Wizard Heist

jonmerrin 2022-10-07 20:11

I loved almost everything about this! Before I give any constructive criticism, I want you to know that I played until I escaped with all 5 treasures, so I did really enjoy myself.

The sounds, visuals, even gameplay are *extremely* reminiscent of the old classic 8-bit style. I think you captured it perfectly. Even the funny looking character you play as. Really really nice. The game was responsive, clear, to the point. I liked the ambiance, I enjoyed searching the map for the treasures, really really good.

I have two notes: the first is that I wasn't sure exactly how this fits in with the theme. I didn't notice a timer, and I don't think the wizard appeared every 10 seconds for me. The second is that the wizard was REALLY hard to escape once you were in a room with him. On the one hand, that's exactly what I'd expect from a tile-dungeon-exploration game from the 8-bit era, I can think of several examples of games that do this. On the other, there might be some room for some innovation there, giving the player a little bit more agency over the situation. That way when I got too close to the wizard, I'd try until the last second rather than throwing my hands up in defeat. I don't know if that's actually necessary, but I would've appreciated it.

Great job and great game!

kokkakniphon 2022-10-07 21:13

A cool retro game. I guess it's a little bit easy to win the game but quite challenging to collect all chests. Kind of like the visualization changing when the wizard comes out, but it's a quit difficult to escape from him. Anyway, nicely done!

stmatn 2022-10-07 21:55

Nice concept! On my first run I collected 4 treasures and escaped without encountering the wizard, so I did not really get what could be hard about it. On the second run I explored more, got chased by the wizard and escaped with all five treasures. Maybe you could add a mechanic that does not allow to revisit rooms. Probably by giving each room a countdown that does not reset when going to another one. the aesthetics are quite nice and the sound is fitting. Nice entry :)

thehansinator 2022-10-08 00:29

Thank you guys for your feedback! I'm glad you've been enjoying this.

To respond to individual bits:

> The sounds, visuals, even gameplay are extremely reminiscent of the old classic 8-bit style. I think you captured it perfectly. Even the funny looking character you play as. Really really nice. The game was responsive, clear, to the point. I liked the ambiance, I enjoyed searching the map for the treasures, really really good.

Thank you! :smile: I'll say [PICO-8](https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php) helped a lot with this - most of its natural restrictions make writing for it akin to writing for a Game Boy Color or SEGA Game Gear.

> I didn’t notice a timer, and I don’t think the wizard appeared every 10 seconds for me.

My intent was not that the wizard would come to your room every 10 seconds, but that the player had to move to a new room every 10 seconds - the timer for this is in the top left corner. Admittedly not the most precise execution of the theme, and I could make the timer a little more visible than it currently is.

> The second is that the wizard was REALLY hard to escape once you were in a room with him. @jonmerrin / but it’s a quit difficult to escape from him @kokkakniphon

Yeah, I could make this situation better. I will say that it's more or less the intention that facing the wizard is certain death - yes, you can escape him if you're lucky, but you would really prefer to not encounter him in the first place. The two things in the game that currently mitigate this are (1) you _are_ slightly faster than he is, and (2) the message "BEWARE THE WIZARD" appears when you're close by, so you can either go around or wait for him to continue on his patrol route. I think I'll improve these in a future release, maybe by giving better cues (such as changing this message to "THE WIZARD IS NEAR"), requiring a bit more for the wizard to start attacking (such as needing line of sight), or by allowing the player to turn the tables on the wizard somehow.

> Maybe you could add a mechanic that does not allow to revisit rooms. Probably by giving each room a countdown that does not reset when going to another one. @stmatn

I actually considered this idea! I ended up deciding that the game would be too difficult if you only got 10 seconds total per room, but that 30 seconds or so per room would be within reason. This kinda drifts away from the theme, but is worth considering outside of that.

falk-hoeppner 2022-10-13 04:03

I love the old school vibe of the game and the art and sound bring that together beautifully, very well done. The gameplay itself was interesting, and it took me several goes to get through it. It was kind of hard to read what was interactable or not the first go through, but trial and error was a good teacher there. Overall, very nice!

organicpencil 2022-10-13 18:06

Aha, I've escaped! Had a few close calls with that wizard. Terrifying. All that's missing is *sweeping*.

kaylalalavalentine 2022-10-16 19:08

Wow!! I love the retro game theme here!!! The game audio is also so pleasing to my ears. The game scrolling mechanic (after getting to the corner of the map it scrolls to reveal more) is really fun and implemented very beautifully! Keep up the good work!

aj-studio 2022-10-18 11:51

I love the fact that it is a webb app, so I can play and test it easily on a mac too.

Cool and nice pixel game, You got my 5 stars! Congratulations!

Keep developing great games!

elros 2022-10-18 12:33

I think that you nailed your music and artstyle. Also, the game is fundamentally fun, I enjoyed myself. Here is what I would suggest:

1. Leaving a room every 10 seconds is a bit not in touch with the pace of the game. I think a more fruitfull direcetion to explore is making an additional enemy spawn every 10 seconds, or makeing them faster or whatever.

2. A chase game is supper fun. You put some nice obstacles to add depth to it, love that! However, I think any chase game deserves a twist - In pacman for instance, after you eat fruit, you are the one who becomes death. A twist more in tune with my previous suggestion and the game overall would be adding some kind of dash mechanic which is on a timer.

Overall very well done!