itch.io

Hey BoiDude, thanks for playing! And awesome to see such a high score!

You know I'd love to come back to this game one day. I had a lot of fun making it and still have loads of ideas for extra features (and to fix that annoying camera for sure)! 

Nice to see people are still playing it though. 

Impressive scope for a game jam game!  I liked the inventory system, picking up items and moving them between inventory slots was responsive and easy to manage.   Environments were well designed, lots of variety to the decor and I liked the spark effects and attention to detail.   Sound design was great too and really well implemented, it added a lot to the sense of being alone in an abanonded space station. 

I would have liked an in game tutorial, especially as the enemies didn't seem to stop coming at me when the game was paused while I was checking the controls.  I also managed to soft-lock myself at the start of the game, where I accidentally dropped the yellow key card and it fell through the floor, preventing me from entering the next area. 

Combat wasn't very engaging for me.  It was interesting that you added a level up system with stat progression and some RPG elements, but I wonder if more could have been done to enhance the combat and make it more exciting. 

Interested to see where this could go!   

Thanks very much!  I stuck with the NES colour palette for the sprites/textures which gave it a retro feel.  I even decided to limit to three colours per enemy, as if they were made on original hardware (albeit without any limitations on 3D!).

Hey impmja, thanks so much for all your feedback and compliments - I really appreciate you giving my game a go! 

I really enjoyed working on the music, great to hear you liked it.  It was stuck in my head for days during development, so I had to put it on mute towards the end to avoid going insane..! 

The phonetic typing sounds were good fun to implement too, although on reflection probably not the best use of time for a game jam!  I had planned on adding secret words you can spell out too, or even bleeping out attempts at swearwords just for fun, but this didn't go anywhere in the end. 

The combat is a bit slow, the flow of the text is fixed to a set timer and not skippable unfortunately.  I appreciate you playing the game on VirtualBox, not sure if this also had any affect on the game speed however as I only tested it running on Windows.  I would love to test the game on Linux myself as I have no idea if the game has any issues running on a Linux system. 

The intention with the spellingtons was for them to throw out random words that the player would have to spell quickly in order to defend against them, but sadly I didn't have time to implement this mechanic in the end.  

No strafe mode available at the moment.  It was tricky limiting the available controls as the entire qwerty keyboard was taken up by the spelling mechanics in the end.  However I ended up removing the ability to cast spells or type messages outside of combat/spell walls/riddles after all, so perhaps could have just used WASD/QE in the end!

Thanks for all your awesome feedback and nice to hear you enjoyed making little raps out of the audio, (I was definitely doing the same during development)!  Love the idea of a couch co-op mode with wizard rap battles!  That is an insane, but potentially very fitting idea to such a wacky game. 

Thanks so much for playing and for your feedback.  

I completely agree about the map and combat encounters,  I would have loved to add some variety to the spells and damage types to add a bit more variety, but I'm really glad you enjoyed it, especially considering you're not a fan of typing games! 

Thank you for all the appreciation of the graphics and sound design, these were definitely my favourite things to work on.  Animating the wizard portrait to mimic Doom-guy was definitely intentional, so I'm glad you picked up on that :D 

Thanks Slippers!

I have to admit, the audio was all done using text to speech as I didn't have time to record my own lines (as much as I'd have loved to).  I somehow managed to get the text to speech bot to make that squeal noise, so there was no way I couldn't include it in the game! 

Really appreciate the feedback, and so glad to hear you enjoyed it, especially the audio as I had a lot of fun putting the music and sound effects together.  

Thanks for playing!  Really apprecaite the feedback.  

I definitely agree about the combat being very slow, giving the player the ability to skip the combat text would have helped a lot.  

No problem that you didn't finish it, I appreciate the level design is reliant on being a maze with not much else to aid the player in their sense of direction.  The idea was that the red vines lead you to the tree roots which need to be destroyed to unblock the exit door, but agree this could have been fleshed out a bit.  

Thanks for your compliments on scope, it's such a hard thing to manage with game jams.  I was really impressed with how much you managed to cram into your entry, so thanks for taking the time to play mine too. 

Hi BeardedCynic, thank you so much for playing and for such valuable feedback!  Really awesome to hear you stuck it out until the end.

Thanks for your feedback on the prose, I made a mistake choosing to make everything rhyme, as towards the end it made it much harder to write in the riddles in particular, I'm glad it paid off however!

I completey agree with your feedback on variety, the combat is probably the weakest element of the game due to this, as the main gimmick with the typing only goes so far.  I would love to add spell variety,  with different damage types etc.  One of my original intentions was to have an enemy that can 'curse' you, which removes certain characters from your keyboard.  I also played around with having a 'mana' pool which limits the total characters allowed in a word until a recharge, but all of these ideas were scrapped due to time contraints at the end.  

I really appreciate your feedback, and will definitely give your game a try too! 

Thanks for your reply!

That's an expensive solution.  Probably not worth it for game jam games, but thanks a lot, really useful to understand the process.

