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quichi 2020-04-20 23:37

Nice game! I personally love turn based RPGs so this one was pretty enjoyable for me.

I really like the art style for the game, the hand drawn aspect of each sprite made for a really unique vibe. The animations were quite simple but they made the game feel so much more alive, the particle effects for the spells were great as well :)

The balance is pretty good, I found myself switching between every spell pretty equally, there's no one spell that I thought was overpowered or underpowered.

I wish there were a little bit more visuals in terms of UI though. Things like health bars for player HP, icons for attacks, just things to reduce the amount of reading the player has to do in game would be really great.

I also think a 'queue' system would work great for this game, where you can line up multiple spells to cast in succession instead of waiting for a spell to finish and then rapidly clicking so you don't waste time idling. Maybe even just buffering one spell beyond the current one would help the gameplay feel a lot more fluid.

Overall, I thought the game was very enjoyable, great work! :)

edvard-sandquist 2020-04-20 23:42

Couldnt play on mac!

joaquinm 2020-04-20 23:43

A bit confusing at first but when you understand what is happening it is entertaining. nice job!

apos 2020-04-21 00:08

@edvard-sandquist Looks like there's something that gets copied into the "libraries" folder that shouldn't. I'm not sure what yet. To play the game, you can copy everything from the "libraires" folder back into the game's root folder.

Edit: Found the issue and update the builds.

minibobbo 2020-04-21 03:45

I enjoyed playing through this. The graphics and aesthetic was very nice. I liked the simplified and abstracted party members.

I made it through to wave 9 before someone died. I'm not exactly sure who it was though because it happened pretty quick. Eventually I couldn't keep up with all the damage that was coming in. I found the controls to be a little confusing. I thought that I was playing as all the party members at first but I figured it out quickly. I eventually settled into a rhythm that worked for me, but it did require me to completely ignore the enemies. I would occasionally throw a silence their way.

So constructive feedback: - It was sometimes difficult to tell what was happening because there was a lot going on at once. - The single sound for my healing was a good touch so I could easily tell when I could cast again. - Make the targetting more clear. There were multiple times I would click on my cleric and I must have hit the hitbox of the mage because he got my heal. That might have been what actually killed me in the end.

Very nicely done!

apos 2020-04-21 04:05

@minibobbo Thanks for playing the game and for the feedback! I also lost a few times there too before I found a good strategy.

For the targeting, you can see who you hover when their name changes to yellow (It's hard to notice and we only added that at the end.).

sanicspeedgames 2020-04-21 10:10

The graphics and the Sound were really nice. The problem was, that I didn't know what I did, because there weren't any feedback to the player.

deimort 2020-04-21 11:52

I liked the graphic style of your game, the music was also very nice. Sometimes I had trouble to see the effects of my spells but overall I enjoyed playing your game. Good Job !

simex 2020-04-21 12:35

I really enjoyed this, it's really hit the mood of some light-hearted adventuring fun! It's was a bit hard to understand that I had to click the characters to cast my spells (I know the tutorial tried to tell me) but since there was to feed back and I didn't get at first that I was playing as the cleric I just saw that stuff was happening, so I thought I just had to hover over the character I wanted to cast on.

pandepic 2020-04-21 13:10

@deimort thanks for the feedback, I agree the visual cues could be better, we were rushing to add things like that at the end and just ran out of time

@simex thanks for playing our game, your feedback definitely makes sense and it might have been good to highlight which character the player is at the beginning somehow

cosmiccrystalgames 2020-04-21 13:20

Controls were a little confusing at first, but once it all clicked it into place it became very addictive and satisfying flow! Graphics and music were gorgeous and make me want to go out on my own adventure :)

png 2020-04-21 15:20

Great graphics and music! controlls could be better explained and feedback is missing. for example a timer to seen when i can cast again. i ended up spamming keys and mouse clicks very hard^^

sofy35 2020-04-21 16:08

I am very surprise by this game o.o I found it very poetic, the music is nice and the characters are lovely ! I really found it nice to play. I take some time to understand how the spells are working during the fight but it's ok because I had time to get it ^^

blaiserascal 2020-04-21 20:11

The art and animation were gorgeous, and your music selection was very fitting. After the game loaded, I just sat in the menu for a while, enjoying the mood of the game.

