Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
Tags
A jam submission

Nightmare KillerView game page

Leap into your dreams and make YOU their worst nightmare.
Submitted by Rennan24 (@rennan24gamedev) โ€” 7 minutes, 19 seconds before the deadline
Add to collection

Play game

Nightmare Killer's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Graphics#124.0434.043
Audio#123.7833.783
Overall#413.3483.348
Gameplay#493.1303.130
Innovation#1112.3482.348
Theme interpretation#1132.4782.478

Ranked from 23 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

GitHub repository URL
https://github.com/Rennan24/Game-Off-2019

Leave a comment

Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.

Comments

Submitted

Nice game! Nice art style and sound. The difficulty ramps up to quickly, maybe giving the player more options or just increasing the movement speed can help.

Submitted(+1)

A neat little top-down shooter game!

Probably the best part about this game, are graphics and sound effects. I really liked the graphical designs of the main character, the monsters you fight, and the elements of the map. They look well drawn, have a unique art style, and seem as a whole! The only thing that I suggest changing, is the amount of maps, because currently there is only one, and the lack of variety, is surely a bummer.

I also like the sounds of gun fires; they feel adequate, and because of them, it feels satisfying to use all of the three available guns! The music isn't bad either, but can get annoying after a while, I wish there were more tracks.

Although the audiovisual stuff is very good, the gameplay could be a bit better. The basic foundations of the game, have been executed well: controlling the character feels smooth and responsive, shooting at your nightmares also feels good, and the general idea of an endless shooter, is fun to play in here! However, the foundations, haven't been polished enough, which leads to a few issues. The main issue, is that the game, due to lack of variety in weapons, enemy types, and maps, also lacks replay value, which is a bad thing for a game of this caliber! The other issue, is that balancing isn't adjusted well: sometimes it's hard to avoid the enemies, sometimes there's not enough ammo drops, and overall, the RNG factor in this game, has been executed poorly.

To summarize, this is a good looking game, that is very much fun to play, but really needs some more polishing and development.

Developer(+1)

We're glad You enjoyed the game and Thank You so much for taking the time to write such detailed feedback! What You said about the gameplay hits spot on and is put so succinctly that it makes it easy to see exactly what was wrong with the gameplay! It's one of those things that I thought I knew what I was doing but then I realize I have a lot more to learn and grow which is good! I would love to polish and develop this game some more taking into account all the feedback we've gotten and hopefully later on I'll get closer to a more finished game!

Submitted(+1)

After a few plays I scored 1280 once I realised you had more guns by pressing Q or E, before that I was scoring 160.  I know now it's on the details page but I rarely read that before I play a game even though I probably should lol.  Having the control icons in game near the gun on the HUD would give the game a better 1st impression.  It is a fun game and the graphics look great.  The player character's movement seems very slightly slower when moving  left, right, up and down compared to diagonal movement.

Developer(+1)

Hello! I'm glad You got a pretty high score! I think what You said about people not reading the details page is most likely true because the starting pistol is pretty bad at killing enemies since it's got a low rate of fire and damage. People probably didn't know that they could switch weapons with Q and E which is why the game will be harder then what it should be. I think in the future I need to put the controls in the game, maybe something like how The Binding of Isaac does where the starting area has the controls listed out so that the players can see.

Apart from that, I think the players movement being slower is because I didn't normalize the inputs movement vector which I should've done because otherwise you move faster diagonally like You said. Thank you very much for the tips and we're glad You enjoyed the game! ๐Ÿ˜

Submitted(+1)

Visuals and sound effects are great.

Unfortunately it lacks the proper gameplay balancing, maximum score after some tries 140.  Try to improve the gameplay with an after jam release. I would like to try it again.

Developer

Thank You for playing our game! We're glad you liked the visuals and sound effects! An after jam release is a great idea, especially with all the feedback we got about the gameplay balancing! We've also been playing a lot of other people's games as well too which gives us a better understanding of how things should be balanced.

Submitted(+1)

Audio and graphics are great but otherwise this is nothing special. The game is impossibly hard, and therefore no fun. Not innovative in any sense. Besides it is not related to the theme at all.

Developer

Thank You for the feedback! We tried making the theme of the game tied to the story, where you leap into the nightmare of a kid and you have to kill them, also you can't escape the bounds of the dream. But we can see it didn't quite come across that way! Difficulty is definitely something we're going to have to balance, and we're glad we got a lot of feedback about it in this game jam! As for innovation, the way I see it is that everyone in this jam was able to innovate and create something new for the world to see. We all created our own game with ideas and concepts that we pulled from the world around us; our own perspective that we can show everyone!

Submitted(+1)

Yes, I agree. Everyone producing games are innovative and deserves a recognition for their hard work. Sorry if my comments sounded to negative. I think your game is great, but there are some issues, as with most games made by aspiring game developers.

Submitted(+1)

Hello! Nice shooter! Just a little thing, it would be fun to loot weapon instide have all of it at start! Thanks

Developer

Thank You for playing the game and offering us feedback! Looting weapons would be a great addition to the game when we start balancing things since it would allow for the player to get stronger over time!

