Cool game! I liked having to find the best route to make sure I had enough people to get through the gates! I only manage to solve the first three levels (I'm not very good at puzzle games) but I really enjoyed attempting them all! Good job! :D
Play game
The King Must Not Fall's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Audio | #25 | 3.870 | 3.870 |
| Theme | #38 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Overall | #65 | 3.688 | 3.688 |
| Innovation | #94 | 3.609 | 3.609 |
| Game Design | #99 | 3.696 | 3.696 |
| Fun | #100 | 3.609 | 3.609 |
| Graphics | #334 | 3.348 | 3.348 |
Ranked from 23 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does you game fit the theme?
The King can't get thought the levels alone.
Did you write all the code and made all the assets from scratch?
Yes, I have made all the visuals, music, sound, and programming. And it's all made doing the jam.
Comments
Interesting idea. I like that there's voice acting and the puzzles seem balanced. The swiveling camera makes the character hard to control though as he has fixed directional inputs.
Submitted
Island AdventureVoice And Sounds Are Great,
Camera System Confuses Player Because of fixed inputs and also controls feel like they have input delay
Game Design is good.
Nice job
Submitted
TheOneMightyHeroGreat concept, a fun twist on snake. The voicelines are hilarious!
I feel like it could use some more refinement, like removing the ability to turn into a wall, which causes you to lose the game if you try to turn a little too soon; maybe only make the king fall if he gets stuck, or crashes into a follower? Changes like this would enable the player to take their time and think about the puzzle. Unless you want this to also be about reflexes, and not just puzzling, which is actually completely fine (just for a different audience, maybe).
Anyway, this is a great entry!
Submitted
Pay With Your PalNice voice act, it was hilarious. Its really fun when they fall xDDDD.
However, the camera swings and I sometimes confuses the direction. It would be better if the direction is always the same. (w is up, s is down, a is left and d is right)
Submitted
Alone with CatsGreat game, really loved it.
The puzzles are great but the best thing is the sound design, it's really nice to hear the peasants praying the king. In terms of points to improve, it is really frustrating that the king is always moving. Maybe it is to increase the difficulty, but I believe it adds a layer of reflexes skills that do not let you think carefully the puzzles. Btw, I love the camera movement.
Overall, I am really impressed. Good job!
Submitted
DIY MonstersSemi-on-the-fly remarks:
- This may sound silly, but why Most instead of Must in the title? Is it some pun on higher-register language (as in ‘this is most unfortunate’)? (I am not a native English speaker.)
- Ah, the action starts right away! I think letting the player launch the movements of a level with some key would help.
- Controls are QWERTY-only instead of layout-independent (I have an AZERTY keyboard), BUT arrow keys are enabled.
- Lots of voices! Nice effort. :)
- This is witty, a variation on Snake!
- Somewhat punishing to have to be constantly on the lookout for danger (ie collisions) when moving! This makes the game more oriented towards reflexes, which can be your target.
- Some pause feature would be nice!
- Nice camera’s following! Except for losing sight of which direction is which on the keyboard, as Pixel Raven said; maybe a compass or some other indicator could help.
- The domino effect when the servants collide with one another is too funny! XD This is great, a procedural effect. :)
- I like how you chose to have the walls being hedges; simple depiction with textured green blocks, but effective and coherent with the king context. :) The grass goes well with this, and the whole has a vegetation labyrinth feel.
- The king can pass a door right when it closes; I do not know if this is intended or not, but it allowed me to finish level 3 even though I had lost one servant.
- The echo at the end of ‘The king has fallen!’ is another nice touch.
- Tip: allow the player to skip a level or choose a level, for playtesting purposes. This prevents you from getting the player stuck!
- Level 4 is already so hard!! ._. I reached the final door, but apparently without enough servants, since it closed on my king’s face; maybe I should have ‘crossed’ paths to save some from the second door?
- Oh, you can turn right into a hedge… ._. This is a cause of easy nasty losses; depending on the difficulty you are aiming for, I would advise removing this possibility.
- By the way, nice music too! :) A little funny, yet sober. Since you have done everything yourself, this is worth noting!
- I cannot figure out level 4… ._. :( I wonder whether it is unbeatable, as I read that Delldone9831 has not managed to beat it either. Can you confirm that you can win level 4? I really wonder whether the level design may have just a bit too long of paths (or lacks servants) to win! ._.
IMPORTANT QUESTION: how many levels does the game have? I hope I have not missed too many!
Takeaway: the concept is great (a puzzly variation on Snake) and connects well with the theme! A lot of details make this game feel personal and cute, somewhat between chess and, as goks1986 said, Warcraft III (or even Warcraft II. ;) And I have not played the first one, only seen screen captures I think, so I could not tell if there were voices there too).
My only complaint would be that making it real time and very punishing makes it rather hard to plan ahead; I think you would have to either make the levels easier or the difficulty curve less steep, or make it entirely ‘turn-based’ (ie the game waits for a command from the player to move everything by one tile). This last option would make you lose the ‘fast thinking’ aspect; maybe you could have a mix of turn-based levels and real-time levels! :)
PS: oh yes, a minor complaint: some more mechanical sounds (for switches, doors…) would have been a nice addition!
