Spellbook

jeremy-ryan 2023-10-03 01:59

Had a lot of fun with this one! The main mechanic is really interesting, and it makes for some interesting choices of when to use your limited spells to get the most out of them and not mess up your spellbook too much.

Right now it does feel like it's rarely worth it to intersect words or play them diagonally; the safest strategy is just to stack them to conserve space. It would be neat if intersecting previous spells gave some kind of bonus to incentivize it and make a more interesting crossword (maybe you get a copy of that spell, or it makes that spell fade faster, or you just get bonus points).

Graphics and audio are fairly simple but are cohesive and readable. I like the bouncy characters and the variety of animations for the different damage types. It's a nice touch that the player and enemies actually respect the perspective.

Nice work for 48 hours!

gamer-fates 2023-10-03 03:23

Impressed you were able to squeeze all of these mechanics in just 48 hours. A lot happening at first but after a few minutes the game I was able to get going.

mahalis 2023-10-03 04:15

This is terrific! Clever, original, well-executed mechanic—I love that the different words produce appropriate attack patterns for slash vs. jab vs. bisect etc. I couldn’t tell what the difference was between the enemies—was it their attack pattern? Point value? I agree with Jeremy’s point that the crosswording could have used a little more depth, but honestly: this is the compo, it’s super hard to get _anything_ good done in time, and you knocked it out of the park. Bravo.

rose 2023-10-03 04:28

Fitting spells into a spell book is an awesome take on the theme! The characters were cute, especially the bounce. It was fun to see the variety of spells that popped up. One change you could consider is if rotating the words rotated the spell effect as well - that would be a good reason to rotate the words and not just stack them up.

lachlan-james 2023-10-10 11:00

Heaps of complexity here. Love the way the spells slowly faded in the book, and the connections between the words and the spell shapes. Couldn't see a super viable reason to do anything other than just stack my 'crossword' words vertically, but maybe I wasn't playing close enough attention. Crazy depth for 48h. Well done.

kinggurke 2023-10-10 19:34

Would be cool if there was more incentive to actually stacking letters, but a really fun game concept either way!

hare-software 2023-10-17 17:25

Truly and amazing entry! Had a lot of fun playing it and kept discovering new features of the game as it went along. Very well made and a very good implementation of the theme. Well done!

mcbombadev 2023-10-18 00:12

Got to 5900 points... and totally didn't realize I could stack words until coming back to leave a comment (woops!). It's a cool idea for a mechanic though and something that could easily be expanded on in a post-jam project, such as re-casting or combining the effects of the overlapped spells.

Overall, really nicely put together for a compo entry!

croze 2023-10-19 02:40

I really like this one! I got 8600 on my 3rd try, and about to have my partner try it :) Really well balanced for such a short amount of time, and the variety in attacks was super neat. Only immediate suggestions are to create an indicator for attacks that provide lifesteal (I could intuitively guess, but people who don't speak english as well might not realize which attacks give health back), and the spellbook/board thingy could use some fine tuning, I found it was either completely unrestricting or game-ending.

Edit: wow I need to pay more attention to descriptions lol, I just realized too that you can stack the words and rotate them. I was just placing them horizontally from top to bottom and it seemed to work out

aucguy 2023-10-19 03:22

Innovative take on the theme by incorporating crosswords. I think there is a way to do advanced strategies, but I'm not good with crosswords. I did like the variety of spells to keep the game varied. I also liked how the spells faded and made room for new spells.

aggrathon 2023-10-19 07:16

This was a really fun game. I like the use of two boards to minmax. However, I feel like stacking the words horizontally (and sometimes vertically) is an optimal strategy (would be fun to see what kind of game design would break that). My final score was 15900.

minjutin 2023-10-19 07:40

The idea of this game is just so good and innovative, also technically interesting (as a programmer, while I was playing this I was all like "wooow how did they do the tile system very interesting yes yes"). I wish I had made this game, it's so great

senso 2023-10-19 08:08

Impressive mechanics. I love the fading effect to create space. The best part is the variety of spells and the hit area, which makes it increasingly puzzling. I see the potential for a mobile hit with this core mechanic

vfqd 2023-10-19 13:25

This is a neat idea! I think some way for removing letters would be cool to help survive longer

sal-zhang 2023-10-19 14:49

Although It's a easy game, but I still love it, I got 14000 points.

cassowary 2023-10-19 16:22

It is a really cool idea! I wish there was a way to remove spells without using them. I ultimately lost because I had too many healing spells, but when I used them, they healed like 2 hearts but then I took 3 damage... lol. It's very creative though, I scored 8100 on my second try.