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Twins vs. Ancients's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall fun and playability | #53 | 3.129 | 3.129 |
Ranked from 31 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Theme incorporation
You will to explore an ancient underground mine with multiple levels, you have to listen to an endless tirade of your sister (voice overs), while collecting an infinite amount of XP. You will fight against cosmic horrors while you will wish the entire time that you where alone (and not berated by your sister the entire time). Endless XP collection starts inside the mine but not in Town. So does the endless tirade.
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I don’t mind Jill! Or well, I did mind a bit when she talked over NPC:s and useful information. So a little tweak for her to fill the time between fights and useful talk when the player is just exploring or even better when lost, would have been great. If she could have commented on what the player was doing, like “Oh so you figured out how to open doors, congratulations to you” when the player did such etc. That would have been even better.
The idea of getting xp for walking about and 1xp for revisiting places I’d been was an interesting concept, but perhaps the 1xp and 10xp walking effects could have been toned down a bit.
I’m not sure I could level up, it sort of looked like I should have been able, but I couldn’t interact with the portraits. I also for a while didn’t understand that I needed to open them up (since I hadn’t needed to look at them before) to do that.
The movement was nice and camera and art and everything.
As for the combat, I’m not sure if I was meant to dance around the enemies but at least with instant movement I didn’t feel like I had much of a chance without being hit first.
I also feel like while moving about in the dungeon that at times I got teleported to other locations though I didn’t notice any teleporter. Perhaps this was as intended, but it was desorientering and about 7 minutes in I ended up where it felt like I had been before. In a small area with no apparent exits. I’m probably missing something, but it also felt like something was broken with the game there. So I gave up, and with no saves I felt like that would have to be it.
Which really is a pity, because the game looks great. Has a lot of cool stuff in it, it seems and it would have been fun to explore it some more.
Playthrough (didn’t get very far): https://youtu.be/6bD9ogJAQUc
Thanks for playing and the feedback! Even with a play through video.
There will be more of a dialogue between Jake and Jil and no longer the constant banter. Seeing the video you did level up and could have added some skill points you even start with 3 (it is mentioned in the first "Welcome" dialogue. Due to some scaling issue you need to be very precise when you hit the "+" button. You need to hit the center of + sign. That you can't open the inventory/stats window by clicking on the portraits is an oversight on my behalf. During testing I mostly played keyboard only (except the skill increase).
For combat. Yes you can dance and I want to extend the "AI" to make that more interessting/challening but could not do that in time. The combat needs more polish in general.
And yes you will get through some invisible teleporters but the last one tries to teleport you to an invalid tile and fails. Looks like that I some how fat fingered the target position which points to a three digit x position but the levels are just 32x32 each. Next you would have been transported to a room with a small trapdoor puzzle (for the jam it was tuned to be very easy). I posted a link to a speedrun (shortest route) of a bug fixed version of this.
Thanks for the feedback and the VOD!
Ah I didn’t notice that I managed to register some level up clicks at all I just clicked a bunch and it didn’t seem like anything happened :) Perhaps there could be a stronger visual effect too on those that you have leveled up in this session.
It might be that it was easier dancing about in fights with smooth transitions, but it was really hard with instant transitions (that I accidentally turned on and promptly forgot about, or was it enabled from start?)
My gamer brain is also very much “Why you show me text. This looks cool. I want to play and explore.” So I probably didn’t read it that well. If you are going to continue work on the game, I would urge some kind of effect on the portrait that nudges and reminds the player that they have unspent level up points.
I'll start off by saying I hit the teleporting bug so I didn't finish this game, but I mostly enjoyed what I did play.
I agree with others saying Jills constant comments getting annoying, having the banter be more context sensitive like only on certain tiles. Or maybe if the characters take too much damage have Jill comment on boys being useless.
I like the idea of XP being reward for the player stepping on tiles, as it rewards more thorough exploration. But I think post-jam it could stand being toned down to just having the XP granted when stepping on a new tile.
I was told to go speak to a man (I think his name is Cu Chulainn like the mythical hero?), but when I walked up to him and interacted he just introduced himself then nothing happened. Was he supposed to be a trader that was cut? Maybe I missed something due to Jills voice lines.
For the positives, visually the game looks great, as does the UI! The false walls were integrated well, and the mine felt like a mine, which is important imo.
The combat could probably use some more polish, but I say that as someone whose combat also needs more feedback added.
