ludumdaredevil 2021-04-26 20:44
This game is amazing! I think it has a pretty good chance of winning.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD48 → Descendants
By andidebob, Chron and Javier Belmer
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 33 | 4.30 | 61 | |
| Fun | 137 | 4.01 | 61 | |
| Innovation | 166 | 3.97 | 61 | |
| Theme | 175 | 4.19 | 61 | |
| Graphics | 119 | 4.43 | 61 | |
| Audio | 71 | 4.23 | 61 | |
| Mood | 27 | 4.50 | 61 |
This game is amazing! I think it has a pretty good chance of winning.
Awesome game! Reminds me a little bit of Trine :D
Amazing atmosphere; the lighting, the size of the dwarves, the art, it all feeds into the whole feel. I couldn't manage to get past a certain point, but the game is cool enough that I'm going to try again later.
Oh wow ! awesome game !
The combination of very tiny characters, a lot of elements in front of them and the attacks of the enemy that takes forever to strike can make the combat quite hard, especially during the last room.
It took me around 20 tries before completing it, despite getting very close on some attempts I would always end up dying by some enemy that started attacking when I passed it a few seconds ago, with some bad luck this enemy would be behind an element of the scenery and well, it feels like it could be improved.
The aiming with the ranger is very hard to pull off in combat : you have to dodge both the arrows and the melee enemies, but while aiming you can't move and it can take a few seconds for the cursor to get back where you want it, and you have to be very precise to hit your target. So unless you can make the perfect shot when the cursor first come up or when it just starts to come down you will most likely have to miss, kill a bunch of enemies before getting another chance at taking the shot, by which time more enemies have spawned, etc...
I think this could be just a question of timing, maybe sometime the respawn delay could be longer so that you have time to take aim. Or maybe have a discrete auto aim lock, if you shoot close enough to a trajectory that would hit someone, it modify the shot a bit so that it does hit.
On the other hand, the warrior is kinda OP, you just have to run back and forth while spamming Ctrl, since there's not really a cooldown on you attack ability it destroys everything on its way. Might be worth to have a cooldown every 3 attacks, so it doesn't become too difficult but still involves a bit of thinking.
One more minor thing was when switching character, the change of velocity feels weird, especially when you are in mid air, or when you just landed but the other characters are still in the air. Instead of teleporting the character you were controlling and taking the place of the next, it could feel better (and prevent the player from infinitely teleporting back in the air if they mash the shift key) if you teleported the new character and override its velocity with the one you previously had, and let the previous character move toward its place in the queue.
Now onto the pros, the mood is incredibly cool, I love the scale of the environment, the feeling of greatness and mystery with the music is very present. It does remind me of the mines of Erebor. ;)
The lighting is really nice, it's not too difficult to see but it still gives the sensation of not seeing much, the fact you can temporarly increase the radius of the light helps mitigating this issue.
Being able to see the particles when you kill an enemy through the scenery is really nice, don't have to wait in a visible area to see if an enemy will come out at some point.
Having the different sounds for each character helps a lot when you're not sure which one you had and how many switch does it take to get to the one you want.
Looking forward to seeing the next part of King Lamborg's mines (got that right ?) !
UPDATE: To those who are currently playing or have played our game and rated/shared their thoughts, thank you so much!! It means a lot!
To those who wish to play on their macOS, DISCLOSURE:
It won't work simply unzipping with your built-in Archive Utility app, because it leaves the executable file damaged and unable to open, and an error message pops up.
If you wish to download and play the game, you'll need to first download a third party app like "The Unarchiver" (https://theunarchiver.com/).
It takes a few seconds, and it's a guaranteed upgrade from the built-in app Apple gives you (not to mention it opens a multitude of other otherwise un-openable formats).
Thank you so much again, and I hope you continue to enjoy it as we have making it! I look forward to trying out your own games as well!!!
I love this tiny pixel art and the background art NOICE
It a great submission. The mood is great, the mechanics with characters is interesting. However, in my opinion, it hard to navigate sometimes because of the number of obstacles in front of characters. In addition, I deem, that it would be better to make ranger aim automatically.
