Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD53 → Valhalla Calling
By aviv-levy
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 371 | 3.77 | 57 | |
| Fun | 525 | 3.50 | 57 | |
| Innovation | 739 | 3.16 | 57 | |
| Theme | 1072 | 3.18 | 56 | |
| Graphics | 404 | 3.97 | 57 | |
| Audio | 272 | 3.74 | 55 | |
| Mood | 318 | 3.83 | 55 |
Interesting idea, especially for me as am I a big fan of norse mythology. The gameplay is simple yet quite a bit addicting, but the controls were a little bit difficult to get used to at first. Overall, I enjoyed playing the game a lot, great job!
Great work! had a lot of fun playing this one.
wow, cool execution. looks very nice and feels nice.
They send me in Valhalla faster than I do. Nice but hard game
@flokami Lol! And this is after I made it easier XD Thank you!
Thanks everyone as well :D
It looks very good. An interesting adaptation of the theme.
Very tense slow death, the pace in this game is really good. The fact that the enemies are slow makes it a lot more tense.
It took me a while to figure out the key to send them to vahalla, I know I should have read the instructions first :laughing:
I will be having nightmares with this scene
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@velvetlobster Thanks! I wanted to add a mini tutorial with "press (key) to (action)" but I decided to prioritize gameplay and other aspects since it's easier to just write the instructions. In a hindsight this should have been included!
Very nice game! Cool art & atmosphere. The "sending to valhalla" mechanic forces you to approach to enemies more tactically, which is fun. My only complaint is weapon reach: it was very difficult for me to find the right distance to the enemies for an attack. I didn't find myself using block and dashing much, but maybe I just didn't spend enough time learning how to use them :)
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@lisyarus thank you for playing! IMO blocking is the second most important mechanic. The range is a bit close because I wanted the player to get in the danger zone, but maybe a little more range couldn't harm. Also I could've explained the blocking mechanic better because I saw that some people skipped it completely (I can't play without it!). Cheers for reaching wave 7! :D
This game is exactly what I'm looking for in a gamejam entry. Perfect scope, nice athmosphere, just some good vibes. Congrats, nice job
First of all, great art, and the CRT filter added a nice touch. I liked the fighting mechanics, and the fact that you need to sacrifice the enemies in a timely manner before they come back to life. The gradual waves were cool too - it started with one enemy, then several, then harder enemies, then more. It was great! Overall a great jam entry, I enjoyed it! I think this can be extended to a larger fighting game.
Some feedback if you plan to keep working on it: 1. I had to scroll down the page to see the controls, maybe some on-screen instructions could be nice (along with the first enemy) 2. Instead of having a huge bar of health for the entire game, I'd do less health but heal some every wave. Then players who get hit a lot at the beginnings can fail and restart before they reach further waves (and learn to refine their combat) 3. In later waves, I was looking for some kind of strategy to help me cope with many enemies, and I wasn't able to find one, except hit and run again and again. This could feel a little tedious and with some lack of depth. I wish I could find a "smart" way to fight, or alternatively, if the character would move faster to be a game of skill and precision to hit and avoid.
But that's only if you plan to extend it. As a jam entry it's awesome! Great work!
Cool idea for the theme! Also love the graphics. Looks awesome! Also nice music :)
I think the spear throwers are a bit too strong, when there are 3 or 4 of them. There is no warning, when they will throw. If they are too close I can't react fast enough with the block.
Also, please don't use z,x,c.. keys. I know they're popular, but it's a bit of a pain if you don't have an english keyboard. :laughing: For example on the german keyboard y and z are swapped.
@brusi
1 - Fair, next time I would definitely prioritize in-game instructions! I actually kinda planned on this but decided to prioritize other stuff.
2 - Actually, you do heal every wave :) A healing effect could've been handy to communicate that, though.
3 - My strategy was to block as many incoming attacks as possible, use the dash only to get out of being swarmed and to use the speed bonus enemies gain before they attack to separate them. But I totally get what you mean.
Thanks for playing and for taking the time to write this! Appreciate the great feedback.
@stefan-funke Thank you! I will think about the controls for the next projects / if I continue this. What other controls would you prefer? Obviously the best solution is to allow players to change the controls though.
I actually wanted to implement some kind of a warning system before enemies attack. Unfortunately I did not have enough time! But I will definitely prioritize this in the future. I watched some people play and saw that it could've prevented some frustrations with the game.
