FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD55 → Temptation Summoner's Aprendice

Temptation Summoner's Aprendice

By baluj

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall10843.0181
Fun10852.8481
Innovation8383.0881
Theme8233.3681
Graphics8133.3681
Audio6173.1181
Humor6262.9676
Mood10133.0479

Comments

noona 2024-04-15 20:48

An interesting concept, the art style is very eye-pleasing!

save-sloth-studios 2024-04-15 22:11

I think I still have no idea what's happening in the game, even after multiple rounds, but I love the total chaos this game provides. Super simple art but works well here! I just don't agree with your font choices:D

avaclava 2024-04-16 15:48

I like the idea of it and the art style, but i do wish the temptations would be explain a bit more on how and when they work.

jackofcups 2024-04-16 15:52

Really liked the little bouncy guys! I seem to favor the orc faction, they kept decimating the poor humans. Hell of an effort for one guy to put out, no bugs that I could discern. 2 thumbs up!

2024-04-16 23:41

interesting pixel art, good gameplay

erik-tate 2024-04-16 23:50

Love the simple art and it's fun to just watch all the NPCs fight eachother haha. The background track is good too, but I genuinely have no idea what the summoned temptations actually do hahaha

amberfall92 2024-04-16 23:53

Agree with others that it's fun watching the little units bounce around. The vibe with the music is fun. I couldn't really figure out the impact the temptations were doing, though. When I lost, or the game ended, I wasn't sure why that happened, either. And I couldn't figure out what the little jail number in the top right was.

eric-nguyen 2024-04-16 23:55

Love watching the battle. I guess you're supposed to influence the war, but I couldn't figure out what each temptation does. Great work!

baluj 2024-04-17 00:20

@noona, @save-sloth-studios, @avaclava, @jackofcups, @noidea, @erik-tate, @amberfall92, @eric-nguyen. Thanks for playing. The number that appears on the grate is the number of humans and demons you have captured (now that I think about it, it would have been better to put two prisoner counters instead of one total).

In general, what temptations do is tempt humans and/or demons and capture them. More detailed: - The box catches 6. - The great red mass traps a large unit of demons. - The hay captures two horses, causing the riders to have to go on foot. - The table with food catches 3. - The big bag of coins catches 1.

And more than influencing the war, you must get as many points as you can before it ends (each type of unit gives you a certain amount of points).

kiseki 2024-04-17 02:23

i was expecting something like the age of war from the title image but this is fun too!

pres2300 2024-04-17 02:25

I think the audio and visual style were really good in this game. The way the NPCs interacted with each other was interesting. As far as the gameplay goes, as others have said I didn't really understand what the goal was. I think it's too easy to just spam the traps with seemingly no consequences. Maybe if the player took some sort of damage if too many things were alive? Maybe there has to be some balance between humans/demons otherwise you get hurt in some way? Just some ideas, but I think for a quick Jam this game was really well done. Nice job!

milano23 2024-04-17 02:50

Interesting game. It took a couple of plays but i finally saw the number on the cage. Every play through the humans would lose. Was i supposed to use the guys in the cage at all. Do the humans lose on purpose every time? Nice visual and audio. Lots of chaos but I can see with some refinement that it has the potential of being a fun game. Good job.

blackcat508 2024-04-17 04:28

great art, didn't really understand it at first but I think I started to get it!

lespaul59 2024-04-17 09:11

Hey nice entry. Loved the minimalistic art and the overall style. I'm not quite sure if I have understood the concept of the game. But I had fun nonetheless. Also, catchy little tune :)

flaterectomy 2024-04-17 09:17

Reading your explanation in these comments, the game starts to make more sense. The main issue is that things are unclear in general. Is there a cost to dropping these temptations, or is there a hidden cooldown that prevents me from dropping them sometimes?

In the chaos on screen, there is too little indication that any units are captured. They simply disappear and the number in the top right increases. If they blinked white combined with a capture sfx before they disappear, that alone would communicate what's happening more clearly. The current sfx of combat aren't really needed.

