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

The Legend of SarahView game page

Take a magical journey through a world of low-rez wonder.
Submitted by No Extra Lives — 1 hour, 37 minutes before the deadline
Add to collection

Play game

The Legend of Sarah's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Gameplay#713.6253.625
Overall#963.7503.750
Audio#1153.4173.417
Authenticity (Use of resolution restriction)#1264.4174.417
Graphics#1353.5423.542

Ranked from 24 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Did you work in a team?
I did all of the artwork, programming, and SFX. A friend made the music. I had a lot of fun designing this game!

Was the resolution a challenge?
This is my third time participating in LOWREZJAM so I had an idea of what to expect. I'm a programmer first and an artist... Well, not even second, third, fourth, or fiftieth. Most of my games use bad low-rez pixel art anyway, even when it's not a requirement!

The limited screen space does make it difficult sometimes to see what's ahead of you, but I tried to make sure that paths and objectives were simple to understand, dialogue was kept short and succint, and tried to limit the size of objects, due to the player taking up a lot of the screen on their own.

What did you learn?
I wanted to work on enemy AI and using different behavior states -- allowing things like damage knockback to disrupt an attack pattern or take control away from the player. The systems I wrote for this game can be applied to many future projects to control things more cleanly.

Leave a comment

Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.

Comments

Submitted(+1)

Fun and cute game! Actually, I was most impressed with the intro title cards, which were very clean and stylish looking! I only wish my game could look so good.

Submitted(+1)

I enjoyed playing this, the artwork is really cute, there is a good balance of combat and puzzles, and the in-game hints when you start is a nice touch. Well done!

Submitted(+1)

Good job!

HostSubmitted(+1)

Fun! I lost unfortunately, got killed in the overgrown outpost. It was those stone crabs and the switches on timers previously that cost me all that health though. As you say, the limited space doesn't help when seeing what's coming, and I forget easily so I can't rely on me to remember enemy patterns! The art and AI was on point though!

Submitted(+1)

Awesome game!!!

I loved the graphics, they are cute and the colors are very nice.

The gameplay is great, very responsive. Loved the tutorials that goes in the game, they're simple and very explicative. Also liked a lot how the dialogues shows, they were very simple and intuitive.

The musics are very nice too. I found that they matched well with the graphics and the areas that they play.

I liked the enemies that are in the game, and liked a lot the big plant boss. It does great damage, but there's enough life around to collect and fight it. Also, having to destroy the jars to get life helped a lot to find how to defeat the boss, I found that a good catch.

Loved the easter egg with the cat! =D

I only found a bug that stuck me when getting out of the crab fight area, where you get the key to enter the big plant boss dungeon. I was wenting to the boat by the left, walking in diagonal, and got stuck when teleporting. I'll post a print of it.

The only suggestion that I would do is to take a look at the volumes of the musics and the SFXs. Sometimes I couldn't hear the music, and sometimes I found the SFXs a little loud.

I felt a little unconfortable when walking with the character to the bottom, because the view area is lesser than walking to the top. Perhaps the character could be more centered in the screen.

But it's a really great game, I had a lot of fun with it!!
I think that it has a great potential for a RPG game, mainly if having a save mechanic to continue later. I didn't finished it all yet, I stopped after the boss, but I would be really insterested in playing more.

Congratulations for the entry!!!

Here's the screenshot of the bug:


Developer(+1)

Oh no 😟 I'll look into that bug. I think that comes from some code I changed in one place and not another...


Anyhow, thanks for playing! This will definitely be a longer game with a save system in the future; though for now it's very short. There's just a small section after clearing the dungeon at the moment.

Submitted(+1)

I could feel influence the Oracle games before reading it the game page. You really captured the cute simplicity of those games.

Submitted

Very good adventure for such restrictions, but the need to restart after wrong boulder move is annoying.

Submitted(+1)

This is great! Must have been a pretty huge effort!

Submitted(+1)

Cute little adventure! 

The level design is really nice. You did a really good job on showing a thing (Hit thing, open door) and then expanding on it (want to hit thing. Sword too short. Need another thing.)

The invincible crabs were also neat when you had to kill all the enemies to proceed.

Good work on teaching the player how to play using the environment instead of a wall of text. The inventory system is also pretty impressive. Were there more than the two items or did I miss one?

Developer

Thanks for playing!

There are 4 equippable items in the game, but 2 of them are optional. One is hidden in a secret location in the dungeon, and the other (the Laser Pointer) is an item I was going to use for a second dungeon, but didn't have time. You can buy the Laser Pointer in Luna City and use it to distract enemies (Goblobs will jump toward it, Poisonblooms will swipe at it instead of the player, etc.). So if someone is having trouble with the boss, it can be worth the time to grind some Gemcoins to get it. I don't want to spoil what the hidden item does, but it's something longtime Zelda fans are sure to appreciate :)

Submitted(+1)

Oh right! I saw the laser pointer and promptly forgot about it because it wasn't required to beat the game. 

Definitely going to have to go back for them.

Submitted

The game is super small for me (both on firefox and chrome). Looks fun tho, i'd like to play it :D

Developer

Are you on Mac/Linux? The part that sets the size of the game window only checked between Windows or Android/iOS, so it probably would show up small if you were on a different flavor of desktop... Patched it, though! Hopefully it'll work now.

Submitted(+1)

I'm on linux indeed. It works now, i'll play it tomorow, thank you!

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

I haven't finished this yet (the first boss kicked my butt), but I plan to come back! You did a great job teaching the player mechanics like killing the unkillable crabs via pushing blocks on them, and all the puzzles I've encountered through the first boss have been well conveyed and thoughtfully done. Also there is just the right amount of flounce to Sarah's hair, which makes for a fun-to-walk-around sprite. My only criticism is that Sarah's hurtbox seems a tad large in the upward direction, makes it hard to hit enemies from below with your sword.  

(Edited to add: I love the crab sprites so much!)

Developer

Thanks for playing! The first (and unfortunately only) boss is pretty tough
-- he's kicked my butt a few times, too :p

I agree about using the sword upward. It technically has the same range in any direction from the edge of Sarah's hitbox, but the perspective makes it feel off, which isn't something you want the player to experience. I'll look into ways of adjusting it for a post-jam build.