I’m totally impressed by all the systems you’ve included in your engine here! This is far above average in sophistication, everything looks really cool, I like putting little points into attributes and skills, and you have some great writing (although there are some typos).

I think the combat system needs more thought. I’m putting aside that it’s trivially easy and that I’m not sure if proficiency skills do anything, as those are more matters of balance.

It could be good, but currently it’s a bit awkward to make changes on the fly. Maybe with skill hotkeys it would work better, like press 1 while the mouse is overlapping an enemy to use that skill? Left click always just being a basic attack for the weapon equipped? But the way it cycles through your characters also makes it more awkward to do ranged stuff, as you cycle to someone who’s still on melee and then can only step back in.

Also would like to see QE for turning. I’d like to implement an option for QE strafe in my own game for the people who like it though… maybe you would consider the same?

I couldn’t finish, got totally lost. It turns into a bit of an object hunt for the keys and keyholes. But I hope you keep iterating on this, as it’s a really good foundation.

Well made game, and quite complex for a game jam entry!  The lighting and atmosphere were good.  It had a spooky, mysterious quality to it.  Combat had good, meaningful feedback, and did not feel unfair.  

The only thing I might have wished for was the ability to go back to base camp and gear up.  But this is a game jam after all...

Brilliant game. That checked every box for us for what a dungeon crawler should be. Multiple characters with inventories, pickups, equip-able items, skills, different attack types, health and mana. You have multiple puzzles, different biomes, verticality, steps (half height - is that legal @Zooperdan? - we don't care, we loved them), secret walls, pressure plates (activated by your character or items), wall buttons, keys, etc. Just excellent!!!

A-D Rotate, Q-E Strafe. OMG, why oh why did you do this? We nearly stopped playing straight away because of this, which would have been a travesty. Please, please, please use the same keys as every other game ever written (apart from this one).

The sound was good, perfect for pickups, combat music, ambient sound, enemy grunts. Very complete and served its purpose well. Feedback from these sounds for all actions was great to have.

The user interface was very good. Nice to have inventories for characters. We weren't sure how the Strength/Dexterity/Body/Mind stats affected things. We also didn't work out what AP stood for. If it's action points, what are they and how do they work? We kept trying to put pickups in the skills slots for some reason (well Dan did). It was nice to be able to see equipped items as green and save you having to create a separate UI for body slots, which was reasonable.

Combat ability slots weren't visible while you were in combat, or maybe if they stayed visible until you clicked a close button. It was off the screen so you couldn't tell what attack you were doing with which character while you were spamming the left click button. The weapons and skills clearly had some effect on combat but there wasn't enough time to make an informed decision about which weapon to use in each situation. Was there an ordering to our team members in terms of who got hit first? It was nice to have multiple enemy and be able to target them individually. The two step was still there though as you danced around doing an attack and then stepping back to avoid being hit and then attacking again. It wasn't clear how many hit points each enemy had in total, or remaining, so you couldn't make a tactical decision to one or the other. Health bars/numbers might have made combat more informed and engaging.

Although the graphics were clearly pixel based, they were very nicely done and self-consistent. The font was simple and used consistently throughout. It would be nice to see a devlog showing what artwork you created with AI and how you did it.

We played for 46 minutes but didn't finish it. We didn't want to stop, we really wanted to finish it but we ran out of time and had to move onto another game. This was a great sign though as had it not been a jam, we would have played it to the end. We did feel a bit lost at the end though so a map may have been good. although with the verticality it may have been hard to present and interpret. Level design overall was very, very good and interesting and engaging. We wanted to explore.

Well done for producing such a great jam game. We absolutely loved it.

A very polished game! I liked the environments and enjoyed the verticality of the game. Its impressive that you managed to add so many systems to the game! Really made for an enjoyable experience, good job!

I found a bow that said it was an exelent sword... it equiped as if it was melee, so I trust its identity :D Same went with sling that is awesome bow... that also equiped as melee weapon.

Such a huge map! Verticality, different places to explore... pressure plates, inventory, keys, skills and abilities (btw, staff profficiency costs 0 and you can spam it). Its great.

Speaking of keys. Found two keys. Two doors with keyholes. Can't seem to use any of the keys on any of the keyholes...

Got heart-brain, I guess something that I need to do with it is behind those doors. Don't know why I can't open them though :) Not sure about the plates with symbols either.

But everything is in there - its fun to play (even though mobs give too much exp, but better that than too little for a jam entry). Would love to finish, but I think I am stuck :(

This is a very large game in dire, dire need of a map, or at least directions. The presentation is phenomenal, and the gameplay works great for the most part; moving felt a bit sticky, sometimes doing double turns without intending to.

Potions went largely unused as level ups happen incredibly frequently and they are free health restores.

I talked to a skeleton who told me to go north-east to find a brain. I went that way, found a heart, and past the barrier(?) he told me he undid was a dead end.

Didn't manage to finish it, but if you work on it in the future, if you include something to help the player from getting lost, it would be a great step up!

