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A jam submission

Iro and the ghost forestView game page

Playing as the wolf Iro to hunt the ghosts of the forest
Submitted by Ryokugin, Xandruher, Elidef — 23 minutes, 9 seconds before the deadline
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Iro and the ghost forest's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Originality#24.4004.400
Fun#43.7003.700
Overall#83.5863.586
Theme#94.0004.000
Graphics#133.9003.900
Accessibility#203.1003.100
Audio#223.2003.200
Controls#352.8002.800

Ranked from 10 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Godot Version
3.4.4

Wildcards Used
We got a deal, Take it easy, Guiding light

Game Description
You play as the wolf Iro against ghosts to collect ectoplasma, strengthen yourself, activating the crystals and finally beat the ghost of ghosts.

How does your game tie into the theme?
You have to kill ghosts, you can exchange ectoplasma to strengthen yourself, you can choose between two difficulties, you have to light urself in the darkness

Source(s)
N/A

Discord Username
Ryokugin, Xandruher, Elidef

Participation Level (GWJ Only)
2

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

Very pretty and well put together game. Died very quickly on my first few attempts as I didn't time the attack well, but eventually got the hang if it. I kept wishing that the movement would be WASD in an absolute sense, rather than a "driving" style which it currently has.. perhaps an option for that? Impressive amount of content too and overall great submission imho! :)

Developer

Thanks for your kind words. Highly appreciate it!

Submitted(+1)

Super cool, I love the glowing wolf and its animation! The enemy variety was also great, I particularly liked the purple shielded ghosts. The leveling system was also interesting, although I was questioning myself whether I shouldn't be just putting the points into the crystals, since the game seemed to be getting harder over time. I also liked the fact that I needed to master each of the enemy types to continue.

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

Thanks for your kind words. Highly appreciate it!

Submitted(+1)

Really nice experience, you can see there has been a lot of work into this!

First, the multiple enemies are really well thought and the combat mechanic while simple is really effective and the movements of the wolf satisfying.

The way you can use ectoplasma to improve your character’s abilities is a nice touch. I think it’s one of the part that kept me going.

The flaws I see are that it’s a bit too long. I expected some type of special super ghost as a final enemy but making me repeat the process three times is a bit frustrating. I think your enemies were really interesting and you could add one boss enemy with interesting attack patterns to replace your current boss sequence.

The fact that you can move forward with “Q” or “S” was a bit strange, maybe you can think of something that uses only the mouse for movement/attack/interaction? I feel like the keyboard is underused and not very important in your mechanics. It is way more satisfying and technical for the player to aim and move with the mouse.

In the end, it’s an excellent game, congrats! :)

Developer(+1)

Thanks for your kind words. Highly appreciate. Yes, we put indeed a lot time and effort into that game. But it was worth every second and made a lot of fun. We also learned a lot new stuff along the way.

Submitted(+1)

I really liked this! The music was fun and made me happy to listen to. I liked playing as the dog, and the setting of being in the park at night with the brightness of the tree and the dog was very charming. I also liked the enemies, especially the sound they made when they got hit and having to find the green ones in the trees. I got all the power ups to full, and after getting to the boss 3 times I beat it! :)

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

Hey, thanks a lot for the nice comment ! :D

Congrats on beating the game !

Submitted

Good game, entertaining. I liked the idea of ghosts with a different way of dealing with them.

Developer

Thanks! :) Glad you like it!

Submitted(+1)

great game, the graphics were outstanding! the one problem is all enemies(except for the green ones) become to easy near the end which makes the boss a bit easy at the end, in my opinion you should disable the trees health ability when the boss is activated.

Developer(+2)

Thanks for your comment and... Ye ^^ I totally forgot to disable the tree for the boss fight. That was I wanted to do.

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

Thanks for your kind words, I appreciate that you liked the graphics!

Submitted(+2)

Nice job! I loved the variety of ghost enemies and the choice between getting upgrades vs progressing the crystals. I found the movement to be a bit awkward, but I can probably put the blame on having to use my laptop track pad (currently away on holiday). 

