the sword slings itself away when it touchs a wall, but I guess it's somewhat excused by the level design that forces you to think about it.

garethiw 2013-12-30 12:38

Yeah that was really cool, it had a nice feel to it and the mechanics were interesting. 3 was definitely my fave sword.

s73ph4n 2014-01-01 13:46

This is really good for 48 hours. With sound and music it would be perfect!

snoringfrog 2014-01-04 08:14

Very interesting. I can't decide if I prefer sword 2 or 3 more, but all of them were interesting to work with. I never did find the numbered rooms that someone mentioned. At the end, I fell down a long tunnel into a room with several enemies that was connected to a very small room on its right. I couldn't progress any further than that, was I missing something?