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Dark Lord Soffar's Vacation Disruption's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Enjoyment | #574 | 3.680 | 3.680 |
| Overall | #1881 | 3.293 | 3.293 |
| Presentation | #2378 | 3.180 | 3.180 |
| Creativity | #3158 | 3.020 | 3.020 |
Ranked from 50 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the theme?
Instead of fighting a boss, you ARE the boss. Summon minions, sling spells, and stomp on single heroes.
Did your team create the vast majority of the art during the 48 hours?
No
We used pre-existing art
Did your team create the vast majority of the music during the 48 hours?
No
We used pre-existing audio
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Comments
A nice complete game with lots of ideas! In terms of ideas for improvement, it might be cool for the various boss powers to be earned / learned one at a time, or have which one you have access to be tied to a level or story. I wasn't sure what the benefit of each was and felt like I was guessing (which wasn't bad, but there might be a way to make it more fun if the player has to learn how to use them best against certain heroes or something like that.)
This was fun. I like the gameplay loop, and I enjoyed the voice acting as well.
The controls felt a bit difficult to use though -- specifically, having my left hand be on WASD and right hand on then some of the spells on the right side of the number row made them a bit difficult to easily reach. So once I got to the spells that have the single use stuff, I just used them exclusively and ignored almost everything from about 4 and up (except the 0 spell, which didn't use too much energy, so I could just leave that on permanently. The other spells that was an on/off toggle didn't seem worth the energy expenditure, so I just never used them. (Though I did every now and again just spam all the minion buttons real quick, which was maybe the intended purpose for those anyway?)
Overall, I had fun playing this, so that seems like a success.
Love that voice-acting!
Browser-version lags a lot when the heroes explode, but maybe that's just Soffar enjoying every second of it xD
I love the idea of being a boss with a growing list of spells! Activating the spells was a bit tricky, but they were very cool to use! Nice work overall
Hot dang! A pretty simple shooter in the beginning, but the music is really what pulled me in. Juggling more and more spells made me feel like a champ!
Funny game. The story is amusing and I like the voice acting. The music choice was great and I love the animations. Though, I would actually prefer defeating several weaker monsters over one tough to really emphasize the power of a boss. Anyway, the game was enjoyable and though the idea was simple, I think that the execution was great. Good job!
Neat idea! Spell abilities are pretty cool too. Enemies I think have a bit too much health, but still a good job overall.
I really liked the game!
I think there is a bit of a control issue, as many have pointed out already. Maybe the most basic auto attacks, that we start out with could be on LMB and RMB. It would also help with that whole mana management when you need to turn them off to get enough mana for some other spells. Also game felt a bit too easy at times. Player can spawn the minions in between heroes arriving and recover mana + the heal after every fight makes it just so you need to not die and can lose as much HP as you want. Though maybe that was the vibe you were going for, in which case great job on that! Because the player can feel as a very powerful boss. Oh and one technical issue I encountered was that the last enemy didn't heal himself even though he had multiple potions. Other than those couple things though, great game! The voiceover is amazing and fitting to the entire theme of the game. Also even though I saw a bunch of the "you are the boss" games, personally this one was probably the most fun and engaging from the very start.
Overall congrats on making an entry, good job!
cool game! i think the boss had a little too much hp haha and is there a reason why the skills doesnt start from 1?
NIce! Thanks for playing!! And lol my thought process was starting with the weak toggable skills on 7 and 8, since in theory I was thinking people would use 7 - 0 sparingly, but I wanted to keep 1 - 3 as the quick instant spells (as you unlock them) since they're easier to get to. Not sure if that makes sense in practice though lol....
This game is really fun!
Awesome!! Thanks for playing!!
The game was really fun and all of the different abilities and the heroes were really creative. It was a bit annoying to have to have to use the number keys to use/toggle all of the different abilities. The visuals and the music were all amazing. I especially loved all of the over the top effects with the explosions from the nuke or the slow mode blood splatter burst things. I had a great time with the game and the bullet hell aspects from the later heroes were also fun to dodge around. Good job!
Thanks for playing and glad you liked it! Ya I know the controls weren't ideal. I'll look into adding more options for them in the future. I'm glad that it all felt really good though with the effects and everything!! That was one of my main goals.
Thanks again for playing!!
Really solid game, well done.
Thanks for playing!!
That was a very well executed concept! The array of attacks and onslaught of waves really helps cement the feel of a final boss player character. Audio & voices also really helped to sell the game.
Good job!
Thanks!! Glad you enjoyed it and it felt good to you!!
I got a very good classic flash game vibe from this! The voicelines (although I couldn’t understand some of them) sold the feeling well, haha. The different spells and their particle effects plus the screen shake made the gameplay very satisfying! That blue fireball felt especially chunky.
The controls made me miss my old mouse with numbers on the side, I wish I could have used the mousewheel, or maybe used CTRL/SHIFT to select different spells, just so I didn’t have to release the movement keys to toggle a spell or summon minions.
But yeah, outside of that, very good game, with some pretty funny writing and kick-ass music choice, haha
Thanks for playing and glad you liked it!! Also happy that it gave you flash game vibes lol (I miss those days). And thanks for liking the voices as well. Sorry not all came out clear, they were one of those things that I recorded and threw into the game last second. And ya the controls aren't very good... though a mouse with numbers would be a great solution!! I'm going to try to give more options to use to select different spells.
Thanks again for playing and your feedback!
This game has a really fun lighthearted feel. The voice changer lines are barely audible but just having that gives it a fun atmosphere.
I think my main issue is how it feels to play the game (partly being the keybindings just being unusual to me). It is barely possible to do any auto shooting while casting other things and there's little reason to switch up when you found something that worked, all spells just kind of have the same reason to exist none really feel like they have a special reason. Maybe they could each have more special effects or just be a bit more spammable so it can give the power fantasy of a boss with many moves.
But I think with a bit of balancing I could have a lot of fun with this, it just doesn't feel like you're being particularly powerfull when you play the game.
Another thing, I think you have some setting wrong on the textures, their blurr looks a tiny bit like what you get from Biliniear filtering. It interpolates between the pixels instead of just cutting off as is usual for pixel art (there nearest filter is usually used). But I haven't used GameMaker so I can't give any specific advice.
Thanks for playing and your feedback! Sorry about the voices not being clear, they were pretty much a last second addition that I rushed into the game. Some of them didn't quite come out as I hoped in the final version.
Fair criticisms on the controls, I know those are wacky. And ya essentially everything (besides the shield) are meant to damage so they could all feel samey, though on the flip side all damage spells are viable. Fair point though since the energy is a bit strict you can't use as many as you like so it feels less like you are all powerful. I may tweak this some more, at least towards the end game. Thanks also for mentioning the Bilinear filtering. The game looks fine downloaded but ya they came out blurry online. First time uploading a project to the web and I didn't have much time to look into before submission. I'll check out the Bilinear filtering to see if that may be the cause.
Thanks again for trying it out!!
The game is catching actually and very intense
Nice, glad it was intense!! Thanks for playing!
This is a really cool game! I found it a little hard to control, but aside from that, I can’t really say anything else to its detriment. I also really like the idea of the dark lord being on vacation. Mixing villain tropes with slice of life tropes is pretty funny, and it, as well as the voice acting, add a lot of charm to the game.
Thanks for playing and that you liked the game! Great to know that everything (besides the awkward controls) added to the charm of the game for you!
Nice game. I would've played for longer if the spells could be chosen with the mouse. Nice effort for a jam, I had fun going up against these wannabe MMO heroes interrupting the dark lord's vacation
Thanks for playing and your feedback! And sorry about the controls, I know those weren't ideal. I'll be looking into tweaking them.
Overall pretty fun! The choice of music make the battle feel so epic.
It's generall not a good idea to have key bind at 5~0 when you also need to control the mouse. And it's a bit confusing when the first two usable spell is at 7 and 8.
Gameplay-wise, I think the game stucks in between a challenging game and a no-brainer game. The player is slightly overpowered, but it's not I would thought a evil boss would be. Like if we make the early unlock-stage shorter, and let the player gain unlimited mana while facing multiple heroes at once, I can see the potential of a really great game. Like you are the bullet hell and grossy kills are everywhere.
Finally, I appreciate the effort on the dedicated lore and voice acting,
Thanks for playing and for the feedback! Glad you liked all the audio and lore and everything!
I agree the control turned out not great... and lol I know 7 and 8 are random, but my thought process was since those spells would just be toggled on and off that I would leave 1 - 6 as the more manual instant spells/summons. And true, I was aiming for slightly overpowered but also I did want the battles to be personal 1 v 1 against heroes versus the more typical survivor style where lots of enemies everywhere. But it is something I could take into consideration, especially maybe making the player stronger faster!
Thanks again for trying it out!!
Fun game!
Control bindings aren't great, it's hard to press 6-9 abilities, you can try putting them closer to W/A/S/D like q, e, z, cw, f OR you can lean into it and put hard hitting abilities on it, so you will be forced to stop and cast them, which is how bosses work in other games, hard hitting abilities are always telegraphed.
Love the voice acting, just like the previous time.
I remember that I rated your GMTK 2022 game, nice to see you again.
Thanks for playing! Nice to see you around again too!
I agree that the controls really didn't end up as great as I hoped. That is a thought of having them closer to WASD. I'm thinking multiple options (like users can select through scroll wheel, 0 - 9, maybe popup circle-selector thing, etc...) My thought process for 7 - 0 at least was since they are togglable the player won't need to hit them as much, but didn't quite work out as planned.
Thanks for the feedback and again for playing!