LD52

tildecat 2023-01-11 07:16

I really like protagonist animation! Game is little difficult for me but I enjoy it.

doctor-zeus 2023-01-11 07:58

I can appreciate the effort that went into making the game - making systems to level up and buy upgrades can be tough, especially when juggling all of the other work that goes into the jam.

Gameplay-wise, the game had a real slow start for me, mostly because I didn't have many decisions to make. Keeping an enemy in range without accidentally getting too far away (which makes them passive again) could be tricky, but basically my whole focus was just left on that bit of movement.

I sampled all of the different upgrades, and I found the aura to be the strongest and the most fun - grouping enemies and dodging around them to deal damage efficiently and safely was fun! That sort of play was also encouraged by the weapon upgrades, since they just do more damage when you have more enemies nearby. The other upgrades didn't seem as strong to me when I tested them, though I eventually levelled them up when it appeared that the aura couldn't get any stronger. The spear didn't deal damage to crowds like the aura could, and the leech's health gain was small enough that just smashing enemies efficiently tended to be a more useful heal.

Ultimately the later weapons were way stronger than my level-up upgrades, so I think their differences didn't matter too much - after I got the strongest weapon the boss enemy couldn't beat me. Out of curiosity, I tried one playthrough where I attacked it at a lower level without the best weapon (but with max power aura, leech, and some spear) and it was effectively impossible. I couldn't outrun it, and I wasn't able to drag it to a group of enemies that I could defeat for a health refill. I considered trying to drag a group of enemies to the boss (or maybe string them along to create a chain of health refills) but I realized it was going to take longer than I'd like to set up.

By the way, I thought that the spritework for the main character and the skull were well done, and the wind sound effects did a nice job of making the place feel like some kind of desolate underworld

For my tastes, I think it's a-okay to have a game that is mostly about getting bigger damage numbers and growing stronger. In a game like that, getting to grow in surprising ways where I find a lot of the fun (y'know like Cookie Clicker-type stuff) - I think this one had a fine sense of progression, but finding some extra appeal beyond that (to make the process of harvesting souls more interesting, or to make the ways I changed more exciting) would bring a lot of fun to my playthroughs.

Good work putting it together, like I said, I can appreciate all of the effort that goes into something like this - not just the things I see on the surface, but all of the work behind the scenes to get the game off of the ground.

mstrp 2023-01-11 10:20

Thank you so much @doctor-zeus for that excellent feedback which I agree with completely. In the end it came down to a lack of time to really polish the balance between weapons, perks and souls(monsters). The life steal perk is only ever useful at the very beginning, especially because of the innate 10% life gain on kill (I actually added this for game testing purposes and planned to remove once I implemented the perks, but never had the time to do so). The game served as a nice proof of concept, further fine-tuning would probably make the experience a bit more enjoyable if nothing else. I am humbled that you took time to try the game and write such a thorough comment. Thank you.

pinapl 2023-01-11 18:50

Game felt slow, but still fun. I think it could benefit a lot from faster everything, movement, input execution, attacks, dialogue. I love how in depth it is though, you packed a lot of cool stuff in here for a game jam time frame. Good job!

corporation 2023-01-11 19:01

Good game, but there's a lot where it can get improved. First thing, in my opinion, is player's feedback, as for top-down games it's like the most important. Every move the player makes - attack, hit the enemy, take damage, get an upgrade, shoot, die - should always be accompanied with visual and audio feedback, this will drastically improve the experience. Second - I like the colors and the direction you took with an art style, but still I would recomend to chose pixel art or not and the pixel density - and stick with it. Having everything mixed up is, unless you know what you are doing, not always a good thing. Well done anyways)