Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD55 → Loitsumaali
By vinzbad
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 221 | 3.31 | 39 | |
| Fun | 172 | 3.40 | 40 | |
| Innovation | 101 | 3.64 | 40 | |
| Theme | 94 | 3.93 | 40 | |
| Graphics | 323 | 2.59 | 40 | |
| Humor | 277 | 2.12 | 37 | |
| Mood | 285 | 2.78 | 40 |
That was really fun! I love tower defenses so it was an unusual spin on the genre In the beginning I had some problems - I couldn't remember spells so I think it would be cool if you add them somewhere on the main screen. So it wasn't obvious that fireball has a direction and my first one flew somewhere in walls :smile:
@pupirka Thank you for your nice feedback! Did you use the spellbook button on the top right? I'd like the players to remember the spells and don't show them all the time.
Play this on the phone. Because on the computer, it sometimes doesn't understand your lines/glyphs for some reason. On the phone, I had no issue.
Fun game, great game. Simple to understand, pretty much pick up and go. Some of the VFX when casting the spells were pretty cool.
Maybe you've seen this issue but didn't have time to do anything about it: once you play it on the phone, you can cast spells so fast that you "break" the game. You can perma push enemy units. You can have 20 golems throwing rocks. You can have a complete wall of fire. It's fun to see it for the first time, but if you do achieve that, then the game becomes pointless. A mana gauge could help solve that problem. Or maybe some enemies only get affected by one type of elemental power, or do NOT get affected by one type of elemental power. Meaning you can't spam the same spell again and again, and you DO have to look at what's coming and react to it. There's not much replay value once you know how to break the game.
Great game again, loved getting to experience it.
@dasilvacontin Thank you for your detailed feedback! I think on mobile it's just easier to paint accurately, on PC I usually follow the angles in the octagram the get the correct glyphs.
Ah I honestly was hoping for comments like this in regards to balancing. I kinda wanted to have this learning curve where you become a ultra powerfull spell painter. I wonder how long you could sustain this in the endless mode ;) In later waves some enemies will have the blue speed shield which significantly reduces the slow down. But yeah more variety and strategic depth would be nice.
Great Submission! While I did find the game quite easy it was still very fun drawing out glyphs and watching my enemies get obliterated.
The game could use some polish with sound design and balancing.
This a great foundation if you wanted to expand it into a full game!
Amazing work!
Hi! nice mechanics, felt kinda difficult for me but nice for exploring new things. Thanks!
Good game, liked the concept of the game ! A bit too easy with 4 golems and push from time to time. Good job !
Was a bit difficult but good idea! Thank god you had screenshot of the spells on the itch page I don't know if I would been able to use them otherwise, haha Was a cool experience to play for a bit.
@worldofmush Thank you for your nice feedback! There's a button on the top left corner which will show you all the spells by the way ;)
Very fun game! Like others I had trouble with the mouse controls on PC but it worked great on mobile! One suggestion I have is to make your spells always aim toward where you're touching. Found the easter egg in the source code *🫡*
@lectvs Thanks for the feedback and your service for democracy *🫡*
I really loved this one. Excellent idea and execution. I was just sad that there weren't any more spells to use. I realy hope you expand this idea in the future. I'd be glad to try out a more fleshed out version.
There were couple minor oddities that could be worth looking into. Or then I'm just a dummie and didn't see the information :sweat_smile: - The push spell seemed like it sometimes dealt damage and sometimes not and I'm not sure was it supposed to or not - The zap spell seemed to fire a bit too quick. I _think_ this was the intention - to have one faster spell - but the visualisation was a bit off and it felt like the spell was prematurely fired. - The golems could have used a timer/health bar of some sort to indicate that they are not permanent. My defensive line decided to nope out of the situation on a critical moment and cost me the game :joy:
Like I said, minor oddities. They didn't take away from the experience at all. All and all a really nice compo entry!
