drainkid 2023-05-02 04:15
Cool mechanics and really nice graphics, great job!!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD53 → Hexpress
By runicpixels, Flashkirby, Kazzymodus and EristheChip
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 141 | 4.05 | 71 | |
| Fun | 195 | 3.88 | 70 | |
| Innovation | 454 | 3.50 | 71 | |
| Theme | 476 | 4.00 | 71 | |
| Graphics | 96 | 4.47 | 71 | |
| Audio | 105 | 4.08 | 70 | |
| Humor | 732 | 2.84 | 64 | |
| Mood | 256 | 3.91 | 68 |
Cool mechanics and really nice graphics, great job!!
@drainkid Thank you! :)
really cute game, changing mechanic at every delivery is a cool features gg
The weapon switching mechanic is really cool, and the game looks nice
Very cute! Graphics and animations are beautiful, world is nicely made and fun to navigate. I did not notice the navigation hint in the beginning, so had to walk around for a long time. And it would be fun to have some sort of score system, to see how many deliveries you made. I think with couple additions it can be great standalone game. Great entry!
I like how the wand powers change with each delivery. Is there a score/end, or is it endless?
@grizeldi from my understanding, as of right now it is endless. That may change in the future, or it may be expanded upon with a score system to see how far you got like @jul-li suggested, it all depends on where the devs decide to take it! Glad you like the game mechanic! Enjoy!
Thanks for all the kind words! As Eris said, right now it has an infinite game loop. For now our Itch build has a very barebones score system. On a separate post-jam build / release that goes further than some fixes, we could potentially add more gameplay effects to it, but that completely depends on how well the game is received.
The visual of your game is absolutely amazing! Nice use of a limited color palette!
Plus, I liked a lot of your isometric tile map. By the way, a BIG map considering the jam's deadline.
The game needs some implementation (scores, objective, etc.) but, I liked what I saw here!
Good job!
Thanks @joao-marcello , I spend a lot of my final day building the map, happy to hear you like it! :)
Very nice graphics - very smooth gameplay - the music maybe felt a bit off to me. But sounded good on it's own.
:thumbsup_tone1: :purple_heart: :dart: :frog:
Great game ! I especially loved the huge map and the different wands to use that bring novelty to the gameplay. Good job :slight_smile:
Love the color palette. Creates a nice atmosphere :-) A great entry! Keep it up :-)
Really nice graphics and cool gameplay! The size of the map is impressive.
With some additions like objectives/upgrades... this could really be a nice polished game. I would like to see more :smile:
Good job.
I loved the art & atmosphere! Very nice when wand changes✨
Cool take on the theme. Huge map for a jam!
Thanks for all the kind words @purpledartfrog, @meta-link, @fragment-games, @aderix, @abi-code16 and @aschab.
And definitely @aderix! We did have a passive item upgrade system / progression / win condition planned, which we unfortunately couldn't finish that during the jam, but who knows we might add it in a post-jam version!
I find drawing isometric pixel art characters quite challenging and I think you hit it out of the park with this one using a limited palette. Very well done!
This was perfect! Enjoyed everything about it, from the slightly weighty player movement to the Super Crate Box style weapon switching. The enemies were very well balanced: Slightly tough but predictable on their own, but they could overwhelm you if you didn't keep thinning them out.
All the weapons were powerful enough that it sometimes made sense to take my least favourite weapon if the distance was shorter than the other options (chain lightning :angry:). That entire "choose your delivery" concept was a great extension of the Crate Box level up system, I appreciated the extra control but the game still rewarded me for using all the weapons.
Fantastic job! Best of luck
@bartalomew Absolutely agree .... they are actually very good - so much character put in to them.
Love the idea! Fantastic job on everything. I realized at the end of playing after I tried every weapon that I wasn't able to die? I'm not sure how that worked but I just stood still and kept taking damage but didn't die. Still I had a blast trying every weapon while having a goal and destination at the same time was a really fun idea. Well done!
This is really good! I love the art and music, and the palette works really well with the isometric map. I liked the attention to details, such as showing the face of the witch above objects when she is obscured.
