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Ritual Journal
Ritual Journal
By nephem and boilerroom
| | | | Percentile
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|---|
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | LD60 | Ever |
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|---|
| Overall | | | 28 | | | |
| Fun | | | 28 | | | |
| Innovation | | | 28 | | | |
| Theme | | | 28 | | | |
| Graphics | | | 27 | | | |
| Humor | | | 27 | | | |
| Mood | | | 28 | | | |
Comments
Really cool entry! I played through it and had a great time. Here is a quick breakdown of my thoughts: • Gameplay & Design: The core mechanics feel solid and intuitive right from the start. The gameplay loop is engaging, and the controls feel responsive and fair. • Visuals & Art Style: The visual direction fits the overall mood really well. Everything looks cohesive, and the presentation makes it very clean to follow what's happening on screen. • Audio: The sound effects and audio design add a lot of punch to the experience and help build the atmosphere. • Theme Interpretation: You did a fantastic job incorporating the jam's theme into the core loop in a creative and clever way! Constructive Polish Idea: If you decide to update or expand this after the jam, adding a few extra feedback cues (like juice/particles or subtle screen shake) or expanding on a few mechanics could make it feel even more polished! Overall, awesome job for a jam project! Left you a high score/rating. Keep up the great work! 🚀
bay-l
2026-10-20 21:24 ♥ 1
A lovely game! It has solid gameplay, I really enjoy the tactile card interaction mechanics like Stacklands and cultist simulator, and you guys have done a successful application and adaptation! The first several turns feel really smooth and engaging, the art vibe is appealing as well. The only thing I think could be improved would be adding some ending guidance or clear quest progression. Overall, its a nice work for just three days, congratulations!
boilerroom
2026-10-21 04:22 ♥ 1
I had a great time working on this game as the artist! The development process was really enjoyable, and it was fun to see the art come together and become part of the actual game. The card-based gameplay is also really engaging. There’s a nice sense of strategy to it, and it kept me interested throughout. It’s always satisfying to work on a project that’s not only fun to make but also fun to play. Definitely a great experience, and I’d recommend giving it a try!
lvdou2nd
2026-10-21 05:35 ♥ 1
The gameplay is really interesting, and the art style has a lot of character. Turning resources and creatures into cards makes things easy to understand. A clearer tutorial would help, though, and I found the midgame a bit difficult.
breadstick
2026-10-21 05:38 ♥ 1
It took a few tires for me to really understand what was going on, but this was a cool little game! Reminds me of a nice and thematic bit of solitaire, though it's not really that... either way, I do love the art style, and mechanics were eventually nice and intuitive to figure out. I sure hope my future child does not look like the illustration...
nephem
2026-10-21 05:52 ♥ 0
@lvdou2nd Thanks for playing and for your feedback! It’s true that things can get a bit busy in the mid-game, often requiring frequent pauses—I’ll work on improving this. Thanks again!
nephem
2026-10-21 05:53 ♥ 0
@breadstick Thank you for playing and for your feedback! Rest assured, your child will grow up healthy and beautiful!
freamdev
2026-10-21 07:34 ♥ 1
Took me a little while to understand things, I really like these type of games so had fun with it, if I had maybe one problem with it its sometimes resource cards appeared outside of my camera, for example captured people, that meant I didnt find it until later when I scrolled around a bit. Otherwise a solid entry.
Really cool game! I played through the whole thing!
It could really use a tutorial and volume settings (the music is way too loud, and I couldn't find any audio settings in the game).
I spent about 10 minutes at the beginning just messing around with the cards, trying to figure out what I was supposed to do. I even tried to make a villager produce wood or water by simply combining the villager card with wood or water cards.
Also, at first I had no idea why the children were attacking me lol.
I also tried assigning multiple villagers to produce the same resource, but didn't notice any increase in production speed (it actually seemed like it wasn't working at all).
There's also one annoying thing: resource production progress is preserved until you move a villager somewhere else. Even if you just pick up a villager and put them right back in the same spot, the production progress resets.
nephem
2026-10-21 08:47 ♥ 1
@maksim-terskov Thank you for playing and for your feedback! You’re truly amazing and impressive for managing to beat the entire game！The suggestions you provided are very sound and useful; I’ve noted them down and will work on making the relevant improvements!
nephem
2026-10-21 08:49 ♥ 1
@freamdev Thank you for playing and for your feedback! I will work on optimizing it.
@nephem In my opinion, this project has huge potential, but it still needs some polishing — quality-of-life improvements, more variety, and deeper resource management mechanics.
