Mike the adventurer

triplefox 2018-08-13 09:38

It's really hard to evaluate this game because it is overflowing with features: scrolling map traversal, combat, enemy AI, stats, animation, cutaways for when you walk behind trees - and yet the thing that would presumably define it, make it unique and finish off the game loop - the inventory management - is a placeholder.

So do I rate on what it is, or what it proposes it could be?

With a lot of jam games, placeholders can happen - time constraints and all - but it's just really annoying to be put in that position with this one since the game is plenty effortful enough. The art style is cute. The music has a nice jaunty flavor to it. It's doing very well on the technical aspects, but the game design isn't there. It leads me to this hypothesis: "this game's design substituted scope for a coherent premise."

If you'd like a little more background on why I get to that conclusion, I suggest the [devlog I made for this LD](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/zero-grace-megadrive/ld42-live-blog-from-theme-to-design). It's based on the hard-won wisdom of trying to do exactly this, regretting it, and making a system so that I never do it again.

Rant over. Welcome back to LD! I am coming off a break too.

stateoff 2018-08-13 19:17

Constructive review would happen here. Jokes aside what is in the game looks kind of nice. The battle feels good, the music is entertaining, feels like a lot of space to explore. But that's about it. Not sure what I am supposed to do next to smashing the dudes. Really wished it was less polished in details but more finished. Do you plan to finish it?

mike-inprinciple 2018-08-13 19:30

I think your main feature doesn't work! The rest is pretty competent though, if a little repetitive. Hard to eval.

griz 2018-08-14 09:52

@triplefox @stateoff @mike-inprinciple Thank you for your comments!

@stateoff I'm thinking about doing a post-compo version. With looting, equipment management and progression finished, playability would be an order of magnitude better.

matzetoni 2018-08-14 10:29

Good start, I liked the music and how the main character always smiles. Nice walking/fighting animation your game just needs some greater goal than fighting and collecting loot. I'm definitely curious what the game will look like in the future... Oh, and I think you mispelled the title: 'Jesus the adventurer' :P mikey.PNG

mantou 2018-08-14 13:09

It looks nice. But I don't know what should I do.

jharler 2018-08-14 13:18

The visuals are nice, the audio works well and I really like the animations and particle effects. However, like the others, I would've liked to see more gameplay. It was fun (albeit too easy) to kill the bad guys, but other than that there was really nothing else to do. Your description mentions loot, but I didn't see any. This has potential though, so nice work on what you have here.

andrei9 2018-09-03 11:16

I liked the Graphics, and the Gameplay was fun, Nice Game. :thumbsup: