⸸ INVERSIO NEGOTIUM ⸸

gold-daniel 2024-04-16 16:31

What a great and unique bullet hell! I made it to the third boss (the pink one) and I almost beat it.

Having to draw different signs using the candles to summon minions for attacks is a unique mechanic, really creative. But I found it most effective to draw the simplest triangle over and over. Maybe a per-ritual timed cooldown could combat this.

The art was great and cohesive, everything fit together. The bright colors contrasting with the dark background made it easy to read what was happening. I also liked the subtle effect on the floor. The sounds fit the game as well.

Overall a unique, creative, and well polished entry, great job!

telo-philippe 2024-04-17 00:30

I think this is the first time I have ever seen this mechanic, it is so unique and so cool! Moreover, the art and music are top notch, the game is very polished, well done! I don't have anything to complain about, i just had a great time playing the game hahaha

pres2300 2024-04-17 03:20

This was amazing! I just want more of it. I think it could easily be expanded into an awesome and addictive game. It nails the theme, and the mechanic is really unique. The visuals and audio were freaking awesome. Nice job!

julienlussiez 2024-04-17 10:31

It's really great, the art style is very pleasant and the concept really fun, good job!

pusheeneiro 2024-04-17 14:35

Great art and mechanic

denhette 2024-04-17 14:36

This is one of the best LD entries I've ever seen, you can all be very proud of what you've made!

justcamh 2024-04-17 14:43

Such an amazing bullet hell! There was so much going on, but it always felt possible. I love the variety in the spells, that it was often worthwhile to deal less damage, but to do so faster and more easily. The idea of making the player move to perform actions is really interesting! :heart:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2122044081

mololo 2024-04-17 14:49

This is such an awesome and unique game. I feel like it feels the theme the best out of all entries I have played. The audio and graphics are so good. Fantastic job guys.

lonthy 2024-04-17 21:24

Fantastic game and great idea. I love it <3

jnw 2024-04-18 00:35

Woah this ruled. Music was awesome. Art was great. Movement with the mouse was a great choice and good work capping the speed on it. Only real complaint is that the glow effect around the bullets was a bit much so sometimes I wasn't sure if I was going to get hit or not.

quinn-davis 2024-04-18 00:36

This game is really cool. Interesting idea that works pretty well. The audio and graphics fit the mood and I really enjoy them. I liked how the color scheme changed with each angel. Would have been nice to be able to pause to go to options or quit but that's not huge.

vary 2024-04-18 00:57

Holy this is my favorite entry so far. Everything is so well thought out and put together, complete with several very appreciated QoL features - a very clear icon over your mouse so you can always keep track of your character, flashing lights to indicate the slow effect wearing off, the latest lit candle being a different color, having defensive spells that still do damage so it doesn't feel like a waste - I am just so incredibly impressed. The gameplay loop, also, while simple and difficult, was satisfying once I realized I had the rituals memorized and could adapt on the fly to the immediate situation I was in. I also LOVE the audio! The music is perfect and the chanting fits so well. Really amazing entry!

nomus 2024-04-18 01:04

That's a super cool concept ! I really loved it, I almost beat the game in 3 lives but the end boss is really challenging so it took me like 5 tries for it the variety of patterns with different effets is super nice, the animation too At first i thought that the boss hitbox would hit me but it didnt, it kinda created some visual clutter but once you're used to it it's a cool visual effect amazing experience, super cool art, the voices create a cool mood, the projectile patterns is well thought, Great Job !

funnypumpkin 2024-04-18 13:00

Amazing visuals and sound!

iron-leonem 2024-04-18 17:34

I reviewed this game live on Twitch, and in my notes for viewers, it says "If you play no other game on this list, play this one."

Great aesthetic, mood, and sound. Fantastic gameplay loop- dodging bullets to draw the glyphs was a fantastic gameplay mechanic!

The two notes I came up with during the stream were that having all the glyphs at once felt a little overwhelming, and that gradually unlocking them would be an easier onboarding experience for the player, and also, that you could introduce a roguelike component with upgradeable candles- something like amplifying healing using green candles or something. This would encourage using transformed and rotated glyphs, and reward players who get really good at drawing those in any orientation.

Please keep working on it. In a post jam version, I think I'd like to see a little more visual variety, and integration of some more systems like the one I mentioned above with roguelike progression, but I could easily see myself dropping $10 - $15 on an early access version of this title if you guys had a solid plan and roadmap.

zimny11 2024-04-18 20:35

Amazing entry! Really fun to play! The art style is super interesting and nice, music is good too and game mechanics feels clean and tight. My only feedback would be: - I couldn't move to corners, I assume by design, but it was hard to tell where is the map edge. - Some combos are simple enough that there is no big incentive to try for the harder one, so some balancing there would be nice.

Great job with the game! It was fun to play it :)

andreadbx 2024-04-18 22:30

what a game! so original, both the gameplay and the artstyle, very creative!

ausstein 2024-04-18 22:36

Thanks for dropping by my stream! <3

here is the vod if you want to rewatch

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2123241621?t=2h5m9s

lisek-gagatek 2024-04-18 23:46

@zimny11 Very valid point with marking an end of the map for the player. We planned to add a graphics for a "ritual circle" around the candles, but we thought about it only in terms of aesthetic addition, not gameplay QoL, so it wasn't that high on priority list.

