A Signal in the Woods

miltage 2026-04-20 08:15

I'm absolutely in love with the mix of 2D and 3D here. The character designs are great and the intro/tutorialization works really well in teaching how to play.

I'm not sure if the deck-builder mechanic lends itself to an action shooter where you have to make quick decisions. Typically with a deck-builder you want to be able to take your time reading the cards and considering your options. Game jams are great for experimentation though, and I think everything here was well implemented and felt great to play, particularly the spell casting.

Well done!

william-corrin 2026-04-20 08:24

The graphics are really, really nice. And the animations for the player and enemy are as well! Even the bushes flowing in the wind was a great touch. The world really felt alive.

I think I would have preferred something other than deck-building for this kind of game though, although I can absolutely appreciate the genre mishmash and see what you were going for. It just didn't quite stick with me.

Great job!

artur-hawkwing 2026-05-07 04:56

I love deck-builders-- and this one felt really well done! Super cool way of handling magic, and a great entry overall! I'm also very impressed by the summonable crows -- those seem like they'd have taken some work to get right, but they feel very natural as allies.

venomousmouse 2026-05-07 07:58

Very cool deckbuilder. Nice graphics and mood. Great game.

kerioth 2026-05-07 09:12

It's a good game, I managed to beat it, the enemies dodge spells and the overall concept looks good.

2026-05-07 09:28

The art style is very innovative, and the design of this protagonist is also of a type that I have never seen before! love so much

guyunger 2026-05-07 10:35

i like it a lot! it has some old school game jam vibes somehow. i like that i can accidentally heal enemies and protect my birds. worth exploring more:)

lllarso 2026-05-07 10:55

That was a fun playthrough. I really like the graphic style of this game. Only complaint here for me are the cards. It would fit more to the game if they would be in a pixel style like the rest of the game.

The animations are nicely done. My favorite is the four legged monster. :)

The controls felt good and it was fun to shoot my fireballs. The variation with additional healing spells was nice.

kpded 2026-05-07 11:19

that is a nice entry, good job! main mechanics and a balance still can be a bit fine tuned (feels like it hard to pick a spell and aim at the same time, or may be a pacing is the key here). But overall I had fun time playing your game

tanjou 2026-05-07 12:09

It would be pretty cool to have a web build, it would facilitate more people giving ratings and people who don't use Windows to play :( the concept looks pretty good tho!

2026-05-07 12:14

good game

jajo 2026-05-07 13:29

really well polished and mechanically fun game! I game over restarting the entire game instead of just respawning was a bit harsh, but it doesn't detract from the gameplay. Especially cool that you have to put yourself in danger to draw cards.

seravlac 2026-05-07 13:38

Cool 2D and 3D combination, I dig that look!

benskca 2026-05-07 17:49

Really love the aesthetic, how did you manage the 2D/3D effect? Are they 2D sprites billboarded at points on a 3D shape?

The combat felt very polished, the targeting mode after you'd selected a card was particularly nice. I would've loved some way to select cards other than hovering over them - couldn't seem to find any way to change my selection with the keyboard. It got kinda distracting looking away from enemies etc to quite precisely hover over the right card. I also really liked the cutscene/dialogue system you had, the text effects were fun :)

ethan-allwood 2026-05-07 19:59

@benskca Thanks! The game is entirely done in 2D, the characters are rendered as different sprites with a positional offset and different draw order based on the direction of the character, and some horizontal squishing on the torso as it turns. Then the legs and arms are just lines drawn using a lot of trig functions to get the positioning right, with the feet using a sine wave for the walk animation and some IK to bend the knee in the right direction.

I appreciate the feedback about the card selection. I've got plans to rebuild the game with a more roguelike format, and I'm looking to completely rework the card draw and spell selection, so that's something I'm working on making better.

ouhiiiii 2026-05-07 20:53

It's a good game. The words on the card are a little bit small for me.

w2k 2026-05-08 01:37

Incredible! Love all the details in the game, movement, UI design, dynamic effects when I click and use the cards.Can't believe one can do all of them in 48h. (By the way, I prefer those games that are strongly connected with Signal theme, but that doesn't matter, it's still a great game.)

13pilgrims 2026-05-08 05:51

Really digging the art style and animations – super polished for a jam game. The deck-building + real-time shooting is wild!!! And yeah, reading cards while dodging gets a bit hectic. But the spell casting and crow summons feel awesome. One more thing: some kind of deck sorting by function would be nice – the cards can get pretty messy when you have too many. Anyways, solid work for a two-day game jam project! Congrats!

2026-05-08 09:52

Excellent card design concept! The gameplay is also very interesting, and the combat system is very smooth. I think the overall completeness of the game is very high.