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A jam submission

Boss: Life on the edgeView game page

Submitted by geop — 46 minutes, 48 seconds before the deadline
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Boss: Life on the edge's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Theme/Limitation#563.5293.529
Technical Implementation#1003.2353.235
Fun/Design#1203.2353.235
Graphics/Animation#1363.2353.235
Overall#1502.9882.988
Music/Sound#3131.7061.706

Ranked from 17 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How does your game apply the limitation (and optionally, the theme)?
You play as a fantasy dungeon Boss who fights heroes. You are living "on the edge" because fighting is stressful. When stress levels are maxed out, you lose the game.

Team Size

Solo (1)

What main engine/tool/language did you use to construct the game?
Godot engine

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Comments

Submitted

Intriguing idea and use of the themes.

Sound effects would add so much to the experience - even if they were just noises made with your mouth and pitch-shifted.

As others have said, a tutorial would have helped me get to grips with what I was doing quicker.

(Also, pixel art and rounded corners - ahh! :D )

Good job.

Developer

Thank you very much for your feedback!

Great point about the rounded corners, I didn't think much about it but now I realize it's an obvious mistake. I need to improve my artistic skills :D Next time I'll also make sure to add at least some sound effects and a tutorial.

Thanks for playing!

Submitted

This was really cool, unique take on the theme.  Also it's always fun being the monster in the dungeon :)

Developer

Thank you very much for playing!

Submitted

Nice minimalistic dungeon keeper. Obviously sound/music missed a lot to get a great mood. Thought cute game. Well done.

Developer

Thanks for playing! I hope next time to have some time to add sound

Submitted

Nice game! I really like the concept as well, really good integration of the theme in the story and mechanics. Great Job!

Developer

Thank you very much for playing!

Submitted

Cool idea! I like the take on the theme, and the backstory is pretty funny. I feel like there's so many options, it leads to some "choice paralysis", and perhaps it might've been a good idea to spend some more time on polish and feedback instead of adding so many elements and spells and such. Good results though, it kind of gave me the vibe of a minigame that you would encounter in a larger RPG a la Final Fantasy

Developer(+1)

Hi, thanks for the review!

You're so right, I spent a lot of time adding weapons and attacks and items trying to balance them all but there was not a lot of time to do it. Feedback to the player is something that is really missing. I hope to be able to fix these problems in the future.

Cheers!

Submitted

good theme implementation fun game 

Developer

Thank you very much for playing!

Submitted

I really like the twist on the theme and sort ... reverse pokemon-ing! Your world building even just on the page write-up is appreciated. I just want to enjoy my kingdom and all these pesky heroes keep showing up.

It took me a while to get into the swing of things. I applaud all the effort that must have gone into building out the systems, but I think if you teased some of that out in pieces during a built-int tutorial I'd be better prepared to take on the challenge of retirement.

The overall design and aesthetic work really well. I think you should be very proud of this project.

Submitted

I really like the twist on the theme and sort ... reverse pokemon-ing! Your world building even just on the page write-up is appreciated. I just want to enjoy my kingdom and all these pesky heroes keep showing up.

It took me a while to get into the swing of things. I applaud all the effort that must have gone into building out the systems, but I think if you teased some of that out in pieces during a built-int tutorial I'd be better prepared to take on the challenge of retirement.

The overall design and aesthetic work really well. I think you should be very proud of this project.

Developer(+1)

Thank you very much for this review!

Definitely, a tutorial is really missing, I should have spent more time implementing a way to explain things with more detail, because as it is the mechanics are very obscure.

Thanks for your kind words! Cheers!

Submitted

Really liked your game ! The stress level is a very clever idea !

Some way to protect you from elemental damage would be a nice add. And it's definetly missing a nice soundtrack to complement it. There's also a lot (too many ?) options to pick and some seems to do kinda the same thing, so i didn't use most of them.

Appart from that, really good job ! it was fun to play :)

Developer(+1)

Hello, thank you for playing it!