Truly a cool game, I really love the atmosphere, the style, and the mood! Great Job!
@javier-belmer Hello, I'm having a hard time installing your game for Mac OS X. I used "The Unarchiver" to unzip it and read the ReadMe.rtf file as you said. I try to open the app, but it crashes "Descendants is damaged and can't be opened. You should move it to the Trash". I'm running macOS Sierra, which is a little out of date; It's either a mac version incompatibility problem or the build release. If you know what might the problem be, lemme know :smile:
You guys definitely have good taste. I really loved the game. 5/5 on everything.
@crowvax It's not the build release cause it's worked on other macs, my own included.
Do me a favour:
Right click on the ZIP file, go to 'Get Info' and see what apps it's set to use to unzip. The archive has to look like this: ZIP File look.png
How does the Descendants document (not folder) look? like an actual Unix executable file? or a blank document?
Oh wow, that's a NICE pixel art, those tiny characters are awesome!
Awesome atmosphere ! the graphic work pretty well, love it ! :D
lotr vibe + lost vikings mechanics. LOVE IT! shift as a hero swap key is not comortable for me, but it's okay. Liked music and voices of heroes (sound like old wcII orks modified lol)
I loved your music. I loved the graphic of the game.
I really enjoyed the athmosphere of the game. Having 4 dwarfs each of them with their own skillset was a really good idea. I'm suprised how well this game looks and feels - and i'm also suprised, that you did not charge any money for it - i would have payed for such a quality (PS: i know, game jam games are free - but you get what i mean)
The controls are fluent, feel on point. The tutorial is wonderfuly placed, was not boring, told me everything i need to know.
The difficulty feels challenging - which is good. Having checkpoints helps preventing frustation, so this is fine.
I might be nice, if you add another button to switch dwarves in both "directions" instead of only one direction, so you can switch through your dwarves faster.
Thank u for that game!
cool game, love the pixel art! the tiny characters makes everything feel so big and mysterious 😳
Very awesome. Great art style, music and sound. Gameplay was really fun. I could see myself spending way too much tie playing this game. Good job.
The atmosphere of the game was great. Really enjoyed the final LOTR Moria feel to it. The zoomed out aspect of the game was a bit tricky to play with, but also I think it being zoomed out added a lot to the atmosphere.
This might very well be the best game from this jam I've stumbled upon so far!! Very well made, and I adore the style and atmosphere!
This was a lot of fun! I specially liked the environmental storytelling you have going on. Goes pretty well along the lighting giving the whole game its great mood. Keep up the good work!
EDIT: It would have been nice to be able to switch to a specific character using num keys or somerhing of the sort, since at times it can be difficult to notice which character you have selected.
I like the Game, and like @tobias-froihofer said, it reminds me quite abit of trine. The atmosphere is awesome.
But I found the combat to be quite hard: Melee enemies hiding behind the scenerie caught me of guard more than one time. But the enemies the ranger had to deal with were even more complicated: You have to get into position, doge their arrows and then kill them before they shoot again. Sometimes they'd stop shooting but most of the time I had to run around quite a bit. Maybe fix the angle the ranger uses to shoots? I realy don't know how this could be improved? Or maybe the Warior blocks one shot while the ranger aims?
But besides the slightly too hard combat I think this is fantastic!
This game is immensely cool. The levels feel massive, and they make very good use of all that space. I really enjoyed it!
Atmosphere and art is fantastic - the world feels very lived-in and real (it would certainly fit in the Hobbit). Plus, the sparkling veins of gold are a great feature to have - I always appreciate hiding collectibles in games, just out of the reach of the path.
Would it be possible to display a range circle for archers, when the Light-bearer's ability is used? I wouldn't want to add unnecessary clutter to the UI, but it could be useful to mark out good spots to set up the Archer's attacks.
