FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD35 → SPELLDOWN!

SPELLDOWN!

By pixelpotions

View on Wayback Machine

CategoryRankScoreCount
Coolness1100
Graphics374.49
Humor2403.12
Innovation2623.43
Overall2903.52
Mood3153.39
Fun4673.22
Theme6163.26

Comments

roland-m 2016-04-20 00:34

Well done guy. =]

seleb 2016-04-20 01:08

The artwork in this is great! I especially liked the variety of transformations for the defeated opponents.

My main criticism is that it's pretty repetitive, though that's kind of inherent to the gameplay mechanic. Maybe it'd be better if the player's spell glyph was randomized each time?

morrilet 2016-04-20 01:15

Pulled out a drawing tablet and went to town. This game was really unique. Loved it.

flyingumbrella 2016-04-20 02:01

The art is great, just awesome!
I pulled out my drawing tablet too to defeat my enemies. Very cool and unique game.

celia14 2016-04-20 02:34

Great concept! I found it a bit repetitive in its current form, but I can see how it could evolve into a more complex and really cool game. The art is great - really classic and fun.

alexiseshford 2016-04-20 03:16

Freaking amazing!

apantaloni 2016-04-20 08:57

Nice dueling game. I like the pressure your opponent puts on you and the artwork is nice. I'd love to see this developed further!

dssiege11 2016-04-20 11:22

Beautiful game! I should try playing this on my Surface Pro with the pen ;)

aamatniekss 2016-04-20 11:43

Really cool! The art is gorgeous! You guys did a great job! :)

tentacode 2016-04-20 12:50

Awesome graphics and cool gameplay :)

trasevol_dog 2016-04-20 13:07

Two words: eye candy.
I just wish the gameplay was a bit richer... Great entry nonetheless!!

mdotedot 2016-04-20 13:14

Great Entry!
Long time ago I had this idea but your execution is spot on!
would like to have a mobile game like this!

tselmek 2016-04-20 15:18

The graphics are outstanding and the main mechanic pretty well done although it is repetitive very fast, maybe different shapes each time we complete one might help a bit.

mrbungle 2016-04-20 15:30

Top notch graphics but gameplay gets old quite quickly. Felt like the shapes should change once you'd successfully drawn them to increase variety.

markusfisch 2016-04-20 16:06

Really like the graphics and the idea of drawing magic glyphs. Also good humor! Liked it!

jordgubben 2016-04-20 17:33

Nice work. Neat idea and colorful presentation.

I first tried this with my laptop touchpad, it did not go to well. Then I connected my drawing tablet and I DOMINATED THE ENTIRE REALM! All hail Lord Wacom!

(Also bonus points for the Ghibli reference :D)

kitsunequestdev 2016-04-20 18:44

Awesome work guys :D

rafaskb 2016-04-20 20:47

Awesome art and really unique gameplay, congrats!

giordanno92 2016-04-21 02:39

Nice game you got there! It's practically impossible with the touchpad, do-able with the mouse and masterful with a tablet XD The art is very well done, although little variation, and wished there was audio, it would've increased a lot the imersion. The idea also brought me back to Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone for the PC XD Good job, Gabriel and Sparrow! Cheering for your entry!

nextreality 2016-04-21 03:17

I liked the graphics for this game, and the gameplay was simple yet addicting, kept trying to beat all those darn wizards!

yumeito 2016-04-21 12:02

Fun game :)

ployer 2016-04-21 12:17

gorgeous graphics. interesting concept. wish you could have more shapes to draw. other than that very nice use of the theme

simon123 2016-04-21 19:11

God I was bad at this game. But thought it was great. Really simple, but lovely implementation. Marvellous graphics.

anaguilefdez 2016-04-21 19:54

Great game! One to play with tablet. It would work well as a mobile.

theonlygooddrcz 2016-04-21 22:11

this is very pretty, and the kitten is so cute :)

pixelpotions 2016-04-21 23:12

Thanks everyone for your kind comments, we hear all of your criticism and suggestions and are coming up with new ways to make the game better!
We are also retroactively reviewing and rating your games if we haven't already done so.
You are all very awesome!

luquio 2016-04-21 23:20

amazing game mechanics & pixel!!! think this would be great for mobile device

josemwarrior 2016-04-21 23:30

Art is absolutely stunning. There must be a great job in programming. But it has not been fun for me draw over and over again the same figure.

odyssey 2016-04-22 00:21

Nice graphics and great concept!

mikekreein 2016-04-22 04:01

Nice graphics, but like others have said, needs some additional glyphs that you have to draw.

linver 2016-04-22 06:41

Nice Art!
First fight: drawing one glyph so much times is boooooring. Yea, I don't have a skill at this level, but you should make this fight faster.
Second fight: good
Other fights: hard and booring after death. May be you should add small glyphs to delete enemy's line (if it so good), or to swap your main glyphs/

lostalloy 2016-04-22 08:49

I like this a lot! I accidentally chose one of the most difficult shapes, my trackball was so uncooperative, but I manage to win at the end, mwa ha ha! :D:D:D Sweet sweet pixels!

josefnpat 2016-04-22 23:38

This is nice - simple mechanics - but with added pressure. Another mechanic of some sort would be nice, but the graphics make up for it! Nice job!

kad 2016-04-23 00:39

Gameplay is a bit boring after the first spells, but the graphics are really nice. Adding any kind of magical sounds would have been relly nice too.

