Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
Tags
A jam submission

Vampire SolitaireView game page

Play a solitaire game and prevent the vampire and the priest from disrupting it by changing the colors of your cards
Submitted by OldDewS (@CashewOldDew), danysdani — 1 hour, 45 minutes before the deadline
Add to collection

Play game

Vampire Solitaire's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Artistic Style#15.0005.000
Cleverness#934.0004.000
Playability#1004.0004.000
Theme#4153.5003.500

Ranked from 2 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

  • A fully featured and beautiful little spin on Solitaire that, while too complex for me to fully grasp, appears to be more than sufficient to justify the theme and the gameplay loop. Brilliant.
  • Honestly, probably one of my favorites so far! I love the use of the theme and the idea to apply it to an existing, timeless game. The only things I could suggest would be refinement of play & a slightly more noticeable reset button. I'm eager to see this developed beyond the jam, winner or not. Keep at it!

Did you include your Game Design Document in your downloadable files?
Yes

Tell us about your game!
Controls:

Escape (for local download), P - Pause Game
Left Mouse Button - Interact with cards and buttons
About the game:

The player will play a game of Solitaire in which they have to chose their moves carefully, as any mistake could prove really dangerous for the course of the game. The game revolves around the mechanic of two special cards, the priest and the vampire which want to affect the cards, each in their own way.

- The priest is on a quest to heal all vampires (which are represented by the red cards) and turn them back into simple villagers (which are represented by the black cards)

- The vampire wants to expand his domain by biting innocent villagers and transforming them into vampires

Both the priest and the vampire will be active when in their lairs:

- The priest’s lair is a silver tray.

- The vampire’s lair is a coffin.

This mechanic can lead to breaking previously possible moves between cards, making the game harder to complete. However, the player is not without tricks! There are ways of avoiding the disastrous outcome of letting the special cards do as they will with their game:

- At the beginning of the game, the special cards will be sneaking around vampire and villager cards, but the player can notice them as they have no number on their card. The player can work his way around not uncovering them to keep the game easy to control for as much as possible

- However, if any special card is uncovered, not all hope is lost. There are 3 neutral slots which can be used to place any card, be it black, red or special. Will trading a neutral spot to keep a special card at bay be worth it? Many times, yes, but there will be moments when the player might find themselves in a spot in which they’d have to sacrifice some turns in which special cards are active in order to make a play.

The game is won when all cards are removed from the board and placed, in order from 1 to 13, in their color slots.

Did you remember to include your Game Design Document?
Yes

Is your game set to Public so we can see it?
Yes

Extra Notes
Please enjoy the game!

Leave a comment

Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.

Comments

Submitted

This is cool, I dig it!

I'm still getting hang of the new twist, but what I have played is solid. Actually when I was brainstorming I had considered a card game, but it didn't seem to go anywhere, so I was excited to see this.

Art-wise I wish the background matched the card aesthetic a bit closer. I like the pixelated sharp card illustrations and they look a little out of place against the soft painterly background art. That said, minor critique, overall cool.

Developer

I love the feedback! Thanks!

Regarding the art, wooh, let's just say that I found out the hard way why Solitaire generally has vertical instead of horizontal cards. Only later, after I finished all the assets for the cards I have realized that they definitely don't fit in there. After redoing everything twice, I've had enough and I just went with the pixelated scaled down version of my original assets. You can actually see how the original assets looked like on the itch page and in the yet to come trailer for the game.

Submitted

Chill game, nice atmosphere. Not much to say, it's solitaire-ish. Not sure if that can be expanded into different card games or another element too it?

Developer

Thank you for giving it a shot! Hope you had fun.

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Really cool concept !
Managed to beat it on my 4th try :)

Not sure I really played it right though since I mainly just avoid using the vampire & the priest all together.
The fact that they're here to disrupt the game randomly don't really push to use them at all :s
I think it would be a good idea to give more control on what card you affect so you can strategize with them.
A good idea would be to have them active when they're in the free spots instead of on their spot and target the line they're on. so that you can choose which card to switch color (that would help the player getting unstuck)

All in all it's a very solid entry with a really cool concept. good job :)

Developer

Thank you so much for the feedback!

I don't think there's a right or wrong way of playing the game. If you won I think you deserve the praise for that achievement! Sometimes you are able to avoid the vampire and the priest, but other times there's a chance that one or even both might be activated at the beginning of the game and you'll have to adapt.

However, your idea of having the possibility to not randomly affect cards is an interesting concept. Thanks for the idea! We'll explore it.

The reason for which we chose to have them active when in their lairs, was to make it so that the player has to make a choice: either keep the special cards deactivated or take a risk and keep them active, with the benefit that you have extra neutral zones. Your idea with the target rows, though, would make for a very for a very interesting mechanic. 

Lots of thanks again! Really cool!

Submitted(+1)

oooh that is awsome and special type of solitare i like play it

Developer

I'm glad you enjoy it!

(+2)

Me: This is going well.
Priest and vampire: Allow us to introduce ourselves.

Submitted(+1)

Great art work, music is a good choice for the aesthetic/theme of the game. The intro was a bit wordy, I find myself auto-clicking through it by the end and then I had to restart because I'd missed important information lol. Obviously that's my fault but might be worth making the opening instructions/tutorial a bit more to the point. Great entry!

Developer(+1)

Ha ha, the 'missing important information' part had me laughing! Thanks a lot for your feedback! I'll keep it in mind.