Samurai Halloween

deniz-aras 2022-10-02 22:19

You got some nice ideas however execution is a bit bland. When I booted the game first think I tried to do is to attack Jack o lanterns. They are easy to mix with enemies at the beginning. I thought attacking enemies when there are other enemies between will destroy the enemies that are in between, that would be nice but it didn't. Last critique for the mechanics is the targeting. Sometimes it did not select the target when ıt should. There are some problematic cases come up with that part of the code. In addition to that art styles are not quiet matching with each other. However developing this idea like fruit ninja in the future will be quiet nice. Have a wonderful day.

tengusheath 2022-10-03 01:23

I think the style is really cool. With some sound and fine-tuned controls this could be a really fun action game. Aiming is pretty difficult with the arrows keys while you are trying to dodge enemies as well. If you swapped aiming to mouse controls and let the player mark enemies by clicking them I think it would feel a lot better.

dhim 2022-10-03 09:36

I understand the concept, but it feels way too slow, to be entertaining.

Dodging while waiting is fine, but the big attack should wipe a lot of the enemies (so that the wait is worth it). A mix of dodging positioning yourself in the middle of the throng and then unleash your attack.

The player controls are a bit too slippery (I have no idea how to make a player controller feels grounded (maybe ramping up the acceleration?) ), Maybe having a dash ?

I felt that the double Z to actually get something was cumbersome, but didnt play long enough to become good with it. I often got it trying to get the lock on... or forgeting once the lock was on to attack for real.

The graphics / mood is very nice. Some audio would help.

mdotedot 2022-10-03 09:37

could be a tight bit better on the controls. Good graphics. Nice atmosphere. Well done

henrik-ganard 2022-10-03 09:57

I like the aesthetics of the game. I have two improvement points and the first one is that it felt a bit long to wait 10 seconds for another attack, even though I understand that that limit comes from the theme. The other issue I got is that the targeting felt like an unessecery step. When I am targeting an enemy, I always want to attack it. Overall a nice game. Thanks for making it.

coderaurus 2022-10-03 11:29

Nice looking game. I like the concept of having this insta-killing action. Unfortunately the gameplay falls a bit short for it. I feel it is because there is so much waiting. The waiting and running is fine in itself, but the long anticipation between each slice on top of that is too much. So I would make the action feel faster and thus powerful. I would also increase the target range a bit - or maybe even target the closest one in range.

Good stuff!

nash 2022-10-03 15:50

This was a very good jam entry! The graphical style is very polished and one of the best I have seen in this jam.

The main mechanic was really satisfying to use. I could only imagine if you had more time to add some audio and feedback to the move and it would be totally epic.

I think controls were fine. I personally would have liked to have a different button to trigger the kill move. Now I often found myself accidentally triggering the move when I was just trying to mark enemy near the 10 second timer ending. It is also a good idea to support WASD movement - it took me a while to understand that only arrow keys are allowed even though it reads in the manual.

Overall, a really solid game. I would definitely play this if you end up relesing a more feature-rich version after the jam. Good work!

PS. The embed does not work for me currently. Not a big deal since there was the Itch.io link!

ilari 2022-10-03 16:34

Looks good, the idea is intriguing and game play is suprisingly fun.

davidbradbury 2022-10-03 18:01

Solid work and congrats on getting your entry done! Took a short bit to get adjusted and fully understand how the marking system worked. I think in general if I were using a joystick instead of a keyboard, the 'marking' would feel better - With a keyboard I felt like I was wandering around in circles and then approaching at an odd angle.

For sure thought the pumpkins were enemies at the start :smile:. Maybe in a bonus final round they could attack? Of course when you only have a weekend, you can only add so much.

Only thing I would have added is maybe some sort of low-powered attack you can also use while running around? Maybe that'd be too much with the marking, but it felt like there was sometimes a gap where I wanted to do something, but everything was already marked. Good work!

nion 2022-10-04 08:23

@deniz-aras @tengusheath @dhim @mdotedot @henrik-ganard @coderaurus Thanks for the feedback. The controls and player feedback are obviously an improvement point.

@nash Thanks for the kind words. Extra juice to actions is definitely something I wanted to add but ran out of time. I definitely think an in-game mini tutorial is warranted, I guess that's what I kind of tried to do with the scarecrow at the beginning. A remake is something I'm toying with so I appreciate the points :)

@ilari Thank you :)

@davidbradbury WASD with a mouse might be the way to go to give a bit more control. The marking system is a bit unintuitive. I want to add some sort of visual feedback to show the marking. You're right with the odd angle, it's made harder by the player only showing left or right in their sprite :sweat_smile: . The pumpkins coming alive is a neat idea though, I might save that one. One idea I had is giving the player little point orbs they can pick up that explode out of enemies in downtime.

potoobird 2022-10-04 20:58

I think this is a neat game! At first I confused the Jack-o-lanterns with enemies but other than that the gameplay was straightforward and I really enjoyed playing. I would love to see these game mechanics used in a dungeon crawler! Only weak point in my opinion is the Halloween theme which is only seen in the lanterns but I do realize that is very tricky to build a solid story in such a short time (especially when the other areas of the game are so well executed).

nion 2022-10-05 02:02

@potoobird thankyou! You're right, initially I wanted a more themed roster if enemies (ghosts, zombies, and vampires) but was stuck for time.

min4uk 2022-10-05 04:23

great idea and visual :knife: love this

sterco-raro 2022-10-05 11:13

Awesome entry! I love the graphics and the anxiety of the gameplay :grin: very cool idea

roroto-sic 2022-10-08 08:54

i was a bit confuse at the begining about how to play , even if i readed your tutorial. first i try to move my character with WASD or mouse. and because nothing happen i was thinkin about a bug. but then i saw a video in the comment section showing the character moving so it retry one more time, pushing all my keyboard key haha.

you can had one line in your tutorial like : "use arroyw keys to move".

else it was an interesting concept ! More monsters or /musics_sounds would be great but i totally understand time limited of a jam^^

ruslan-kossak 2022-10-08 10:52

I absolutely loved the graphics! The movement animation, attacks and tone is amazing. Music would make it only better :( At first I didn't realize you can mark couple of enemies for attack and struggled with the 4 wave without it :) Also, that slimey enemy stops it's attack when character fires it's own, but those skeletons don't, and I'm not sure if that's intended behavior.

nion 2022-10-08 14:04

@roroto-sic Thanks for the suggestion, I wrote the description while sleep deprived so it's definitely something I overlooked. I've since added that. Otherwise, thanks for playing! More monsters was definitely the plan and would have helped a lot I think as well :')

@ruslan-kossak Good point! I'll add that to you can mark multiple enemies to the description :). Thanks for your kind words <3

ani 2022-10-08 15:14

I really like the concept! It'd be great if the pacing was faster so the attacking could be more often & more satisfying, but it's understandable because of the theme. Great job with this!

tigerfinch 2022-10-08 16:15

Enjoyed the concept, would have like to see more of it. To echo another commenter, I was confused at first, and tried to attack the jack-o-lanterns. That all said, i think the art style and animations are absolutely fantastic, great job there. Perhaps the kill/attack anims could be a bit snappier. I also think this is a good example where some sfx/music could have really elevated the feel of playing it.