daniel123 2026-10-20 09:16 ♥ 1
It would be even better if we could see the monsters' HP and status.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD60 → Abataz
| Percentile | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | LD60 | Ever | |
| Overall | 16 | |||||
| Fun | 16 | |||||
| Innovation | 16 | |||||
| Theme | 16 | |||||
| Graphics | 17 | |||||
| Mood | 16 | |||||
It would be even better if we could see the monsters' HP and status.
Great job on this project! The art style and audio work really well together, creates a great atmosphere. Super impressive what you managed to pull off within the jam deadline! Rated! We’d also love to hear your thoughts on our entry if you have some time!
This game well recreates this classic experience of playing on old consoles, a great take on the jam theme. I like that fair balance of the hero's powers and enemies, the game was not too simple and too difficult. This story about two gods is also very captivating... Wonderful job! ⚔⚔⚔
cute vibe of a game! wish you could see where the enemies are. it would make surprise enemies more exciting and less frustrating. the music was great and i love the old school game narrative!
Really cool idea for the style! Great game <3
@daniel123 I had considered that. But lots of older RPGs didn't have that so I left it out. There's also a serious lack of UI space given the the other limitations I put on myself.
@nursultan Glad you liked it.
@wewrutuwertrer Glad you didn't find it too difficult or easy, didn't have much time to do playtesting or balance passes.
@el-chivo-vivo The encounter rate is definitely something that needs balance work, especially in the caves where you're wandering around a lot more. Definitely something to think about if I continue work on this since I'll have more time make all the enemy map sprites as well.
@arfenalis Thanks for the compliment.
Nice game. I liked the minimal UI as it created tension whenever I encountered a new monster and I had to learn a rough sense of the stats over time. I haven't made it to the end (if there is an end?) because I couldn't find the Soul of Death (I went into a cave that I thought should have it but it had a magic sword instead). I'm not sure whether retaining your gold is a bug, but it was much appreciated.
Lovely coherent game boy style submission. Love the monochromatic graphics and the music is great also. Not sure if it was intended but was funny that the game only accepted one input at a time and didn't handle pressing multiple keys and then releasing everything except eg. left arrow. After just a few upgrades I could just spam "a" to get through everything and quickly I had bought everything. I couldn't find the third entrance after finding the m. sword. I followed the edges and then also tried some sweeping of the lands but couldn't find it. The constant battles didn't make the search better as the music kept changing. So a bit more closed off world maybe so that there are no open fields to aimlessly search. Over all a really solid entry.
Nice consistent art direction, definitely matches the intended game boy aesthetic. I found that the timed text made everything take way longer than it should, so I got a bit frustrated with that by the end. I was able to defeat the king because my PP somehow overflowed to 255, but then didn't get so lucky with the God of Death.
@googlefrog There should be two caves on the eastern island, one to the north and one to the south. One of them has the magic sword, the other has the soul. Which one is which is randomly determined. You are supposed to retain some gold on death, making it a very expensive teleport back to the castle.
There are actually four "endings": !>- Give the king the soul you found, he ascends, kills god, then becomes a new god that eventually terrorizes the world and you start over as a new hero fighting against the new god. !>- Kill the king, then take the crown, you start over as a new hero fighting the old god. !>- Kill the king, kill god, then keep the soul, you ascend as a new god that eventually terrorizes the world and you start over as a new hero fighting against your old self. !>- Kill the king, kill god, then release the soul, the loop is broken and the game ends. Each loop of the game the hero starts over at level 1 but keeps 10% of their existing attributes, new maps are generated, and enemies get 5% stronger. Didn't think anyone would actually play through the multiple loops given how much time people have, but hoped that even the partial game would be enjoyable enough.
@pooki The one input at a time was deliberate, going for the old school feel which sometimes had slightly janky controls. Finding the final caves was something I was concerned may happen. And you're right closing off that area more would help. The other possibility I had considered was adding some large landmarks around them that would attract the player to them more, or implied paths that would lead them.
@3lstmsinatrenchcoat There's an option in the Options dialog that lets you adjust the text speed, also holding down any key will cause the text speed to go 4x as fast. The King and Gods are supposed to be very difficult, and possibly not killable on the first loop of the game.
Cool game and ambitious in scope for a jam! Captured the Gameboy feeling very well.
Another commenter mentioned wanting to see the monster health bars—I think for me the issue was that it was confusing at first to figure out the power level of the monsters. The skeletons start off doing a lot more damage than the player, so they seem powerful, but it turns out they don't have a ton of health. A lot of games indicate that you are in the "right" area for your level if the monsters do about the same about of damage as the player can. That said, I got the hang of it after a while, and I do like the old school commitment to forcing players to figure things out through experimentation.
@plumitt I usually do the Compo, but near the start of the second day I realized it was too much work. Luckily I was free on Monday so I just switched to the Jam instead. That also let me pull in music from outside sources as well, which has always been my weakest point.
