FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD40 → Avarice

Avarice

By elitegoliath and Drekler

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall5543.4736
Fun5653.3236
Innovation8112.8936
Theme6163.3936
Graphics6723.3236
Mood6983.1234

Comments

riker-greenslade 2017-12-05 07:07

Nice game. I like the sword dash attack - very satisfying. I found myself just using the ranged attack however, since it made sure I didn't accidentally pick up gems. Requiring you to pick up gems for points is interesting, but the "nothing" gems were entirely my focus. I'm not sure how much they added to the game, as they leave the game fairly static (no curses means no difficulty curve). Music and graphics were solid for a jam. My biggest complaint about visuals is that the pick up range for gems felt a little small - I kept feeling that my character's size included the orbiting crystals.

Hope to see another game from you next time!

lyrcaxis 2017-12-06 01:31

Nice!! Ain't really a fan of games with unregainable HP but this was very fun to play.

nicballinger 2017-12-06 03:58

Interesting concept, though the scores seem a bit arbitrary. It would be nice to have some sort of high score board to compare against.

tiberiusuciu 2017-12-06 04:04

Nice music!

2d arena shooters are Hella-fun :)

this one is nice since you give more than one option on how to take down the enemies. Even thought as stated before, I will probably stick with the range weapon just so that I can keep a safe distance at all times.

Good job!

elitegoliath 2017-12-06 04:17

Thanks for the solid feedback guys!!

Also, if you want to, add screenshots of your score. I will check regularly to see who has higher scores, and post them to the top of this page, along with other potential rewards when LD is finished. HAVE FUN!!

elitegoliath 2017-12-06 06:20

@riker-greenslade Thank you for the extensive feedback! I certainly missed a few things when I was doing my playtesting, I made a changelog to reflect them. Also, if you link me your game, I would love to reviews yours as well.

elitegoliath 2017-12-06 06:22

@lyrcaxis Haha, I totally understand. I appreicate your honest feedback. I actually had intended on making a way to regain health crystals (the ones you have if damaged to regenerate) but I simply ran out of time. I will make sure that the next JAM has a way of allowing a player to scrounge up ways to continue the game instead of being forced into a no-return downward slope. Thanks for the feedback!

elitegoliath 2017-12-06 06:25

@nicballinger I agree about the scores. I added that in lieu of not having enough time to implement the Upgrade + Boss system. However, in hopes of making the scores more interesting, I would invite people to post theirs here for a few modest rewards. It's something, lol. Thank you though for your honest feedback. I have found that in most of the games this LD, there seems to be a strong level essence of "why am I doing this."

elitegoliath 2017-12-06 06:27

@tiberiusuciu Haha, I appreciate your feedback, thank you very much. And yes, the melee attacks are a bit risky. I made the enemy's attack a little easy to cheese by going around them if you can do it fast enough. Their attacks are a bit slow, and far between, and have poor range.

But, no matter which way you spin it, that shield slam is super satisfying, and help get you around quicker lmao ;)

baby-dino-herd 2017-12-06 06:41

Interesting take on the theme, gameplay was fun, and the music help me keep the pace up in the kind of way you'd like to see in an arena shooter. The tradeoff of gems to points wasn't always clear, however, especially while in the middle of a fight! :gem:

beanslasher 2017-12-06 06:48

The gameplay was really fun! I really really enjoyed the music, It was very enjoyable! Great job guys, you have definitely got a high rating from me ahah :p

khorm 2017-12-06 07:16

Cool little game, pretty clean graphics and some nice tunes. Was missing some sound though. Very nice feeling when you charge between alot of enemies. Fun game!

megalink 2017-12-06 07:22

Nice game! Killing enemies is quite fun however it can get quite repetitive after a while. The movement speed was also a bit too slow. Music was quite cool, and so was the artwork! Great job guys.

shivur 2017-12-06 23:30

Good graphics!

akusan 2017-12-07 04:03

Nice fun and interesting game you got. The mechanics of being able to charge attack is great, it makes up for the terrible low range kinda pointless swinging of sword. Great job!

noah-beckman 2017-12-07 04:04

Great Job!

guilhermesouza 2017-12-07 04:13

It's a Good Job! I really like the your art and sound!

tywiggs 2017-12-07 04:54

Really liked the graphics have me a Diablo feel could be a good dungeoneer game

ibrahimshersha 2017-12-07 06:31

wow! graphics were great.cool game play mechanics and sounds. excellent work.

kerneltt 2017-12-07 17:41

took me a while to understand what was i doing but liked the gems mechanic and the auto attack score.png

drekler 2017-12-07 22:09

@kerneltt Great job!

automatonvx 2017-12-09 12:05

Found the place a bit slow to be fun, the sword attack was nice, but could have used some more user feedback visual/audio to make it feel more satisfying. Nice but felt needed the challenge ramping up a bit and more juiciness.

zenmumbler 2017-12-09 15:43

Hey, just a heads up, your macOS distribution is very strangely broken, the app has all of its content folders (partially) duplicated with the files spread across the various duplicates. Can you make another macOS build and zip? Thanks.

candlesan 2017-12-09 18:57

Sweet game thanks! I liked how the melee attack had a sweet dash. I also liked that even though melee did a lot more damage than ranged, it didn't let you pick between green, yellow and red gems so ranged still had the advantage of allowing you to be selective about what color gems you pick up.

chartman 2017-12-10 01:38

Nice artwork and music. The charge attack was fun to use. The game could've used a few sound effects like to help indicate when the player gets hit and maybe an enemy death sound. Overall, it was still a fun arena fighting game. Good job!

trozeman 2017-12-16 20:00

Fun, but need something more. =\ I don't know what, maybe a higher speed or a different enemy.

huvaakoodia 2017-12-20 19:31

The Linux version is buggy. The gems keep expanding and you don't even need to pick them up. The negative effects don't seem to do anything either.

The Windows version works. The graphics are ok. The music does not loop, but seemed ok too. Sound effects are missing, which hits the mood pretty bad.

The big problem here is the lack of challenge. There is none of it in the beginning and none of it in the end. All you need to do is to move around in a circle, kiting the enemies behind you and shooting them with the ranged attack. Eventually your firerate deteriorates, but that does not increase challenge, it simply makes killing the enemies slower.

I didn't play this far, but I guess the player movement speed drops below the enemy movement speed at some point. Unfortunately that won't be challenging either, instead just impossible.

Doing the same trivial thing over and over again results in *utter boredom!*

Now, what is a challenge anyways? Think about that for a moment.

!> A task which requires you to perform at the peak of your skills in order to overcome it.

One of the simplest forms of challenge is a dexterity challenge. There is a physical limit to the reaction time of us humans. As such it is possible to create a task which is easy at first, but keeps demanding more dexterity and focus until the eventual mistake ending the exercise. This way each and every player will be challenged and as a result: *fun!*

In this context dodging the enemy attacks could be such a dexterity challenge. Problem is they only attack in melee, which is to say *never* as long as you keep circle strafing around them. Give some enemies projectile attacks and as their numbers rise the player is required to dodge a lot more projectiles from a lot more directions. This forces the player to start making decisions too: Which enemy to attack first in order to minimize danger to myself? All the while dodging enemy attacks and trying to pick up more gems. Circle strafing alone won't cut it here.

More design is needed. The implementation itself is not bad, especially for someone who has never used Unity before.

Overall: *Below average (2.5)* Fun: *One-trick pony (1.0)* Innovation: *Average (3.0)* Theme: *Below average (2.5)* Graphics: *Above average (3.5)* Mood: *Bad (2.0)*