The Depths of Magic

smilewood 2025-04-08 02:01

Generally a fun gameplay concept, although it did not manage to hook me into playing over and over again I could see a refinement of this getting there. The loop of picking upgrades from three choices then going forward with those upgrades is tried and true, and I think that you had enough variety of upgrades to keep it interesting. Some of the upgrades seemed wildly more potent than others (the first one I saw was +3 shots; the next round I was offered a little more range, which was hardly noticeable) which left some choices being more predetermined then others. It could have been interesting to have upgrades that locked me into a path, something like splash damage vs multiple projectiles.

The character art is fun, I like all the animations that the creatures do when coming after you. I did find some of the death animations hard to differentiate from their attacks, but as they were then dead that did not affect gameplay. I did notice that dying enemies still absorbed shots; especially in the first few floors it was a bit painful to fire a spread of four shots that all went into a single enemy that a single one would have killed. I could certainly feel the enemy scaling in health as I got deeper into the tower, although I couldn’t tell if the number of enemies was also meant to scale. I definitely saw some waves on the later floors with a single flying enemy.

Overall a great game jam entry, well done!

hoichael 2025-04-09 11:05

Very solid all around, both the audiovisual presentation as well as the gameplay are well realized. The cartoony colors and the inverted hull outlines look great on the character models and the animations have a lot of charm.

I also really liked the funky sfx, but speaking of sfx, there's some clipping going on with the same sfx playing simultaneously. Unfortunately the problem gets worse as the game progresses due to the upgrade system scaling projectile amounts and such.

Pretty good replayability factor too due to the rouguelike upgrade system and the surprisingly high skill ceiling.

Great game overall, definitely something thats worth expanding on.

fancyreckless 2025-04-09 11:06

Plays a bit like vampire survivors, but with a bit of a less chaotic gameplay, since enemies come in small ways. It starts a bit slow, but upgrade options are engaging and you can make your projectile power grow pretty fast, which gives depth and enjoyability to the game. Overall pretty fun. Sometimes it froze for a second.

spookyman999 2025-04-09 11:07

i liked it! liked the visual style and the gameplay waas cool!

greenradiation 2025-04-09 14:52

Cool animation and stylization, but at the beginning of the game I had enemies spawn twice directly on me, causing inevitable damage. Anyway, good job!

scoobysnacks 2025-04-09 19:14

Simple but cute style. I love roguelikes and love being overpowered with every upgrade.

rainbeau 2025-04-11 04:43

I had a lot of fun playing this. The animations of the enemies were very fun to see and the wave mechanics with the doors were not what I was initially expecting. Neat concept, would love to see where else you take this!

madelinef 2025-04-20 17:03

I had fun playing this, the graphics are really good ! Music is also nice and fitting. Good job.

outstar 2025-04-23 18:44

This was fun, I like the simple roguelite-y "pick one of three upgrades" before moving on, although it seems I had some pretty weak choices (never found the +3 one)! Here's my feedback: - Bottom collision seemed to be a bit wonky, with my character getting slightly stuck there with enemies once, - Spawn points are very tricky, enemies sometimes spawned right on me and I couldn't avoid taking damage - The music was fun and if I heard right, it was changing with the speed of the projectiles, but got slightly repetitive after a bit

Overall, cool game!

thunnus 2025-04-23 20:22

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEnnter The Depths!

Loved this. The animations are so good. I loved that the upgrades felt powerful. Kept me wanting to see what hte next room was like. Only issue I had was that the enemy spawns had to lead-in or neutral zone so the spawns were where most of my damage came from.

Really cool entry. Thank you!

wallted 2025-04-23 20:28

This was quite fun. I have two wolves in me - I loved the mage model, random furniture and sound effects really reminded me of Runescape - this was hit in my nostalgia :D On the other hand, dungeon seemed kinda dull and overall depths theme was not really visible until the end screen which showed me the number of floors. The mechanic itself was solidly executed and I enjoyed shooting fireballs until I died :)

someone 2025-04-23 22:50

Cure graphical style. The animations were great. The upgrades seemed very random in terms of power. The rate of fire upgrade barely seemed to do anything, despite acquiring many of them, and I randomly got a +5 damage and a +5 shots upgrade near the start which felt overpowered. I never bothered with health upgrades because it was easy to just never be hit - until they spawned surrounding me and I couldn't move. You die very quickly if you get trapped. It would be nice if there was a wave counter displayed somewhere so you know if another group is about to spawn.