Submitted(+2)

Hi, I played the game. Let's start off by addressing the elephant in the room, the game needs balance. The skeletons are the main reason why this game is so unbalanced, one on one, they aren't anything tough, but due to the game's surplus spawning rate they can easily gang up on you.  Now, I know you wanted to make the game difficult, but this is too much. I recommend playing Nuclear Throne or taking a look at it. As far as I played, it seems that the only weapon available is the starter pistol or the weapon spawn rate is too slim, compared to the game's difficulty curve. To combat this, i recommend nerfing the skeleton and add more variety in the game, enemy, buff or weapon wise. Speaking off buffs, ammo spawns are rare, not to mention the fact that skeletons take 5 shots to kill and the ghosts almost 10, due to this the minuscule amount of bullets run out in 20 seconds, and yes i did count. (no i didn't lol) Besides the unbalanced gameplay this game is pretty cool, the art and the music with the sound effects make this a pretty cool game. I also recommend adding a downloadable file. All and all this game needs work but could easily be a fun game. Good job.

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

Hello! Thank You for playing! The game balance is definitely something that needs to be addressed like You said. I feel like I spent too much time on the visual side of the game and not enough time on the actual balance and gameplay, but all the feedback has helped recontextualize things! I'll take a look at Nuclear Throne to see how they balanced things out, Thanks for the recommendation and feedback!

Submitted(+1)

hard but good game 

Developer

Thank you for playing my game! I'll make it more balanced next time, promise!

Submitted(+1)

Damn, that was hard, I could almost never avoid a skeleton scythe. Good work!

Submitted

I'd say it's a boomerang lol.

Developer (1 edit)

LOL Sorry about that! The skeletons were the trickiest enemies in the game, I should have made them throw the scythes from farther away so that it's easier to dodge, or even made the dash go farther but I'm glad You played the game! Thank You!

And what freaky said could be a great idea for an enemy! One that throws a boomerang so that after a while it comes back to the enemy making it trickier to dodge! But I'm getting ahead of myself, first I need to balance the game! ๐Ÿ˜‚

Submitted(+1)

Skeltons are so strong.

Submitted(+1)

Great polished at every aspect! Is it a team work or one guy solo? Because it looks almost like a ready-for-sale game!

Developer

Hahaha, Thank You! It's a small team of just me and my dad, He does the art and animation while I handle the rest of the stuff like programming, sounds, and setting up Unity. We're glad You enjoyed the game and we will most likely end up expanding upon it so stay tuned! ๐Ÿ˜‰

Submitted(+1)

Art and sound effects are on point. I like the music too. This is my own fault but I didn't even realize I had an ammo counter until I ran out.

Developer

Oh thank you, we worked quite a bit on the art! If You also want some of the Sound FX and music we got them at the Music and Sound FX humble bundle, there's still 5 days left and you can have your proceeds go to charity as well! That's good feedback though because we could think of some ways to make having no ammo more obvious like changing the crosshair or something else so thank you!

Submitted(+1)

Really well done!

Fluid controls, sound is great, art is wonderful, I got a real Zombies Ate My Neighbors vibe! Shotgun and sub-machine gun were just about perfect, the pistol was pretty weak though. IMO it should either fire faster like a semi-auto, or do more damage like a revolver. But that's minor, obviously meant to be the weakest gun for if you run out of ammo.

I'd definitely be interested if you develop this further.

Developer

Thank you very much, It means a lot! You have a keen eye my friend! We actually took some inspiration from the Zombies Ate My Neighbors animations, specifically when the zombie dies and their head falls down lol! I think we can take even more inspiration from them and add a co-op mode in the future! You're right about the pistol though, more time needed to go into balancing it and enemies because the pistol feels very under powered especially when fighting the ghost and skeleton.

Submitted(+1)

I thought so! The art really captured that same sort of Saturday-morning-cartoon zombie vibe, as well. Coop would be an amazing addition. I would love to see this advance to a full game. While playing I was thinking of this Nightmare Murder being like a bonus level in a ZamN clone, that would be fun. Survive the nightmare at the end of each level for bonus points and/or ammo.

Submitted(+1)

Gave me Don't Starve vibes. It was a fun time killer, good job!

Developer(+1)

Haha thanks! I'm glad to hear that you got Don't Stave vibes from it since that's what we wanted the trees and atmosphere to feel like! Don't Starve is one of my favorite games even though I suck at it ๐Ÿ˜‚

Submitted(+1)

Quite liked the atmosphere, and the way the camera panned around was really smooth. I found this way too hard though. Ran out of bullets and died very quickly, I feel it could have really used a bit of hand holding at the start to get the player going before swarming them with enemies

Developer

I'm glad You liked the atmosphere and camera of the game, those were the ones I spent the most time trying to tweak! You're right though currently the game is really difficult, especially since there are no health drops as well. Originally I planned on having a round system like the zombies mode in call of duty games, where the first round is easy and it gradually ramps up. But I didn't have enough time to implement it ๐Ÿ˜… the good thing is that with this game jam I'll still be able to get some great feedback from everyone including You! ๐Ÿ™‡โ€โ™‚๏ธ

Submitted(+1)

Great engine! The camera pans really well and the shots have great punch. I keep running out of bullets without missing many shots.

The AI just kind of swarms and eventually there are too many to circle strafe.

Again, I love the engine!

Developer

Yeah I agree with you about the AI, I feel like I spent too much time on the aesthetics of the game and not enough time on the gameplay side! I really liked what you did with your Lily Lander game, It reminds me of a modern version of classic NES games I played! Thanks for the feedback!