You know what, this could really go somewhere!  It's nice to see something a bit different, even if it's unfinished and doesn't quite adhere to the rules. 

The first thing I did was fall into the water, and got caught by the Eternal Jailer.  Realising in my next playthrough one of those floating bodies was my previous guy who didn't make it, I like to imagine all the other bodies are the rest of us jam participants in some kind of asynchronous online multiplayer game.  

It's a cool concept, the kind of thing where it's just weird enough to start creating your own ideas of what the hell is going on and justifying why your boat has two massive machine guns attached to it.  

The low poly models fit the strange aesthetic perfectly.

Thanks for uploading, and I enjoyed reading the game page description too. 

I liked the dialogue - simple but interesting characters, and loved how the player (much like me) had no clue why they were there! 

Pro-gamer hint: the red crystals are checkpoints - make sure you press [F] to interact with them! 

I liked the retro graphics and simple art style, exploration was fun and the first trap got me good.  The death sound effect was pretty funny and restarting was quick which kept me playing until the end (once I figured out the red crystals were the checkpoints!).  

A bit too short.  I would have loved to see more levels, perhaps with a way to use the traps against the zombies, but appreciate the time pressure.  I felt that [V] and [Y] were quite random keys to use for the lantern and medkits.  I also found a bug where my position kept resetting in the room at the end with all the zombies.  

Overall a fun little game! 

Really nice looking game, loved the pixel art and the amount of effort you put into the characters and level design.  The verticality and being able to climb stairs to access different levels added a lot of variety.  

The party system has a lot of depth to it too which is impressive, being able to swap inventory items, weapons and armour between characters is very cool.  

I didn't like pressing buttons and not knowing what they did, it made navigation a litte bit confusing at times, but maybe that's just me.  

A really solid game with a lot of polish - great job! 

Amazing atmosphere, art style and sound design.  This is the best looking entry I've played so far, insane level of detail and depth to the environments, they really reminded me of the first two Fallout games, but in 3D.  Loved the pixel art - if that was all hand drawn it would probably have taken me the majority of the jam period just to put those images together!  Sound design was pretty perfect, the distant monster sounds effects every now and then really makes you feel like you're not alone.  

Navigation was quite difficult at times, I got lost not realising there was a dark hallway I'd missed.  These would be great for hiding easily missable secrets, but a small light source or something to show there's a way through would help to keep the player moving forward.  

The inventory system was good too, and having to search the environment for text logs and items was a nice touch.

Awesome and really impressive for such a short development time! 

Wow, for your first ever game this is incredibly well made.  Nice to see a game with a focus on story and exploration over combat and the writing was pretty funny.  The ending was impressive - you clearly put a lot of effort into it and the visuals were stunning during the warp drive, I'd love to see where you go with this one! 

Loved the lockpicking mechanic (I've recently started playing Skyrim again... so it made me laugh to see a similar mechanic here), though I would have preferred using A/D or left/right to adjust the pick.  

Lighting and level design was great too, really reminds me of the original Half Life, and cool to see you added slopes to add a bit of variety to navigating the levels  Getting zapped and thrown backwards by the electricty was a cool and cinematic addition too, rather than being locked to the grid the whole time. 

Awesome game, and looking forward to seeing what you do with this! 

I managed to make it back to the void!  

Love the art style and the low-poly graphics, the pixel art textures and lighting were perfect.  I found the enemies quite hard to make out up close, but the effort you put into the level design and location outweighed any major complaints.  It's great that the exit door is located right in the centre of the map, and the church stands out so you always know which way to go to get back.  

Enemy variety was good too and the level up system worked well, I spent some time grinding the weaker enemies near the beginning to tackle those wolves in the forest, though it was only after I finished the game I saw your comment about the infinite health, but nevermind..!  Cool that you implemented looking up and down too, (even though it didn't serve any gameplay function other than admiring the awesome environments). 

I would have loved some more sound effects, especially when healing as I originally had no idea my HP went back up at those spinny triangles and just stood there spinning it endlessly thinking it would open a door somewhere or something.  The music doesn't seem to loop either.  

Overall, a fun little game, with impressive level design! 

Really liked this one!  The art style and sound design are great.  I really liked how the ghosts cast light in front of them so you can anticipate their next move and attempt to avoid them accordingly.  The atmosphere and sound effects were top notch and really complimented the spooky vibe.   This is the kind of game I that would have given me nightmares as a kid...

With only two inventory slots, being able to put items back on the pedestals was a nice addition too, and allowed me to quickly heal when in a tight spot.  I think the slow movement and PS1 aesthetics helped with the surival horror vibes, but movement was slightly too slow for me, and avoiding those ghosts was sometimes impossble.  My entry is guilty of this too, but I would have loved a map to avoid getting lost!  

But overall a really solid entry with awesome visuals, horror vibes and excellent sound design! 

Thanks for playing and for the feedback.

Much appreciated!

Ah awesome, thanks for the response.  That's good to know.