I would suggest adding some tooltips or other information showing what each ability does. To me, Jill's attack looked more like a healing spell from the icon. Also I think allowing the player to open the character/inventory window by clicking on the character portraits would be a nice quality-of-life addition.
There's some great promise here and a fair bit to like, but it has a number of issues that need to be resolved.
Still though, it's clear a lot of work and thought was put into this, and it's unique in being the only entry (of the 43 I've played so far) with inter-party dialogue. Good work!
Hey thank you for playing and taking the time to provide the excellent feedback, I appreciate it.
The way Jil works will certainly change. I just used her for the themes "endless" and a twisted "solitude". After the jam ends I do not need to follow the themes anymore. Its going to be some real dialogue between Jake and Jil and its probably triggered on a tile or certain events. The issue here is that you can walk alot of tiles while the VO are played. VO's are slow compared how fast you can move so I need to place them far away so there is no overlap.
You mentioned the "endless" xp and this will also be changed. You will only get the XP the first time you move on a tile, its a quiet simple fix :)
Yes, I wanted to implement "Chutuul" as a vendor but could not finish it in time, there is a unfinished vendor window you can open pressing the undocumented "V" key. The plan was to remove the key bind and open up the vendor window automatically when you stand in front of him. If it where not for the teleporter bug you can actually go back to the town level. There are other teleporters distributed in the level that would take you near the entrance of the mine, then you only need to take a few steps and climp out of the mine. But I could not finish the item/equip system in time and that pretty much rendered the vendor useless.
Actually both of the npcs you see in the village are meant to be cosmic horror demons in disguise. They where placed there after all the villager have been brought to the mine, to lure more unsuspicious travelers (like you) into the mine, so there master could feast on new souls.
And yes the combat system needs a lot more love, I was just happy that I could manage to get something working :) So yes, more feedback and tooltips (also for the skillsystem) need to be added but I ran out of time.
Thanks for the kind words and for the feedback!
This game has a lot of good things going for it! First thing I noticed was the excellent and beautiful UI. The game's graphics are also great, it looks excellent. Movement feels good as well.
Most people don't like the banter at all. I kind of like it if it was implemented a bit differently. Right now it seems like random voice lines every few seconds, which gets old quickly :D But if it were oneshot triggered dialogues when you step on certain tiles, that maybe even fit in the situation or tell a story over time, it would be much better and enjoyable, I think.
I didn't get far in the dungeon itself, due to getting stuck in the room others get stuck in as well. I think the XP notification for each tile is a bit too in-your-face. I understand that this mechanic needs to be communicated to the player but seeing animated floating text indicating that you gained some XP every step is a bit too much imo.
I also experienced a bug once, where I wanted to take a step but got flung somewhere else and then couldn't move at all, only rotate. This was in town, I think I was near one of the buildings before it happened.
Combat feels ok, could use more feedback but the mechanics work fine as far as I can tell. Could use some more information about what each stat and attack does. Also not sure how the balance will be since you can explore-grind infinitely. I'm not a fan of grindy games where you have to grind to progress, but since I didn't get very far I can't judge if the difficulty requires grinding time to beat the game. I hope not, though :D
I'll give this game another try if it gets a post-jam version with the critical bugs fixed. I liked what I saw so far, though! Good job :D
Thank you for playing and the feedback, I really appreciate it.
You are right, Jils samples are randomly picked and played every 10s after the last one ended. I'll change it after the jam is over and I don not need to follow the themes anymore. I am not sure how to implement it yet , but I like the idea of a bit of forth and back between the two.
I am using some trigger based audio for Jake, the problem with Jil is that if you move fast there is a high change of getting overlaps between the trigger tiles. Sure I can just stop and overwrite the output but that would sound odd. So currently Jake does the all the hinting to important things and Jil does all the bantering so there is no interference between important hints and meaningless clutter (except Jil always talks over others).
Yeah the floating combat text is not my favorite either, lets just say it was very easy and fast to implement it this way and I wanted to highlight the "endless XP" aspect. It does not have to be this way. And no you don't have to grind XP to finish but you can do it if you like.
This certainly does need more polish, we all had to cut some corners.
Next time I will most likely cut down the visuals to have more headroom for the actual content, it is just so tempting...
Thanks for the feedback!
I got asked how the inaccessible content looks like, so here is a speed run in a fixed version.
This should not impact your rating, it would be unfair to others.