I think the game fit the theme and wild cards well.  Great job!

Developer(+1)

Thanks for your comment!
Ye, we thought a lot about the movement between using WASD or the mouse. But since we wanted precise jumps at 380°, we opted for a mouse based movement! However we could have implemented an 8 directions system (I was afraid of not being precise on the jump because of that kind of movement).   

Submitted(+1)

Yeah I liked the idea of having total jump freedom. It helped a lot with the purple ghosts. If I was on my home PC with a proper mouse, I don't think I would have had as much difficulty.

Developer(+1)

You can try with a gamepad if you have it. ^^

Submitted(+3)

Great game for a jam. The graphics are nice, the music is nice although perhaps not eerie enough for the ghost ambience and the gameplay is very fun. I made it to the end in easy and I died two times :D

First thing to mention is, there are no visible bugs! To me, this is a +1 in a jam game.

The leveling system is nice, you can make the game easier if you feel it's getting too difficult. You have all the time in the world to build the character while filling the crystals which to me is something to thank for, I hate when they impose a timer on you because I prefer to enjoy the game at my pace. So well done!

There are plenty of enemies, there is a boss, the enemies have well defined different mechanics. The animation on the yellow one is very nice. The idea of the green one hiding in the tree is superb! Although it took me a bit to realise what I had to do it was very nice to discover I could bash into the tree and get that little green fellow out.

While being a simple game, it's very polished, as mentioned no bugs, everything runs smoothly. Overall a great jam game, really.

If I had to mention something for improvements, and this is perhaps more my liking than a proper improvement, the controller was a bit confusing at times. As in, move with W and use the mouse for directions. I understand the reasoning was to be able to actually move 360, but I wouldn't mind having wasd and move in a 8-axis.

Another thing that was confusing, once the boss hides again, I was missing a message saying you need to fill the crystals again. The first time I thought the game had ended and I was just left there to play around, which I did and found out the crystals were empty again so the boss was still alive.

Again, this is a fantastic game!

Developer(+3)

Thanks for your comment! :)

Indeed for the movement of Iro I would have liked to implement a straff walking. The animation is done by xandruher ^^ but no Time to implement it since I prefer to polish the game first :)

I thought that adding an HP bar for the boss who emptied not whole during the first phase would have allowed to show that the boss was not eliminated. I will make a better design next Time ^^

Thanks for your constructive information, I plan to do even better next time!

Developer(+1)

Thanks for the nice words about the music :) I thought the more whimsical tone fit nicely with the overall mood of the game, but I also can hear it being not eerie enough

Developer (3 edits) (+1)

Thanks for your kind words and this extensive feedback. I appreciate you liked the graphics and animations!

Submitted(+3)

I love the graphics and animations. I like the movement. It feels good. Jumping feels good.

Sometimes I wasn't sure why I took damage, it seemed like the ghosts formed an attack just when I was landing on top of them. I guess that's fair, but it felt like the wolf should have won in those situations, especially on easy mode. (Maybe that would make it too easy, IDK)

I'm curious if you tried or considered a version with no health or player death. Obviously it'd be more casual, and you need some penalty for failing to time jumps correctly, but maybe a time sink like losing your collected energies would serve the game as well as a death mechanic (probably just for super-easy casual mode.)

Nice job implementing an upgrade system in a jam game. Great submission!

Developer (1 edit) (+2)

Thanks for your comment! ^^ 

The challenging mode is a mode where you can't regain life. I wanted to make a casual mode with the possibility to go back to the spirit tree without losing the upgrades. 

But I had to review my priorities to make a polished and bug free game :).


Edit: 

Indeed, for the ghosts, their attacks have very often the priority on you! You have to understand their patterns to avoid being hit. I added a loading animation on each of them (red blue and yellow, + the green mark) to understand when they will attack 

Developer

Thanks for your kind words. I appreciate you liked the graphics and animations!