Thank you so much for participating - lots of great things to build on here!
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Also known as weapon's itch.io pageResults
Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
Game Mechanics | #18 | 2.609 | 2.609 |
Design | #24 | 2.478 | 2.478 |
Overall | #35 | 2.174 | 2.174 |
Interpretation of the Theme(s) | #47 | 1.435 | 1.435 |
Ranked from 23 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Comments
As for the theme, I included it in the storyline. Although it’s clichéd, I couldn’t come up with anything better. I decided that the king of one of the western countries started his expansion by conquering neighboring states. I planned to expand on this idea by including several boss fights where our character could learn new moves and expand his arsenal of martial arts, but unfortunately, I didn’t manage to do that. In the end, I decided that it was better to release a completed game than nothing at all.
The game is very very cool! I loved the minimalist artstyle and the animations, especially the parry! The game needs some polish and bug fixes, plus a general pass on the artstyle to keep it cohesive throughout the game, but it has a lot of potential!
A couple of suggestions to improve the game even more:
- Change the text spawning animation speed (make it spawn faster) and also sound (use a shorter and less "acute", lower pitch sound, the repeated high pitch and long sound can get annoying, especially when the text animation takes this long);
- Make it so that the "next" button for the dialogue first makes all the text appear immediately, then if clicked again, makes you go to the next dialogue bit (like in other RPG games dialogue boxes);
- I found a bug where you can jump onto enemies head and stand there, with the enemy not attacking you but you being able to attack the enemies and defeating them very easily: to fix this, maybe you could make the enemies not have collision (make their collider a trigger collider so you can walk through them);
- Add a cooldown time to your parry, paired with an animation that shows you when you can parry again maybe (read below), and a sound too maybe.
- Add more animations and feedback to both the player's and enemies' actions, for example, add a clear feedback for when the enemy makes damage to your player (for example make the player flash white and have some knockback, plus add some hit sounds) and a feedback animation or sound also when you parry an enemy's move, kind of like in the parry/counter-attack for the Super Smash Bros games if you ever played them;
- Don't replay the same dialogue when a player dies and restarts the game, as there is no need for the player to read that again, plus it gets in the way if I just want to quickly retry and restart the game;
- As an additional tweak to make the parry animations even cooler (which is very easy to implement), I would suggest to make 2 black bars appear on the top and bottom of your screen every time your parry animation plays to make the parry feel more cinematic (but beware that the animation it may get too repetitive, test out if this makes the gameplay funnier or only less tedious).
As someone else pointed out already, the "expanding" theme of the jam was not considered for this game, but that's totally alight, you are still getting playtesters and useful feedback for your game this way, while also giving feedback to other games as well, and I respect that.
Please keep working on the game, it is very very fun to play, already has great animations, great game feel too, and minimalist but stylish graphics, it could be a great different take on the "Kingdoms" game genre with a martial art warrior instead of a knight, and I can see it getting pretty popular since there are not a lot of side scrolling RPG games out there. Very good job!
a good storyline, though the gameplay is really easy and it seems to repeat itself, no sense of verity or challenge, even the boss fight was easy.
but it is short and sweet to play only once. though I do not see anything of the theme in here and the gameplay doesn't really feel like the theme at all.
Good game with a storyline and all! Thought maybe it would be cooler if the theme was implemented somewhere in the game mechanics. I liked the parry a lot!
I cannot see when the jam theme is included. Narrative is nice by design, but I wish that it could be sped up (appearing faster or all at once, after clicking on them). Gameplay is cosy, however using RMB is way harder than just LMBing enemies from further distance. Last enemy should be a lot tougher, I think (I knocked them down in one LMB, is this intended?). Also little nice tip: in 2d side scrollers its nice to have camera Lerp after player like you did, but its even better if camera gets a little but ahead of the player, so I see more whats in front of me instead of behind me (Its of similar complexity as Lerping).
As for the theme, I included it in the storyline. Although it’s clichéd, I couldn’t come up with anything better. I decided that the king of one of the western countries started his expansion by conquering neighboring states. I planned to expand on this idea by including several boss fights where our character could learn new moves and expand his arsenal of martial arts, but unfortunately, I didn’t manage to do that. In the end, I decided that it was better to release a completed game than nothing at all.
Regarding the dialogues, I agree that it would be better to implement fast text scrolling. I simply decided to postpone that task and, unfortunately, forgot about it. You are right about the combat system — I had no prior experience developing a system with parrying, and I had gotten used to quickly rushing through the game by clicking the right mouse button at the right moments.
As for the final opponent, if you are referring to the king, then yes, he was indeed meant to be taken down in one hit, as he was in despair. I will try to learn more about Lerp. Overall, thank you for the feedback and evaluation. I hope I have answered some of your questions.
I played your game it's interesting and has good puzzles, but unfortunately, most of the assets are not original (if not all), and the interpretation of the theme seems forced. I mean, as a puzzle, it could exist without this, and the darkness itself doesn't hinder gameplay
what can I say I really liked the game
Far to the west, there is a country that has nearly consumed an eastern nation, expanding its borders and leaving a trail of blood in its wake
Once, this army passed through a forest, where there was a warrior who...To attack, press the LMB.
If you want to parry an enemy, move closer to him and wait; you will know when to press RMB
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