I would really have appreciated a way to pause the game. Subtitles would have been real nice. It would have made Jill a lot more tolerable if she wasn't voiced. Her dialogue is way too random and interrupts other characters. Messages would be easier to parse. I can't see how voiced dialogue is easier to add than text. In retro games, voicing doesn't really add to the atmosphere, at least in my view.
Why no compass?
I got stuck in the dungeon. I wasn't able to backtrack either, as I was walled in. So, I couldn't progress much at all. I guess that's the bug you mentioned on your game page.
I look forward to replaying your post-jam fixed version. I'll withhold my rating until then, as it's unfair to rate a game suffering from one bad bug.
Hey thank you for playing and the feedback!
Yes, the in-game menue was one of the things I could not finish in time.
And the whole point of Jil is to be intoralable. Its a twist to the theme solitude. Jil is supposed to make you feal you where better of alone.
Its a risky approach for sure, but just text would be in no way be as effective as VO in this case. And no, none of what she says has any meaning and she does talk over others because that is what people like her do.
There is no compass because I wanted to have a (fullscreen) map that would also include your current orientation. I am not a fan of minimaps as you end up only looking at the minimap most of the time.
I am not sure what you mean with "withhold my rating" as I can only upload a new version when the rating period is over.
Thanks for your feedback, I appreciate it.
The graphics are very nice and there have been put in a lot of effort in the UI. This can be made into a great game, the UI has grimrock potential and looks. Put in a few more weeks into this and it might be a great hit.
I got into a mini area which I could not get out of, it had one enemy and two doors. None of them leading out. So I could not progress.
Having xp for just moving had me spam W-S with instant move for 3k steps... Just to level up twice :)
Nice Work! Keep it up!
Hah! I was wondering if some one would actually try that! Using the "endless" XP to gain a level (or in this case two), I like it!
During testing I leveled from level 1 to 2 this way (so I needed a bit less then 1k steps) and I got borred doing so, but 3k steps? Wow, I did not expect some one to be this determained.
Thats a lot of tear on the key switches but I don't take any responsibility for that ;-)
Sorry you got stuck, its a bug and not your fault.
Glad you liked it and thank you for the feedback, I appreciate it.
There is a lot of potential here!
Things I liked: The movement felt really good!
As mentioned in your write-up, I got as far as I think I can in this version, which is unfortunate because I was enjoying my time with it.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go break Jil’s door. :)
Great job!
Hey! Thank you for the kind feedback!
Have not looked at your entry yet (mostly looking at entries with few ratings atm) but I am very curious what you created this year.
Oh and good luck with Jil :-)
I reached the area with an enemy and two doors, if I understood your comments then I think I played what's accessible in the current version, thrice actually.
I have to say movement feels specially good in this one, that I won't switch to instant movement is telling. It looks great and consistent and you've got quite some functional systems. I really like the transparency of the illusionary wall, it's perfect. Combat which is there is good enough, I like that the enemies don't take too much time to defeat.
I actually really like gaining XP for visiting a new tile. What I think though, as it seems you'll work further on the game, is that you could add an option to disable displaying it, and possibly some other feedback popping-up as well but specially this one. I have no strong opinion either way about it myself but I think some people will enjoy the arcade-ish feel it adds while some other persons will feel it breaks immersion.
I don't know if you thought about it and maybe it's just me but this kind of real-time combat system shines and feels satisfying to me as soon as enemies can fall into holes, get onto spike traps or on the way of fireball traps (also if I can close doors onto their head but as doors fill a wall and not a tile in your game then it's likely not relevant here).
The game's promising, thanks for sharing, I'm going to play the fixed the version after the jam.
Thanks for playing and your kind feedback.
I am glad you liked the movement, I think its an important part of the overall experience and therefore put some thoughts into it. Its not the first DC controller I have written so I do have some experience that went into it.
Actually you can lure the npc's into traps just not in the currently accessible content.
Having an option for the floating combat text is a good idea, I was already thinking about an option to display healthbars for the NPC as some seem to prefer this.
There will be a fixed version after the jam, not sure when exactly, as I have some other contract work on the table right now.
Some people asked for a video of the inaccessable content. Here is one and you may notice how I use some traps against the mobs :-)
Thanks, yes that's great.
Jil was really annoying.
