Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD55 → Vamper
By flamingrat, Nytezerak and Ghyliorn
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 757 | 3.42 | 54 | |
| Fun | 840 | 3.18 | 54 | |
| Innovation | 645 | 3.30 | 52 | |
| Theme | 293 | 4.03 | 52 | |
| Graphics | 748 | 3.49 | 54 | |
| Audio | 504 | 3.35 | 52 | |
| Humor | 810 | 2.62 | 49 | |
| Mood | 767 | 3.39 | 53 |
Interesting idea but seems too buggy and unfinished. I was able to escape the playground and so did enemies. Also cant see a point of the game or some kind of ending. Even dying doesnt stop it, feels like work irl. Ill be happy to review it once more if youll make some kind of ending or progression and fix issues just contact me in some way :) Truly vamper experience GLVamper.0.0.1_pj3k1kjBjJ.png
Thanks @lima-victor this was a very early build I wanted to put it out there to start getting some friends to test it. Going to push another version RN and then one just before the deadline, let's hope it's more of a finished prototype by then!
It's always a pleasure working with you, guys !
The game is really neat. I love the way camera reacts to movement. Summoning radius is a cool idea as well. More enemies and/or summons would be a great addition.
I somehow got pushed out of the wall by an enemy, so never died or finished.
It's been an awesome experience working with you, guys!
This pixel art is so nice! I loved the logo and the bat's helmet, it's a very creative solution.
Also have you made the the stones' texture by yourself? Their texture is very accurate! I had at this LD my first experience with pixel art and couldn't achieve the stones' texture, so I droped the idea. hahaha Seeing your solution gives me inspiration to continue with the pixel art studies.
The music is so envolving, and the sfx are agradable to hear.
The game is intuitive and got me fixed to it. haha
About the balance, I felt that summoning mobs costs a lot of mana and the enemies' respawn happens so fast, in a punnitive way. I found myself with no mobs left and surrounded by enemies very fast! I'll certainly try again. hahaha
I suggest you to highlight the score and progress counter, it was hard to identify in the beggining.
I'd love to see news about this game!
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Nice work! The move/summon ring is a very neat idea. The thorn character and spelling made me laugh (although the font isn't my favorite.) I really like the 2D in 3D perspective — reminds me of Card Hunter or Wildermyth. I'm a big fan of the camera and the really elegant one-hand controls. The way you present information is very clean.
If it's helpful: I had trouble understanding the tradeoffs of which creatures I should summon, and I missed at first that I could summon creatures farther out than the immediate tiles. I also wished for some hints about where an enemy may spawn next, and some terrain besides the walls to try to use.
Oh also — nice music! It's unobtrusive but sets the mood perfectly.
@ghosttori thanks for trying out the game! Adding new units is definitely the thing we want to do the most, but we need to add some polish first. We ended up not having enough time for this jam, but I'm really happy with how it turned out either way.
It sucks that you got stuck though. If you manage to reproduce it somehow let us know.
Thank you for the feedback, @Tata. We plan to implement improvements in the interface and several new features in the near future. We're glad you liked it and appreciate your support!
@tata Thanks for the thorough review, we really appreciate it! All GFX work credit goes to @nytezerak and audio to @ghyliorn.
We are testing out ways to improve the resource management like mana bottles and blood bags, unfortunately we didn't have enough time during the jam but we'll definitely improve it over time.
You can follow me on itch.io (same account that has the game) I will post updates outside the jam there once the rating phase is over.
Thank you for the feedback and support, @potahto. Your tips will be of great help for the future versions.
Definitely has potential to be a really fun game fleshed out with more features. I would recommend having some way to skip animations later on as it can take quite a while with a lot of enemies. Music is nice. Good work!
