I like your interpretation of the theme, and the music is great! Cute visuals. I would probably have enjoyed it even more though if I could skip the dialogue, because I failed so many times and it took some time to get past again x) But good job!
The soundtrack is spectacular and the visuals are very cohesive and well done! I wish there was a way to speed up/skip the dialogue, and a more intuitive hitbox for both Despair and the attack - there were times I felt I was hitting but Despair's HP bar didn't go down. Visually I think changing the contrast between Liam's sprite and the background could help as the dark palette had me lose him momentarily a few times, especially when doing a dodge roll. Overall this is a really good play and I'm intrigued where it may develop!
Oh man, I really couldn't resist playing this because it says hack n slash. I would like to drop what I think from my quick play session.
While I understand that it's still on prototype stage, I have 2 major complaints that deter me to continue playing for too long. One would be the dialogue and the other would be the occasional teleporting/blinking of the boss. The blinking problem makes it a lot harder to stay alive due to getting hit "unfairly" due to it, which is fine to tackle on for hardcore players, if not for the dialogue. What makes the dialogue problematic is that you can't progress through it manually, let alone skip (I tried clicking and pressing space with no result, so if there is actually a way, ignore this hehe). Which makes it tedious to do more trial-error to enjoy the rest of the currently playable part.
Now that that's out of the way :)
Good job on this prototype, I think a lot of parts are on a good track. Soundtrack and visuals are awesome, they fit the narrative well. The droning string sound at the start of menu theme sets the mood right away. The art and dialogue are great as far as prototype goes, as other comments said, the spin towards "big" as theme is nice. I'm curious on how the narrative will evolve beyond the prototype. Imo the good gameplay aspect is that how the first boss' attack pattern is telegraphed by a visual cue, that is a good game design being applied. The second attack pattern however, could use more work since that was the part where I feel rather "slow and stall-y" and where I lost interest on the prototype due to the aforementioned problem. But overall, I want to see this as a full-fledged game one day if possible
Thank you for your feedback Lecario. Unfortunately, we had a lot of problems with the dialogue system that we emerged at the last moment, we'd like to make them skippable in the future, but for the purpose of the prototype, we weren't able to. For the full-fledged game version, we'll have to see what the future brings us, but we're planning on polishing the current prototype releasing a post-jam version along with a post-mortem.
interesting approach! lovely soundtrack, feel like i would have liked the 'using his violin' element to come through a bit more, that was a real interesting idea :)
For the purpose of the jam we focused majorly on the boss fight and on keeping the mechanics simple, but we had some ideas and might implement them in the future
Comments
Very well written story. I included it in my Buddy Up Jam: Winter 2022 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :)
Nice, seems like a story based game. The bossfight changes as his health depleats, good textures and audio. good job.
I like your interpretation of the theme, and the music is great! Cute visuals. I would probably have enjoyed it even more though if I could skip the dialogue, because I failed so many times and it took some time to get past again x) But good job!
The soundtrack is spectacular and the visuals are very cohesive and well done! I wish there was a way to speed up/skip the dialogue, and a more intuitive hitbox for both Despair and the attack - there were times I felt I was hitting but Despair's HP bar didn't go down. Visually I think changing the contrast between Liam's sprite and the background could help as the dark palette had me lose him momentarily a few times, especially when doing a dodge roll. Overall this is a really good play and I'm intrigued where it may develop!
really like the art style. sweet tunes for sure!
Amazing soundtrack!
If you enjoyed it we also have a the complete soundtracks in a youtube playlist, I'll drop the link here and on our page: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUXyh98pH8yOV0oXN_M0d2nz4cyjDgIND
Oh man, I really couldn't resist playing this because it says hack n slash. I would like to drop what I think from my quick play session.
While I understand that it's still on prototype stage, I have 2 major complaints that deter me to continue playing for too long. One would be the dialogue and the other would be the occasional teleporting/blinking of the boss. The blinking problem makes it a lot harder to stay alive due to getting hit "unfairly" due to it, which is fine to tackle on for hardcore players, if not for the dialogue. What makes the dialogue problematic is that you can't progress through it manually, let alone skip (I tried clicking and pressing space with no result, so if there is actually a way, ignore this hehe). Which makes it tedious to do more trial-error to enjoy the rest of the currently playable part.
Now that that's out of the way :)
Good job on this prototype, I think a lot of parts are on a good track. Soundtrack and visuals are awesome, they fit the narrative well. The droning string sound at the start of menu theme sets the mood right away. The art and dialogue are great as far as prototype goes, as other comments said, the spin towards "big" as theme is nice. I'm curious on how the narrative will evolve beyond the prototype. Imo the good gameplay aspect is that how the first boss' attack pattern is telegraphed by a visual cue, that is a good game design being applied. The second attack pattern however, could use more work since that was the part where I feel rather "slow and stall-y" and where I lost interest on the prototype due to the aforementioned problem. But overall, I want to see this as a full-fledged game one day if possible
Thank you for your feedback Lecario. Unfortunately, we had a lot of problems with the dialogue system that we emerged at the last moment, we'd like to make them skippable in the future, but for the purpose of the prototype, we weren't able to. For the full-fledged game version, we'll have to see what the future brings us, but we're planning on polishing the current prototype releasing a post-jam version along with a post-mortem.
Really good soundtrack!
I feel the fight goes a bit too long.
interesting approach! lovely soundtrack, feel like i would have liked the 'using his violin' element to come through a bit more, that was a real interesting idea :)
For the purpose of the jam we focused majorly on the boss fight and on keeping the mechanics simple, but we had some ideas and might implement them in the future
I like your take on the theme!
Thank you!