FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD56 → Dream Quest: Land of the Living Wishes

Dream Quest: Land of the Living Wishes

By fusionnist

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall2403.1930
Fun2632.8829
Innovation2223.0530
Theme2872.9130
Graphics684.0030
Audio943.5530
Humor2312.5424
Mood1613.3628

Comments

yoav-kagan 2024-10-07 11:08

Interesting concept. had a hard time in some of the rooms, but maybe just bad at the game lol. Well done!

fusionnist 2024-10-07 12:43

@yoav-kagan Thank you! There are some tough parts haha, no worries ;)

arscene 2024-10-08 07:58

Awesome art ! The game feels indeed pretty hard. Can you chose which fireflies follows you ? Congrats on your entry, it's awesome to see how much some people can do in 48 hours.

fusionnist 2024-10-08 13:38

@arscene Thanks! Unfortunately not, you can only drop them in this version, and hope you get better ones...

pietmichal 2024-10-08 22:08

Those purple duck-like monsters are difficult to deal with! >:( :D

I like the concept. I wish that obtaining wishes would be affected by players decisions requiring the player to think what areas to go to or what monsters to fight first.

Losing wishes is too much of a punishment imo. It reminded me of DS2 mechanics.

I really like it! The game feels like complete package. And it is rare for compo games. I definitely see it becoming something interesting if more player agency becomes the part of the design.

It's just my 2 cents of course.

fusionnist 2024-10-08 22:30

@pietmichal Thanks! I do agree ;)

silkworm-sweatshop 2024-10-09 20:24

Looks amazing! Really polished graphics and sweet music too! Could use a bit more sfx for feedback. Not sure I really understood the wish system. I could never make it past the duck room so not sure what is left to discover there sadly, they were a bit too tough for me :sweat_smile:.

sdcorpse 2024-10-09 20:42

Nice art and music!

crozzy 2024-10-10 10:54

Pretty interesting gameplay, I like these games, also a very cool style of play and music

roitchie 2024-10-10 10:58

Very cool entry. Thought it was a jam entry at first. Very impressive for 48 hours. Those purple monsters that shoot the lasers were brutal also they shoot through the rocks which might be a bug. But otherwise it was really fun. Well done!

druven 2024-10-10 11:03

I loved the overall vibe of the game, the music was excellent and having a few different themes kept things feeling fresh. Not being able to attack whilst moving made the combat feel a bit sluggish and awkward. At first I wasn't sure what impact the living wishes were having on my character, but this became more clear as I progressed. I found some of the rooms very tough, but I'm probably just bad. Impressive stuff, well done!

stormburpee 2024-10-10 11:08

The art and music in Dream Quest are fantastic, really pulling me into the world. I found the concept of "living wishes" affecting your attributes interesting, and it added a unique layer to the gameplay. That said, some of the rooms were tough, especially the ones with the purple duck-like monsters—they were a real challenge! I liked the idea of dropping wishes to potentially get better ones, but I agree that losing them feels too punishing at times. Overall, a great start, and I’d love to see more depth added to the wish mechanic in future updates. Well done!

pyshnyy 2024-10-10 11:35

As some have already mentioned, the purple dudes are really a pain in the ass, to the point where I almost gave up on the game. Good thing I didn’t! In the end, I managed to complete it, and it was actually pretty fun. The game feels complete too, which is nice. The only thing that still bothers me is that I don’t really see the connection to the little creatures theme. Maybe I overlooked something. But other than that good job!

dantaro 2024-10-12 02:57

I really like the concept of the game, along with its graphics and music. However, it feels somewhat challenging to play, and sometimes attacks don't register as expected. Overall, though, it's a very enjoyable experience.

henk 2024-10-12 13:30

The graphics and sound are quite impressive; the whole thing feels very complete. It took me a bit of experimentation to figure out what the different colors of orbs did. It might be nice if there were a legend somewhere that explained it. Perhaps color-coding the stats screen?

fusionnist 2024-10-12 13:32

@henk Absolutely, haha! That wouldn't have taken me long either... but for some reason, I decided to skip it... well, I'll catch up on that with the post-jam version I'm working on!

sphinx 2024-10-12 19:21

Respect to building a game using monogame in Compo. Must be a lot of work to put it together. Great work! The maps as well as the difficulty are giving strong metroidvania vibe. My one complaint though is the control. The wasd and arrowkeys control took me a long time to get used to - I'm guessing it is intended for a gamepad as a twin stick shooter kinda control. I think for non-gamepad control, at least for me, being able use my mouse to aim and LMB to attack would be a much more accustomed control.

fusionnist 2024-10-12 19:27

@sphinx Thanks! I do agree, it hit me after the compo that it would have made a lot more sense... :p

pimping 2024-10-13 08:07

Nice arts my friend i like this type of games hope u will publish more games like this one!

googoobachoo 2024-10-13 14:23

Graphics and audio are great. It's hard to tell when you hit an enemy or they hit you though. I didn't quite understand how the wishes mechanic is supposed to work. Can I somehow select specific wishes?

bentglasstube 2024-10-13 20:29

This is an interesting concept that just lacks a little polish to shine. It's pretty difficult to understand what the wishes are and how they help you without repeatedly dropping them and checking the menu. The hitboxes are also pretty difficult to reason about, making the combat difficult in a frustrating way more than a fun way. I really enjoyed the art and the music and just the overall feeling of the game though. I think it would be excellent with a little more work.

baturinsky 2024-10-13 20:33

I don't quite get how wishes and combat works exactly. Can you elaborate it?

sasha20 2024-10-15 18:56

The game's creative approach to the theme is matched by its elegant and immersive visuals. God Job!

thomas-gelman 2024-10-16 05:55

This is a neat concept, and I can definitely see it being fleshed out further! I think there are a few things it could do better in its current state though, which I understand are probably only absent due to the nature of this being a compo position. Namely: I think attacks from enemies could be better telegraphed. This reminds me a lot of Crypt of the Necrodancer without the rhythm game aspect, but similar attack telegraph states before launching an attack to make it clear that you should get out of the way would make the experience of combat much better in this game. Additionally, feedback on attacks and taking damage could be increased, as it is somewhat unclear whether you hit enemies or not, or similarly get hit.

All of that said, the graphics and audio are pretty good! Impressed a lot that this was programmed in Monogame, which I know must have been an extra challenge for Compo. And, again, cool concept in general. Would love to see more!

niterich 2024-10-17 16:22

The graphics and music are all really well done, but I just don't get this game - in a lot of ways. I don't get why all the controls are for the left hand. I don't get what the living wishes did. I don't get if I'm attacking my enemy or not. I didn't get that I needed to defeat a whole bunch of enemies without dying to level up - because, as I said, I didn't know if I was even damaging them. I don't even think I understood what leveling up entailed, aside from dealing more damage. I think the core for a good game is here, but there needs to be a lot more feedback and explanations to the player.

jajo 2024-10-19 14:17

I felt the attack was a little bit anaemic, couldn't do a lot with it. However, it wasn't really necessary to explore the map, which I found very cool. The art really helped it, your tiles were incredibly impressive. The enemies were such funky guys.

jetmarch 2024-10-21 11:18

Very cute graphics and great game concept! But I found some of the enemies too survivable. And I couldn't figure out these spheres that swirl around me and the enemies

untitled-studios 2024-10-24 00:28

Wonderfully beautiful graphics, but missing the kind of punch that would have made it really great. I think the mechanics themselves were fine, but missing some telegraphing of how they work and some feedback (screenshake, color flash, hitstop,) when you hit an enemy