FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD53 → Witch Brunnette

Witch Brunnette

By joao-marcello

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall4693.6847
Fun3933.6348
Innovation7893.1048
Theme9473.4548
Graphics3114.1048
Audio6422.9747
Humor7562.8043
Mood6843.4247

Comments

stalemeat 2023-05-02 07:14

Cute game, impressive entry. It was well made and the controls were thoughtful for different positions. My only critique is to have the witch have less gravity weighing her down. But again it's an impressive game.

ruruie 2023-05-02 11:17

Cute! As a fellow witch enjoyer, I approve. The momentum from the item drops is a great touch.

joao-marcello 2023-05-02 13:01

@stalemeat thanks for the feedback :heart:. I will work on the Witch's physics to increase the weight when pressing 'down'.

skullyy 2023-05-03 13:29

I love the graphics and the mechanisms. Really impressive implementation.

benjamin-gearig 2023-05-03 13:46

This is a really impressive submission. Congrats on doing so well! As @stalemeat pointed out, I would lessen the gravity of the witch. This is a great game. Good job!

Edit: I see you addressed the gravity. My bad.

renardgames 2023-05-03 13:53

I really like the visuals and especially the text effects with the bounce, jitter and so on!It was very charming and it looked good! My only problem was that you dont turn immediately to the other side which made it feel a bit unresponsive and the bounce and cauldron tactic was a bit hard to pull of tho I can understand that because it gives a lot of extra points!

teun-de-vries 2023-05-03 14:25

Cute game! found the controls a bit hard to use though, would've liked to be able to use my left mouse button for shooting and right mouse button for throwing items, or something along those lines.

joao-marcello 2023-05-03 14:59

@teun-de-vries Thanks for the feedback!

Sorry, I really forgot the people who like to play with mouse :sweat_smile: .

I just uploaded a version with mouse control. Give it a try.

joao-marcello 2023-05-03 15:02

@renardgames I appreciate your feedback :heart:

Now that you mention it, I also preferred the movement with a greater deceleration in the x axis.

I uploaded a fixed version.

blazerdom 2023-05-03 15:15

Good concept! ) It's good that they added a leaderboard. Having scored 100k points, I can say that you needed to think on the difficulty curve. I also noticed that bats periodically for some reason fly away. I think you needlessly limited their number. The optimal strategy at the moment is to fly above the ground, from one edge of the level to the other, parabolic around the enemies and not distracted by the falling wings. Thanks for your work!

flying-dog-fish 2023-05-03 16:13

A pretty little witch and a fun game.

runicpixels 2023-05-03 20:59

Really cute game!

It's nice to see another witch themed game for this jam in such a different direction from ours.

Really cute graphics and lovely gameplay! Well made.

rabbert 2023-05-03 21:14

Very interesting concept and execution! I enjoyed dodging the bats and dropping stuff in the pot simultaniously. I would've loved to see a high score leaderboard with real players but now reading other reviews I saw one person had scored 100k points so I would not have placed very high.

savidiy 2023-05-03 21:15

Very nice game design

joao-marcello 2023-05-03 22:01

@rabbert unfortunately the online leaderboard only works on the Windows version, sorry for that :cry:

Yeah, the 100k points from @blazerdom it's scaring me until now (my best was only 18k, so don't be so disappointed)

joao-marcello 2023-05-03 22:18

@blazerdom You pointed some REALLY useful feedback here, huh? (It's times like this that I miss having a beta tester)

Let me talk about some points you mentioned:

- "I also noticed that bats periodically for some reason fly away. I think you needlessly limited their number."

I don't limited their number, but his time in field (20/25 secs). That's needed because the game quickly turn into a chaos if the player resolve don't immediately kill them and maybe that would frustrate some players.

As the time pass, the time for add a new bat will decrease but a I notice that even the minimum is a bit too large for some skillful players like you. I made some tests and adjusted some game parameters and now it seems a bit more balanced, but I will not uploaded the new version to not be unfair with others players trying to beat your score and with you, that spend some time making this absolutely insane score (yeah, I'm still impressed; when I have some time I will try to beat you to restore my Dev's dignity :smile: )

- "The optimal strategy at the moment is to fly above the ground, from one edge of the level to the other, parabolic around the enemies and not distracted by the falling wings."

Same strategy I use but you probably mastered the bouncing mechanic better than me hahaha!

