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Escape From Castle Doom's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Creative use of art assets | #29 | 4.103 | 4.103 |
| Overall | #38 | 3.897 | 3.897 |
| Overall polish | #59 | 3.931 | 3.931 |
| Engagement | #124 | 3.655 | 3.655 |
Ranked from 29 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
Very cute and fun!
I'd turn up deceleration a bit since it's hard to get through some doors, I think due to decelerating too slowly.
I think I'd have the enemies start path finding only after they see you. I think there was one behind a door that was trying to get me before I opened the door.
A target reticule might have been nice to make it easier to tell where your aiming. It sometimes felt like it wasn't quite right at the mouse due to the 2.5d.
I can't believe how polished you got your game. It's really incredible. Integrating the tutorial into the game in such a natural way and also picking a very natural control scheme were good moves. It made it really intuitive to pick up and play and seemed to be something that a lot of other games really struggled with.
A web version seems like it might have been worth it. Given that you built it in Godot, I wouldn't have thought that would be much extra work.
Thanks, all very useful feedback!
Targetting reticule is a good idea, I think you might have had trouble with the aiming because it projects the mouse positition on to the ground plane, which might be a bit low. Perhaps projecting on to the mid-height of the enemies would be more natural. Either way a reticule would help give feedback to adjust.
Enemies are one area that I think is a bit lacking. The logic for them is very simple, with just a radius to the player and some simple move towards the player logic. I had intended to make use of raycasting line of sight for each enemy, but ran out of time before submitting. I would also like to add navmeshes at some point to prevent them getting stuck.
I agree that I really should have exported a web version, I did try it and ran in to a few problems getting it running locally on my machine and was running low on time. It might be worth me trying again when I do the update release after voting ends.
If you ran into the same issues with web version that I did, it's due to the local http files not actually being served by a web server. There are a few quick ways to solve this:
If you run into trouble, I can hop on discord and we can try to solve, if you'd like.
Really love how you use the assets, nice art style, the dissapering walls depend of the point of view was intentional? I like to know how you made that, it make the rooms feel more appealing.
I enjoy playing it, i cannot find the key and the 3rd level!
really hard jumps at the end.
Thanks!
Yes, the disappearing walls was very intentional, as otherwise it would have been difficult to see what is going on. I originally had slightly more complicated 3D models for the scenery to add some wall depth, but it got difficult as bits of them would appear over the view so I simplified them to planes. I did it by using backface culling, only the fronts of triangles are rendered, so if I orientate a wall away from the player it disappears automatically. I just have to be careful not to have any triangles that can be seen from behind a wall at the cameras viewpoint.
The red key to get in to the room with the hearts and extra ducks? SPOILER WARNING: Its behind the right pillar in the room below
Well done! Really enjoyed playing, great perspective and use of the graphics. A definite contender here!
I loved the use of assets and the perspective, though the platforming was a bit tedious. 3rd person 3d platforming is *REALLY* hard to get right, so for a game jam I think you did well given the time allotment. The ducklings were adorable and i felt bad shooting them. I love the mechanic though! Good job! :D
I think I have now addressed a fair number of the concerns that people are having over the game, but I don't think I'm allowed to upload an update until ratings have finished? Anyway, in the latest version (not uploaded yet) I have made the following changes:
you need to be more careful about how you aim, especially with more enemies around.
I'll upload as soon as I know that it is allowed. Thanks all.
I love the whole presentation of the game, really well done! The thing I hated the most was the jump "puzzles" where you jump away from the camera, it's probably on me for being bad at platformers but holy crap did it take long to complete those. Also there should be some reason for not just spamming right+left click when attacking something, since there doesn't seem to be any penalty for that. Otherwise great game!
Thanks!
The art style of this game was amazing. The game plays really well I only struggled with some of the jumping puzzles (when going diagonally), felt a bit funny to control while in the air. Overall a solid game, well done.
Thanks for playing and for the feedback!
