Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD55 → Shadow Summoner
By tommy, Francesca Bianchi and lorandusbianchi
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 82 | 4.14 | 34 | |
| Fun | 183 | 3.91 | 33 | |
| Innovation | 163 | 3.88 | 33 | |
| Theme | 32 | 4.46 | 34 | |
| Graphics | 296 | 4.10 | 34 | |
| Audio | 374 | 3.56 | 32 | |
| Humor | 691 | 2.83 | 29 | |
| Mood | 349 | 3.82 | 33 |
Cool game, great sound effects and feedback. Has a lot in common with my submission!
- The gameplay mechanics are interesting, cool idea - An in game tip informing users to use q/e would be helpful. I came back to the landing page to check controls after starting the game. - Its very hard! Maybe slower enemies in the first couple levels to let the player get used to the game mechanics would ease up the learning curve.
I really like the game play concept and it's well implemented, however, it ramps up in difficulty really quickly and I wasn't able to make it past more than a few levels. It took me a little while to realise that holding down the rune button for longer meant I could summon different defenders. Once the enemies were able to shoot at me, though, I was too busy running for my life to hold the button down that long.
Aside from the balancing issues, I actually really like this game and think you did a great job!
Great fun game. Requieres a bit of thinking tro make progress. The upgrade system makes it really cool. Great job! Also super cute sounds!
Nice concept and execution! I think moving the summon/rune buttons from Q/E to mouse or somewhere for the other hand would help as its hard to strafe and press the buttons at the minute especially with the enemies right behind you. Art is great and makes it easy to identify what things are. An extra little mechanic like a dash rune to plan ahead and buy time could help flesh this out into a cool bigger project!
Very interesting idea, the things that you summon are very cute. In the last levels would had left more time at the start of the round for the player to summon some creatures, but the gameplay is fun and graphics are great good job.
I really love this style. Just awesome monsters turned out) The healthbar and runes are a little out of style, it seems to me that if they were also in shades of gray, the visual would look a little more consistent. The roguelike elements and the generated levels fit in perfectly, although it's a bit difficult for me)) But I liked it!
As you said on my submission, funny that we came up with the same title, but very different execution. This idea of fighting waves of enemies was interesting. It did seem like I held down E and nothing happened, not sure if that was intentional also it was hard to tell if any damage was being do and from my ally (or if the enemy and friendly were just stuck). If they were doing damage, I think a visual indicator would help communicate this.
The sound is really good! It was nice that you had a tutorial button in the game, but that screen didn't say what runes actually do.
One minor bug: when I died, the sounds of enemies attacking me kept playing.
Great entry overall!
nice game, nice style! It reminds me somewhat of Binding of Isaac and to our own game! I like how you implemented the theme and summoning runes is cool. I love the risk-reward thing of putting down and charging to activating runes. I feel like in the later levels the summoning of runes takes a bit too long and it is difficult to get enough distance of enemies to find your gap to summon. Overall I think the style, art and gameplay was well done. Great entry!
I was a little dumb at the beginning, but then I realized. The gameplay is pleasant, as is the art. Good job!
Great game, I love this art style
I dig this. 🖤
Those little flames that come straight for you kept taking me out. Stalkers. They're hard to pick out until it's too late - which I guess is the point lol. Found myself wishing for some sort of defensive manouver I could use against them. Or a way to dodge attacks.
Loved it though. It's fun. I think that rune drawing and summoning system is innovative. It looks and sounds great. Perfect jam game.
This was nice! At first it did not seem to have much of a strategy it it, but then I got that you can summon multiple runes at the same time. In the end, moving with the player character was not needed that much. It's mostly just about the rate at which you can summon more guardians. If you need to move, then you have most likely screwed up already.
Maybe there could be some strategic element to movement or positioning your self. Maybe some locations in the level give bonuses to the player or summoned guardians, if the player places rune there?
Anyway, enjoyed this little game :)
I had many opportunities for a comeback.
Such a cute looking game. The art is definitely top tier. The basic mechanic ideas is very nice as well. It is intuitive, clear and definitely a nice take on the Summoning theme. It is nice to play around with the system and put multiple runes and summon all monsters together.
I think the game could be improved on two direction: (1) the UI (the "health-hearth") is too far away from where the screen demands the player's attention. I'd recommend to have maybe three small hearts on the player's character or a different kind of health mechanic, maybe one that affects the summoning and rune placing instead. (2) I think the map really needs some obstacles for the player to outmaneuver the enemies, especially the ranged ones. A labyrinthish map would also add complexity to the rune positioning. I think it would be fun.
All in all very cute a fun game! Keep the good work up!
Very cool idea and very good execution! At time I was a bit too busy looking at my runes intead of watching the enemies, but it's definitely a very good game!
I loved this submission. Nice simple art and style, fun mechanics, and rather balanced game play. It may be my favourite game that I've seen in the jam so far!
Cool game. Like the concept of it. Does get a little to difficult later where you just don't have time to do the summoning.
Cute and simple) "Protect the queen!" Heheh))
Hey, really cool game. The concept is really cool. But the ranged units and support units did not really felt worth waiting a second or third circle for the rune. just spamming tier three meele felt to powerful in every situation. Except the stalker, but I do not think there is a really good strategy against them in the current state of the game. But its a super solid, well done base that has cool potential. The graphics are super cute and the sounds great.
I like the rune placement and leveling the summons to the tiers which is quite a novel game mechanic. The minimalist art style and animations are really lovely and well crafted. Difficulty is somewhat brutal after a point, which is not a big deal and can be adjusted. Nice job!
Hey, an awesome roguelike! That's great, I like how you have the risk/reward setup. I'm sure there's some more optimal ways to play this. It would be nice if there was more in-depth roguelike choices and the ability to make a broken build (like "all level 1 runes spawn two critters instead of 1"). I think I was getting hit by invisible projectiles at later levels and I'm not sure what that was about. Audio was a little rough and could use some balancing and duplicate noise reduction. Otherwise it came out great!