| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Visuals | #40 | 4.481 | 4.481 |
| Innovation | #68 | 3.963 | 3.963 |
| Gameplay | #129 | 3.741 | 3.741 |
| Overall | #157 | 3.685 | 3.685 |
| Audio | #204 | 3.630 | 3.630 |
| Enjoyment | #384 | 3.556 | 3.556 |
| Theme | #1003 | 2.741 | 2.741 |
Ranked from 27 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does the game fit the theme?
Hereditary Marks uses the haunted castle stereotype. The young heir has inherited a tower full of treasures, nothing can go wrong, right?... Plus, the ending contains an unexpected/expected detail that adds to the theme.
What code and assets did you not make from scratch during the jam (if any)?
All sounds and music in the game come from free sources. Credits and links are on the game page.
How many people worked on the game?1
Good game! A lot of its aspects appears to be polished, like visuals, animations and sounds.
Sometimes I ran out of ingredients, and that made it very difficult for me. Also, there was a run where I lost all my HP and just stayed alive while all the monsters started ignoring me.
It's fun, so great work!
Great game and amazing art ! I found the hitbox of the player to be a bit to large though, it was a bit frustrating
I like the spells and the ambient you created. Very good one!
This was really polished and professional! Great work! Is there a way to pick up the potion bottles on the ground, or are they just decoration?
Really cool game! I love the concept behind mixing up your spells for different effects. Definitely hard though! It never felt like I had enough damaging spells to do much other run away from enemies lol. Wonderful work to do all this in one week!!
The art was really good, and while at first I wasn’t sure if some of the spells seemed useful the scarcity mechanic made me try out different combinations which was quite fun. I did seem to get way more of the wings than anything else, which made it a bit tricky to get some of the sigils though. Nicely done!
I love the art of this game. The SFX and the atmosphere is very good, too. But when I play first time, spells run out so quickly it’s a bit difficult for me to get used to the gameplay ^^
Another Godot Wildjammer out in the wild! Been following the game on their Discord, and it was definitely worth the wait to play! Super polished! The art and UI are crispy clean. Been following some of your other jam games for a bit, so not surprised there.
Will say, I always struggled with games where you have to memorize combinations to cast spells (e.g., Magicka), but this one is a lot more intuitive to memorize than the rest.
I think the main bit of feedback I could give is on the difficulty. Don't get me wrong, I do love the Rogue Legacy-esque heir system, but I could not for the life of me get past level 4 or 5 due to a lack of ingredients. I don't think I really took advantage of the Supernova spell as much as I should tbh.
Regardless, good stuff~!
- S.
Hello Hungover Sunshine, thanks for the kind review!
I agree with the point you made, the Supranova spell ends up being less useful considering its cost, it's something I'll definitely rework after the jam
Unfortunately, I noticed that it got difficult to reach the boss room, a tip I can give if you play again in the future is to use fewer enemy killing spells and focus on running away from them (stun, invisibility, dash), since they usually give up after a certain point, except for the explosive rat.
Again, thank you very much, it's great to read such detailed reviews 🙂
Love the mechanic of the ingredients making the spells. Fun to learn the different combinations and how to use them. As well as that, the whole game felt really smooth, nice art-style too. Definitely has a lot of potential!
I really love how the game design is centered around the use of the spells. You can't really brute force your way through it which usually requires a clever design. Learning the combinations and when to use them was interesting as well. The fact that you have to ration certain spells for certain times makes for very engaging game play.
Hello, thank you!
I wanted to differentiate this game a bit from other top-down survival/bullet hell games. Hereditary Marks is more about using the right spell for the right situation than attacking everyone who comes along.
I'm really glad you understood and liked the idea!
Thanks again for the kind and detailed review 🙂
Cool spell-cast mechanic, visual design awesome! Hard to cast spell at moving enemy, maybe need to play much more to get used to it.
Impressively made, especially considering the timeframe. I believe adding a small casting animation and a screen shake effect would enhance the impact and make the spells feel more powerful.
this was alot of fun! felt very polished and satisfying too! good job
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