That said, the art is awesome, the music is great (although a bit too loud, as I mentioned earlier), and I love resource management games.
So I'd really love to see you keep developing this project and make it a more complex and fleshed-out experience. I'd honestly even buy the full version on Steam!
yarakdemir
2026-10-21 12:33 ♥ 1
Concept is really cool. I only wish art was a bit more scary.
nephem
2026-10-21 15:20 ♥ 1
@maksim-terskov Thank you so much for your kind words! I’ve already addressed all the issues you mentioned in V1.1! I love resource management games too, and just knowing that someone is having fun with my game is already incredibly rewarding. Your encouragement to keep developing this project honestly means a lot to me. I’ll give some serious thought to turning it into a full game. Who knows what the future holds? Maybe one day it’ll find its way onto Steam. And of course, I’ll let you know before then, my friend!
duudel
2026-10-21 15:24 ♥ 1
I think this was one of the best games I have played so far :)
The mechanics are explained somewhat in the starting dialog, but still I was a bit unsure at first how and where I had to place all the cards to get the game going forward after the first sacrifice.
I also lost the game a whole lot of times until I was able to get past the couple first rituals. It felt a bit unfair. Maybe the tutorial dialog could pause the game after couple of the first rituals to explain a bit more what is the goal. Or that you can place cards on each other to gain more cards/resources. (I'm bad at reading the description that said this right under the game :D).
Anyhow, I liked the game!
nephem
2026-10-21 15:42 ♥ 0
Thank you for playing and for your feedback! I’ve carefully read your suggestions, and I’m planning to improve the tutorial and guidance. V1.1 already addresses some issues, and I’ll take a closer look at how to make everything clearer and easier to understand. Thanks again for enjoying the game—your kind words made me so happy XD!
nursultan
2026-10-21 16:06 ♥ 1
Really fascinating and atmospheric concept! 'Ritual is an old tech too' is such a brilliant, philosophical interpretation of the theme. The eerie hand-drawn art by BOILERROOM gives the game so much dark medieval personality, and the card-stacking altar mechanics are super engaging. Left full ratings across the board! If you have a minute later to check out more jam projects, we’d love if you took a look at our game Meow Bomb as well. Best of luck with the jam!
div00
2026-10-21 16:19 ♥ 1
Smart take on the theme, never I would have thought of Rituals as old tech. The mechanic was hard to get into first, also the fighting mechanics is not very clear. Other than that, the music is good and fitting, and the gameplay is intertesting. a solid entry to the jam!
nephem
2026-10-21 16:39 ♥ 1
Thank you for playing and for your feedback! @nursultan I’ve passed your feedback along to BOILERROOM! I’ll give your game a try now. @div00 Thanks for the kind words! I’ll keep working on improving the game!
Really fun and also a bit frustrating. Took a few plays to figure things out and develop a winning strategy. Having the initial tutorial be help text that could be referenced later would be very helpful, as it had information that I didn't completely understand before trying to play and future plays didn't display it. A visual indicator about how much XP you're getting from a ritual would also have been nice when first starting. The library feels a bit like a trap, it takes a long time and you have to devote someone to it that could instead be getting you the base resources you need. Was able to beat the game on my fourth try.
lone-wolf
2026-10-21 18:26 ♥ 1
Fun to play but the difficulty ramped up too quickly for me. Despite replaying a few times I still pretty much insta-die when it starts spawning ~13 enemies at once, but the sheer numbers suggest I got pretty close to the engame?
Don't have any feedback past that, everything was nicely polished/well rounded. Nice work! Feel free to ping me if you do a post-jam difficulty slider, I'm interested to explore the progression more and see what the library gives
milq
2026-10-21 19:54 ♥ 1
Congratulations! The altar rituals, the villager combat with that capture chance, and the tutorial voiced by the bird feel clever, and the charcoal sketch art is gorgeous. Great jam entry!
nephem
2026-10-21 20:08 ♥ 1
@unpronounceable @lone-wolf @milq Thank you for playing and for your feedback!I’ve added difficulty selection, so the villagers can take it a little easier now! I’ll keep improving the game based on your feedback. Thanks again, everyone!
ao-85
2026-10-21 21:00 ♥ 0
Really cool game! I played through the whole thing!
khaotom
2026-10-22 03:47 ♥ 0
Although i was unable to achieve victory, the game is really cool. The ruleset is quite well implemented and the art is fantastic.
