Metroidvania Month 10

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A jam submission

Space WizardView game page

Fight aliens and sorcerers as the Space Wizard!

Submitted by dragn1821 — 1 day, 12 hours before the deadline

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Space Wizard's itch.io page

Results

Criteria	Rank	Score*	Raw Score
Graphics	#2	3.818	3.818
Story	#3	2.909	2.909
Overall	#5	3.164	3.164
Gameplay	#5	3.000	3.000
Audio	#5	3.364	3.364
Engagement & General	#6	2.727	2.727

Ranked from 11 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Engine
Monogame

Team/Developer
Collective Creations (Chris Jackson & Josh Baron)

External assets
Credits for graphics & art, sound effects, and music have been added to the end game credits screen as well as the game page.

Comments on the jam
Very enjoyable. Appreciate others sharing what they're doing and helping others when it is needed.

Reference info
dragn1821, TheRedBaron20

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Comments

AzecySubmitted3 years ago

I'm afraid my computer badly crashed when I tried to run this. I can't be sure if it's an issue with my computer or with the game, but I had to stop playing after that. I may have an issue with my graphics card, but no other games crashed it like this one. The game was pretty good otherwise.

I loved the graphics & the mechanics were solid. I'm not sure if you lowered the difficulty before the final version, but I actually found it pretty forgiving! Your life bar is very long so I was able to make adjustments to my strategy each time I got hit. Only problem I had was the skeletons were kind of "camping" next to the edge of the platforms they were on, so you basically had to take a hit when you came across them. The stalactites were too easy to hit some parts too.

Submitted

dragn1821Developer3 years ago(+1)

Thank you for your feedback. The only thing I can think of that could have caused computer issues is that the game was built for Windows 10, 64 bit. It uses Monogame and .NET Core, but the game was built to be self-contained, so you shouldn't need to install .NET Core or Monogame. If you were using an OS other than Windows 10 or a non-64 bit OS, that may explain the crash. At any rate, sorry about your troubles and I hope that helps you figure out what is causing the issue. I haven't heard any other issues from any who has tested the game.

In the 1.0.3 version, I had removed some stalactites from above the first lava pits you encounter. It made it too easy to have a random death and these were on the critical path to defeat the game, so I removed them. The 1.0.2 version is exactly the same with them included in the game.

The Skeletons will wait a period of time before moving, but if you enter their attack range, they will strike. When they attack, it resets their wait timer, so you could trigger their attack over and over and they would not move . If you move out of their attack range until the wait timer expires, they will move and turn the opposite direction when they encounter a wall. There is a bit of a bug here that I wasn't able to fix, where if they are moving in a direction when they hit the wall, they keep walking toward the wall, but when they start the next move cycle, they turn around at that point. Something I would want to fix if development continues.

AzecySubmitted3 years ago

I never fell into a lava pit, so as far I knew, the game had no instant death. I guess that would explain why it seemed unfair to others. The life bar was long and there were life pickups from both candles and enemies, so it didn't seem like I would be in too much danger unless I got really reckless. Instant death can always be a downer. Did you think about having pits only deal damage instead of killing? Hollow Knight and the Shantae games both have it that way. They just respawn you at the beginning of the room and deal damage. I found that really refreshing compared to old school platformers that had instant kills.

As for the glitch, it's certainly possible that it's my video card and not your game. It had some problems at a few other times lately, including when it was idle. It could even be a total coincidence that it crashed at a point in your game where it looked like it was loading something. I thought it might be trying to load the ending or a dialogue. The screen really glitched out before it crashed which it didn't at the other times it crashed, so I thought it might have been triggered by the game, but maybe not. I wouldn't worry about it too much if I was you, unless someone else tells you about a crash. I don't think I'm going to try loading the game again though, just in case it was a problem. My computer is on Windows 10 64-bit by the way.

dragn1821Developer3 years ago(+1)

Changing the lava pits to only deal damage instead of instant death would actually be pretty trivial. I setup the game to use the "Tiled" editor and read the property values, such as damage for hazard objects like lava pits and stalactites. Currently, I just have the damage for lava pits set to more than the player's max health. Something to consider for sure. Thanks!