Hi all,

I've been having a blast playing everyone's entries but I've noticed some of the downloadable games are being blocked by Chrome and the exe files require the 'run anyway' button after Windows security stops it from being opened.  This is happening for my entry too.  How do some of you get around this when publishing your games? 

Hi CyberToasty, 

Thanks very much for playing and for your positive feedback.  Much appreciated! 

I'd love to add some updates after the jam ends.  Casting multiple spells is a great idea and would add a lot of variety to the combat.  Completely agree the flow of battle is a bit slow.  

Really glad you enjoyed it though and looking forward to giving your game a try.  It looks very cool!

Hey, thanks for your feedback! 

Glad you managed to get your revenge.  I completely agree, teleport turned out to be useless as the enemy will always get an attack in next.  Combat needs to be a bit more fleshed out. 

Thanks for playing, and really pleased you liked the riddles!  I was a bit worried they'd block progress for some players. 

Love the wobbly hand drawn art style and the goofy sound effects.  The tone is consistent throughout and this works really well. 

There's a lot of depth to this which is very impressive for such a short development time!  I've not seen anyone else implement such a complex party management system so far.  I like that you can switch characters on the fly and each of them have different attacks/abilities.  

The map is a nice addition too, but I agree with others that being able to tell which direction you're facing would make navigation much smoother. 

Awesome stuff! 

Awesome game with a really cool atmosphere.  Runs silky smooth and movement feels great, one of the most polished entries I've played so far.

The reverse breakout mechanic is a really cool twist on combat.  Very impressive! 

Cool to see another game with a typing mechanic for the combat!  I liked the dice roll mechanic too and the sound effects added a lot to a spooky atmosphere. 

I would have liked to manage my food/cigs/lighter with clickable buttons however, as remembering all the key binds was a bit overwhelming at first. 

Really cool, especially for your first ever game!  Controls feel tight and responsive and it's easy to play once you get to grips with dodging enemy attacks.  

I like that you put quite a bit of effort into the story as well! 

I really enjoyed this.  Loved the PS1 aesthetics your went for, I could definitely imagine this being a horror classic if it was released back in the 90s!  Reminds me of exploring the shipwreck levels in Tomb Raider 2.  The audio logs were a nice touch too. 

My only complaint is that the combat feels quite unresponsive, especially against the sharks who just keep coming at you.  A short stun, or impact effect would make a big difference.

The underwater settings is really unique and suits the limited grid based movement.  I wonder if you could add 90 degree turning up and down too to really disorient the player and add to the sense of unease and claustrophobia.  

Overall, a really cool little horror game.

Loved the low res aesthetic, so simple and easy to read.  I got eaten by the crabs a few times, but enjoyed having to carefully plan my route back to the pentagram.  

Nice sound effects too!

Very cool!  Loved the low res textures and sprite work, and the dungeons have a really nice atmosphere.

Super impressed with the level design and that you were able to implement walking on walls.  The extra dimension to navigating the dungeon is a cool feature.  The rune swap in/out to manage your stats was a neat mechanic too.  

I noticed the whole game was squished and the pixels weren't square, likely because I was playing on a 16:10 laptop display instead of 16:9, but thought I should mention in case you're planning to add any optimisation updates in future. 

Hey CryptRat, thanks for playing and great to hear you got to the end! 

Really appreciate the feedback.  I had plans for finite items that can be consumed or spelled, in some way to benefit the player, but sadly ran out of time towards the end.  I might do some minor updates after the jam ends, and would love to add a map system too! 

Thanks again, and glad you enjoyed your playthrough! 

Thanks for playing and glad the juice paid off!

The levels are easy to get lost in, if I had a bit more time I would have added a map.  

And agreed the turn based combat can be a bit slow, I actually sped it up before release but a button to skip text flow would be useful to keep up the momentum. 

Really appreciate the feedback! 

Thank you so much!  Really glad to hear you enjoyed it.

I had planned to incorporate the spelling mechanic into combat a bit more.  E.g. blocking incoming attacks by typing, or certain keyboard characters being removed via a curse or something like that.  

Really appreciate the positive feedback though.  Thanks! 

It's done!  Really enjoyed this one!

Thanks!  I'm glad you liked it.

Thank you 🙂

Thanks so much.  That definitely wasn't intentional as currently that's the only way to get a game over!  The collision code was a bit rushed so something I'd like to improve on with more time.

Thank you!

Interesting game that works really well.  The sprites were nice and simple which allows for lots of things to be happening on the screen at once, not something I've seen before at such a low resolution!

Such a unique experience, I never expected to see anything like this in the jam.  The cross-stitch effect and 45 degree view angle is impressive and I loved how you incorporated the art-style into the game page as well.  For a one person job this is amazing! 

Fun little game and good for cat lovers, especially the knocking stuff off shelves mechanic.  The cat sprites and animations were good too.  I felt the game camera was a bit too close which made it difficult to see where I was going, but with some more polish and sound effects this could be a whole lot of fun!