On the surface this game looks amazing and gives the impression it's very complete with character inventories, level and skill advancement, etc. However, when we played it felt like the graphics were really not part of the game, they were just set pieces outside of a very linear path. The starting town for example. It looked great, but you couldn't interact with anything or even go onto the grass, just follow the brick road.
Jil was really annoying.
The combat wasn't as exciting as we were hoping it was going to be. We were doing damage but had no idea what the damage numbers meant since we couldn't see an enemy health bar to judge how much health they had in total or remaining. The enemies teleported between tiles in a way that was a bit jarring since the attack animations were so good (Courtesy of Protofactor - good choice!). DamageNumbersPro added a bit to the enjoyment as numbers appeared and disappeared with nice animations. Perhaps use a different font next time though so it isn't so obviously a dropped in asset.
Movement, turns and camera angles looked good, although the lack of free look felt like a missed opportunity, given how nice the visuals were.
We think we were caught out by the teleporter bug because we ended up in an area underground that we couldn't get out of. This was after 30 minutes of play time.
Jil was really annoying.
It would have been nice to have clicked on doors to interact with them to open them, rather than using the keyboard, although you did mention this on your submission page.
Almost as annoying as Jil, were the constant 1XP messages that appeared every time you moved one tile. It seemed unnecessary, although the Jake and Jil Level Up was nice. Allocating the points after levelling up was above and beyond most jam entries and a nice touch, although we seemed to have to randomly jab around the plus symbol to get them to increase. Were some of them locked? We didn't see a reason if they couldn't be increased beyond that number and there was no visual or audible feedback that you'd hit a limit. On the stats "Interlect" should probably be spelt "Intellect" but if English isn't your first language (or even if it is Dan), spelling is hard.
We picked up a key from a chest but never saw where it went or whether it was in our inventory. Or maybe it got used and we didn't realize?
The was a graphical glitch when the double doors slid open and the door was partially visible in the wall.
Very well presented game that looked like it could be really fun to play, but at the end of the day seemed to lack content in terms of puzzles and things to explore and find. Maybe we hit the bug too soon. We'd like to see a full play through video of this so we can experience what the whole game was like. Great job. The toolkit looks very promising, best of luck with it.
We found Jil slightly annoying, in case you couldn't tell.
Wow, you really went above and beyond to dissect this. I feel flattered.
And you are right about most of the things, obviously.
I had bigger plans for the town but had to cut it back. Most of the things you rightfully pointed out are the consequence of the time restriction. I usually aim for higher standards, but if you have a fixed deadline, you can only adjust scope and quality.
Adding skill points really requires pinpoint precision, but the stats actually do work and have an impact on gameplay. The only exceptions are Luck and Charisma; they are not used in the jam version. Wisdom, for example, will give you passive HP/mana regain over time. It's currently calculated as 200s/Wisdom = +1HP & +1MP. So with 10 Wisdom, you will regain 1HP/1MP every 20s. It has the potential to be a powerful stat in higher levels. STR will increase AP and parry chance, AGI will increase dodge and crit chance, INT will increase SP and mana, and so on.
The "1 XP" is part of the "endless" theme. Endless XP, yeah! Not a very spectacular implementation of the theme, but not the worst either. And I take it that you 'enjoyed' Jil's part of the "endless" implementation. ;)
In case you are curious: The key went to the party inventory, which is a shared inventory for all members and also contains the potions/Gold and other stuff, but unlike the potions, there is no UI yet to display them. The current implementation for locked doors just checks if the key is present in the party inventory and unlocks automatically if so. Of course, each character has their own inventory on top of the shared one, its modeled like this: player party (shared inventory) contains 1..n characters with their personal inventories.
Free look is something I usually do not use if I can play keyboard only. But yes, it is a low-hanging fruit that adds to the feature count, so why not?
The bug does block a lot of the more exciting content, and I was thinking of showing it in a video, but it does feel a bit unfair to others.
Just a warning: Jil objects to your assessment about her; she wants to pay you a visit and give you an 'earful'. I hope you are ready for it. ;)
P.S.: I am going to delete your double post if you don't mind.
Sorry about the double post, we didn't notice we'd done that. Please show a play through video, we'd love to see all the content of the game, even if it doesn't change our rating and review.
Arlorean's wife is called Jil(l) so we felt OK saying this and we're always ready for the earful!
Here is a speed run of a fixed version. Its the current build so it also contains some other fixes (Skillpoints buttons are larger) and some small changes (animation and speed changes of the mobs).
I wish I had more time for content...