oldknivestale 2020-04-21 12:10
Beautiful game, the writing really helps the atmosphere too. Great job!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD46 → Blood On The Snow
By wolfrug, Vesper and Joe Wright
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 576 | 3.77 | 87 | |
| Fun | 1284 | 3.28 | 88 | |
| Innovation | 1218 | 3.28 | 87 | |
| Theme | 1726 | 3.41 | 88 | |
| Graphics | 432 | 4.16 | 89 | |
| Humor | 1593 | 2.50 | 75 | |
| Mood | 244 | 4.00 | 88 |
Beautiful game, the writing really helps the atmosphere too. Great job!
Great game, and absolutely amazing atmosphere! Minor nitpick: I found the volume to be way too loud, but that's not important. Looking forward to some updates !
Wow. For 72h this is extremly impressive! Very very good job!
Good writing really helps to get the mood of the game. I don't know if this was intentional but your game reminded me a lot of another game called The Banner Saga. Sound effects besides the music would've also been nice. You did a really good job to finish it all in just 72 hours
Unbelievably ambitious for a 3-day jam! You even have a "continue" feature!
That said, the core mechanic here feels totally borked. The flavor text says that the vampire cannot move & attack in one round, but it could — and I couldn't get past the first battle.
very nice game! unfortunately glitched for us twice, instead of the attack and stun functions the hunter started walking around even though we were out of moves, but overall, good concept and all very well executed
Really good story. The fights didn't feel very polished. It was surprising to find a save/load progress.
@maxathon It cannot attack, move AND turn (to attack) in one turn, so with some positioning you can avoid getting hit. Granted, it's....a little rushed. I finished the skills last, and didn't exactly test them terribly much :D Thanks! @petrifiedapple Yeah, I think it sometimes remembers moves from the previous turn somehow. I should look into that (at not 2 AM before submitting)! Thanks! @nachodlv Full disclosure: as mentioned up there we used Inkle's Ink for the narrative bits, and they literally have a SaveStory function that bundles the whole thing up in a string json file. Sooooo...it was surprisingly easy to implement :-D Thanks!
The graphics and atmosphere of this is amazing! the combat felt a little clunky I kept missing because I was facing the wrong way, but couldn't get my character to face the right way?
It also took me a while in the start to notice I had to click through the text lol, but the writing/atmosphere along with the style of the game are awesome and seem like they could be a complete game!
Man, this is amazing. For 72h this is incredible! I love the feel of it, the mood is perfect and gameplay engaging! Lovely game!
Seems very promising, but I also couldn't get through the first battle :( Also, I was confused at first because I kept trying to click the actions once they appeared, I didn't realize there was more text before the battle actually started. And it looks like there's a bug where the vampire dissapears, even when not playing in fullscreen (alright, who put a mirror in the game? :laughing:). Really nice graphics, writing, and mood though!
@deylinia Right-click to turn (costs 1 AP)! I could probably make it so if there's no-one to attack, you simply can't attack, but then that might also be confusing. Ahh, game design. Thanks though!
@adamv Watch your APs; try to keep 3 in reserve for a Move action unless you got lucky and got in a Stun/Stake attack. Remember turning also takes 1 AP. You can 100% win by simply taking one step to the side, ending turn, turning to face vampire, attempting a stake/shooting off a knife throw (not a heavy attack though, as it takes 2 AP!), and if the stake works, you can stay and do damage the next turn, otherwise Move to the side, even if you didn't do any damage at all that turn. Sooner or later luck will be on your side.
It's a very nice atmosphere. The battle music is also cool. ：）
It was a little hard to tell because the enemy characters disappeared.
A lot of game for 3 people having 72 hours. I liked the music and graphics. The game was too long for a short play through, but that how the game is. The first level was too hard and had too much text to read. A lot accomplished for a game jam, good job!
Really cool atmosphere built up with the great drawings and building music! The wiriting is great and adds a lot to the story but in the first level there is a bit much to read, I found myself skipping towards the end. For 72hours this is a really sucessful game and you should all be very proud! x
Art has a very nice and interesting angle, the game is made really well and I like how you implemented a menu
Wow! I cant believe, you did this in just 72 hours. The atmosphere, the story, the graphics - very well done!