There was a lot of content in this one. I played for about 40 minutes before giving up. Quite a bit of that due to the world being quite vast, with not map, and no clear direction of where I wanted to go.

First I didn’t at all understand the combat. I though those icons at the bottom was what I was supposed to click and it got really annoying when they auto hid. Then when I finally got it, the ability to dance around the enemies (even though it is confusing to me with turn on AD rather than QE) made taking damage almost optional.

The leveling up stats was nice, but also I feel like I got a lot of points to level up all the time to the point that even if I didn’t dance around, my characters were quite overpowered. And I was leveling up stats I was guessing I didn’t need just to spend the points.

The warning about the sword and not overwriting made me not pick up the one I passed by for fear of it causing some bug, but later when I started picking up armor I kind of understood what you meant. I think I only lost a few potions (that I didn’t need).

The level layout with different height levels was nice, but I think the area got a bit too large and confusing without any assistance in finding the way. And since the enemies at that point was no challenge it got a bit boring.

The skill leveling up was also neat. There were a whole lot of systems in the game! But also a bit confusing. Sometimes I leveled up a thing and everything turned blue. I don’t know why that was.

I also would have liked some clearer indication of when someone was ready to attack or not.

Playthrough: https://youtu.be/ZykhnsQezVA

What a polished entry! This was amazing!

I thought the UI was very well executed and looked great. It took me longer than I’d like to admit to realize I could spend my AP on skills. On the abilities side, magic proficiency is free, and I could spam that as much as I wanted.

I loved the story you created for this world and want to know more. The pixel art aesthetic was very well done, and I was impressed with the verticality and design of the map!

Excellently done!

I couldn't be able to see through the game bcs of the reason i'll state later but i think this is the most complete and polished game of the jam despite it's bugs and flaws. Firstoff, i think that this has the best movement system of this game jam. It is very close to Legend of Grimrock's movement feeling. What i like the most about the movement in this game is when you hold w key player moves forward continiously but it snaps from tile to tile. It feels very smooth and snappy.

Inventory system works perfectly. It would be nicer if you could add an equipment window where you can drag the armors /weapons to the slots on your body there but this is good too. Level system also work great for a jam game. You can get new skills and spells. UI is very good. It looks nice and works well. Combat system i think is perfect. It is just like you expect from old school Dungeon Crawlers of 90's. 

I like the visual style of the game especially the textures. You successfuly created  atmosphere of an ancient necropolis.  Enemies are just  sprites with no animations but they look good. They don't stick out from the general artstyle of the game. It's a very good idea to make enemies with sprites in a 9 days jam. There's also a good variety of enemies with different difficulty levels.

I don't like very much the level design of the game. Level is branching too much and too frequently. In these kind of games it is very easy to get lost. There's a compass in the game but it doesn't help much navigating you way around. There needs to be an automap which shows the sectors i have been to in this kind of game. Verticality is a nice touch and executed well but i don't think it contributes too much to the game. It would be cool if you had designed the dungeons like an Escher Labyrinth, then it would mean something. I got stuck in the game like many others that posted comments here. Since it's difficult  to navigate through the map, you  keep drawing circles in the same places and it bores you after a while. I also tried to beat  the game for around 30-40 mins to no avail.

These are my general thoughts on your game. I really liked it despite it's flaws and it think it's one of the top contenders of this jam. Congrats for your hardwork and good luck!

FOR SIENCE!

I don't read texts. Sorry not sorry.

Eventually I figured out that you have to click on the BAG to get to inventory.

Mebbe that was explained to me in text that I didn't read.

Solidly built.

I killed a lot of things.

Good game.

The game looks great! I loved the verticality of the map and the general pixel art aesthetic. The UI got a little confusing, but I think I worked it out in the end! I didn't end up finishing the game, and maybe clearer indications of how things can be interacted with would be nice.

The effort is so palpable! 
The game feels complete and polished and exploring the map has a good sense of mystery, but the best part for me is the UI. everything is so nicely presented such as the character portraits and the button that turns on the light. Definitely a strong contender! 🤘

Crushed that heart baby.

I feel like I lucked into the switch to enable to press (Though I didn't know what it was), and then spent the rest of time just mapping out the section after the teleporter. I did wonder what some of the raised plates were? They made a sound when I stood on them but they weren't pressure plates?

I enjoyed the juciness of the combat, I'm not exactly sure how the progression works but I was just wrecking entire groups of bad guys the whole time with relative ease, and because I explored a ton I had so many potions (Other than the ones I used to weight down some pressure plates) .

I liked the dark creepy under-mountain aesthetic with the depth fog and ominous heights of the cavern, I actually had a great time exploring the space but I would have liked a map or something so that I could keep track of where I'd been, it did take me quite a while (about 35-45 minutes or so) to find my way through the space and find the heart and everything, but I'm also quite bad at that kind of self directed space awareness.