When designing the values and progression I started out with the players HP and damage values, then worked from there to figure out the enemy health and damage. Since I treated them like two separate pieces it makes sense that they would feel too decoupled. Something to keep in mind for future project.
This definitely reminded me of old Dragon Warrior games... I ran all the way to the cave and fought one enemy, then fought about 8 on the way back, trying to flee every time lol. I didn't have the patience to finish it, but I liked what I saw -- the OG gameboy palette was pretty nice.
Really nice old-school RPG! I love how closely you've recreated the original Game Boy look, especially with the limited color palette and tiny resolution. It really gives the game that nostalgic feeling of playing something from the late 80s or early 90s.
The procedurally generated world is also a cool addition and makes the project feel quite ambitious for a game jam. I like that you went for a proper RPG experience with exploration, monsters, and equipment rather than just a short minigame.
Overall, a really interesting project and a great interpretation of the Old Tech theme. Nice work!
Really polished entry, well done! I was a bit confused by the ending
!> After defeating the king I wanted to fight the god, but I felt like I had to upgrade my gear first. I pressed "No" which apparently meant that I let him kill me instead :P
Either way, it felt fair throughout and I'm glad I bought the teleportation items to get back to the castle, that saved me from a lot of running (and most likely dying). Sometimes it would get a little bit frustrating if you got a ton of enemy spawns right after one another, I think I got like 4 enemies while only moving 2 tiles at some point. But other than that no notes, feels very authentically retro.
@ordineu Well spotted. The primary inspiration for this was the original NES version of Dragon Warrior. Played through it many times when I was younger. I understand not having the patience to finish it. It turned out longer than I thought I would be able to make it. The four color palette was interesting to work with. It made things hard because I only had four colors to work with, but also it made what color to use very obvious. The sprite I had the most trouble with was the water tile. Spent a while looking at old NES games and figured out the main reason their water looked like water was primarily because it was blue, and not because of the shape of the waves or turbulence. Once I figured that out it was easier to create something that looked more like water.
@alexandru-barbanoua Thanks for the compliment, glad you liked it. The procedural generation is actually really simple. The caves are just mazes generated using a randomized search technique, just had to set up the maze size so I would always know that the corners were clear to place something. The world is created by placing some large blocks of tiles in certain areas. Then making the tiles spread by choosing some random ones and replacing a tile next to them with the chosen tile type. This creates the more organic feel to it instead of just having rectangles. To make sure the islands stay separated a vertical line of water is placed down the center again. After that the points of interest are placed. And as a final test a search is done to make sure the all the points of interest are reachable from the bridge. If they aren't the map is scrapped and rebuilt. It's only a 64x64 map so it's very quick to do all this.
@marcus-otterstrom Glad you got to the end, it's a bit long for a jam game. Right now there's just a random chance when walking onto a "blank" tile of an encounter happening, looking back at it I'd probably go with what the original Final Fantasy did with a step counter instead. Also increasing the flee chance instead of the 50% chance it currently is would feel better. Once you're in the final sequence you're locked in and can't get out of it. The text describing the actions you take should be more clear on what you're choosing (at that point you were choosing whether you were taking the deal with the god to become the new king, or whether you wanted to take the soul and try to fight god).
**Really enjoyed the game!** The old school graphics and monochromatic palette fit the Old Tech aesthetics perfectly, and it was fun grinding for better gear.
My only two minor nitpicks (mostly what other commentators had already mentioned):
1) Sometimes it felt like the enemies were spawning too much, especially the plants in the first floors of the caves - I spammed A to get through them as fast as I can, but did get a decent amount of gold in the meanwhile :D !> 2) Initially, I thought there was only one cave with a Magic Sword, so I had to take a look into the comments to find out that there are actually two caves.
!> Maybe the King could hint that there's more than one cave, or it's possible to add some path tiles, vaguely leading to the right one? These are not the definitive solutions, of course, but might make finding the right cave easier.
Either way, the entry itself is very polished, and I did play to the end !>(just to give the soul to the King lol).
Good job!
A true retro epic. It's a familiar formula, yet I was compelled to see my quest to the end. The amount of content was astounding, and the writing was very evocative. The encounters were a bit too frequent and repetitive, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Leveling up, and buying/finding new equipment felt rewarding and I really liked how I could choose my own destiny. Fantastic stuff!
@hotcoffee Glad you really liked it. The combat could definitely be more strategic, as you said right now it's primarily spamming A to get through. Which is fine at the starting levels, or for some enemies, but at least some more powerful enemies should take more thought to get through. Maybe more classes that require different approaches? !>Had planned originally to have the king mention the city to the east, then have someone there you could talk to that would point you towards the other cave, but that got lost in the rush to get things out. !>The king is very convincing, you don't stay king long if you don't know how to persuade people to do what you want.
@reaktori Thanks for the kind words.