Your analysis is correct, I should have found a way to streamline the number of options to avoid having too much repetition. Also right about the elemental protections, they are needed. I'll take these suggestions for future iterations on the concept. Thanks!

I wish I had the time to add audio :D I'm definitely going to add it next time.

Cheers!

Submitted

This is a good game, the UI is really clean and I love this sort of plan-for-encounter mechanic. Gives me lite Persona/calendar-RPG vibes where you need to strategize your prep for what's coming, and that's just a dopamine factory for me

For feedback, it feels a bit weird losing your stuff every round, but I get that's to balance the gems out. I'd also say that certain upgrades feel not worth it, because flooding the arena just does more damage unless they have a certain perk. I don't know how to describe it, but they feel too reactive rather than proactive (or maybe the other way around)? Like if I lose the flood every round, the only reason I'm not using it is the gem cost, and there's no reason to pick it over another 20 gem thing. I think it'd be really cool if there were waves of enemies where flooding one person could buff another person for example, so it's more of a puzzle on what to pick?

Developer(+1)

Thank you very much for the review!

You are right, there is a balancing problem and the example you brought is a proof for that. I wish I had more time to balance things out between weapons, attacks, items, statuses, gem costs etc. Your suggestion about the waves of opponents is actually really good and perfectly addresses some of these issues. I'll keep in mind for future developments of the concept!

Cheers!

Submitted

Great game, I see you have put a lot of creative effort in the items and mechanics, I really like it :D
The UI and game in general were really polished ! Congrats !

As a point of feedback I would say that I find it a bit unfortunate that there is no tutorial/help or feedback after a match and that the player had to figure everything out by himself. It would be a lie if I told that I wasn't completely lost with all the possible actions (Apparently I can do multiple attacks like magic and slash and whatnot, but they do not cost me anything, so what is the downside ? Is there a downside ? And the fights were random and you couldn't tell what happened ?) I feel like if there would be some more help it would've helped enjoying this game a lot more since all the mechanics really do look interesting !

Anyway, cheers on your entry, really like the process of it !

Developer(+1)

Hello, thank you very much for the thorough review, I really appreciate it!

You are completely right, some of the obscurity is "by design" because I wanted the player to try and understand the mechanics as they play the game, but I realize that overall everything is just too much obscure. I really should have explained how the fight planning works and I should have added more information on the fight outcome screen.

The selected attacks are all used in the battle, and there is no downside selecting more than one attack (though selecting an attack for which the opponent has protection penalizes you in battle), apart from spending more precious gems. The zero cost attacks are weaker than the attacks which cost more, so using the zero cost attacks on stronger opponents (higher levels) is not as much effective as using the attacks that costs more gems. 

I realize this information is really missing from the game. I should have explained this and other concepts at least on the game page :D

Cheers!

Submitted

Hi ! Thank you very much for the thorough answer ;)

I personally (too) like "obscure" design where the player has to discover everything on their own, some of my favorite games are like that :D I think I just had a harder time with this one because it seemed strange to me that you could use more than one attack and so I was confused with the rest. I think I will try your game again because it really does look interesting, and I'm sure that I'll enjoy it much more with your explanation, thank you !

Developer(+1)

Thank you very much! I appreciate it!

Submitted

Hey, just replayed your game, it feels really great to play when you know the controlls. Any chance you participate in future jams ?

Developer(+1)

Thank you very much for giving it another shot! I hope I will be able to participate in future jams if I manage to find the time

Submitted

I really would enjoy playing those (if you manage to find time for them). May our paths cross eachother again in the future !

Developer

Till next time!

Submitted

Amazing game! good job!

Developer

Thanks a lot!

Submitted

Really love the idea of playing as the boss and the tactic aspect of this game combined with the art. All these characters are looking so good. But im not having any audio.Great game;)

Developer(+1)

Hello, thanks for the review! There is no sound or music actually, I didn't have time to add them :D