I like the concept, the art is simple but cute. The primary improvements you could make are in communicating what happens to the player.

baluj 2024-04-17 12:18

@kiseki, @pres2300, @milano23, @blackcat508, @lespaul59, @flaterectomy. Thank you very much for playing. I appreciate you taking the time to comment.

@pres2300 There is a hidden Cold Down that prevents spamming a temptation (the better the temptation is, the greater the CD). I don't think I have managed to explain it since I presuppose it, the thing is that you must equalize the war so that it lasts longer and thus have more time (there is a penalty of 100 for each fallen tower and 200 for the fallen castle).

@milano23 The thing is that you have to grow the number of guys in the cage. So you're on the demon side? In reality, the winning side is the one you bother the least.

@flaterectomy There is a hidden Cold Down that prevents spamming a temptation. I was going to have a little animation of how the captured unit interacted with the temptation, but I ran out of time. Anyway, the white flashing is a really cool idea, I'll go with it.

bollatix23500 2024-04-17 15:18

Great game, i vas a little confused at first and ended up just spaming everything, but great work

thi4guer4 2024-04-17 17:08

Really liked the overall-art!

beebster-games 2024-04-17 17:09

Not sure what the goal of the game was. I just started spamming everything in hopes something would happen. I played for about 4 minutes and finally gave up.

I could not read the documentation on the itch.io site because of the font you used. You may want to change that. Something functional and not just cool to look at.

sami822 2024-04-17 17:17

At first it looked that demons goin to easily win so I managed to push humans forward capturing 500 living beings in total. Overall, it was engaging tbh.

baluj 2024-04-17 17:32

@bollatix23500, @thi4guer4, @beebster-games, @sami822 Thank you very much for playing. I appreciate you taking the time to comment.

@beebster-games I have already changed the font for better readability.

michael-macha 2024-04-17 17:45

This is a really innovative approach to Kingdom-style games.

sweedy 2024-04-17 17:46

Cool graphics :D, it reminds me a game from my childhood about civilization fighting. Liked the game 8)

baluj 2024-04-17 18:05

@michael-macha, @sweedy Thank you very much for playing. I appreciate you taking the time to comment.

coderaurus 2024-04-17 20:52

Like the others, I wasn't sure what was going on even after reading the preface. My strategy was to spam the baits randomly. Additionally, in game there is no time to read the instructions at all. It doesn't help either that the text is on textured background, making it hard to read. So I suggest to change the background to something bright single color if you want to use the font.

I do like the art and jumpy tunes, they mix well together.

Good job!

almalewis 2024-04-17 20:52

Hmmm, so very expressive...)))

lelek-hunor-kadosa 2024-04-17 23:20

I have no idea what I have to do, but I realy like the way they jump around

marleeeeeey 2024-04-18 09:39

Loving the game's vibe with its clever "temptations" mechanics! The art's super minimalistic but totally works, bringing fun chaos to the gameplay. The tunes? Just spot on. Could use some clearer instructions though. All in all, super cool game!

sodagummy 2024-04-18 12:36

I think the art and sound was cool! The animations were interesting, though the font was hard to read and the text disappeared a bit too quickly and sometimes when I clicked I wasn't very sure what was happening. I like the aesthetic of the game though!

nicso 2024-04-18 17:38

like others said, i have no idea of what i am doing, event after reading your explaination on the comments

graphics and audio are nice tho šŸ‘

aj-atkinson 2024-04-18 17:39

Love the pixel art. But not sure what any of the 'summoning' skills/spells actually do, but the counter goes up. Kinda feels like a playful clicker game.

baluj 2024-04-18 17:52

@almalewis, @coderaurus, @lelek-hunor-kadosa, @marleeeeeeey, @sodagummy, @nicso, @aj-atkinson Thank you so much for playing. I appreciate you taking the time to comment.