Nice atmosphere, the writing reminds me of some DnD based games. The graphics are good and the menu art is gorgeous. The combat system is heavily RNG based, but also strategic. Maybe make the max AP 6 and reward not using all AP in one turn by having one more the next ? If it ever releases as a full paid game, count me in.
This game looks amazing and the atmosphere is fantastic!! I struggled with combat though, and I couldn't figure out how to move the way I wanted to because it seemed like I needed to tap on the move action twice to determine where I wanted to move?
@makkurataichou Thank you! Yeah, first tap should show the path and second tap should confirm it, to prevent accidental moves to spots you didn't want to go. I could probably implement an "undo move" to make it all a bit smoother tho!
The graphics are absolutely amazing! well done!
I didn't get to experience the game because it wouldn't attack when I was in the first fight.
The art is great! A very complete game for 72h jam. At first it was a little hard to battle, but it gets more natural with time. Good job.
Pretty art and lovely music, but I couldn't figure out how to get past the first fight. It seemed like I couldn't turn the player, and if I selected move followed by attack, the player would move 4 spaces in a seemingly random direction. The game looked wonderful though, and I love the mixture of turn-based action with interesting story - with a little polish this should be a really good game!
It's so beautiful! I like it. Good job!
Playing the game more than once in a row meant you kept your previous rewards, that actually made it a lot harder to complete as your options would sometimes be 2-3 attacks for several turns with no defensive moves. The movement was a bit clunky, numerous times I would move, attack and then as I was going to hit end turn move away as I still have movement left.
I think you had a very interesting design there, really ambitious and would definitely like to see a more polished and more complete game. I want to see where this might go.
WOW, just WOW. The art is absolutely gorgeous; I was wowed at the 2D animations! You found a unique style and I think it was the right choice.
The combat took me a couple of deaths to understand (moving was a bit hard as I wasn't comprehending I had to click once to establish the number of tiles and then again to confirm, and a final time to turn around to be able to attack the vampire). Once understood I found it quite interesting as a mechanic and I was able to enjoy the entire thing!
The story is well-written and engaging, and the animations that go along with it have a lot of personality and add to the overall mood.
This is an impressive entry overall. I'm amazed. Good job!
When leveling up some of the text was unable to fit in the UI elements, and whenever there was snow on the screen there were areas where the particle emitter was not emitting (maybe there was a missing game object or the shape of the emitter was off?). Regardless, this is really well done. The music is very atmospheric, the story is compelling, the art is VERY good for a 72 hour jam. Could use some sound effects. Honestly with a little polish this would be the start of something awesome. For a jam entry this is hella complex and really well done. An intricate battle system and good animations / art, good music, good writing! Very well done!
> It's been two days since the fight in the town square. You still aren't sure how you made it out alive.
The narrator keeps putting thoughts into my head, yet it is wrong again! I know exactly why I made it out alive: **Mere unadulterated luck!**
*Positives first, positives first.* You've heard this from the others already: the visuals are spot on and the writing is nice. I'm reminded of Banner Saga and that is a good thing. Unfortunately the similarity to Banner Saga stops at the battle system.
*Negatives second, negatives second.* The battle system layers randomness on top of randomness. Skills are selected randomly per turn (cannot plan ahead), actions rely on random chance to succeed (stun actually works sometimes, but dodge never worked despite the advertised 50% success rate), and the werewolf *can* randomly dodge attacks (even backstabs **when stunned!**). The only way to win these fights is indeed to rely on luck and sheer repetition... Not enjoyable at all!
One layer of randomness is acceptable. Either the actions are selected randomly per turn, but they always succeed; or all actions are available, but they have a chance of failure. A system completely free of randomness (like the one in Banner Saga) probably wouldn't work great with a single character, or maybe I simply cannot imagine it at the moment.
Given that the battles are half of the content available, they should be stellar. Well, good effort of course, yet a shame.
It's pretty massive submission for 72 hours! Great job of putting everything together for such a short period of time. Writing is good but it's personally too much for me. It almost felt like visual novel with short battles. Speaking of which, I think they require a lot of balancing. For now you can die in 2 turns but stun works in 50% of situations. It is based only on luck. Nevertheless, good luck!