Cool idea and pretty pixel art, nice work
Thank you @benjaminw! We are excited to continue working on this game, i'm glad you had fun while playing! :P
Thank you @ulziton! I'm glad you liked it :3
Thanks @potahto! We will be looking to your suggestions! :D
Thank you @tata! I'm very happy that you liked it, everything was done with great care! Soon we'll be updating it =u=
Thank you @ghosttori! We'll be working on new features soon :P
pressed spacebar, nothing happened.
great mechanics! I think this mechanics could be expanded much more depth. nice job!
Nice work! You did a great job with the camera management, very smooth. Overall there is nothing in the game that made me want to keep trying.
Pretty fun, for sure could use more summons though, feels rather limited.
This is such an interesting concept. I would love to see it expanded with more units and maybe a way to collect mana
Hi there @the4thcircle! Please, just wait a bit after pressing space, we'll be working on this issue
Loved the concept of it, easy to understand and play. I loved the radius growing smaller as the character moves! The characters are also very well designed, would love to see more. Fun and replayable!
Thank you all @doonutsaur, @mark-swinimer and @astropulse! It's on our radar to add clearer objectives and ofc balance enemies and add more summons! Thanks for playing, hope you come again in the future and appreciate our updates :D
Thank you @calvin! We have some blood bags and bandages to add >:)
Thank you @dobrila! I'm glad you liked it :3 Hope you come try it again in the future :P
Great Job! Its have nive details like the movement range, but I feel a little overwelmed summoning only 1 thing per turn, but overall nice job!
Thanks for the feedback, @bollatix23500! We plan to add some collectibles for health and mana issues, new summons and more in the near future. Hope you enjoy.
i really like sounds
Overall the game looks nice, gameplay has potential - maybe im just bad, but as a player i feel a bit weak, the summons are not clever/strong enough to do enough :p
Really like the 2D billboard sprites in the 3D environment, creates a cool vibe! Good solid core of a game here - and nice to see you've got some additions planned - I felt like I was doing a bit more running away than summoning but I think a lot of the bits you've mentioned already would address that :smile:
@trux @jhax thanks very much! Yeah the gameplay loop is a bit flawed especially later on where you end up running more than summoning. The collectibles and new summons will hopefully fix those issues, although they aren't in the scope of the jam. You can follow us on Itch to get more updates there!
The AI is a bit buggy but the game is nice, great potential :) the game matches the theme
Nice job, I liked it, although the player character gets overwhelmed quite easily. The camera moving around and focusing the enemies really sold it for me. One thing I'd like to add though - Why can enemies spawn right next to me _and_ hit in the same turn? D: Seems a bit unfair, but alas, not a big deal!
@jean-francois @untick thanks for the feedback!
- we are aware that the AI is a little shitty at the moment. We are going to fix it in a later version, there are some improvements on the way already, although we'll have to wait for the jam to be over to release. - someone suggested earlier that the player see the spawn locations before they actually spawn, so they can plan accordingly. We are experimenting with this route and are going to fix the issue of random spawns being too frustrating as well.
It was fun! Love the movement circle around the player, a pretty cool idea.
The game idea is interesting, I like pixel art in this style, they are simple and work well.The turn is interesting, but I found it a little difficult because a lot of enemies appear and I have little mana to summon, but overall it was a good job
I like the mix between 3d and pixelart.
2000's 1.5D vibes drew me in. I stuck it out for a couple rounds, made it through 17 turns on my best attempt.
First, I like the music and the vibe. The sfx are adequate, the stone texture is good. The general tactical turned based format is totally my jam.
Those are the reasons I stuck it out for a couple rounds. Unfortunately the drawbacks stopped me there.
Biggest fundamental problem is that the more enemies you face, the longer you have to wait for their turns to complete. It's just utterly boring to watch the enemy unit move around. Not so bad if you are culling them at a decent rate but when the game is actually getting interesting and you face a horde, you have to slog through all their turns.
Other issues include the fact that visually it just didn't pan out. Maybe if the characters were cuter, or the terrain was more interesting I could give it retro props, but it's all just programmer art and has no reason for being in a 3D environment, so it doesn't land in that uncanny but fun Playstation/DS era were cute sprites inhabited odd 3d worlds.