Lerg BwoSubmitted3 years ago

really liked this one

lava maybe shouldn't be an instant kill because stuff knocks you back and sends you falling into it which seems a bit too punishing

the knock back was maybe a bit much in general and the camera tracks too slowly when moving down
the permadeath was fine because there were alternate paths to check out each time until i figured out the order to do things

Submitted

Apocalypse Angel

dragn1821Developer3 years ago

Thank you for your feedback. That area with the lava pit is rough because sometimes random things off-screen can hit you on the way down and knock you into it. After listening to some feedback, I had thought about switching that to a pit of spikes where you might get hurt 2-3 times, but you would have an opportunity to jump out and not die instantly. Another thought is to have a difficulty setting and maybe use the lava pit map for the harder difficulty and one with spikes for the easier difficulty, so you can choose.

I suppose the knock-back time could be decreased a bit as well. There are times where it feels a bit too long. There is also an invincible time as well, which could be increased a bit to recover from a hit.

Great things to think about!

Kray8GamesSubmitted3 years ago

Getting sent all the way back to the start was quite frustrating given the difficulty and made me not really want to keep playing despite the fact that I really like the game and the overall theme is great.

Submitted

Sands of Scorpio Demo

dragn1821Developer3 years ago(+1)

Thank you for your feedback. I totally understand and appreciate the comment. I have been thinking about some of the other comments about having a number of lives and restarting closer to where you died, so I will be considering how to implement something like that in the game in the future if we continue development on it.

Kray8GamesSubmitted3 years ago

That sounds like a good idea. I really hope you do continue developing it, I think it could be a great game!

saffrongamesSubmitted3 years ago

The combination of instant death pits, spikes and fire traps that can only be avoided with precise jumps with the fact that dying sends you back to the title screen AND there is an unskippable dialog at the start made this a really frustrating experience.
The mechanics for combat and platforming are pretty good, but level design could use some work. And when making a game this difficult, allowing the player to quickly retry the part they failed at should be a priority.

Submitted

Skull Cave Adventure

dragn1821Developer3 years ago

Thank you for your feedback. You can skip a dialog line by pressing the jump button, so pressing jump repeatedly will get you through the dialog quickly. But, I agree that by not bypassing the title screen or dialog at the beginning, it takes you out of the game play for too long. I like the ideas of having extra lives and restarting where you entered a room to retry a difficult area. I'm still learning and making mistakes, so thanks for the advice to improve!

Michael Games3 years ago

"What Are You?"

"I am a Space Wizard!"

Loved it. The lava was a show stopper, but I started over and avoided it. I felt that the enemies and combat was a little stiff, but the package as a whole was very well done! Good mix of challenges, loved the ability upgrades, etc.

Kudos! One of my favorites for sure!

dragn1821Developer3 years ago

Thank you for your feedback. The melee combat in particular needs some more adjusting.

AxandrosSubmitted3 years ago

This is very well put together, but I’m going to have to agree with raptor that this game is too hard. I twice got the key and ended up falling into a pit on my way back to the chest, and that’s not counting all the other deaths.

Work out the difficulty and I think you have yourself a candidate for commercial development.

Submitted

Metroidvania Month-X

dragn1821Developer3 years ago

Also, thank you for your feedback. Apologies to you as well. I have made an update, 1.0.3, to remove those spikes over the lava pits. So, please give another try if you haven't made it through to the end.

raptor9999Submitted3 years ago(+1)

Very very hard! I wish that you had extra lives or started over after the text intro. The game looks really good and the music and sounds are generally nice. I cannot get over the level design and camera on some parts and keep wondering whether a sadist made it or not lol

Submitted

dragn1821Developer3 years ago (1 edit)

Thank you for your feedback, I do appreciate it. Apologies about the difficulty. I'm finding it hard to gauge how difficult the game is after play testing so much. I also didn't want to make it a breeze to get through and be boring. Guess I need to continue working to find the right balance. I've made an update, 1.0.3, to hopefully make it a little easier to get through by removing those spikes in the first room over the lava pits. If you've not been able to make it through yet, please give it another try.