@save-sloth-studios, @beebster-games, @coderaurus, I've already changed the font and background it was on. @avaclava, @marleeeeeeey, @sodagummy I have extended the explanations within the game and lengthened their duration.

larazofia 2024-04-18 19:29

Neat little game, I was immediately a fan of the art style :) music was fitting and the concept was interesting. I have to admit I was honestly confused as to what I needed to do and why my score was in the negative hundreds, but after reading the explanation in the comments I gave it another go and had a great time!

baluj 2024-04-18 19:47

@larazofia I'm glad you enjoyed it.

d3kryption 2024-04-18 22:49

Hey! Very interesting game. Good pixel art, nice animations and the audio is great!

nice job! :D

Please can you vote on my game? Thank you! :D

thegreatcarpet 2024-04-18 23:58

A simple game. Of course, at the very beginning I did not understand what we need to do, but after a little tinkering I realized! Good game)

baluj 2024-04-19 01:20

@d3kryption Thanks for playing! I had voted for it.

@thegreatcarpet I’m glad you enjoyed it.

misoukun 2024-04-19 17:30

Pixel art is nice even if we can't really guess what are the temptation items without the text.

As the others, I think the problem is due to the lack of cost, cooldown and or visual feedback when a temptation item is consumed.

Anyway, the idea is interesting.

baluj 2024-04-19 18:31

@misoukun Thanks for comment.

In reality there is always a cost, I just fixed it.

The cold down that was previously constant, I have now changed to an increasing variable one to fix the progression of the game. Since as the game progresses there are fewer towers left, causing fewer characters to spawn. This keeps the cost low at the beginning and increases as you progress.

dmitry-mozgin 2024-04-19 20:15

The pixel art is simple, but very effective. I also like chaos on the battle field, but it was hard for me to figure out what to do. I've read comments and agree with others as the game could have more visual feedback when something important is happening. Regardless that, I think the concept is interesting and you may want to improve the game according to suggestions in the comments.

salanyel 2024-04-19 23:17

Simple game, quick, efficient and fun.

Nice pixel art with big slimes!

julian-france 2024-04-21 04:48

Quite confusing at first, but once I figured out what each temptation did (by re-reading the controls and just experimentation) it was fun to absolutely destroy one army. Cute art too!

jamesw 2024-04-23 07:20

Very neat game. The temptations are not very clear to me, however, I did love the idea of summoning temptation to attract humans and demons in a war. Nice game!

jean-francois 2024-04-23 19:08

Not sure to understand what I have to do ^^' otherwise, nice game :)

whenyoucantfindafriend 2024-04-24 16:43

I love the pixel art! I liked the music but it seemed a little bit too cheerful for a battle scene. Well done!

lcstark 2024-04-25 16:49

Really cool idea! A tug-of-war game, but instead of playing as one side against the other, you play against both of them and have to balance their fight to get as much for yourself. I love it! :D

I agree with others before me that it could definitely use some more feedback to player actions. I'd also add that having a visible cooldown indicator on the temptations is really needed, as without it it feels really confusing as to why you can't place them anymore, or when they're ready again.

chusmimax 2024-04-27 11:18

Really fun game to experiment with, I would have loved a better explanation of some of the summonings beforehand, but it is still solid once you get what is your purpose in the war.

alezjl 2024-04-30 11:17

Great game mate!!!! I love the art.

josang1567 2024-05-02 08:12

good game, love the art

zekysky 2024-05-02 16:53

I got a little confused when I started playing hehe. I really liked the camera movement and the characters'. Keep working on this type of game, they're very original.

milq 2024-05-02 20:48

I like the game! It's true that it's initially a bit difficult to understand how it works, but once you get it, it's really cool. Having to choose the right temptations to tempt as many people as possible is very engaging. The graphics are good, and the movements of each soldier are fun. The music is cheerful, though a bit repetitive. For a first entry in a Ludum Dare, I think it's a fantastic debut! Great game!