I have just a tiny bit of feedback - I really liked trying out different wands, but I would've preferred having upgrades at every stop instead of switching wands, this way I could progress in the game and it would also give more meaning to each run. I guess the upgrades could be rewards for delivering stuff to the snobby wizards.
Really cool gameplay with the changing of weapons. When the directional helper was in the corner of the screen, it was very hard to visually notice. Really impressive with the art with such a small color palette.
One of my favourite games of the jam. Very clean and polished! Great job.
Again thanks for all the kind words everyone!
@fuse-in-a-bowl yep, super crate box was a huge inspiration for this concept!
@bartalomew, @purpledartfrog it was a fun challenge to work with a limited palette like this, it really makes you think about every pixel even more than usual in pixel art!
@aviv-levy thanks for the compliments! Wand switching is a core aspect of our gameplay, but passive upgrades were definitely planned!
@kaptajnen agreed with the visual helper, we might improve that still a little bit more in a post-jam patch!
@rabbert in our Itch version, we do have a score system that takes harsh penalties upon taking damage beyond your health, but an actual lose condition is also still something we're considering for a potential post-jam version.
@runicpixels might wanna try that next time as well .... I had 64 for my entry... and this (among other things... actually makes it looks a lot LESS on purpose).... :smile:
58637.png
Gameboy vibes! You are totally get the style.
the music is just crazy :)
Thanks! :)
@purpledartfrog good luck! there's a lot of premade palettes, and you're free to use Hexpress4 for your own game jam if you want! https://lospec.com/palette-list/hexpress4
@yaroslav-kravtsov Thanks!
@goddoesplaydice I'll tell our musician! :)
Audio and visuals are fantastic, exploring the world is great and I love the variety of weapon mechanics. Only thing that lets the game down for me a bit is the combat isn't very interesting. However for a Ludum Dare project this a huge achivement.
Had a blast! gameplay is fun and addicting! Really nice to see isometric games as they aren't so common anymore! art and the color palette is really really good looking! also love the ui! great work!
The game looks polished. Nice graphics an audio! I had a lot of fun! But it would be nice adding additional meta-progression system with coins or something else when the player delivered things. It could be abilities that player can buy when gathering coins, for example.
Really nice Artstyle and palette. The sound is great as well. The mechanic of switching weapon based on the delivery you are making is very cool. The movement feels a bit too floaty and slidy. Amazingly creative wands though, Unu's Reversal especially was awesome to wield. Great game!
Music and sounds are really cool! Graphics are stunning! Switching wand mechanic very nice and amount of wands that you were able to implement in such a short time is amazing and all of them feel really great. The only thing the game is a little bit too easy, but balancing the game is always not an easy task. Amazing that you pulled this game in 3 days, congrats to you, solid entry!
A very beautiful game
Okay, it was interesting.
I don't get two things : how can I lose? and why I just lose hearts and lifes reset? You didn't have time to finish game over screen? I can understand, it's okay.
The best part defenetly is just trying new wands, and when it's done there is zero interest to play further and kill enemies, but explore new things is nice actually. They all have unique shots, sounds and it makes very different impact for you. I just have fun and don't do score, and it make most of my play time) If there will be interesting goals to do in game with game over, I think I can have a lot of time playing this! You have a really good game basis. Also it will be nice if distance will be shorter, and you can get more score while playing.
**MUSIC IS AMAZING** I even remember it while write this review :)
In total, I like this game, it feels way too good. Sound is Amazing! Good work, guys!
@sneakyfox I'm glad you enjoy this game, and thrilled to hear that you like the music, I worked really hard on it!
Everything about the graphics and effects is so stylish and polished, the artist did a great job. The game itself is a pretty fun short sandbox. A "big" game with such visuals and gameplay would be interesting, I think.
@runicpixels Thanks I'll give it a spin
Hi there,
Played your game for a while and the big problem I had is a navigation, since there is no any clear marker where to go actually. Probably if I would know map better it won't be a big issue, but there is very little time to figure it out, since you always are overrun by enemies.
