maybeagoose 2025-04-08 02:58
Excellent performance) At first I didn't understand how to win, but after the defeat I understood what the point of losing is)
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD57 → You Are the End
By agrmayank
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 554 | 3.39 | 30 | |
| Fun | 600 | 3.12 | 30 | |
| Innovation | 585 | 3.03 | 30 | |
| Theme | 852 | 2.20 | 29 | |
| Graphics | 180 | 4.17 | 30 | |
| Mood | 248 | 3.87 | 30 |
Excellent performance) At first I didn't understand how to win, but after the defeat I understood what the point of losing is)
Hey, thanks @maybeagoose! I totally spaced on updating the instructions to mention it's a rogue-lite—guess that’s what 20 hours without sleep does to you 😅. Really glad you enjoyed it tho!!
Nice entry, great artstyle and postprocessing! in the battle scene i do get 2 soundtracks at the same time 😅
Yayy @potatobrain! Thanks for playing & reporting the bug, let me add that to the bugs list to squash for future builds.
Good job, especially on the art!
The actual gameplay is pretty simple, and can get a little boring after a while (for me, all I really seemed to have to do to win was just spam a bunch of knights at the beginning, then wait 3 or 4 minutes until all the waves have ended), but I liked watching the units go about fighting each other, and it would be really easy to make that a little more interesting with a few more units available to the player, or maybe some variation in the enemies' abilities.
I feel like the game's strongest area is the visual aspects, which are really, really good.
Thanks for the compliments, @jcourt! There are actually 4 types of enemies (plus, you can SPAWN THE KING and turn the game into a platformer tower defense) that are supposed to appear at the boss markers on the progress bar, but a bug is preventing them from spawning, which is why the gameplay feels repetitive at the moment. I'm actively working on a bug fix and hope to have an update up on itch.io soon.
Also, while I can’t take full credit for the art—since much of it is derivative—I’m really happy with the overall look and feel I was able to achieve!
I'm not sure if it was bugged or I did something wrong but nothing takes damage, so my units engaged one enemy each until I couldnt summon any more and then the new enemies just walked past and I was stuck doing nothing. I love the idea and the art is really nice, its a shame I cant get past the first bit :/ Would love to see more ^^
I love the music here! It was very intense and created a more stressful atmosphere. I don't really understand how unit targeting works, sometimes my peasants were just running past enemies.:D
@whalejam That's definitely weird. Did you check your if your population went to 0 and any other units were fighting anywhere else on the map? you can use A/D or Arrow keys to move across the map btw between the two zones.
I'd also recommend playing on itch io (web or windows build). I'd added mini health bars for each unit and for the enemies as well so it should be easy to figure out.
Just for reference the units prefer to engage in one-on-one fights and not an AOE attack (apart from the King). Please let me know if this doesn't work for you. :(
Thanks @sylf, I did add multiple track layers after all xD. Also, the audio should subtly change moving between the kingdom and the barren enemy lands (*PLEASE WEAR HEADPHONES* xD)
Haha, so it'd basically like the enemies have a one-on-one fight system. On spawning both sides look for an appropriate/closer enemy to them and marks them as their own (so nobody can steal their prey until either one of them is dead, lol) so sometimes they can go past already marked ones. I guess I should add a small indicator for this. Thanks for the feedback!! =D
:) Very cool game! I love the effects to make it look like an old movie. The music is simple but good and effective. Sound sfx would be nice! I like your pixel and animations. Sometimes the attacks didn't seem to really line up with the effect though. And I was often confused about the behavior of my minions and why they're wandering all the way over there... but, I guess as a leader, you're often confused about the behavior of your minions...
:) Very fun game!
Cool concept and interesting system with the multiple runs and roguelite-style upgrades. The game did feel a little slow (spawning the units one by one for example) and there wasn't quite enough audiovisual feedback in things like fighting (sounds, particle effects, animations, etc.) to make it satisfying, but for the time limit this was very very impressive, especially in terms of all the mechanics you were able to add. I also loved all the flavor text and the prophecy. Good work!
Thanks for the feedback @ukulelefury!! I could only add SFX to the king unit which is unlocked by choosing the right card! Adding more SFX is on top of my TODO list =D
While I can't take full credits for art as most of it falls under derivative, I'm glad you found the look and feel of the game great!