The graphics look really good, but it feels extremely broken. I suspect it's because of the controls or because the web build in Unity sometimes has breaking bugs depending on the browser (played in Firefox).
I cut it short and am holding off on voting because I couldn't get past the control issues to win the first battle. I could barely get movement in and it was near impossible to turn the character in the correct direction to actually attack the vampire bat character.
Wow such a great game i personally like if the story had a narration a turn based combat with a freedom to make moves and traps that's a nice edge :thumbsup: Good luck
I really tried to win the first combat, but i fear it is impossible, due to the fact that it's incredibly hard to put yourself in front of the beast and give it an attack. A shame, because i was really interested in the story and wanted to know/discover more...
By far the most impressive game I've played, leagues above the rest. It's amazing enough to make a good story-centered game, but you went and add a nice gameplay on top of that.
The combat mechanics could have deserved to be more explained (especially the part where the vampire cannot move, turn and attack in the same turn) but that's really nitpicking at this point.
Congratz on the submission !
Pros: I *really* like the style here. Probably the most atmospheric game (I'm a sucker for a good snowfall effect) I've seen and really reminds me of playing RPGs many years ago. The text+choices plus map combination works brilliantly. Would really like to see more of this.
Cons: The combat is insanely difficult. I managed the first encounter through dumb-luck (after about 20 attempts). The encounter outside the inn seemed to be unbeatable. What might work is being more like an old Amiga/PC game called Blade of Destiny; it's worth looking up the turn-based combat system it used on Youtube. That used AP to do various things like attack, move, change weapon, cast spells, use items, etc. It had a lot of complexity and worked really well.
Really nice Game, i liked especially the graphics and the the mood. I could not get through the second fight. XD
Cool concept! I love story-based and turn-based combat games, but the combat part was the hardest imo. Somehow I didn't have any strategy for defeating the enemy because I always died no matter what I do. The story and gameplay are interesting, It would be nice if more content added to the game and fix the combat system.
All the art is beautiful! UI is polished and looks great. Combat was maybe a little more difficult than I would have liked, but I am kind of bad with strategy games.
Stunning graphics and music. I love the battle system, but the second fight was impossible for me to win XD Anyway, really solid game! It's worth a subscription
Very cool game with an impressive amount of content. When the first battle started, I was clicking the battle UI a bunch and didn't realize I had to advance the dialogue before I could interact with the UI. It seems like the UI should be faded out or something until you can use it, or give you a message "read the dialogue!" if you click on it before finishing the dialogue. I was surprised that it allowed you to confirm move orders before you execute them, but if you clicked attack, it just ran the attack and spent your AP without a confirmation even when you weren't in range of anything. Maybe it could detect if your attack probably isn't going to hit anything and warn you before executing the command. There seems to be some sort of bug where if you use right click to face an enemy you somehow enter move mode and are forced to move again when your intention was to turn and then attack. In general though really impressive!
I loved both the graphics and the storytelling! Really engaging! very nice job on the game. The battle music was nice but if felt too loud in comparison to the rest of stuff (sort of took me by surprise the first time and deafened me somewhat ;)).
The wrong opening typographic quotation mark (the closing one used as opening one) in many places was bugging me a lot :laughing:
In some fights, depending on the positioning, UI elements were obscuring battlefield stuff, so I couldn't see - fro example - what the Vampire is buffing himself with. Maybe the UI elements should have some transparency or just be moved completely to the side of the battlefield.
@fabula-rasa The quotation marks bug me too! Only noticed it once the build was uploaded, but it seems to be some weirdness with the font. We're definitely on it. Likewise with the suddenly super loud battle music. All the transitions in that whole opening scene need some work really.
I think the UI will likely get a complete overhaul by the time we're through, but adding some transparency is a great idea. Thanks so much for playing and commenting, it's much appreciated. :smiley:
@julian-hartinger The sometimes invisible enemy really didn't help matters in the second fight. :laughing: We've fixed it now in the updated html5 version, and tweaked some of the basic interactions so hopefully things are a bit easier. Thanks for playing!