@aviv-levy Good question. Getting the controls right is not so easy. I got some complaints about that on my game too.
Maybe WASD for movement, Space for dash, left mouse for attack, right mouse for block could work. E or Q for Commune with the dead, because they are easy to reach, when playing with WASD.
Controller would work very well for your game too.
And like you said, letting the player switch key bindings would be the best. But not so easy to do in a game jam. :)
Edit: One of the comments on my game mentioned playing on a laptop with trackpad only, and without a real mouse. So this is something to maybe consider too.
The sound of hitting the ground combined with the beat is a masterpiece! Really nice entry!
I really liked this game! The art is super nice and fighting the enemies was fun! I really appreciate that I could see the amount of waves I had survived and the total needed to win the game. Sometimes if you don't know when the game might end you eventually give up, so it was a nice change!
Love me some Norse mythology! The audiovisual experience is nice, and the somber music is fitting in its own way, though I was expecting something a bit more lively from a survival game like this. Gameplay is very challenging with the short range of attack, very short wind-up animations on their attack and no stagger mechanic, especially since it isn't enough to just put the enemy down, but you need to have enough time to send them off to Valhalla too. Made it to wave 6 on my first proper try, and I wish there was some way to heal in between levels. It would have also been nice to have the controls shown in-game somewhere, because I didn't think to scroll down for them at first. Overall a working game, and very good job putting this together in 72 hours! Till Valhalla!
@marppuli You do heal a bit between waves, but it isn't very obvious since there is nothing communicating that. As for the controls, it's definitely something I'm gonna prioritize next time. Thanks for the kind words and for the feedback :D
Ingenious use of the theme! The atmosphere in your game is very dense in the best way. The rain, the super slow menacing undead... It's really, really tense! The art is very nice, and I especially love the music, it evokes feelings of desperation adn desolation, it's also sad in a kind of nostalgic way? It's hard to describe how music feels, but to sum it up, I love it!
Regarding controls: using a QWERTZ-style keyboard it really is a pain to use the Z button (my system somehow didn't allow me to change keyboard style internally). I'd like to suggest simply adding Y as an additional button next time for all us QWERTZ users :)
nice game! I was a bit not used to the controls of this game but overall pretty fun!
Great take on the theme with a simple but addicting game. Really like the art and CRT filter. Felt the music could have been more upbeat but it worked.
I love the art you have made, it is clean and well readable. One thing that would be nice, is to show on the enemy that it is going to attack. This way you could plan the block bit better (but you can play around it now ofc) and maybe play a little more how to represent the theme. But this is barelly a complaint. You made great game! Good job!
@purrseus thank you! It's really what I went for with the music. Good call on adding Y!
@lvl99chicken I intended to change it a bit but ran out of time. I'm really happy with the main menu music though. Thanks for the feedback :)
@jin9310 About blocking, I planned to add a warning sign and had it in my tasks but ran out of time for the jam, I will definitely prioritize something like this next time. As for the theme, I get what you mean, I thought about making golden axe style progression and that you'd have to carry the souls with you (although that felt a bit too simple?), but ended up going with waves because they were easier to implement with the time I had left to work on the game. Thanks for the feedback!
Great job. So unique idea with valhalla and vikings :3 Love it. Graphic and music are fit to atmosphere. Fighting give fun :)
I like the retro aesthetic! Gameplay was simple but fun. I would've liked to get some sort of power up or reward between waves, or some way to trade souls delivered for health. Great entry overall!
Very creative take on the theme! I had a good time, took me a bit to get the hang of the pace and the importance of blocking!
Liked the arcade style to the graphics.
The bigger enemies were too tough, especially when there were more of them. I found I couldn't get one separated out from the others.
@chybby thanks for the feedback! I wanted them to be tough, but maybe I over did it, especially because there's no warning prior to their attack, and it does more damage and pushes you further back. I'm curious, have you tried blocking? Because I definitely could've done a better job explaining the importance of that!
@aviv-levy yeah I did try blocking but without the warning it was hard to time so I ended up just trying to retreat after every attack.
Great work! the art and music are amazing!!!! I think the game have a lot of potential! the character Reminding me Link for BOTW hehe :)
Hi there!
A nice take on delivery theme tbh, not an trivial one. I do like the way how the game looks & feels, tho enemies are a bit fast attacking and controls are not really native. But that's really minor, overall I do like it!