Incredibly fun little game. Stunning atmosphere!
i seemed to have issues switching characters not sure what that was about. though the game looks and feels pretty good
fully in contention for the win in my opinion. absolutely marvellous
What a great game!! The concept and execution is just so well done, I absolutely love the art and audio that create an amazing atmosphere, the mechanic is so clever and fun. Definitely one of the best game I've played! Great worK!
I had some trouble seeing the game. Playing fullscreen isn't an option, and the default resolution for windowed was super tiny. The game was interesting in terms of the character selection and abilities, though I'm pretty crap, and seemed to die with one shot! I would like to have seen some visual / text indication of what character was selected. Otherwise a pretty interesting and moody game!
I loved the intro and the immersive tutorial. Sorry I couldn't play longer than several minutes
In term of control switching characters sequentially was a bit cumbersome. Nice mood!
Very cool game, but I think there should have been a checkpoint before the final fight
Fans of LOTR, seems like. :D
If y'all don't release the full version on steam, I'm gonna cry. Great game, 12/10.
This is trully amazing. Not gonna lie, I had some hard times while facing the battles, but that was mistake on my end :) The mood and minimalistic approach is really fresh and I would certainly love to see more! This goes to my top list from this jam for sure! Great Job!
Nice little game! It's a bit hard to differentiate who you are controlling since the sprite size is so small. Also a bit more checkpoints would be appreciated. Otherwise good work!
Really amazing and innovative game. I loved how you introduced the developer names and the mechanics, appears really cinematic. The music and sound were great too. They made me feel like really being in a huge cave.
I like the concept, a game like Trine or Lost vikings with different characters with different skills is really cool, and the atmosphere of the game is super nice. I felt like the characters were TOO SMALL and the foreground covered too much screen, it was very hard to see which character I was moving. Also, changing the characters is a bit hard, maybe a shortcut to every character (using the 1,2,3,4 numbers, for example) could improve that.
Overall the game is cool, with those tweaks making it easier to play I think you have a super cool game.
SMOLL LITTLE SQUISHY PETIT MINI SHORT TEENSY TEENY TINY BABY ADVENTURES! Thanks for submitting it! -PomoTheDog
Thanks for bringing your game by my stream for playtesting! If you’d like to revisit the play and commentary you can view the highlight at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1007523293
I loved the artistic decision to make the characters extremely tiny. Makes play a little unfortunately challenging sometimes, but I appreciate that you committed to a unique vision.
Amazing and impressive game. Will end up high in a lot of categories.
First game i give all 5's - ever!
Really loved the graphics in this one! The soundtrack was atmosptheric and the gameplay solid. My only issue is that I had trouble knowing which character I was controlling, which made the game really hard for me.
holy sh*t -- all fives
Hello! Your game was played on stream ( https://www.twitch.tv/ursagames/videos ) on 5/03 (Day 2 of LDJAM streams).
You can find the timestamp of when your game was played here: https://tinyurl.com/LDJAM48-ursa
*I love this so much.* Thank you for letting me play this on stream. [Here's the start of that clip](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1009307903?t=0h19m57s) and [here's where I actually start playing](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1009307903?t=0h24m44s). The way the sound and visuals contribute to the mood is stellar.
Everything seemed pretty well communicated (other than the various keyboard arrows needing some quick decoding), though I was scattered enough that I kept moving my hands off the correct keys and forgetting the character descriptions. Much of that's on me. Of course it'll be better if you make those descriptions more accessible in the game itself through menus for people needing a clue on which dwarf is which. Because they are so small, a lot does rely strictly on color coding--so since you were planning to continue with this, I recommend you test it with a colorblind audience. Maybe-especially or maybe-less-so with your two very different attack types being red and green; I could see confusion being stronger there but continuing further since they both can damage enemies.
One of the greatest entries this time, if not the best ! Well done !
Very cool little game with brilliant visuals. The lighting is really very atmospheric. I see you added a post jam fix already which addresses my desire to see which character is selected. Will you continue working on it moving forward?
-Fun: (3.5) the game feels a bit short despite having a acouple of levels, the tutorial is the longest part.