By the way, very thanks for the detailed feedback :heart:

toppervideogames 2023-05-03 23:36

This is an enjoyable arcade style game. Getting the ingredients to bounce was tricky, but proved to be a good goal to aim for as the point bonus really is that high. I did like that landing on the cauldron damages the witch, good detail and hazard!

Some music would have been nice to set some ambience, but the sounds gave good confirmation if something did manage to land in the pot. Good work!

cheaptoads 2023-05-04 04:32

nice work! got an impressive number of controls happening at once. and ha! "IF the bats appear JUST throw the spell" more like "the bats are coming for you, forget about those mushrooms and sling some spells!"

luxiffre 2023-05-04 09:34

Cute graphics and a satisfying game loop - yup, this was fun for sure! Just had mixed feelings about shooting the little flap flaps 🥺 Bats are friends, not foes! :bat:

Some constructive criticism: - Not being able to turn around until one loses all momentum in the opposite direction feels somewhat unintuitive and makes the gameplay a little frustrating at times because it adds an artificial difficulty to shooting the enemies. - Since bouncing the items off the ground yields more points, it'd be nice if the bounce was a little higher. Not necessarily because it makes the game easier but because it'll feel more rewarding and satisfying to the players if they can manage to do it even without much practice. You can still add another level of difficulty by making it so that each additional bounce adds even more points.

madr 2023-05-04 17:40

Very nice, like the visuals and game feel. Simple mechanics easy to get in to and enjoy!

jamieok 2023-05-04 17:51

Nice and polished, I think a lot of the criticisms I have are covered in other comments, such as not being able to turn around very easily to shoot bats. I also found it awkward that touching the ground slowed down your momentum, which happened a lot when I lowered to grab the mushrooms. The gameplay loop was simple and easy to pick up and the inclusion of a leaderboard fit in really well. Great work!

reef 2023-05-05 05:25

Nice game! I liked the character art a lot and the parallax effect was cool. You've already gotten good feedback on the controls. Something else that might have been fun is having to pick up things from different heights, like apples from a tree. The mushrooms on the ground are low, and the falling bat wings are a dynamic target, something always up high would have been fun too. I also didn't expect or realize at first the cauldron kept hurting me!

I saw you used LOVE to make it, that was what I used to start learning how to make games years ago. I didn't realize love.js worked so well now!

chii 2023-05-05 06:55

The graphic is definitely 5/5. It would be even better if the game had some catchy background music!

winie 2023-05-05 18:16

If you are a game developer and you has not a music guy, it is hard to create sounds and music from your own.

Lucky we. In ouer game, we had a good music/sound guy

lucas-taniolo 2023-05-06 03:26

Played the improved controls version. It's a pretty solid entry, cute graphics and fun gameplay. Well done!

joao-marcello 2023-05-06 11:58

@luxiffre Thanks for the feedback!

The player's movement was adjust and now it turns immediately to left/right.

About the bounce I'm still tuning some game parameters to reach some balance.

- "You can still add another level of difficulty by making it so that each additional bounce adds even more points"

This I will definitely add in post jam version (actually, it was the initial idea, but I had to change it because of jam's deadline) :sob:

joao-marcello 2023-05-06 12:07

@reef thanks a lot for the feedback!

Let me talk about some points you suggested:

- "Something else that might have been fun is having to pick up things from different heights, like apples from a tree"

That's was my initial concept, but I had to limit the game due the jam's deadline (but I will add this feature in a post jam version)

- "The mushrooms on the ground are low, and the falling bat wings are a dynamic target, something always up high would have been fun too"

Good point, I hadn't thought about that! I will definitely implement this!

About LÖVE: the love.js it's really great nowadays, but we need use it with some caution (no threads, no FFI, no stream audio, keep the game simple, etc)

aviv-levy 2023-05-06 21:43

I have appreciation for games with simple game loops that are fun and intuitive, and this is definitely one of them. It's just nice flying around shooting bats and dropping stuff in the cauldron. Also thanks for not including a timer or anything like that, it's nice that you play as long as you survive.

The art is well made and really cute. I wish there was a cool soundtrack to go along with it, but the game is still good as it is! Well done :)

For some reason I got stuck in the score screen? Wasn't sure what's happening but typing the name and pressing any of the buttons didn't work. I refreshed the page to restart

joao-marcello 2023-05-06 21:57

@aviv-levy Glad that you liked it :heart:

The mouse coordinates only works properly if played in fullscreen mode (think I should add this info here in the Ludum Dare jam's page to guide others players).

ryusui 2023-05-07 21:55

Absolutely adorable! And while I don't use Love2D for game development anymore (I've switched to Godot in recent years), it's great to see others using it. <3

Things get really hectic over time - maybe the game could use some kind of powerup system, like, giving you a purpose beyond score for putting ingredients in the cauldron? (Speaking of - I love how defeated bats drop wings you can use for ingredients!)