:thumbsup:
Hellow there ! Nice game! The slow and regenerating ennemi make it interessing and complex. Nice work !
To Valhalla! I had fun playing this game, the art style and music are really well done and the gameplay kept me engaged, everytime I beat a wave I'd shout "to valhalla" lol, the shield mechanic was nice as well although I struggled to figure out the attack range of the enemies especially when you're trying to run past them to the other side, but all in all this is a great entry, awesome work!
I love the music and the tension you built for the game with that. Combat felt a little janky.
Good job.
Hi @coderaurus, thank you for the input and for trying it out! I admit the combat is not as polished as I planned it to be, the time constraints were challenging for sure! I wanted to do better hitboxes, range, attack warnings, flinch for enemies, more sfx and animations, etc. I also planned on being able to block while moving and and to solve collision issues with enemies and the player.
Is there anything in particular that stood out more?
@aviv-levy Yeah feel you, there is never enough time haha. Hmm, I guess the major thing would be the enemy lunges. I'm not sure if it was just me or if the player states change slowly and I got hit. While I did try to block (unsuccessfully) I was also attacking around, trying to do the tango. So I guess it sums up to tightening the combat and inputs. And you also mention a lot of good points to work on so I'm sure the path is correct.
@coderaurus Good points with enemy lunges and the player states. I will think about how to improve on those! Thank you. I also checked out your game btw :-)
Great job! Loved the retro feeling shader and arts. It was really polished and scoped right for a jam session. I wish there were more attack varieties like maybe combo attack, or dash attack, but it's a jam game. The quality was really good and I enjoyed it! Congrats!
Nice pixel art. I liked the added post-processing. Reminds me of old arcade games, I approve)
Such amazing retro feeling! Congrats!
The art is simply phenomenal: the minimalist pixel art is great and the use of shaders just enhance his beauty.
For some strange reason, even reading the tutorial and knowing that we could use dash, I did'n t use in the game (??)
The music and SFX were also pleasant to hear.
Seriously, you did a GREAT job here, and it's even more impressive to know that you did it all by yourself! Good job!
@joao-marcello Thanks a lot for the kind words :)
I actually thought about removing the dash and wasn't sure. I decided to leave it in because I found it useful sometimes, but I didn't want it give players the wrong impression that dashing > blocking, which is the opposite.
Nice! I like the methodicalness of it, and I really like that enemies dont die until you find the time to do the spear thing and send them to the great beyond. Well put together and with some clever ideas!
The graphics are stylish. But the game is sooo slow. Overall, the game is really well made, just not for me. Separately, I wanna note a quite pleasant impact from hits.
@arsher Hi, Thanks for the feedback! I do prefer it on the slower side, especially since the play area is quite small and there can be multiple enemies at a time swarming you. With that said, I do admit it may be a bit too slow at times, and I definitely wish I had more time for play testing and polishing :)
Really good entry! Unfortunately i have a personality where i refuse to block and dodge, so i didnt get very far. Only beat 5 waves. Its the same problem i have with dark souls haha.
I loved all the aspects of the game tho, great work
Interesting take on the theme. I'm not normally a fan of CRT filter type things, but I thought it really worked well here and made the pixel art pop and gave it a bit of vibrancy. The attack having a bit of wind up to it leaving you open to getting hit works really well and makes the combat engaging!
This is cool! I love the CTR TV scanline and the nifty, atmospheric music too! It took me a moment to get used to the contols, I had to look them up! The gameplay loop was good too, well done!
Wow, the presentation here is superb! The gameplay is interesting as well. I really appreciated the use of the block mechanic as well as the "enemies come back to life if you don't send them away" thing, it created a lot of interesting tension. My only nitpick would be that I wish the dash feature and the way the character's speed changed when attacking were slightly smoother, but that's a minor thing. The graphics and sound were great too, especially the sound effects. Well done!
Nice game! Your interpretation of the theme is very similar to mind, which is a relief, as I hadn't seen anyone else interpret it that way. I love the CRT filter, and the gameplay is very fleshed-out, with the block and dash mechanics. It ends up creating an interesting trade-off: you have to look for the right opening to send enemies to Valhalla, otherwise you'll get battered by the surviving enemies in the meantime, but if you wait too long then they'll spring back to life and attack you again. The only thing I could ask for is a bit more of an indication as to when an enemy is ready to be sent to Valhalla, as I didn't realise on my first playthrough.