I love what you did with the art kit, all these colors really bring the sprites to life. It's really engaging to play and the 3d perspective is a nice touch. I like that the wizard is rescuing the ducks. Could make it so that ducks could also turn back into goblins when hit with the left click spell, so people (meaning me) wouldn't spam both spells at once to take out goblins.
The jumping sections are quite punishing though and I have to admit that I eventually gave up at the area where you have to go up to get the red key and down to get the yellow one. The distance between the platforms to the red key is pretty hard to gauge and the controls are a too fluid. So having the player reset to the last save position before falling into the spikes could help with the frustration as someone suggested already.
Also goblins and ducks get stuck behind doors constantly, and I discovered that the wizard can walk behind the torches. Looking forward to an updated version of this, as I really enjoyed playing it (until I gave up hehe)
Thanks for the feedback and nice comments! Yes, the goblin and duck AI is pretty rudimentary at the moment. I need to look in to generating navmeshes to help with that, hopefully I can get that in for a future release.
Very nice game! The graphics are a very nice derivative from the original artkit - everything is nicely coloured and lit, no complaints there. The parkour was very punishing, and my final run ended up taking 27 minutes because of the last stage, but all in all, a good game. Well done!
I had another go and improved a bit
Amazing, thanks for playing and the feedback. I think you've probably beaten my best time with a run of 2 minutes! I also struggle a bit with that last stage, which I will be addressing after the ratings finish.
Really fun game!
The spellcasting and fighting the goblins was much more fun than the platforming. It just felt so punishing. I don't know if there was ledge protection (if you jump /right/ after you leave the ledge you still jump instead of falling) and I just suck, or if it desperately needs some haha
Also, losing a heart and reverting to your last platform instead of restarting would have made this a lot less rage-inducing!
But even though I was raging hard at the spikes, I was still having fun - and the game looks incredible. Really beautiful work. Overall, I really enjoyed it! Great game!
Thanks! Yeah, there currently isn't any ledge protection, so I am going to add something to help tonight, as well as addressing some of the other comments, but won't upload the new build until the end of the week. Thanks for playing!
Loved the music! The movement feels good too but I hate those spikes lol. Also I would make something to avoid the spell spamming, because it's too easy to eliminate the enemies.
Thanks for playing and for the feedback. I'll release an update after the jam to address those things.
Pretty fun game!
Spikes are so tough ahah. Maybe making them remove 1 life + rebound instead would be easier lol
Very polished^^ Like the sound effects added to it
Good work!
Thank you, yes, I've had a few comments about the spikes. I think I will fix it up as you suggested and make it lose some life and bounce the player back out. Thanks for looking at the game!
Great look. Gamepad support was appreciated and essential.
Thanks
I love how you did the 3d in this game, the music also fits very well! Maybe a longer cool down between casting as I could really rapid fire haha, overall very well done!
Thanks for the feedback, I'll add a better cooldown for the update that I'll release after the jam ratings end.
The game looks very good.Perfect perspective and also isometric at the same 5/5 on art use.
Thanks!
I absolutely love the way this game looks! It's cute, with well chosen colors. I like that you show button prompts and such in the 3d world. The spikes are very unforgiving. I'd personally like it better if they just remove 1 heart and make you bounce up, but that's nitpicking.
Awesome little game!
Thanks for playing and for the feedback. I'll see what I can do on the spikes once this week is over, I also found them a bit difficult and I made the game!
A nice little 3d platformer/dungeon game. The first goblin was running extremely fast around me, I think they've been on the juice or something. I also missed a duck because it fell into the spikes!
Overall a well polished game and a great entry. The music was excellent also!
Thanks for the feedback!
I added a something fairly last minute to deter from using the capture duck spell on the goblins that would speed them up if you used right click instead of left. As this was not clearly signposted, in hindsight I think this was a mistake. That might have been the cause.
Hahah I've been caught, this is 100% what happened as I spammed it with the wrong spell for a bit first. Too good!
Thanks!
WOW!, i never would think 3D world with that asset... incredible work on the ambient....
Thank you!