Good job!

togimaro 2016-04-23 22:33

The assets are fantastic!
I love the interpretation of the theme, it's really cool to play even with a touchpad on a laptop!
Good works!

esayitch 2016-04-24 17:44

Awesome artwork, makes me kinda sad there was no music to go with it :(

Usage of theme is a bit lacking, there are shapes, and when you win the opponent is shapeshifted, but it doesn't really affect the gameplay at all :(

Aside from that, pretty cool, challenging game! Good luck!

glaze_96 2016-04-25 16:47

Great graphics and really awesome mechanic! It was hard but at least I had a fun time getting wrecked!

gord10 2016-04-25 17:40

Very nice graphics!

arhpositive 2016-04-25 20:41

Nice graphics, gameplay is shallow but the game is nice for what it is. :) It can be improved and extended with many other ideas.

mike-cullingham 2016-04-26 14:19

Fantastic graphics. I should've pulled out my stylus and touch screen, but it worked pretty well with the mouse. Would love to see variety in the shapes you trace, and clearer feedback on how much you got/missed for a particular trace, but for a Jam game this is a wonderful entry.

rttstudio 2016-04-26 16:02

First, Ty for the comment you did on my game :)
Your game is pretty good guys :) really fun, I'd like to see some sort of rpg that use this as a combat system ! :)

sabina-lis 2016-04-28 02:32

Played every character, i'm sad i couldn't go further than two rounds because the graphics are so awesome, agree with randomizing spells :)

nvrskipgameday 2016-04-28 03:57

This is a cool idea - and it's really fun to draw the shapes. I agree that having randomized spell shapes for the player would be awesome, but I like the base game you've got here as well. Thanks for posting.

aaranos 2016-04-28 18:07

Excellent pixel art. I found the difficulty a little extreme after two wins. The third opponent is just way too fast. Still fun.

ellian 2016-04-28 19:01

Awesome work, guys!
It's surprisingly HARD to play with a laptop's touchpad ahahah. I wish it wasn't so slow, but it's really well made in such a short time. Kudos! :)

big-cow 2016-04-28 21:12

Really nice art and animation, simple and fun gameplay, nice use of theme. I tried 'breaking' the drawing system only to find that it was very well-coded and robust! If you're planning on expanding the game, I'd consider giving the characters more than one shape to draw.

deltaf1 2016-04-28 23:59

Really beautiful, and tricky to master. As others have suggested, randomizing the glyph each time could make it less repetitive. I think it would be a really good multiplayer game on mobile.

rock-eaters 2016-04-29 00:06

Well done, nice graphics and fun game !

torcado194 2016-04-29 18:38

very nice pixel art! i wish the game were more engaging though.

santiandrade 2016-04-29 19:11

Funny mini-game!! I would like to play it in my iphone!! Sometimes is a bit repetitive, but iy's ok.

kyledaudio 2016-05-01 11:06

The graphics are soooo good! The game mechanic is very cute, and has a good balance between 'Should I go faster and rougher' or 'Should I go slower and more precise?'

Pretty fun! :D Well done, guys! ❤

leo_p_mahon 2016-05-02 18:06

Amazing art work. Really hard with a mouse! Had to learn to balance getting the shape perfect and doing it quickly. Would like to see where this goes next :)

jk5000 2016-05-02 20:33

Super idea, and super game. Well done.

sunflower 2016-05-02 22:33

It seems like it could be an interesting entry if some more variety was added into it. The most obvious idea that comes to my mind (and I'm not the only one, it seems) is having the glyphs randomised each time, so that the player needs to react accordingly (each wizard could have own set of glyphs). If that was implemented, I think the gameplay would work rather well.

I rather liked the artwork and animation in this game, though what I'd prefer is having one animation for each winning/losing wizard pair. So that, say, brown wizard would be polymorphing opponent, while the red wizard would zap them instead. Right now it seems each time you win, you get the same result depending on the level, and each time you lose, you get the same critter depending on your wizard; instead having spells for each winning/losing wizard pair could better establish wizards' "personality", in a way.