Haha, I guess that's a good take on the minions lol, you never know what they might do next!! I did mention the minion behavious in detail in my previous comment so feel free to have a look. Thanks for playing!!! have fun xD
Very cool concept and from the description, it sounds like you were able to implement a lot of cool ideas. Unfortunately, I think there's something bugged near the beginning. Some enemies end up running past the player units, and others wind up sitting there clashing with no health change. Would love to see the rest of what you built! Music is vibey - the game could use a bit more audio feedback during gameplay. Graphics remind me of Kingdom Two Crowns. Very polished look.
A bit difficult to rate since I couldn't play very much but what I did play seemed intriguing!
Hey, thanks @eyedromeda!! I hope you were able to unlock the full prophecy!? Feel free to share them here as it should differ for everyone.
That system did take the most time to build, so SFX had to take a back seat. That said, feedback noted and they are at the top of my TODO list.
Again, thanks for playing and having fun xD
The Kingdom series WAS the inspiration for this game @aldenwitt!! But yeah, as you said, I wasn't able to polish everything. I do need to update the enemy behaviour system since it's confusing for most people. I had it mind that they'd have one-on-one fights and not crowd all at the same place so some may run off a bit farther or stop so you could see more of the fights than a gobbled 2D mess.
You could check out the gameplay trailer I made for more of what the game has to offer, but yeah, I'd leave the rating upto your judgement xD
Gameplay Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efakdOU2iV8
Very cool style and vibe! Took me a moment to understand the loss was part of the loop, but once I got it, it clicked. Loved the atmosphere.
Thanks @noagard!! I'm glad the game clicked with you =D Feel free to share your completed prophecy after playing :)
Nice idea! I think the overall loop can be a bit long (as you have to go through the first waves over and over) but there's some interesting ideas there! I did 7 runs, completed the prophecy but I can still continue, is there more to discover after that?
As others pointed out, it's sometimes confusing to see our troops go through enemies or killing some from afar (and the same applies to enemies) but I understand the deadline issue ;)
Congrats on the fun game!
Great visuals and great entry overall. Not sure if there is any strategic depth or how many runs nessesary to win :)
Ah, I get your point. I too feel like the initial waves can get a bit long, so I made the time go faster the more you play - not a fix but it was the least I could've done.
There's not much more to discover after that, apart from getting the remaining 2 of the 9 cards. I do plan to have something like the "Pact of Punishment" from Hades to make it more interesting if I plan a steam release.
Yeah, I see a lot of people pointing the enemy behaviour :( I'll have to rewrite that logic some time.
P.S. Congrats on completing the game @linky439 !! I'd love to see the **prophecy** you received (**since it'll be different for everyone!!**) <3
How do you summon the king to help fight? I started the game by spawning the only guys I could spawn, but they seem to do very little damage to the enemies. Their fights are taking a long time and after a while I wasn't allowed to spawn more people but new waves kept coming so they were all able to go past my guys. Then I'm left just watching this very slow fight between the guys I have and the enemies. I feel like I'm not playing right because I'm not getting cards to choose from or turning into a platformer and I ran out of things I can do as the player very quickly.
The art looks great, the intro is strong, and the BGM is good too, so I feel like I'm either hitting some kind of bug or missing a mechanic. I scrolled on the page to see if I could find some other controls for summoning the king or doing something to help in the fight but couldn't find it. Anyway let me know if I missed something (I made it up to wave 4 but then stopped because I couldn't figure out anything to do and new enemies were just walking past my army) but if you let me know I missed the way to play I'll definitely give it another shot!
Thanks @3deimos.
1. **The Basics** - How you balance spawning the units, like let knights tank and then spawn the quick to attack and die thieves, etc since population is scarce resource. 2. **When you unlock the King unit** - the game becomes into a platformer, so you could go solo or spawn some units to draw aggro. The units do a one-on-one fight until either of them dies so you could kill the enemies during that. 3. **The Card System** - There are the 9 cards segregated into 3 categories which you can choose upon death. They dictate if you wish to be aggressive or be a tanker and so on.
