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A jam submission

Once Summoned...View game page

Survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Gather resources, acquire knowledge, and build a generator
Submitted by Shoddy Games, Josephkhland, Jimmizi, Atlas, Maaack — 21 hours, 17 minutes before the deadline
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Once Summoned...'s itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Graphics#113.7503.750
Controls#113.6253.625
Accessibility#123.0633.063
Audio#133.4383.438
Overall#143.4383.438
Fun#163.2503.250
Originality#173.6883.688
Theme#203.2503.250

Ranked from 16 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Godot Version
3.5.2

Wildcards Used
Navigator, Under Pressure

Game Description
Survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Gather resources, acquire knowledge, and build a generator

How does your game tie into the theme?
"Once Summoned" ties into the theme of "lost knowledge" through its core mechanics of gathering knowledge in a post-apocalyptic world. This pursuit of forgotten knowledge is essential to restore civilization by constructing a generator, signifying a beacon of renewed hope and progress.

Source(s)
N/A

Discord Username(s)
Optics#9264,Josephkhland#7349,Jimmu#3885,Maaack#2870,AtlasOrigins#0001

Participation Level (GWJ Only)
1

My game has an export for Linux, Windows, & Mac and/or is playable through HTML5

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

Wow, nice work! The audio and visuals felt really polished, and the complexity of the different systems interacting (food, health, sanity) is pretty interesting! I had a lot of fun exploring the world you’ve created and learning more about the lore and forgotten knowledge!

As someone else said, I would have preferred a different font for readability, or at least an option to change it. Also, sometimes characters and places on the edge of the screen would not be rendered - I wasn’t sure if this was intentional (like a fog effect) or not, but I sometimes felt like I wished the viewport was just a little bigger so I could pick a direction or explore without feeling like I was wasting a ton of food to get there.

Gameplay-wise, I really enjoyed the resource management. I was worried about dying very early on but I think you gave enough “ways out” for me to stay alive for quite a while, which was nice. Seems you found a good balance for difficulty! One thing I would have liked to see is quantities listed for transactions (e.g. “(-10 food)” or something) - once I accidentally gave away all my food to a witch because I didn’t realize how much it would take!

Overall really nice job, I like the atmosphere you’ve created and I could definitely see myself playing this for a while if I had more time!

Submitted(+1)

This was a good game, and I love games like this, so I had lots of fun.

I did feel a bit cheated when I bought secrets, though. But that just leaned into the atmosphere of the game, so that was OK.

Well done!

Submitted(+3)

The game isn't bad, but its hard to rate this on "Fun" (maybe the jam should consider changing it something like Engagement), since personally, I didn't have much of it while playing. Maybe if the game map was more "compressed": being smaller, with less choices, but more impactful ones, it would have been more enjoyable? It would also have helped with the length of the game.

The writing was cool. The graphics were good, but the different pixel sizes on the ground and characters/locations made them slightly inconsistent. The controls are well-explained. Having the tutorial teach the player slowly as they explore was a good decision. As was the stat names sliding out when the mouse hovers over them (the "hitbox" for the mouse-over could have been wider though), rather than having to mouse over them individually to see the tooltip. You could have also added an option to turn off or reduce the visual effect when you're low on some stats, but there are options for audio and controls which is good.

But still, I'd say the game is good for what you had time to make.

Submitted(+1)

Very solid entry in this jam, great work! :O 

The graphics are beautiful, the atmosphere (music, sounds, rain, texts) is griping! I felt some Fallout 2 and Sheltered vibes put together... Sweet nostalgia...  

For me, the game is a bit long for a jam though... I went into a game over at 50 knowledge and didn't find the courage to play again. I feel like a check point or save system would really be a great addition (even if I know by experience that it is not the simplest thing to program).

Keep it up, team!

Submitted(+1)

I love a good resource management game. It can be hard to balance in a jam, but you did a great job. I felt like I had to keep an eye on things and carefully decide where to travel, but it wasn’t too hard. The writing really helped build out the world and keep you engaged. I especially liked the singing berries.

I lost all my seeds early on and never figured out how to get more. The music was a bit repetitive.

Submitted(+1)

Interesting story stuff. The mechanics were pretty polished and the ambient fit pretty well. I enjoyed taking care about the stats and making right decisions. Only thing for me was that it was too much text, but that might be personal thing. Good Job!

Submitted(+2)

Hi Everyone,

This is a super polished game, it's a full experience. The writing, the atmosphere the gameplay mechanics, absolutely loved it!

One of my favourite entries so far, I really enjoyed it!

My only constructive feedback (=nitpicking) would be to choose a different font next time because sometimes it was a bit of a struggle to read (the word 'tile' for example)

Submitted(+3)

there's alot to this, died a couple of times before getting the hang of it and got there in the end! great stuff and atmospheric!

Submitted(+3)

Pretty cool game, got the G ending and was surprised! I found the golden berry bush very funny but I kept wondering if there was a way to get there. The narrative is great and I will try a zero relic run to see if i get any different result

Submitted(+3)

I can tell a lot of work went into this. I played to my demise a couple off times and still have no clue just how much there is to see. There are a lot of jam entries but I'll definitely be coming back to this one.

The difficulty curve for a newbie like me is a little rough, trying to manage all the stats when they're all constantly going down is definitely challenging, although I found a bit of a cheat with the musicians right next to an abandoned farm with tons of good berry bushes. :D

The atmosphere and theming was really good, and the mechanics are very interesting and cerebral. The one thing I could have done without was the color shift effect when you sanity is low which is quite hard on the eyes.

A really good entry overall, definitely one that I liked more than I would have expected!