@g-a-gamestudio That's a pity. Not sure what it could be. Did you make sure the player character was facing their opponent? You right-click to turn, and it costs 1 AP. That might be the problem. Otherwise had you clicked through all the text that was showing on the right side of the screen? The fight doesn't really engage until all the text is gone (and I always forget about that myself XD). We've released an updated version with some fixes so you're welcome to give it another go. Either way, thanks for taking a look!
@red-ash The combat is definitely a bit more difficult that we expected. We've made some updates that hopefully make things run a bit smoother, but the path to success does involve a bit of strategy. The vampire can't move, turn to face you, AND attack, so generally it's best to exploit that and move around accordingly. It took me a few tries to get the hang of it as well. But I'm so glad to hear the game caught your interest! Hopefully you find the time to give it another try. :smile:
@scott-steffes That text/fight transition gets me every time as well, and it's definitely on the to-do list. Great idea about putting a blocker on the attack command until it can actually be used. I think it's safe to say the whole fight system as it currently stands needs a fair bit of adjustment. XD But that's why all this feedback is so great! Thanks so much for taking the time to play it through, we greatly appreciate it.
@larsspawn The best strategy I've found is to exploit the fact that the vampire can’t move, turn to face you, AND attack in one go. Move around with that in mind and you'll get the hang of it. But things could definitely be clearer, and it's something we'll be working on in future. We originally had at least three separate locations planned (but then realised that was completely insane for 72hrs), so there will definitely be more content at some point. :fingers_crossed: Thank you for playing!
The game reminded me The Banner Saga - it's one of my favorite games! But the control in the fight is a bit strange, if a character doesn't stand face to face then he doesn't hit the enemy, but it's not obvious how to move so you can stand face to face. Anyway everything looks amazing!
@kiddychris Ah yes, we're working on making the fights clearer and more intuitive. There are instructions, but there's a ton of text in the intro and it's easy to miss them. Basically you right click in the direction you want to turn, and the action costs 1 AP point (so if you've used it all up on other things, you have to wait for the next turn). And thanks, the Banner Saga is glorious, and definitely something to aspire towards, we're flattered it came to mind. Thanks so much for playing!
@davidsheadgames Ha, thanks for holding off. We definitely had a couple of issues with the fight system, and some layering issues causing invisibility etc. But we've just released an update that hopefully addresses the most obvious problems. To turn the character you need to use right-click (costs 1 AP), and also keep in mind that the Vampire cannot move, turn AND attack in one go, so with some strategic manoeuvring one can generally get the drop on him. But yes, if you want to give it another try we'd love to hear your thoughts. Thanks again. :smile:
Very nice setting and graphics!
As others have said, it's a bit too difficult, do it seems you fixed this in the post LD update. Some sound and more feedback when landing attacks would be great - they could easily be a lot more satisfying with some juice. I thought it was fairly hard to outsmart the enemy.
This game is beautiful. Most of my feedback is mentioned above, but I will note that I was somehow able to turn before clicking thru the text but not use other action points. The text is great, if a little long. In a fleshed out game, I'm guessing you could space it out a bit. Really nice entry. Congrats!
@vesper oh I see! I agree about the text - it's a bit too much especially when you're not an English speaker
Addictive and polished! Well done :D! Took a while for me to figure out the move & turn system, but after that it was a blast! I played the original submission and had some trouble with attacking after moving, but I saw that the post-LD version has a confirm :thumbsup: Perhaps some visual feedback when trying to click the actions when the dialogue is still going could help, since at first I thought some of the buttons didn't work correctly (minor thing, since it didn't take long to figure it out after all). Overall a really good submission, impressive! :sunglasses:
realy polished and complet, great works in these delays.
very ambisious game feels pretty unique and the battle system is pretty clasic, great job :D
Great graphics and interesting concept. Nice music, atmosphere and gameplay. My only complaint is about the combat system. It could use a bit more of tweaking and better explaination in-game. Overall great game!
Very ambitious, but I couldn't get to grips with the combat system. The range of most cards wasn't very clear.
Love the writing though, really well done and a very impressive scope.
Wow the art, music and story here are really impressive. The combat was a bit confusing, was hoping it would play more like a normal RPG battle. Really love the mood and narrative/world your created, nice work!
The story and game is very impressive. The art is nice and the game is surprisingly long for a game jam game. Well done!