The Summoner's Forest

literally-void 2024-04-15 18:53

I'm not sure why, but I can't download this---I'm getting a 404. If you've done everything right on your end you may want to try reuploading the game!

joe40001 2024-04-16 05:20

Thanks for the feedback @literally-void, the issue should be addressed. It seemed like a hosting bug.

ryusui 2024-04-23 05:01

The platforming controls are really clumsy and unresponsive, and the summoning mechanics are hard to make sense of; I'm not sure what the relationship, if any, is between the "mana" I'm picking up and which summons I'm able to use.

I also really recommend playing the Megaman X games for an idea of how a wall hang/jump mechanic ought to work; it shouldn't require an additional button press.

maxededo 2024-04-23 05:52

Pretty neat little game you got here! I think you could tweak the feel of things like the gravity - I found there wasn't enough air time to really get a sense of my jump arc or where I would land. The summoning mechanic was a cool take on the theme, but I was a bit confused by the relationship between mana and summoning, as well as why the bushes refilled my charges. I would suggest rethinking the level design in relation to the summon charges, since there wasn't much of a purpose to the charges, but I think you've got a really strong starting point!

zablas 2024-04-23 08:37

Cozy little platformer. Just wasn't sure when my summons were going of cooldown sometimes.

dan-allison 2024-04-23 12:09

I like the core of this a lot, I think summoning new ways to move around the world is a really cool twist on a platformer and when it works well here it works really well. The main issue for me is the cooldowns/mana system. Right now with one mistake, which I think is quite easy to make since since the summons don't stay around for very long means you're then out of mana. So there's a lot of going back and forth to the last bush to try again. I think tweaking this system or even having a quick reset to last mana bush button could change things for the better. I still think it's a solid idea and the core is executed well. There's a lot going on here as well so to get this much in and working in a game jam is really impressive so well done.

andriybyelikov 2024-04-23 17:55

Summoning stopped working for me after the second bush for some reason.

joe40001 2024-04-24 10:57

@ryusui Sorry you had a bad experience, we based the hold to grab mechanic on the wall grab mechanic in Celeste which does hold down the button. Still, thank you for your feedback and we'll think about changing how the wall hang is done for a post-jam version.

@maxededo @zablas Thanks for the positive feedback, sorry there was some confusion, the tips section of this page has been expanded to hopefully clear up some of your confusion.

@dan-allison Thanks for all the feedback! That's a lot of useful things to consider. As far as running out of summons, the bush should always reset that, also if you die you are sent back to the last bush. But yes, I think you have a good suggestion about having a hotkey to instantly go back to the last bush.

@andriybyelikov hmm, that is quite odd, you should be able to track what summons you have available (as well as which one you have selected) with the left UI element. Perhaps you had a summon selected that you did not have power for? If you do ever run out of charges you can go back to the last bush as the bushes basically work as checkpoints/mana recharge stations.

andriybyelikov 2024-04-24 14:34

@joe40001 Yeah, I just realized that I simply didn't have any platform mana left and should have spawned a spring instead.

affinitychris 2024-04-27 17:50

I beat it with 61680 mana and died 30 times - love that you have a results screen. Overall, thought it was fun and I like the spawning mechanics were navigational changes. I thought it was odd that the cooldown and the duration of each summoned element being the same time was frustrating, since it seemed to discourage players from using the ability in tandem (which was required to get through the final obstacle). Otherwise, some stuff was a bit difficult to understand without the game explicitly calling it out (like how the mana bushes give you different amounts of mana for each summon, rather than a full restore), but it wasn't anything I couldn't figure out.

Overall, pretty fun, but tough!

rowlof 2024-04-27 18:19

Ayo, I beat it! I don't know if I did the last challenge in the intended way but it worked. temp.png

joe40001 2024-04-27 20:06

@affinitychris awesome job, and thanks for the feedback! Yeah, if building from the ground up now we'd probably tweak the cooldown system. We were working up until the end (as you can maybe tell by the underwhelming UI, lol) so some things like the cooldown timer which got in a "good enough" state didn't get revisited. But we'll definitely take your feedback in consideration for any post jam version we do!

@rowlof Wow! Looking at that death counter I can see you aren't a quitter! Well done. The final section is hard enough that when we discovered there were somewhat cheesy strats to beat it we left them in anyway. "Intended" route was based around wall slides, wall jumps, and carefully placed platforms. But beating the game any way you can totally counts! :thumbsup:

Great job both of you! And thanks for your feedback and for playing!

rowlof 2024-04-28 10:06

@joe40001 I beat it using midair spring jumps :smile:

justcamh 2024-04-28 10:11

Wooooooo Screenshot 2024-04-28 201045.png

stanov 2024-04-28 21:12

You saw me playing it live :)

It was very hard for me, as a casual platformer enjoyer :)

The screens were too big to get to the start, so repeating the attempts was tedious.

I liked the choice of music, the adventure was obvious :)

A tutorial teaching me the mechanics would be highly appreciated! :)

Thank you for stopping by!