I'll also drop a comment here for a small chance this finds a fellow osu! player - the game should be playable using a graphical tablet. We have a hidden controls enabling Z and Spacebar for lighting candles, but it can be remapped in options anyways. If someone does try it this way, please leave a comment, I'm really interested if this works for you :D

batisdark 2024-04-19 03:02

You were not kidding about it being hard. But fun. And music with sounds were great too. I will have to try and beat it, but damn its hard from the start haha!

storeyware 2024-04-19 05:53

Yeah I've downloaded this. Imma keep it tucked away on my desktop to keep going back to for a while. XD Loving this submission.

ategon 2024-04-21 12:54

Fucking phenomenal game

Extremely fun to play and everything comes well together really well with nice graphics and an insanely good soundtrack

Played through it two times on stream (one time from you submitting it and another time on my own when the queue was empty)

Theres chapters for the game in each vod labeled with the game name if you wanted to look at them in the future

https://youtu.be/eQrmE5W6CWU https://youtu.be/c9SO3tlrBa0

pierogo 2024-04-21 15:51

@ategon oh I didn't know you played for the second time! that's awesome, thanks for the link :D

And, again, super glad you liked it hah :heart:

denilseven 2024-04-22 13:49

This is insane!! The gameplay is thrilling and the graphics and music complement it so well Really epic, 10/10 will play again

lamp-p 2024-04-22 18:58

Super cool probably the most fun game I've played all jam. It was challenging but never unfair. I found myself relying on a few shorter spells most of the time. The balance is really impressive for a jam game I thought it would be messy and frustrating but this was actually very fun. Nice job.

custodi 2024-04-22 23:35

I like bullet hell games, your game is bullet hell, i like your game. Art/sound/gameplay - everything is awesome. Sometimes when need to check spell in the book, i missed some bullets(

jebouin 2024-04-23 01:27

Really cool bullet hell, kept me playing for a while! I like the variety in spells and bullet patterns, I had a lot of fun trying to complete the most complicated spells though the last boss took me a couple tries to beat. My only complaint is that the screen shake was a bit too strong, especially after casting a spell when you still have to dodge bullets. I also didn't realize you could go through the boss without taking damage. Other than that the mood was great, congrats!

jkyd 2024-04-23 02:03

Very cool! I really like the art style, music choice, and the techno-juice of it all! Especially in the early levels, I found it rather easy to dodge the bullets, perhaps because the player movement speed is so quick in relation to mouse movement (though I had a lot of dodging practice recently with testing our LD game). In later levels, having the lasers completely block off parts of the map really helps mitigate that, adding more complexity in actively blocking the sigils you can cast at that moment. While the sigils themselves aren't necessarily complex, I did find it a little overwhelming to get them all at once and not really have any time to look them over because the game is going on in the background (albeit slowed down). I did fall into a rut of using just one or two sigils back-to-back -- it would be interesting to potentially limit available candles at times to force players to use new sigils, or introduce them in a deck-building way such that you're constantly swapping out which few you're able to cast at any given moment. This being said, what a fantastic submission! Such a unique take on the theme mixed with a bullet hell game, wrapped in a very polished manner :) Great job!

dovodx 2024-04-24 21:45

Super well-tuned, amazing visuals and sound, love the rock soundtrack. Just a fantastic entry. I beat it and couldn't believe it was only 9 minutes with all the intense gameplay I experienced. Also great move putting a quick tutorial into the game itself. Some minor issues I found: - No pause button? - I believe I was playing the latest version, but I didn't seem to get the end screen. It went back to the main menu after I beat it. - I would like it if the player could keep moving even when the cursor is outside the playable area so that you don't get "stuck". - I don't see a particular reason why the summon book can't just pause the game outright. I guess it adds tension, but it discourages the player from learning about more than 1-3 summons because it's just more mental load when you have bullets coming towards you. - The different summon types are cool, but since none of them last long (as far as I saw), I don't see much reason to summon the more complicated ones. I liked summoning the guy that required all candles lit in a zigzag pattern, but I found it way more effective to just do triangle spam and try not to get hit so I wouldn't have to summon healers. I think DPS really matters here since moving across the screen and lighting candles takes time, and more time lighting candles means more time spent dodging and potentially dying. Maybe the more complicated/high damage summons could do more damage or require fewer candles to better tip the risk-reward so that they're worth using over the quick and easy 3-candle summons.

lisek-gagatek 2024-04-25 01:21

@dovodx Thank you for playing and I'm glad you enjoyed.

A lot of valid criticism, the players using only a small selection of sigils being the most prominent through all the fedback we received. Although harder spells do in fact deal more damage in the game. Full zigzag two-shots most bosses. We're already planning a post-jam version of the game, where you'll equip only a few sigils before each fight, so that it's more strategic and less overwhelming.

The victory screen is just the menu with the church destroyed, nothing fancy, as we had no time (the same goes for pausing).

And yeah, slowing down time was a decission to keep tension. The game was meant to be fast and brutal, punching you in the face. If not the overwhelming selection of sigils it might not have been that bad.