I do appreciate a 8-bit art-style in art, music & SFX. As well I like how it feels to try out different wands (which you suppose to deliver as far as I understood). Overall a good solid entry, I really appreciate playing it for a while!
@erlioniel thanks for stating that, there is a marker, but the variables might put it off screen a bit too much, we'll try to improve that in a post-jam fix! (Should be fixed now on our Itch build).
Super cute and fun game! Loved it!
Very enjoyable game! Graphics and music are wonderful!
I played a couple times to test out all the weapons :laughing: But never made it to a score higher than 5, it's getting pretty insane then :laughing:
A few suggestions: Maybe pause the spawns, when you are at the tower, where you have to deliver the wand. This would allow a short break, to catch the breath a bit and relax.
I would remove the friendly fire from the saw-thingies. It makes me not want to pick it. It's not strong enough for the downside. :)
Is there a way to heal?
Very good game. Keep it up!!
Thanks for the kind words @mallansandan!
Thank you @stefan-funke! I've fixed the enemy spawning while selecting wand bug and pushed it to our post-jam version.
Every wand has it's own health pool. For example, the saw wand has a lot of hp, and the ring has a bit less. Every delivery has it's own health which gets reset upon delivery. :)
@runicpixels Ahh I did not realize that! Good to know! Thanks
Having the wand you're delivering determine your attack style is a cool mechanic, and there's a lot of variety in the different styles. I thought the reversal was a particularly good one!
Graphics are really good as well, I'm always impressed by what people can do with limited colour palettes - the water effects also caught my eye!
Thank you @jhax, it was a lot of fun to combine the shader techniques (water shader + palette limitting shader) to create the water effects! :)
Really cute. The old timey aesthetic both visual and audio are spot on!
Lovely game with really well-done isometric style art. Using the wands your delivering as weapons really keeps things interesting and is a cool use of the theme. That music track's a real jam too!
I really liked your game. The art is beautiful (very nice color palette), the music is in keeping with well-crafted retro chiptune, and the gameplay is a delight. I didn't sound like a huge fan of endless games. For this game to be perfect for me, it just needs levels and an ending.
Congratulations on the excellent work. One of my favorite LUDUM Dare 53 games so far.
I really liked the combat, although getting a full heal every delivery definitely made it a lot easier. Well done!
The main character and the slime on the cover are so cute! I love the color scheme of the whole game, they are very consistent! The particle effects and the feedback after the hit are also great! It's a cool game.
The style was super consistent, and the gameplay was fun!
The graphics and charm was amazing. It really felt unique in that regard. It was also really fun to play :). Had to stop myself of doing so.
I would complain about sometimes the "see enemies through scenery" not working well, but I guess with the limited time of the jam it is hard to get those things right. Hell, I am impressed you managed to get that in at all.
Damn, isometric pixel art is my weakness and you nailed it with this beautiful game. You should definitely keep the development going on. We'll keep an eye on it!
Dear Lord, the art is impressive !!
It tooks me way too long to figure out where to deliver the first wand, thought the indicator was a bugged button ^^'
Turns out i was just moving in the opposite direction, so it wasn't moving ahah
Loved the art an the soundtrack/sfx for this one. Smooth and responsive controls were good in the face of the teeming horde. I got to 18 points before I died. The limited palette was really cohesive.
A lot of the obstacles were pretty tall and easy to pump into. The map was fairly crowded, especially as the enemies build up. I also wished I had more options/strategy/risk vs reward than shooting and moving. Selecting the wand was nice, but I almost wanted a payout for harder wands or something that I could use to maybe buy some barebones upgrades or help me work towards a victory reached by achieving a total number of points or something.
That said, I only wanted that because I wanted to play more!
Pretty well done. I like the limiting choice of what to get next. Enemy pathfinding could use some more work though.
