Ring of Sacrifice

mitch-cutler 2018-12-04 23:15

Music is super chill. The movement controls are a bit weird, but definitely manageable. I like enemy style, def gets hard fast. Awesome submission!

krylos 2018-12-04 23:31

Sweet game! I like the sacrificing of your items.

suny-gdc 2018-12-04 23:34

The game mechanics are really off. The gun is a giant beam, I feel like it would have been better if there was attack animations and you could see where you gun was going to shoot. I also feel like the area light you use to see enemies is too dark still and it hurts to try and see the enemies. So I really didn't feel like I needed to leave the middle area and didn't feel compelled to really do anything besides dodge a couple a bullets

nul 2018-12-04 23:55

Yeah, the biggest thing I would've really liked to improve on is animations and weapon feel. I also feel as if I made the 'easy mode' too easy, which doesn't really let you explore the mechanics of venturing out of the comfort zone. Easy mode was kind of a 'last minute thing' because all but the last 5 hours was just me playing my own game without having anyone test it. And once I had someone test it, I realized just how lost they got and how frustrating the game became to deal with. I think my biggest mistake with easy mode was making the fire die slower. It takes the whole theme away because it's not really a sacrifice if all you're doing is putting junk in it.

Thanks for your feedback guys, I'll keep all this in consideration for future projects.

jamesdude 2018-12-05 00:03

I enjoyed it, I liked the temperature mechanic. It was a bit difficult to tell if I was dealing damage

aurel 2018-12-15 20:37

I didn't understand at first that any of my actions were actually doing anything at all... it took me until my second playthrough to realize that you don't have attack/use animations. Additionally, it was so dark that it was almost impossible to see the UI on the screen and tell what the individual items actually were. Additionally, it's really easy to throw your weapons outside of the level boundaries and then not have access to them anymore.

That said, the game is pretty tough on the non-easy mode. It would have been nice to get at least a bit of invulnerability during the bullet-hell portions.

All in all, good job.

dzmitry-pukhouski 2018-12-23 09:10

It was an interesting experience, to say the least, it got me some survival horror vibes, and old school at that when the managing your resources probably is the main objective and not killing monsters, but quite a few of them you must kill that is for sure :)

eli-delventhal 2018-12-24 00:19

Really solid entry. Felt like Smash TV where I had to throw my items away. Nice!

henry-denny 2018-12-24 11:19

Great game! Loved the concept but as mentioned in a previous comment I think it should be more apparent when you have killed an enemy since it is kinda hard to tell in the dark.

themadprogramer 2018-12-24 13:18

Okay this is probably one of the more straight-forward interpretations of the theme: Either use the junk you find to defend yourself or "sacrifice" them to stay warm.

The gameplay concept is pretty good, on paper. I mean there were plenty of tips on the menu but this game definitely deserves a manual even with the instructions on the Ludum Dare page. For instance the way that the heat bar works isn't all that obvious. (Goes up near fire depending on the intensity of the flame decreases when you stay in the cold dark for too long).

10 Minutes is WAY too long. I appreciate trying to make a long game since typically a lot of Ludum Dare games seems to end rather quickly, I'd have preferred a "best time" system or at least a variable time length (2/5/10 minutes could have been a bit better).

And finally as has been already stated the attacks could **REALLY** use either sound effects or particles since I can imagine that adding enemy hit animations would have detracted from the game's theme so I can understand why you went with what you went.

Still it's always nice to see a few bullet hells to see this genre isn't dead yet :P That gnome and "(For hard mode) You get to feel better about yourself." earned you a 5/5 on humor. And yeah being able to switch times is definitely a much appreciated game mechanic which I'd like to see all the more often in these types of survival games.

So yeah good job! I found your game through "Danger" and I think I just bumped it up into ranked, best of luck buddy!

nul 2018-12-25 09:34

@themadprogramer Yeah, one of the things I wanted to add but didn't have time for was allowing the player to set their own time limit. The attacks do have a sound effect, but, one thing I forgot to add is a sound for when an enemy got hit. I also wanted to add some kind of indicator that damage was being done as well, whether it was particles, damage numbers, or a health bar above them. And also an indicator/timer for enemy stuns would've made that mechanic much more clear.

Thanks for digging around the danger queue, it's much appreciated. I haven't had much free time to get my smart balance up. And thanks everyone for the feedback, it's all appreciated for sure!

Some other mistakes was making the 'easy' mode too easy. The fire dying slower than 'hard' mode was a big mistake, as upkeeping the fire in easy mode was so simple that a majority of the enemies that 'prefer cold' would just stay in the corners of the map. I feel as if this gives the game a bad impression because like... the most important feature is made significantly less important, even though it was just a change from 5 seconds per tick to 6. Speaking of the corners of the map, another mistake was letting the size of the 'warm area' scale that far, and the map could've been bigger. As well as making the rarer loot more common at longer distances, and less common near the fire.