My absolute favorite part about this entry is the verticaility. It added another level (pun intended) to the exploration, and the implementation of going up and down different heights of block was really well implemented and fluid. The level itself seems like it must have taken quite a bit of time to put together because there is a lot of different buildings and pathways and stuff!

Really well made entry, nice job :)

It was a great game. I enjoyed the character upgrades. Being able to verticality was nice, and the variety of environments was fun. However, the map was complicated and I got lost a lot. I need minimap!

The interface and UI is great, but I didn't manage to get far.
I found the Skeleton asking me to get the brain, but I couldn't find a route to the North East.
There was a charred piece of wood or something, but I didn't find anything to use on it.
And I assume based on some sections that I should be able to smash rocks eventually.
After running in circles for a bit trying to find a lead, I called it quits.
The only thing I wasn't a fan of was the inverted turning/strafing keys.
Playthrough: The Nexus Graves Pt1 by DamienDe

I really enjoyed playing the nexus grave. the ui (especially inventory system and levelling) was the star for me. very elegantly solved. on i side note i tried to pick up the first mushroom i saw for like a couple of minutes until i realized that you can't ;-) an option to disable the fog would have been nice. for me personally, i would like to disable it because my orientation sense is not great and seeing less of the level doesn't help it. i also had a hard time finding the stairs when on a platform above it. you can't see them from a distance. i played for over half an hour and sadly had to stop on a bug. the cursor was spinning endlessly as a sandclock and i could not fight anymore. i could reproduce this bug. if you spam the attack button a lot it keeps happening. aside the remarks, this is a very, very well made dungeon crawler

I destroyed the heart of the broken god Rysa-Da-Kun.

Too bad I reloaded my save game for no reason at some point (and maybe the press stays activated after you reload and that's not even linked), the game took me an indecent amount of time for this only reason and because I'm dumb, I did not realise that what the button with the buzzing sound did was activating the press and then I could not find the press again for like 2 hours because I did not realise it could be sometimes deactivated and then you would not see it. I mapped the game after that, cool map by the way. On a last resort I restarted a new game, when I pressed the button this time it clicked ( ;) ), I immediately understood and I completed the game in like 5 minutes as I had the map.

The game is very good. Scope is quite above average and I always love your maps, with the verticality. The UI and controls are perfect, the game is smooth and pleasant to control and the UI is detailed. I like that you've got a stat system. Combat is pleasant due to how well it controls, specially the visuals indicating what enemy you're going to target. The art is nice and consistent. One thing I notably like is the structure of the dungeon, some big non-linear area where you don't need to do one thing to do another thing. I like finding better items ;) . Main quest is good.

Perhaps overall the combat could be slightly harder at least at some points. Also since I mentioned the opposite at least for another game I'll be fair if I say the bestiary could probably be slightly more horror and slightly less traditional fantasy as you vaguely hint about demonic, horror things. There's a bug here and there but none that matters. I realise I listed several points but they're all pretty unimportant, every part of the game is pretty competently made.

Excellent entry, thanks for sharing.

First off I have to say this is VERY impressive!

The art was great, the multi-party levelling was great (though a bit broken in places because I was able to get the magic proficiency to 100 for free because it cost 0 AP but it also seems like it didn't do anything?), the variety of abilities was great, the variety of enemies was great, and the level of verticality was awesome! This was so great in so many ways for a jam game that it was even more depressing when I got COMPLETELY. F$%@ING. LOST.

I feel like I scoured almost every inch of the level and found some really neat details. But it felt like I was stumbling into random cool looking environments, buttons and items that seemed completely disconnected. I found a key, and I found a keyhole, but the key didn't work. I talked to the skeleton, looked for the brain but only found a heart, spoke to skeleton and he didn't want it. I found a bunch of pressure plates or what seemed like teleport pads? The plates with the kinda cross-like symbol on them, one made a weird magical whirring sound when I stood on it but nothing happened.

So sadly after about 40-50 minutes I jsut had to throw the towel in. I loved what I did play, but I don't even know how close I made it to the end.

Aside from that, the only issues I had were mostly minor.

The movement controls were weird for me. I'm personally so used to WASD for movement and QE for turning that I constantly kept confusing myself.

It took me a couple fights to understand  the combat flow, and was confused when the wizard couldn't attack a couple times. But I quickly learned it.

There were some typos here and there but nothing major.

Overall, awesome work with a lot of polish, just needs a lot more signposting,

Great job!

This is fantastic. The art looks great and fits together. The controls are smooth (Although I would prefer to swap QE/AD). Music is atmospheric. There are such nice little touches, like outlining when hovering over someone. The systems seem well implemented. Couple UI things: It would be nice if you could just drop an item on the character you want to hold it, rather than having to go into their inventory. It would also be nice if when you press ESC all the open windows close. It looks like you wrote this engine yourself, which is nuts. I am amazed. It would be nice if the UI showed how long you have to wait for a character to act, like an ATB bar or something. Really a phenomenal entry.

Looks and played great. Took me a minute to figure out the combat but once it clicked it was no problem. Also really enjoyed the sound effects. 

Good work!