That's a beautiful game! I liked wandering over the map, enjoying the environment. Trying out all the different staffs/wands/weapons was cool, the effects were quite diverse. The only thing I missed was a bit of gameplay variance, walking and shooting worked well the whole time, there were no greater risks to take. But that's just nitpicking, the entry feels really well done for a jam game. Really liked it. :)
Very cool. I like how you use the mail as a weapon and how you reveal units behind trees and such. The music were great, although I'm not sure if the main loop really fit the setting. Maybe I was waiting for something more whimsical.
I would adjust the hearts to be one color for legibility's sake. Limited palette is a great challenge and choice but how you present some information. I felt the UI especially was very easily lost into the pixel jungle. Outlining could have helped for that.
Good job!
The music changed and I had no more deliveries, so I think I won...? Did I miss a victory screen?
I love constrained palettes and the whole presentation, and I love the idea of using your delivery to fight–it's such an obvious idea in hindsight but I haven't thought of it before, nor seen it in any other game this event. And to top it off, it's about witches. This game is very smooth and a joy to play
I think isometric view makes this kind of game a disservice. The way you show the player's head behind objects is clever but also feels weird, and it doesn't extend to mobs. 3D would be ideal, but it would be next to impossible to make a 3D pixel art shader as crisp as your sprites, so I don't really have a solution
Very fun! The only criticisms I have are, like someone else mentioned, the direction indicator is quite easily missed when in the corner, and I often found myself naturally going towards the envelope as it looked more arrow-like :sweat_smile: The only other thing is I sometimes found the font quite hard to read, but that might just be me.
Otherwise, a very fun little game!! :D
Top tier entry! The graphics are amazing and very medieval - I think the first isometric game I've seen. It took me a minute to get that what you were delivering changed your weapon, and then the gameplay clicked for me. I love the open world too, it's massive for a game jam.
My only critique is that it felt too easy? I could just mow down most groups of enemies, or just walk through them. I felt like I survived way longer than I should. And I think the font was a bit too hard to read. But those are nitpicks, great job!
I loved your game! The aesthetics and pixel art are beautiful! The sound effects and background music fit the vibe very well, and the difficulty of the game is just right and challenging. I really enjoyed the gameplay, discovering the weapons and their mechanics was very fun. Congratulations on the great work and good game! (´｡• ᵕ •｡`) ♡
Thanks for all the kind comments everyone!
- Large chance we'll make a better compass UI for the post-jam content update. (Maybe even in the bugfix still, depending on our time.) - We're still looking into balancing the difficulty and fine tuning the scaling in our post-jam content update. Scaling might indeed be a bit slow now, and aside from spawn rate / delivery distance, there's not a lot of dynamics in both the player's side and the enemies side. We're definitely looking into another layer of choice when it comes to passive items for a potential future update. - A more readable font option could be a QOL change, I'll propose it to the team. - Managing visual information in a isometric, 4 color game is always a bit tricky. But there's certainly ways to improve the way things are rendered behind objects. I don't have any great ideas right now , but if something pops up I'll definitely look into it, dithering an entire sprite for example, if you're behind it.
True 8-bit atmosphere!
Very cute aesthetics and really nice gameplay, I had a lot of fun with it! The iso perspective was specially well done :)
Thank you so much for the kind words, @pedro-medeiros! The work you did with Celeste has been a huge inspiration for me to grow as a pixel artist!~
You did such a great job with the pixel art! Looks amazing, and I like the muted color palette. Tying in weapon switching to the delivery is such a neat idea. It was really fun trying all the different wands. My favorite was the chain lightning one, it felt so satisfying to mow down big groups of enemies. The gameplay did get pretty repetitive after I had seen everything though. I found myself wishing there was some kind of end goal.
The graphics, music, and large map were really cool! I didn't realize I could shoot until after playing the game for a few minutes. It was really fun trying out the different weapons.
I wish I could play a more polished version of this game, maybe with some kind of story or goal!
This tune slaps. Hard. Love the aesthetics too, and the variety of weapons, forced by the delivery mechanic, which is a great way to combat the player psychology of sticking to one boring option if it's optimal. Fantastically put together, it left me wanting more!
Thanks for all the kind words @francis, @alanxoc3 and @poshdan!