EDIT: Forgot to mention that "Torilla tavataan" (finnish inside joke, almost worthy of a googling). `Loitsumaali` translates to `Spell paint` which also works very well for the game. `Loitsumaalari` would have been an exact translation to `Spellpainter`. But close enough. Extra points for using finnish :grin:
@eloraju Thank you! [Here's one more spell for you](https://helldivers.fandom.com/wiki/Eagle_500kg_Bomb) (EASTER EGG SPOILER)
- The push spell removes the green shields. It doesn't do "damage" (Blue shields are very resistant to push) - Yep the charging and aiming is a bit off, didn't have the brains to build a nice solution that works for all spells - That's funny! Happened to my wife too. Just remember your ABC -> ALWAYS BE CASTING
@eloraju OMG thank you for the finnish translation :heart: Just went to your beautiful country once for kayaking, but I'll be back!
I first tried this on a desktop browser and it wasn't much fun. :smile: But on a phone it was a totally different story. It was fun, and I think just about the right length for finishing the game (in normal mode). Good job!
@mikropiru Yeah, I've gotten quite used to it during the weekend, but I get that it is hard for new players. Maybe I'll do a post-jam version with keyboard input or some sort of guided glyph drawing for PC. Glad you were able to enjoy it on your phone!
That was good! Once I learned how it worked it went super smoothly. Golems seemed a little OP but it was great to summon a bunch of them and watch them go. I enjoyed it!
I think the obvious things for improvement are graphics and lack of audio.
It would also be cool if there were some more dynamic reasons you needed to summon different things, like maybe some type of pokemon type advantage deal.
Great job!
Fun game! I had trouble figuring out that I needed to draw each rune separately at first, but once I figured it out it went pretty smoothly. A wall of golems did the trick. Would have been great to have some summoning sounds. Nice work!
I was always casting, I live the frantic nature of trying to swing the mouse around wildly to get the correct spell for the moment. I noticed there were various interactions for each that could be discovered. Like the green shields being removed by push. I just had some challenges getting various spells to cast. I never got the golem to fire. Something about the sideways arrow made it hard to cast. Or it was me frantically scribbling to get the golem out before the wave got to me.
Nice concept, I liked it. I think it has a lot of potential, maybe for a mobile game, maybe with the ability to discover various spells. I did have minor bugs with the controls on PC, but nothing too tedious. Overall nicely done!
That was nice and fun. You did a great job with the summoning table. I am now wondering how do you compute which move is which? Thank you for the game!
Liked how it was set up, but the drawing was a little too strict for certain shapes and your mouse would lose the line sometimes. Still a neat idea.
It's a fun game though the lack of music and programmer art means I should probably judge it for its mechanics. I played it with a mouse on a PC and the gestures weren't detected properly. However, given more time, that could easily be fixed. Some ways forward could be to "unlock" more spells as the game progresses so that the player is not overwhlemed in the beginning but the gameplay can be varied. Also, assigning each "rune" a mental property (like v for fire), explaining that to the player and then using them in combinations that make sense: v (fire) + i (wind) + v = fireball would really aid in remembering the spells more.
Overall, great job!
I like this game! You guys are great!
Def best plays on a phone - switched from desktop to Android and never looked back.
Lots of fun, always love a good draw to spellcast game :)
Fun game, love seeing games where drawing is an input. i played it both on PC and phone, for me atleast it was easier to play on PC (probs cuz i play fps and aim games), did spend quite a bit of time in endless mode (up to 3rd loop). the only complaint i have is that the aim arrow wasnt aligned with my cursor. But other than that great entry!
Very ambitious to do a pattern tracing game in a ludum dare. I had trouble drawing the patterns with a mouse but I loaded the page on my phone like you recommended and that was indeed much easier!
What a great little game idea, and nicely executed. The recognition of the drawing worked pretty solid. It would be nice to have some kind of progression system to more powerful spells. I didn't notice any kind of mana system, so in the end I just kept spamming the golems, which made a nice little wall in from of me :)
That was fun :D played it on PC with mouse, had no problems ABC'ing my spells. Sometimes the V-shapes didn't register but I just had to draw them bigger, then they worked consistently.
I like the variety that this game offers, the spells all feel unique and useful. I can imagine the chaos and fun when there are even more spells to choose from, in order to counter new and different enemies.
Well done! :D
The shape recognition is really good! I used a mouse and it played well, if I drew carefully it recognized the shape correctly every time, and it only failed if I rushed (which is fair enough).
I ended up using the golems over and over again because I could spawn them before the enemies came onto the screen.