-Innovation: (4) I don't know many entourage based plattfomers ... every dwarf has his set of abilities and the group work as one in in a interresting manner
-Theme: (4.5) Moving downwards is part of the traversing in almost every level
-Grafics: (4.5) simple fitting artstyle not affraid of pitchblack darkness
-Audio: (4) Settings for Music & SFX Soundtrack fits Dwarf grunting soppurts you in selection
-Humor: (3) "Har har har" - the dwarves makes one smile
-Mood: (4) The Underground environments feel like dark deep chasms.
-Overall: ( 3.5 + 4 + 4.5 + 4.5 + 4 + (3) + 4 -> 4 )
The Points I would like to rate:
-Quality/Polish: (4) The main menu is neat, especially for having settings (Audio) nice tutorial & credits scenes in the beginning there should be a way to end & restart the game (e.g. via a menu)
-Genre: (4,5) There are not many Plattfoners, where you control a group at once. It is a interesting amalgation of different ideas, sharing with a lot of other fighting J&Rs Safepoints, various equipment, lighting, collectables etc.
-Szenario: (3.5) The mission of any level is pretty clear, traverse from top left corner to lower right in order to advance to the next level. This is pretty solid, though there could have been more use to gold veins, checkpoints and obstacles.
-Setting: (4.5) Jump into dungeon diving with a daring leap towards dark depths. Ancient dwarven ruins overun by nasty goblins - there are drums in the deep.
-Story(telling): (4) The text tell you the most you need to know, the environment & characters are readable to tell you the rest. In the case you might continue this project, a narrator could tell some parts of the story.
Gameplay:
-Controls: (3.5) It's cool that there are controlschemes for Keyboard & Controller, and for keyboard has multiple layouts. (The current postjam layout with J & K and no arrow keys, is inferior imo.) For the controls for choosing a dwarf, I have similar feelings like to the system in "the shadow below Providence", where I would like to have a layout like WESD, so that the topleft button would be the topleft tentacle etc. Selecting a dwarf by hitting a key multiple times, can get you in (actually uneccessary) trouble with goblins. Imho the best solution for choosing the dwarf you want is by selecting them via number keys (for controller arrow/direction). Btw I have a electric stove/cooker with four fields that have a similar control scheme, handling multiple pans & pots ... made me biased.
-rules: (3.5) jump height for any dwarf is a bit inconsistent, it seems you need keep the space key pressed & time the arrowkeys more cautious. The red dwarf should hit enemies within range and close to him (goblins can underrun his range) Aiming with the line being influenced by mouse/stick movement would be the best for the green dwarf imho
-complexity: (4) There are four completely diffrent characters for differnt usecases. Goblins have two variants, there could be one more... Although the levels are all dark af, they vary in interesting shapes.
-difficulty: (3.5) sometimes the environment obscures to much, while you have to fight goblins there should be checkpoints before challenging situations
-Content: (4) There are quite a lot of levels, the Tutorial has the majority of the current levels, and could be compressed so there could be more "meat" for the game.
I really liked this, the atmosphere was amazing! I liked how small I felt in this huge place, but also at the same time wished I could see the characters a little bit closer! Maybe for a full version a dynamic camera system can work well to allow for close ups and zoomed out scale shots.
I wished there were a little more for each character to do, especially the mage felt a bit like a passenger. I was also not a fan of the rangers aim mechanic, I think maybe using a mouse for aim and mapping the interact button to left mouse and switching to mouse wheel can work?
I hope you continue working on this, as I would love to explore the mines further!
Liked how small the characters were, allows you to use your imagination more on what they would look like and also makes the levels feel grander in scale which made the exploring more ominous. The use of the 4 characters with different strengths was an interesting mechanic and liked how you could quickly flip between them all to use and progress further. Did find it a bit difficult at times when I came up on to enemies and felt like I was killed before I knew i was being attacked, so that took some getting used to on being prepared and paying attention.
A good implementation of an idea. I liked the graphics, the sound and the overall ambience of the game. The controls are well done, although at first I was a little confused, but nothing that would hinder the experience. It is exciting to walk around the scene in search of challenges. A really well done job. Congratulations.