emberushi 2022-04-05 00:20
The witch girl is cute, and the slime boss is terrifying when it becomes bullet hell.
There were some close calls, but I managed to beat the boss.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD50 → Slime Showdown
By toc, Laurens and ruud-cremers
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 349 | 3.79 | 45 | |
| Fun | 216 | 3.81 | 46 | |
| Innovation | 879 | 3.11 | 45 | |
| Theme | 1071 | 3.27 | 45 | |
| Graphics | 433 | 3.96 | 46 | |
| Humor | 759 | 2.82 | 39 | |
| Mood | 771 | 3.41 | 42 |
The witch girl is cute, and the slime boss is terrifying when it becomes bullet hell.
There were some close calls, but I managed to beat the boss.
Fun!! I loved the look of the enemies. Felt very much like a classic dungeon game, and having the boss constantly follow you with all the little enemies about is very fitting for the theme!
Really like the art in this game! The feel of the controls are good too! With the mood the art creates I really miss some sound effects and music to really cement the mood.
This one was really fun! I was almost dissapointed to beat the boss because I wanted to explore the upgrade system further. The connection to the theme could be stronger, and the experience would have been made that much better with the addition of sound effects, but I understand that's difficult in the time constraints. The gameplay itself was incredibly solid however. For me the strongest aspect was the graphics/user interface, which was intuitive and looked fantastic. Really nice work on this one guys!
I did it!! That was super fun! That slime boss just got scarier and scarier the more hurt it became. Also I loved the design of the familiars, they're so cute!! Great entry and definitely has potential to be something more!
Very good little game, it was a really pleasant experience! At first I feared that the game was too easy, but once the slime boss starts to spit projectiles at your face the game really offers a nice challenge.
One thing that I would point as a problem is the lack of feedback given, especially when the players lose life. As the game doesn't have sounds implemented, a small screenshake, or visual effect would have been a good addition (I had a moment where I thought "well this game isn't that hard" then saw that I had 15% health remaining lulz).
But despite that, the game really is excellent. Special mention to the pixel art which is just excellent. Great job from all of you!
What a great game!
You've got a really good loop here, every time I thought I was getting too strong or the game was too easy it would throw a new curveball with enemy variations or the toxic clouds - really kept me on my toes!
The skeleton mage is my favorite mob and I'm a little disappointed that they didn't have any recolored variants like the other enemies did. Then again, when Papa Slime starts shooting back I suppose you don't need the enemy mage anymore.
When things started to get a little frantic it was sometimes hard to look away from what was going on to check if I could afford the next upgrade I needed. If the player can afford an upgrade, you might be able to give its border a soft glow or pulse or something so the player can see it from their peripheral. The coloured text helps, but I still have to look away to check it.
Overall your game is very stylish and I'm glad I got a chance to play it!
Thanks for the lovely feedback, everyone. Glad you're enjoying our game.
Due to time constraints we had to cut our plans for audio. Although we didn't have a sound savvy person in the team anyway.
@bougiebirdie there is actually a recolored and stronger Skeleton Mage, but it appears pretty late in the game. I suspect you killed the boss before you got to that point ;)
@mrpouletbzh indeed, more visual or auditory feedback was something on our list. We had to scrap it to make the deadline, sadly.
@ruud-cremers Dang it, I guess that's what I get for being too good at video games ;) I'll have to replay it just so I can see my best boy
Really fun! The mecanism of upgrading as you wish and the fact that the progression is calculated by the boss's remaining health is really cool! I am going to play a bit longer :D
Great game, cute artstyle with cool pixelart! But i have some problems with game's view range, it soooo small that my eyes hurts when something new enters in my range (playing in fullscreen), bullet hell doesnt help in that either. c:
Delay the inevitable butt getting kicked. I liked the progression system, especially how it was kinda random what your next option would be + abilities. Art was really nice too. Wish i had some music and sounds to go along with, but perhaps in Version 2.0?
Great graphics, great concept. I felt overwhelmed by the boss and then died... it definitely seemed inevitable. I am surprised to see people beat them! Kinda makes me want to try again, lol.
Great idea. I liked that the end boss was constantly visible. Really added to it.
I love the way this game progresses as you get closer to the end. I thought it was very well balanced, and the perfect difficulty. I wish there were audio, but I understand how time constraints can be. :smile: Great work, all of you! I especially love the style and artwork.
Would of loved audio in this, I feel like it would of brung the game to life so much!
Great game though, first time around I got the boss down to like 6%, second time around beat it in 419seconds (almost 420 hehe)
Big fan of the upgrading, not too much of a fan of the melee, I felt the best tactic was to just dodge and hold shoot haha but great entry, well done!
ooh, this is a fun boss fight game! I love the enemy designs, and the character's design especially! The background art is really well made, and I feel like it's underappreciated how much work must've gone into it. It looks great! Nice work all around.
The familiars are really cute. The game feels smooth. Took me a while to understand that I can simply hold down a mouse button :D
Cool concept. Enjoyed the upgrade system. Wish I got to do more of them before I died!
A simple but very fun game. Although it took me three attempts to kill the boss XD
Great art, gameplay was solid and challenging near the end. Loved the different powers and the fact that they changed as you progressed. The ever present danger of the slime was fun.
Polished, well-balanced game! Nice take on the theme. Really nice art, audio would have made it even better (probably not enough time though!). Congrats on the submission.