My only gripe with the presentation is the lack of music. A fun little background loop would've done a *lot* for the game. It's not catastrophic that it's missing, but it would've taken the polish to the next level, I think.

the-martijn 2023-05-07 22:04

Very solid and good-looking game! Bouncing the items was a bit hard, but that made it a fun challenge, too.

2023-05-07 22:14

Untitled.png

I didn't try to bounce the ingredients too much because it's too galaxy brain for me but it's a great idea for a mechanic. I love the graphics and the overall presentation. I missed some kind of an upgrade system as the player's projectiles are scarce and slow and there's not a lot of room to combat the bats past a certain point.

ironcutter 2023-05-07 23:16

Not giving firepower upgrades makes it completely impossible after a certain point (Around 7k points), as you do not have enough bullets to stop the bats. I really liked the art style and overall it's a very nice entry, good job!

coatline 2023-05-07 23:42

Haha super cute game! I really like the graphics and the overall polish was definitely there! I do wish the leaderboard worked on the web build, though I understand. I found it a fun challenge to try to bounce the mushrooms into the pot. Good job!

danielb 2023-05-08 00:51

Cool game! The gameplay was fun and I really appreciated the fact you could bounce the mushrooms in. My only real complaint here is that there's no music, but that's far from the end of the world.

epicgamefan 2023-05-08 01:00

Loved the art style. Really wish there was some music to go with the retroish SFXs. Solid game loop. Good job!

firespike33 2023-05-08 01:40

Given the arcade-y nature of the game I felt the lack of music more strongly than in most other entries that lacked it. Still, pretty compelling gameplay and I love having an online highscore feature. The difficulty curve is a bit odd. I feel like boosting the speed and aggressiveness of the bats rather than just the quantity might have been better. As others have said you end up not having enough ammo to kill all of them, but they remain manageable because of how slow they are. (At least as far as I played. I ended up getting 10,000 points.)

grommit 2023-05-08 02:37

A really neat little game with a lot of attention to detail. I love the little sounds when you fly up on your broom along with the trail, I really enjoy the bounce shot mechanic, the difficulty progresses nicely, the magic bolts you shoot follow the bats in very subtle (but appreciated) way. It's all really nice. I love trying to bounce-shot all my ingredients at once. I'd add some music for sure but overall this game is really fun!

Screenshot_2.png

tomssuli 2023-05-08 15:51

Good game! The pixelart was beautiful in all it's simpleness, sounds were consistant but I'd expected some music too.

Gameplay was nice, controls were kinda funny as there were many shcemes. After some experimenting I went with arrows + Q and E. Difficulty comes from turning around being so floaty that you have to plan where you do it. Also aiming stuff to the cauldron without falling in it is a challenge of its own.

Nice to see that you too have ingame highscores. I would have liked to make scores longer than 5 ranks but I understand that compact choice so there is no need to make complicated browsing scores that don't fit the screen.

petronus 2023-05-08 18:16

Enjoyed the nice graphics, the overall design made me feel like playing a game from several years ago - well made! Nice touch to compete again some nintendo characters :smile:

bloodbane 2023-05-11 05:15

I wish the cauldron won't hurt her but other than that I can manage. Nice combo of shmup and delivery (and survival also if you will).

weirdbitgames 2023-05-18 18:53

This game has such a comfy/compacted feel to it. A little music would make this pretty much perfect. The art style is really well done and the game mechanics are solid too. I can imagine this being an actual game in the 80s, for like the NES!

ausstein 2023-05-18 19:41

i liked the game on my first playthrough, but going for highscore is soo incredibly boring...

you die at some point because you got too bored and stopped paying attention. If you keep your attention I think you can go forever

ava-skoog 2023-05-18 19:55

Very cute! Looks, sounds, and plays quite well, only really missing music. Only thing that felt a bit bad controller-wise was tying shooting direction to movement direction making certain maneuvers feel a bit clumsy. I guess it's more gathering than delivery maybe? Getting scoreboard in place is cool too. Nothing very new here but very nicely presented and this sort of game is always a bit of fun. c: