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Trefolio's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Creativity | #371 | 4.256 | 4.256 |
| Enjoyment | #615 | 3.872 | 3.872 |
| Audio | #1332 | 3.410 | 3.410 |
| Narrative | #1497 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Artwork | #1880 | 3.641 | 3.641 |
Ranked from 39 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?
The game is inspired by programming. The spellcasting system is a real interpreted programming language designed for the game. One of the symbols (shaped like a figure 8) allows you to create repeating effects, and is the language's equivalent of a 'for loop'
(Optional) Please credit all assets you've used
See description for full credits.
(Optional) What would you like to be called if GMTK features your game?
Joey Cook
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Comments
It's like a language-translation game (similar to chants of sennaar), but with abilities - I like it!
I enjoyed this, but you need to teach the player that they can make up their own spells! I would also say: Don't hide the player with the scroll so I can't see what happens, and also, having to keep clicking through the spells to get to the next one became laborious. Perhaps give players the opportunity to write their own notes about what each of the runes do?
Wonderful concept, please expand on this.
Wow, this is brilliant! Needed a clue after the fourth scroll because I am stupid, but once I realized the implications of that, I was totally sold. Not sure if this can be extended into a full game, but if you do, I'll be the first in line to play it :D
My god, I love this concept, and would love to see it as a full, more streamlined, game! Good job! (although, with the time I have, I couldn't figure out from the part where you had to figure out the meaning of the signs... Might also just be because my brain isn't very good at that kind of thinking?)
WAIT, this was really cool! I somehow managed to learn the spells through out the game and I found it very fun! I felt like a true wizard! Great game
I get stuck at the 4th scroll. When I look at the comments, I realize that I need to find out the rock destroying spell on my own and it is so satisfying to figure it out. The idea of combing rule discovery with programming is very creative and interesting. The graphics is polished.
It would be better to have a keyboard shortcut (like 1-9) for each element.
This was great! It was so satisfying to figure out the "grammar" of the spellcasting system, e.g. this means <element>, this means <X action>, etc., then thinking about how to put them together. I unfortunately couldn't figure out the last puzzle, but I had a blast!
I liked your game, but it's hard for me to remember a lot of combinations and what they do even with a book) Maybe you can add inscriptions in the book.
I was going to add something like in Chants of Sennaar where you can type your own labels for what you think the symbols mean, but I didn't have enough time to implement it. Glad you liked it regardless!
Woah the abilities are so cool! I like how they resemble actual code in some way, I got stuck in a puzzle though as in i was too dumb to solve it, but great game! :D
Allllmost beat this… I got softlocked two times on the eye tunnel puzzle and gave up. I felt like I was close to a solution, but I don’t have the patience to play the whole thing a third time.
This is a really, really clever puzzle game. I love games about deciphering languages (if you’ve played Tunic, that game has a really fun language to decode), and tying it to in-game Sokoban mechanics is genius. When I realized you could combine bit of spells you’ve already learned, everything turned up a notch.
There’s a lot of depth to the types of spells, too. The system of making things cast by proxy opens up so many possibilities - a lot of these puzzles probably have multiple solutions. The puzzle at the end stumped me completely, though… I think I was missing some capability of that system. (Also, I feel like the looping and summoning-yourself spells were bound to cause issues. Maybe rethink those ones a bit…)
Another suggestion would be to make the full spell-book available from the start. GOing back to Tunic, that game is all about deciphering a game manual to learn mechanics and secrets… but, if you’ve played it before, you can do all that stuff from the start and skip huge swaths of the game. I think if, instead of artificially giving you spell components, this game just gave you the hint papers, it would make progression purely based on player knowledge, which I think is more interesting. (Also, it would’ve made backtracking after that softlock a lot less painful!)
Overall, one of the most creative puzzle games I’ve played in a while. Well done!
Yeah, sorry about the softlocking. I somehow didn't catch that it was possible until it was too late. Its technically possible to escape by making another object next to your spawn point and programming that object to repeatedly create you, but I don't blame you for just quitting.
Thank you for the extensive feedback! In retrospect, I do tend to agree that the game would have been better with all the runes unlocked at the beginning. I didn't want players to be overwhelmed at the start by having so many runes so that's why I made them unlockable, but having access to all of the runes from the start would have allowed clever players to skip entire sections of the game, and would have opened the door for even more discovery and experimentation (which is what the game is all about).
Also you're spot on with the Tunic thing. This game was heavily inspired by Tunic and Chants of Senaar too.
I actually did manage to figure that out my second playthrough. I got stuck again right afterwards, though, and I couldn’t get it to work a second time :(
I’ve never played Chants of Sennaar, but it sounds like something I might like.
it was so much fun and definitely one of the more unique and surprising games to play
even though I found out how to destroy the rock by randomly casting spells broooo I think this game need some kind of hints or Idk... hahah it's just way to hart after the rock thing
like what am I supposed to do? I'd like to push the fire or sth u know
Thanks for playing! The spell system is entirely systematic, which means that if you were able to destroy a rock, you should also be able to create a rock (and rocks unlike fire are able to be pushed)
but how can i create them? non of my spells I have in the book create them, and the destroy spell i found just by accident like what is the combination and where did I get the information from? (I can't really seem to understand the logical pattern behind the spells.) Also what should this put-eyes-on-the-rock-spell do?
Sorry for the late reply, I'll see if I can help you understand the magic system better.
Each symbol in the game roughly translates to a single english word, and a spell roughly translates to a sentence. For the first two spells in the game, one of them destroys fire, and one of them creates fire. They only differ by a single symbol, so that symbol must be the one that controls whether fire is created or destroyed by the spell. The second and third symbols are shared between the two spells, and both spells have something to do with fire, so one of those symbols must mean fire. You've probably realized that the third symbol is the one that casts the spell, so the second symbol must be the one that means "FIRE."
Therefore, your first scroll must mean "DESTROY FIRE (CAST)" and your second scroll must mean "CREATE FIRE (CAST)"
Also sorry its a bit confusing, but the eyes on the rock just indicate the direction it is facing, so your spell that is putting eyes on the rock is actually just rotating it. Don't worry about understanding exactly how that spell works yet, its basically just there to give you the symbol for rock so that you can cast "CREATE ROCK (CAST)" and "DESTROY ROCK (CAST)". You will eventually learn how the rotate rock spell works, but you will need more scrolls before it to makes sense.
This is so awesome! I have almost played the entire game, but unfortunately there was a bug where I just kept dying and respawning. Other than that, the game was amazing. I love how you can combine the different runes to get so many new spells and the puzzle design was great too!
Really good, even the best I've seen so far. Keep going!
Yeah, sorry about the infinite dying loop. I designed that final puzzle at 5 AM after already working on the game for 16 hours straight on the final day of the jam, so its not surprising I somehow overlooked a very obvious softlock. I could lie and say its part of the theme, saying "you got the bad ending by getting stuck in a loop!" but no, its just an oversight be me.
Thanks for playing up until that point though, I hope you had fun!
I got stuck after the 4th scroll. I figured out I could create new spells outside of the scrolls. I create new spells by combining the first two symbols from the 4th spell with the others. I thought I could kill the eye from that hallway by shooting a fire through the boulder and then moving the boulder in the empty gap left by the eye, but that didn't work. I think there needs to be some sort of hint on what we are supposed to do at that point.
Shame I didn't figure it out, didn't even reach the looping part of the game :/
The art style was cool and the magic system is interesting! Well done :)
I had a lot of fun casting spells and moving forward. I saw that the spells could be combined, but I got stuck after getting the fourth one. I really wanted to see what comes next!
The 4th scroll is where it starts to get more difficult, and requires a bit of a leap in logic. If you try casting that spell on the rock, you will notice it causes the rock to rotate 90 degrees, but that's not helpful at all. However, it does confirm that one of the symbols in that spell must mean "ROCK," and that knowledge is very helpful when combined with some of your previous knowledge *wink wink*
Thank you! I see now that each letter has meaning — that helped me get through! However, I think I got stuck in an infinite loop at what seems to be the final area with the eyes, and I couldn't figure out how to solve that puzzle. I ended up giving up there, but I still had a lot of fun!
My brain’s in knots the farther I go.
Guess I’m still a wizard-in-training!
The idea is great and unusual, the controls are smooth and the choice of the assets make for a nice experience. I rated your game accordingly, but I got stuck just after getting the third scroll. I might not have understood how to use it. Could you offer a soluce so I can progress even further ? ^^
Thanks for playing! The third scroll casts a spell that rotates you counter-clockwise, which is useful in tight corridors where you don't have space to turn on your own.
I made a mistake, I did well with the third scroll. What I meant was the fourth scroll, the one after the room with the four orange eyes! When I cast this spell, not much seem to be happening...
Oh that makes more sense. The fourth scroll requires a bit of a leap of logic, since that spell doesn't do anything immediately useful for you. But it does contain a symbol that is very useful for you. If only there was a way to destroy that rock thats blocking your path...
Thank you for your reply ! That's intriguing, I will dig into it !
Very clever level design with the spell casting system !
I'm not gonna lie, I casted a lot of unknown spells in the process. Who knows what they did..
Wow, amazing game! I had a really fun time learning what everything did and finding cool setups. I really like how the puzzles encourage exploration and experimentation, and how there are multiple solutions. This idea could definitely be expanded as well, and I would love to see this made into a full game. Great visuals and audio as well
The spell system is really neat and enjoyable! I liked having to test and experiment to figure out what everything did and how to use it. Art and music suited it really well too
Cute little game! I really like the spellcrafting system and the music is such a bop
Cute little game! I really like the spellcrafting system and the music is such a bop