Pretty solid and complete entry, overall. A bit of pity there's no lich battle, though I guess I'd prefer playing that in a more various setting (and I wouldn't really want to have the lich spam spellpieces even more than the 3rd level wizard currently does).

tooichi 2016-05-03 12:07

Loved the art and the concept, really well done.

commanderstitch 2016-05-04 04:01

nice drawing and mechanics. Older idea, but you did it and that counts for something. That vader head was superb. Needs sounds, i just made them up in my mind to make it exciting. i wanted to be able to draw super fast. xD

medidog 2016-05-04 06:03

Really unique graphics and sense of achievement! Really nice symbols too, it was fun to draw them for me. But, I still agree with most of the comments here, that to make shapes vary each time so the game does not feel repetitive over time.

fin_nolimit 2016-05-05 01:39

Very cool use of the theme!!! I was missing the music and sound effects of course but the game was super cool. I was turned into a cat at the beginning because i had no idea what was going on lol but then I quickly recovered! Loved it!

chaoslab 2016-05-05 01:48

Gorgeous! Pixels! Om nom nom nom! One of my favorites so far! Thanks you.

lanestp 2016-05-05 02:01

Nice game and a nicely put together package. It's a little impossible to play on a touchpad but that isn't your fault. All together a very polished and well done game!

quexd 2016-05-05 02:19

Love the game, shame there is no music. Even with no audio great game loved it.

matmortatti 2016-05-05 02:36

Hello! Cool game :)

Interesting mechanic, and the art style is really nice.

One problem I found is that the game tends to get a little repetitive. It would be interesting to change shapes during fight. Maybe it would get too difficult?

There is a mobile game that (if you are not familiar with) would surely serve as inspiration for your project if you wish to expand it. It's called Magic Touch, go check it!

Overall, good job! Congratulations for your entry.

usonchen 2016-05-05 04:09

Very good pixel art and key frame animation!
The mechanic is good but if there is some changes to the magic curve during the continual drawing would be better, a little bit board now.

legavroche 2016-05-05 05:03

I think this game has the makings of a good multiplayer game. Maybe have a randomized list of drawings that both players must draw?

ddrkirbyisq 2016-05-05 07:41

Nice! Try for some music and sounds next time :)

malytimi 2016-05-05 07:58

fresh idea :D

evanegibbs 2016-05-05 08:22

The art is great in this! I love the style and the atmosphere it creates. I think this game could be really expanded upon by choosing different kinds of magic spells that you want to cast, maybe some are more complicated to draw but create different effects. Very nice entry! It became a lot easier with my tablet too! Haha. :)

puppetmaster 2016-05-05 15:33

Wow! Really cool artwork and animations. Difficulty is to high for me. Missing the sound. Keep up the good work.

lightsoda 2016-05-06 11:06

The gameplay gimmick seems to work pretty well. But drawing the same shape over and over isn't very fun.

The graphics are well done.

aegypticus 2016-05-06 18:19

I really liked this! The drawing mechanic was really cool... I should try out my drawing tablet on this! Great job.

2016-05-07 03:22

Really fun to play!

pixlwalkr 2016-05-07 09:17

Great game and nice mechanics, I really like the graphics!

panicthefirst 2016-05-07 15:30

Amazing artstyle! Gameplay is nice and would be awesome on a tablet. Good job!

ryannielson 2016-05-07 18:36

Great game, would love to see it expanded upon into a phone game with friends! :)

radmars 2016-05-07 20:15

Awesome concept! Graphics are really great too. Would be nice if there were more variety in what you had to draw, also some more feedback would be helpful - it wasn't clear how close you actually had to be. Still fun, nice work.

xanjos 2016-05-07 23:30

Controls were pretty hard using the mouse so I decided to play this on my Surface Pro 3 instead (using the pen and touchscreen) which worked like an absolutely charm. Anyway, it's a pretty awesome concept and I can definitely see this working on mobile/tablet devices but as someone said before, it would be more interesting if the spell glyphs were randomised each time.

skruffye 2016-05-08 19:04

Been meaning to review this one for a while now, but only just found the time.
Firstly, I love the art and the gameplay concept. The drawing element really reminded me of WarioWare: Touched on the DS (perhaps a platform this kind of game is best suited to) but I did have a lot of trouble getting the shapes right with my mouse. (The margin for error seemed somewhat slim considering that your opponent draws pixel perfect shapes!)
I do have a graphics tablet, so I'll probably take another shot at this later with that, but since that isn't exactly commonplace hardware outside of this particular audience (ie. other developers and artists), I'd probably say that making the game a touch easier to play with a mouse would be a good idea.

Overall though, I enjoyed it. Good job! :)

dollarone 2016-05-09 02:21

Fantastic graphics. Cool idea, and well executed. I think some of the signs were harder, but that's cool.

Would be cool if the glyphs were random for a bigger challenge or something like that.

Nice!

omlette-du-fromage 2016-05-09 16:33

But this game is supper annoying :D need to get a graphic tablet to perform. Interesting idea and pixel graphics. Good luck!