RELIC CORE

aidnamode 2026-10-20 21:12 ♥ 1

This is a fun idea!! I liked the diverting power mechanic. I think overall things could use a bit more impact to keep it interesting but congrats on finishing the jam!!

rucksack 2026-10-20 22:31 ♥ 1

Nice balancing idea with rotating in order to keep extra turrets alive. I played it for quite a while but died on the last wave.

The executable of your game is just called ".exe", which is kind of sus, and even a hidden file on UNIX systems. It might discourage people from playing your game, maybe rename it to something more telling like "relic-core.exe".

brain 2026-10-21 04:44 ♥ 1

Really cool concept. I think if it was zoomed out a little you could give it more incoming enemies at once to make it a little more chaotic and it could be fun for hours. Nice work!

nathmate 2026-10-21 05:54 ♥ 1

yeah I'm running linux and the zip extracted into a seemingly empty directory which was confusing.

The two mechanics of continuously spinning giving a damage boost and diverting power are in tension in an interesting way, I ended up powering two opposite turrets and spinning constantly. I found the radar pretty useless, the size of the enemies was a good enough indication of their health. Another use for power, like a shield maybe, would have been cool.

platon 2026-10-21 20:34 ♥ 0

@nathmate Thanks! FTL was a big reference for me while making this.

If I keep working on it, I’d love to add some slowing/stun drones, Core upgrades with slow HP regen, and different turret types with stuff like ricochets, crits and DoT.

Shields would be really fun to expand too

intich 2026-10-22 05:33 ♥ 1

Good game!!!

slay-a-stone 2026-10-25 08:39 ♥ 1

It took me a while before i noticed how everything works (rotating, diverting power), small tooltips would have helped a lot.

The game also went from quite relax and easy to suddenly 20 enemies spawning and killing me in 2 seconds, that was a bit unfortunate.

All around I liked the gameplay, rotating the turrets felt satisfying and the sounds were nice too :)

nbumgardner 2026-10-28 02:59 ♥ 0

The UI throws a lot to the player at once to figure out. I like that the _Core_ text is larger since it is the players health, yet emphasizing even more that it is the lose condition would be helpful. For example, shaking the left number a little when the player is hit, or having some kind of heart or core icon near it to show that it is important.

The game is decently fun to figure out a good strategy of upgrades. Removing the _Rotation Charge_ decay over time might be good, the current implementation leads to wiggling the turrets constantly which I feel could be unpleasant to watch as an audience. Maybe it helps absorb damage a little. Or have the charge trigger when filled, then last while emptying out so the player has a strategic reason to stop rotating right before they want to trigger the 100% to focus down an enemy. Or maybe 100% charge is bad, the core overheats and stops moving for a while, or takes damage but the last 10% is slower to fill up or somehow more red and menacing? In short, I felt like the connection of _Rotation Charge_ did not fit with the rest of the game, nor did I notice the turrets getting much stronger while it was full.

Speaking of feedback, I kept looking for a way to tell when I would get my next upgrade. Maybe its just 1 upgrade per wave completed?

On a different topic, was Gen AI used for the coding side? I noticed the disclaimer on itch.io but not on the Ludum Dare page itself.

**Minor bug:** The background music stops a few seconds into the game over screen. Reset works great though.

Gameplay wise, redirecting power seems meaningful and a good game mechanic. I cleared 14 waves and destroyed 249 enemies. If the screenshot of getting to wave 45 was done manually, I am very impressed! Maybe I need to upgrade the radar sooner to clear out waves and gather upgrades.