Ultimately the game is heavily linked to the **prophecy** (think of it as **multiple endings**). The one you get (good or bad) depends on how you play the game - sacrifice the units or save them to become the kingdom's hero.
It should take 5-10 runs to complete the game. It all depends on the strategy you choose.
@agrmayank Here's my prophecy: When the light of dawn touches the broken crown and the promise of hope still lingers,
descend not as the reaper, but the sentence carved by your own hand.
For in the depths, you may find redemption - only and echo of the end you overcame.
A heads up: I played the HTML version, and although the game remembered which cards I picked (and how many runs), my population went down from 400 back to 150, so you might want to make sure the population number is saved somewhere ;)
@amberfall92 You can unlock the king by choosing the **3rd card in the middle**. Only then the game will turn into a platformer and change how you play.
The game lets you spawn upto 16 NPCs each, on either side. Any more than that and you need to wait for some units to die :( I do need to do some game balancing as well, so I do understand your perspective.
The NPCs are dumb (like me) so they don't necessarily choose the closest one to have a one-on-one fight, maybe a grudge from the last life, who knows xD I'll fix their behaviour in the future updates.
Thanks for playing and I'm glad you think so highly of it!! Please do give it a try, you should be able to resume from the 4th wave. Just choose the middle row each time until you unlock the king unit. Hope you get a nice prophecy at the very end =D
@linky439 Thanks for sharing! I'm actually saving the game data in PlayerPrefs + Scriptable Objects. I'm guessing either one of those aren't working on WebGL :( Thanks for pointing that out, I'll be sure to debug that!
P.S - Looks like you really care about your people as it's one line away from the best ending possible :sunglasses:
Great aesthetic, I like how you combined pixel art, old film and high fantasy styles.
Thanks @shakirovich!! Really glad you liked the game vibe!! xD
The game has very nice graphics. I like how the atmosphere is done. The character and enemy animations are very cool too! Good entry!
Cool interpretation of the theme and very engaging strategic game! The mood is set perfectly with the beautiful graphics and music. I played until near the end, however, it wasn't always clear to me why a run ended sometimes even before all my units were dead and, on the last run, when I spawned the king, I was a little afraid to advance and get the king dead, so I waited a bit and suddenly the run ended, the game showed my prophecy and then I was taken back to the choose card page, but this time with no info on the cards, so I wasn't sure if this is the ending ?
Thanks @hdvr02 @borabee!! Thanks for the compliments!! I'm glad you liked the overall game vibe and atmosphere :sunglasses:
@borabee Ideally the game should only end if the population is 0 & the units are dead OR the king is spawned and is dead. If not, I'll have a look at these bugs you've mentioned, as no one else has reported them so far.
**The King** is a double-edged sword. On one hand, he **does damage to ALL enemies within range** rather than engaging on one-on-one fights!! That makes him crazy powerful, as you can dodge, jump and attack to absolutely destroy the enemies with correct timing. This does come at the cost of game being ended when he dies, but you can also spawn the other units to help you in battle while fighting yourself.
> Regarding the cards, there are a total of 9 of them, 3 in each category so generally after 9 deaths, there won't be any cards left to spawn after each category is depleted.
> You can still play after that or RESET the game to get a better prophecy.
It's too bad because I really like the idea and the art, but I get stuck at the beginning of the game, at population 118 it says "you cannot summon the unit the kingdom is full" and nothing happens after that. (I'm on MacOS on the web version if it helps) Great work though from what I could see and the trailer ;)
@nicolanore Glad you liked the game!!
> **You can't spawn more than about 16 units at a time**, so you need to wait for the units to die before popping more (this was done as the game started to lag when too many were spawned at once).
I do plan to change this along with adding a HUD for the number of active units in the future builds.
Please feel free to try again and let me know your thoughts, and the ending you receive. Have fun :)
Fun little defense game. Very pretty. If there's a strategy beyond "Spam as many of your most powerful unit as you can", I did not get it - But it's not a bad thing, deeper strategy elements would probably be pretty much impossible to do in a game jam :smile:
Thanks for playing @jnur. I do agree on that it feels like a clicker in the beginning. But yeah, the main strategy elements come in after you unlock the last unit - the king, which does turn around the game into a platformer.