The auto camera is extremely vexing as, and honestly hurts my eyes to watch zoom in and pan on every single enemy that must spend it's infernal turn shuffling around.
My big takeaway here is to stick to 2D unless there's a strong reason or talent pushing you in that direction. A lot more game play, testing, and QoL could have been accomplished on a simpler 2D system.
That all being said, congratulations on getting a game done in 3 days!!!! It is still a call for celebration, my hope is that you are able to receive my honest feedback gracefully, but it's always tough to hear negative reactions, so please excuse my bluntness.
Interesting game! I like it!
@labcatgames thanks for trying out the game! A lot of these issues are things we are looking to fix in future versions, unfortunately we didn't have the manpower to work on them within the timeframe, so it'll only happen after the review phase is over and we can push a proper update.
The choice to go 3D with 2D sprites was more stylistic than anything else, and though we do want to play more with the 3D environment, you're right that, for now, it's just a 2D game with a coat of 3D paint.
The turn length especially is something we want to find ways to mitigate. Speeding up the turns with a key press and having them animate faster are two quick wins we'll look into implementing. Also, with more time to add other summons and make the game more varied, the feeling of repetition should go away as well.
Thanks for the thorough review, and hope you come back in the future after the jam to check out what changes we can manage to make!
@kirass @andrewbyte @onqdll @zerolarih thank you all!
We're gonna try to make the later game more engaging and feeling less 'unfair' - you can check other comments for what we're on track to do!
I really enjoyed the camera and the overall vibe! I definitely wish there was maybe positive things that spawned on the map you could move towards to help you survive, like maybe mana regen items that spawned in or upgrades etc.
I think the one thing that felt unfair to me was it seemed like the enemies AI would move and then attack, but my skeletons would only attack if there was a dude right next to them, and then move randomly often away from enemies. A fast forward button might be useful for when you are watching enemy turns, or maybe let all of the enemies that are far away and just going to move auto resolve without panning to them and waiting on them individually. Did remind me a lot of the flow of final fantasy tactics, which definitely has that same issue.
Overall I had fun testing it out though, definitely a solid start that is engaging!
It was an interesting and new experience. I quickly figured out the mechanics. It was sad to see more and more thugs, but that's part of survival! :_) The graphics are nice! Music maintains the atmosphere. Thanks for playing)
Really good strategy game. Love this art style!
Thank you, @ursagames. Speeding up the game and fixing some bugs involving the skeleton AI are some things that are in our plans to implement after the jam, but we're glad you enjoyed the game and invite you to stay tuned for future updates on itch.io
Thank you very much, @afi-olya and @fenix131113, your feedback is highly valuable to us. We invite you to follow our progress after the jam on itch.io!
Why this game is so gachi?
Really nice art! The 2d and 3d mix looks nice.
This is very cool. I'm a fan of 2.5D and the camera movement is on point! It kind of reminds me of some of the traditional roguelikes i've played. Bravo, I enjoyed that!
Love the art combo 2d and 3d. Like the circle getting smaller on move nice new interface trick for me(thanx for that)! oh and Props on your logo
Concept of tiled chess with units sounds innovative, but did not understand how skeleton moving & door does
Nice art & twist on the theme
that's a cool idea, but for some reason my turn get skipped multiple times i don't know why nice visuals too i like the general vibe
This seems like it's got a lot of potential! I would say some real instructions would be nice - I figured how to put summons down but not what any of them do. Is there any way to upgrade them? They seem really weak for the kinds of enemies that show up. What are the door enemies supposed to be? They don't seem to do anything.
Also, not knowing where enemies were going to spawn in made putting down summons very difficult to do tactically. Is there any way to get more than a single summon per turn? Or any ways to up mana production? By the end it felt like death by a thousand cuts because there's 5 enemies on the field and I can only summon one skeleton per turn.
This seems like a really really well put together *engine*, I think it'll really come through once more content and info gets added in.