Submitted
EnquiquineurThank you for the feedback. The game has only 4 levels. And yes you can get through the 4 level, but it is difficult.
The keyboard controls is one the most people uses. For my part I can just change my keyboard layout to France layout when needed, so I don't see this as an big issue. This would maybe be different if it was not a jam game.
Thanks for the answer! Could you release a video showing how you beat level 4, or point to such a video? I really went to the end without making mistakes, so I do not understand what went wrong.
The keyboard controls is one the most people uses.
I know, but it is extremely easy to program in a layout-independent way. It is really only a matter of looking for the keys’ scancodes instead of literal value!
For my part I can just change my keyboard layout to France layout when needed, so I don't see this as an big issue.
It may depend on the operating system, but this can require installing the corresponding layout. (For example, I also have Japanese, Russian, and Hebrew layouts, and I had to install them, which is a somewhat heavy operation — although manageable, granted.) Installing a whole keyboard and switching according to games is really not user-friendly at all compared with the (once again) super easy solution of layout-independent programming.
This would maybe be different if it was not a jam game.
I beg to differ, as the solution is, once again, super-duper easy. For example, in Love2D and SDL2 (to take examples I know, but this is most probably true for other APIs such as in Unreal Engine, which uses C++ just as SDL2 does), this merely amounts to switching to another function!
I think many people do not realize how easy this is, and how this enhances accessibility — especially in a game jam context where you have international participants. So, actually, this is even more important in a game jam to get more playtesters and correct feedback. ;) (As an example, I had a hard time with several games in several game jams because of this, which impacted how I played the games.)
Really fun(ny) game! I love the voices and the little domino effect when the king fell, making all his followers fall as well. I understood only in the 2nd level why I needed my followers, but once I got it I thought it was pretty clever: simple idea, but with lots of possibilities!
It did feel a bit frustrating when I had to start over a level because of a single mistake, especially in the 4th level where I often pressed the wrong key/direction because of the camera angle. I do think that camera movement added some dynamism to the game though.
Overall I really had fun. Simple but clever concept, and a good take on the theme (followers are both a "necessary aid" and sometimes a hindrance).
Submitted
Too many souls in this cavernTis an awesome idea, I like the extra puzzle element added to classic snake gameplay! Though I was a bit unsure, it almost feels like the puzzle element clashes with the reaction time based gameplay. I was really impressed by the level seen in the bottom screenshot of your game page (idk how else to name them), a few times it tricked me into taking a wrong path where my line of guys were too long to navigate, and it felt like a nice puzzle. But I also found later parts of the game frustrating, where I knew the exact path I wanted to take but just didn't have the timing to make that happen. I'm sure that's in part my fault I know my reaction time ain't the best, but especially as levels got longer and longer, I found that what felt like minor timing errors resulted in a major loss. And that chipped away on my motivation, though I think I did get close to the end.
An idea that might've helped: maybe if you hit the wall, the last guy in your line could take the blow and return to where you got him, so you'd need to go back and get them, but it wouldn't be an immediate game over. There'd still be tension in spots where you don't have guys + a sort of punishment for failure in that you need to make up a new path on the fly to reclaim them, but I think that'd be less punishing for people with slower reactions. Of course, just an idea though, idk if that works with your vision for the game.
But besides that, you've done a great job, the levels are very clear and concise, it was very easy to scan a level and get all the info you needed, particularly since the floor tiles formed a grid. And big props for going 3D in a jam, the animations on the characters are clean and honestly having 3D characters at all is... wow. And the voices were spot on, particularly love that one guy who actually doesn't like the king! Awesome job and sorry again that I didn't have the persistence to finish, but hopefully this feedback is still useful!
Submitted
World Domination with CamYour game is so cool and original! Voices of followers reminded me of peasants in warcraft 3 and it is so fun!Puzzles starts easy, but soon you have to think so much in advance that seems scary, but fear not, you will be there for a while. Maybe some improvements about camera, sometimes is in angle that makes moves little confusing. Great game anyway!
Submitted
AlonenotNice work and fun idea.
but I had some trouble with the moving camera to go in the right direction.
Submitted
The Shadow of YANACool twist on snake-game :0 Awesome sound effects, the game is really good on humor :) The only iisue i had was with controls. Due to camera angle changes it's became confusing sometimes where are you going to turn when using move control key.
Submitted
In Safe HandsThis game is great! I really like the art, it added to the game so well!. Also the gameplay and aesthetics was so cool! A overall good game and great submission. If you have the time would you like to rate and leave some feedback on my game? If not then at least help out some of the people in the "need for rating" category. Its totally up to you and keep up the great game dev
Cool snake-like game. The audio is really good. Maybe the controls would have been better if the positions where the king can change direction were trigger boxes. And when the player presses the new direction a little bit too late you could teleport the player back to the middle of the tile and change direction there. some flowers on the walls and a couple of grass models could make the graphics better. The Puzzles are cool as well.(I only solved the levels 1,2,3 because after that it got too difficult for me) But overall really solid entry. (this should not sound like your game is bad or anything. It's not. And mine is not any better. In fact it's way worse.
Submitted
A Turret Cannot Live Alone
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.