Love the pixel art, the game has a good pace, it starts slowly and take his time so I can understand the mechanics but when the boss begins to shoot bullets it begins to be a bit hard but more fun. I find that the character hurtbox is a bit too large but maybe it's because I am too used to play danmaku and when you get hurt the feedback miss some impact, I die because I didn't notice that I have taken too much damage. Apart from this small details it's a really fun game with good ideas, good job !
slime showdown.png
YES VICTORY! Super cute game. Loved the witch girl, and the summons were cute. would have like sound but you did opt out so taking that complaint off. Well polished, and the powerups were super satisfying!
A good, complete game that wasn't too difficult. I liked it! A good amount of upgrades (I didn't even get them all by the end, the more the better in my opinion) and enemy variety. The graphics were well done and consistent. It was an interesting choice to include the boss right off the bat - it felt a bit weird at first, but I got used to it and it wasn't a bad choice in the end. The gameplay is a bit generic in the sense that I've played very similar games in the past but the setting of witchcraft and wizardry mixed it up a bit.
I got close to dying at multiple points but managed to beat it on the first try nonetheless, so kudos for making it the perfect difficulty for me!
This game is genuinely addictive! Keep wanting to go back in and take down more of that slime! Kind of stating the obvious that sound fx would improve it, but maybe there's something to be said for having no sound if you don't have time to do it well, who knows. Really fun game to play, that's the important thing.
The gameplay is really good and makes you want to play again. The visual arts fits perfectly the audio. The only thing I would change is the color palette. Sometimes it was hard to tell which bullet was friendly, enemy or just some XP orbs. Defining a clear space of colors for each element really helps to read the game easily.
Great job!
Nevermind my comment on the audio, I had another game in a tab playing some music... But the art is still awesome :)
Great visuals and a ton of upgrades. The difficulty was good too, but I feel like there was some game juice (like audio, more particles or screen shake missing though)
Amazing work! This was so fun to play! I really got into the game and tried again and again! The art is really good looking and the controls feel really good! The game is balanced really well also! Such a nice game! Thank you for making this!!
Nice game, very well balanced! I went for a full melee+familiar stack build and got the boss down to 11% HP on my second attempt :D The pixel art is super cute and well done as well, all around a great well rounded entry!
Solid Entry, cool graphics and gameplay runs pretty smoothly. Add some juice and you got Vampire Survivor V2.0!
This was seriously fun! Engaging, enjoyable gameplay and nice art. Good work!
Solid entry! I was a bit confused, I didn't see any player's healthbar? The gameplay feels nice, I'm not entirely sure about the theme fit? Cause you can still win, maybe?
You got a nice balance, big up to that! Good work!
Loved your entry! I feel like we both went for a really similar vibe with our games: behatted wizard fighting slimy dudes in top down style. It's almost like if you used my art as a rough draft and then made this beautifully animated masterpiece. I will say, I do have the edge on you when it comes to audio, but without that, you'd have me beat on every front. Well done!
The difficulty curve is really nice, I think it took.... five tries? Looks like completely avoiding melee upgrades to get health, familiar, and ranged attack upgrades is a good strategy!
Screenshot 2022-04-16 165643.png
The pixel art is absolutely fantastic, and the gameplay is very polished! Making it so you can pause the game to buy the upgrades *and* pointing out the upgrade system once the player has enough XP to buy upgrades for the first time is really well-made. It annoys me when games try to make you juggle between staying alive and buying upgrades, being able to pause the game takes away a lot of stress and makes it exponentially harder to accidentally buy the wrong upgrade and screw your chances of winning.
Personally I didn't mind the lack of audio, with how many enemy bullets were hitting me when the boss went berserk right at the end I don't think my ears would have been able to handle that many damage sounds.... 😅
Nice game, I especially liked the pixel art. As other people said, the connection with the theme could be stronger. And maybe we would fire the missiles automatically, rather than keeping the mouse button pressed?
Screenshot 2022-04-16 181742.png I found ignoring the boss until I have upgraded a bunch of times seems to make the game easier? I love the arts, and the control feels good. I do think a bit of background music would improve the mood a lot. Also, at first I thought the familiar summoning glyph was an attack and I was panicking to dodge it. Just a nit-pick but might as well share it.
This was really really fun!
Amazing amount of upgrades. The amount of XP I received vs the cost of the upgrades seemed very tightly tuned, and the enemies scaled in difficulty really well with the amount of damage I was dealing, very impressive!
Really like the idea of having a boss right from the beginning of the game as well. I mostly avoided him till i got stronger. Loved having familiars to do my fighting for me as well!
Would have been AMAZING if it had some audio to back it all up.
Very well done!
@guilloteam the fight versus the boss is the inevitable, not the victory/death 😜 You can postpone the fight as long as you want, but eventually he will catch up to you.
@daniel-mak yes, that is by design. We want the player to run away and level up before facing the boss. We had some additional ideas to discourage the player from fighting the boss at the start which we had to cut.
@ruud-cremers I see! That's fair :D
Good game! As other have said, audio would probably be the #1 best addition. Also having no health bar made it so death always came as a surprise. I think auto-continuous fire would be a good idea too. Movement feels good though, and the art is fantastic!
I like how the familiars keep on spawning, so if you manage them right you can build up a whole flock.