During gameplay, at first I didn't understand the fact that spells took time to cast, that you could only cast one spell at a time, that you had to type the number every time, and that you had to click your target after you selected your spell. It may have helped if, say, your cursor changed when you selected a spell, and changed again when you were hovering over a legal target. I also couldn't tell what every spell did (how long did the silence effect last?).

Also, your decision to make spells cast at the end of the cooldown, rather than the beginning, was one I didn't understand. Since you have to choose your target at the beginning of the timer, you have to predict who is likely to be the most injured by the time the spell completes; but because unit injuries are based on random enemy actions, there's no way to know who will need healing, other than guessing.

One more thought: The wizard, archer, and knight did a lot of actions (defend! poison arrow! barrier!) but it felt like none of those actions actually influenced my decisions of what to do. You could consider cutting all that stuff from the game, and just make it the enemies that have special abilities.

Sorry for being so nitpicky. This was a fun game, and you all should be very proud!

apos 2020-04-21 20:45

Thanks for your feedback @quichi, @Joaquinm, @SanicSpeedGames, @CosmicCrystalGames, @png, @Sofy35, @BlaiseRascal ! It's so awesome that you guys played the game. After the voting period, I'll look into fixing those issues. The game was handcrafted using MonoGame.

erebus 2020-04-22 10:39

Really neat idea! Thanks for bringing it by the stream!

pandepic 2020-04-22 11:32

@erebus thanks for the helpful feedback =)

javasaurus 2020-04-22 13:35

Very nice game ! This game reminds me of some of those old flash based online games we had back in the mid 2000's. Very enjoyable, nice artwork and very fitting audio. One UI related comment I have is that it's very hard on the brain to read numbers everywhere. Maybe a visual indicator (for example a healthbar) could be better? Either way, thank you for making this !

pandepic 2020-04-22 13:44

@javasaurus thanks for the feedback, I agree health bars would have made the UI more clear.

elendow 2020-04-22 14:06

The concept is nice, altought it was hard to know WHO I was targeting to, it would been nice to have a selection mark, a hover, something to indicate the target of the spell I've selected. But the game is cool whatsoever, challenging.

taddl 2020-04-22 18:33

I really like the graphics especially the animated backgrounds. The music is also very thematic. It is a nice take on the theme.

ursagames 2020-04-23 06:02

Hello! Your game was played during my stream!

If you happened to miss me playing the game, you can go to this spreadsheet to find what timestamp I played your game https://tinyurl.com/yau8hjzn

And then look in my latest videos and find your game being play (after the current stream ends) https://www.twitch.tv/ursagames/videos

rhoka 2020-04-23 06:11

Fun little experience! The main thing I would say is that the UI is a little basic and a bit hard to understand what's happening. If there was some sort of indicator when I hover over each person to see who I'm about to select would be great. All the hand drawn art was amazing! Great job!

apos 2020-04-23 20:17

@ursagames I watched your stream and I really appreciate your feedback you gave. It's great to get your perspective since you like to play support roles. It would be really cool to add more depth to the game through combos, mana, etc.

@rhoka Yeah, we did the UI really fast. There actually was a hover indicator, but it's hard to see (the names turn yellow.). We added the yellow hover ~30 minutes before the end of the jam. :D

aurel300 2020-04-24 22:44

We streamed your game with Danae: [link to Twitch VOD](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/599171054?t=03h32m23s) (approximate timestamp)

Nice game! The concept is pretty clear. Maybe the most obvious thing to imporve would be better UI feedback, and allowing the player to select targets by clicking the name rather than the graphics (which seemed a bit unreliable). Also could use some actual casting animation rather than just the small countdown above the cleric's head.

apos 2020-05-24 02:27

@aurel300 Your stream was awesome!

apos 2020-05-24 02:28

Last week, I discovered a game that's like our game but better. It's called Healer's quest: https://store.steampowered.com/app/598490/Healers_Quest/

I'm surprised at how similar it looks.