This was fun, the pencil art was a vibe and I kept on chopping wood instead of getting water. I died a lot.
eoshadows
2026-10-22 04:38 ♥ 0
Great game, loved the graphics. I assume since you opted out of the rating that the music isn't yours, but I liked it nonetheless and it added to the mood of the game. The mechanics felt interesting and I like how the live gameplay sort of influences your decisions. Unfortunately even on easy mode I couldn't get very far, kept dying when the group of 5+ children would show up.
Screenshot 2569-10-22 at 16.32.11.png
I didn't manage to get a level 3 villager on my first playthrough, but I finally got one this time. I was so close before lol.
game_screenshot_upload.jpg
Sometimes things can get pretty crazy like this lol. I almost one-shot the boss.
Also, the difference between water and stone isn't really clear to me. Why would I gather stone if I can just use water? And vice versa? I don't think the descriptions mention anything about them providing more resources during rituals or anything like that.
After three playthroughs, I've also realized that wood is basically the most important resource in the game. There's barely enough of it to get by. You pretty much always need someone gathering wood, otherwise you're screwed.
The thing is, rituals can give you gold, which you can then use as a resource for other rituals. But wood can only be obtained by gathering it.
So you end up in a situation where wood is essentially the most valuable resource in the entire game, simply because there's no other way to get it. You're constantly running short on wood.
nephem
2026-10-22 11:08 ♥ 1
@ao-85 @khaotom @tenthousandfireants @eoshadows Thank you for playing and for your feedback!Maybe I should mention the pause feature in the tutorial so all players know about it.When considering your strategy, you can press the spacebar to pause and take your time to think; you can still drag cards around freely while the game is paused.And yes, I didn’t make the music myself, so I opted out of the Audio category.
dracco-0n
2026-10-22 11:15 ♥ 1
spent 15 mins enjoying easy mode, and I like the unique art style! It did get a little repetitive towards the end, though. I guess it's just hard to avoid with incremental games, but maybe adding more random events could make things more interesting :) overall really cool
nephem
2026-10-22 11:18 ♥ 1
@maksim-terskov Congrats on getting a level 3 villager! You’ve really mastered the game! Water and stone actually have different effects. Offering water during a ritual produces herbs, which heal injured villagers and help keep them alive. That’s why its card description says, “An offering symbolizing comfort.” Offering stone produces combat-related cards instead. Sorry, I may have made those hints a little too subtle! As for wood, I’m a bit hesitant to change it right now, since it’s the only resource limiting how often you can perform rituals. Letting several villagers chop wood at once could throw the game’s balance completely out of whack. But you make a really good point, and I’ll think it through carefully. I want to address the wood issue in a way that gives players more variety and meaningful strategic choices. Thanks again for playing and for all the love. You’re freaking awesome, bro!
nephem
2026-10-22 11:24 ♥ 1
@dracco-0n You make a really good point! I originally wanted water, stone, and wood to have uses beyond rituals to add more depth to the game, but I wasn’t sure I could pull it off. I’ll keep working on it!Thank you for playing and for your feedback!If you’re up for it, give Normal mode another try—the pressure makes it more fun, haha!
khaotom
2026-10-22 15:02 ♥ 1
Yeah wood is super valuable. It is fuel for fire and fire is one of our oldest and most valuable techs. 🤔 Whoa that sounds like a theme for a game jam! 🤣
Absolutely loved the gameplay! An incredible take on the game jam theme! Combining survival and incremental mechanics was such a great idea — it's really addictive! And a huge thank you for the pause button! It’s a lifesaver and adds a whole new layer of strategy!
def44
2026-10-22 17:48 ♥ 0
so atmospheric the art is so beautiful the music is also pretty cool i totally had fun playing this game
palvel
2026-10-23 09:23 ♥ 1
Untitled 22222.jpg
It took me several attempts to find the best strategy and complete the game, but I enjoyed the process immensely. However, there was one strange thing: for some unknown reason, my level 2 villagers were not reproducing. I play on the easy difficulty setting in the tabletop version.
But in general, the game has excellent 5 stars.
nephem
2026-10-23 10:29 ♥ 0
@krakadushka @def44 Thank you for playing and for your feedback! @palvel Could it be because you’ve reached the villager limit? There’s a counter in the top-right corner that shows “Villager 5/5.”Congrats on beating the game! You did an awesome job!
ne-aquilon
2026-10-26 15:03 ♥ 1
Enjoyed fast-pacing micromanagement. Would like to see a whole game like this.
arfenalis
2026-10-27 19:37 ♥ 1
A great game with solid and satisfying mechanics! Didnt notice how I spent almost 20 minutes playing your game :3
