Solidly made arena shooter. Things could have moved a bit faster though, felt like treading through mud. I played 1.03. The generic stat upgrades felt not too interesting and not sure what each of them did like looting%. The new cards were pretty cool as well as the combination ability but there didn't seem to be many slots to use them. I assume one of the shrines would upgrade that, but there should be a notification when they spawn in since it takes such a long trek to get across the map. I'll see what the recent update looks like but this is just rating the version I think you submitted.
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Zemstar Assault's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Genre Mashup Incorporation | #2 | 4.091 | 4.273 |
| Engagement/Fun | #4 | 3.830 | 4.000 |
| Magical Girl Concept | #4 | 3.917 | 4.091 |
| Polish | #5 | 3.743 | 3.909 |
| Overall | #5 | 3.792 | 3.961 |
| Graphics | #9 | 3.917 | 4.091 |
| Audio | #9 | 3.482 | 3.636 |
| Originality/Creativity | #13 | 3.569 | 3.727 |
Ranked from 11 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the Magical Girl Genre?
This game features four lovely magical girls - Maja, Daria, Estera and Kasia, who derive their power from the Kards, which are ancient magical artifacts from an alien race. They are themed around powers of Weather, Blood (?), Nature, and Fire, respectively, although for the purposes of this first version of the game they kind of mix and match powers.
Which genres from categories A and B did you choose?
Shoot em' up and Cards.
How does your game mash those genres?
The player starts with two cards, then gains more through card packs dropped by enemies. These cards, when equipped in your card belt, determine which attacks and abilities you can use in the main shoot em' up part of the game.
Were the graphics/audio assets for your game made during the jam?
Everything was made from scratch for this jam, except for the fonts. All the assets, sounds, code, and the one (1) music track were all made specifically for the jam.
Comments
I played version 1.03, which seems to be "jam version, but fixed".
This game reminds me of some of the flash games of my youth, in terms of gameplay if less so in terms of graphics. The promo/key art really drew me in- it's colourful, fun, and attractive. The in-game art is a little more pedestrian, but still functional and visually pleasing.
I have mixed feelings about the enemies being scaled pixel art. Strictly speaking it's _wrong_, but I'm not a purist and I didn't find it horrendously ugly.
Looking back, I think it could use some more impressive effects, visual and audio. But it didn't really feel lacking while playing.
I like the storyline and premise, but I wish a bit more of it came through in the game itself.
My first impression of the gameplay was very positive. Although I've played similar games in the distant past, it stands out in this jam, and running around shooting weird monsters is pretty fun.
As I played more, a few issues started to crop up. Some of these might already have been addressed in newer versions.
- You have limited card slots, which is fine, but once you've selected a card, you can't swap it out for a different one. By the end I had a dozen cards I couldn't do anything with*
- I got no card packs for a long time, and then a lot started dropping. This is a bit of a weird curve.
- XP and card packs drop right below enemies, which makes it really hard to pick them up, especially since...
- The player character moves really slow, barely faster than most enemies and slower than some others. This makes it really hard to do any sort of maneuvering past "lazy circles".
- The card that pushes enemies away helps, but recharges too slowly and doesn't push far enough to be all that useful.
I played up to about level 15, then I started getting bored of it. The core mechanics could use some tweaking, but they're pretty solid, and there is a good sense of progression and variety. After a while, though, I just needed something more to keep me interested. Maybe some narrative, maybe more dramatic progression like switching out to another girl.
*I checked the game page after and realized this can't be done when the cards are on cooldown, which is probably what happened. If there was a clearer indicator of this in game, that would be great, but I think you're already aware of this.
Thanks for playing! I do plan to add tooltips and such in an update soon but I've updated the game description to be clearer about the controls in general.
There is a single music track that loops consistently throughout the game - it's worked whenever I or any of my friends have tested it :[ Are you perhaps using the Mac version? I don't have a Mac so I haven't been able to test that, although it should be the same as the Windows version.
You're certainly right about the gameplay being repetitive... This game was quite inspired by a game called Vampire Survivors which has a similar concept but is executed a lot more smoothly and is faster paced. I do recommend since it really does the concept justice. This game has been quite the learning experience in that regard... The active ability cards were an attempt to spice the gameplay up but it does seem like they need a buff. And if you found the first level to be long... a full playthrough through all the levels takes about 60 minutes, eheheh. Although I like to think it gets more exciting beyond the first level once your cards get stronger and such.
Also, I double checked and it turns out that the movement speed stat upgrade does work, it was just such a tiny amount that the results weren't really visible. I gave it a pretty substantial buff and it seems to be a noticeable change now.
That bug with enemies being left over was super frustrating as I couldn't reproduce it in the Unity editor, but I've since solved it - the latest version should be fully playable.
Thanks for the feedback! :)
I feel this game is inspired by vampire survivor. i like vampire survivor and paid for it. With some more varient of levels and cards (that needs to be unlocked), i guess you can put your game to store.
There is some small suggestion i would like to make. it's frustrating that some UI requires player to use arrow buttons, not WASD, not mouse (even when there are triangles that seems like clickable). And i feel it makes things much easier with auto sortings. For manual actions, i would prefer sorting it to start from key 1. As the card loop in circle, it's hard to tell the key for each slot. for inventory panel, i would prefer sorting the cards by power, because in the late game, the weak cards don't matter.
In my play, i bascially rely on auto actions. i feel the output is more reliable. if you want to push player to try manual actions with long cooldown time, maybe try buffing it. And just like vampire survivor, i only buff output and luck, and don't care health or defense.
PS, i also get the enemy counter stuck problem (v1.03)
I'm glad people are picking up on the Vampire Survivors inspiration. I did originally want to have a wider selection of cards and unlockables and such but I really ended up scrambling with the time constraints, so perhaps I'll end up adding those later.
You're definitely right about the UI. The first version of the UI that I had started with started to feel natural since I was using it every time I tested the game, but in retrospect it is definitely quite clunky and unintuitive. I plan to do a UI overhaul at some point in the future and I will definitely be looking into implementing your suggestions :)
You're also right about the abilities... I'll definitely be looking at buffing them soon, since the original idea was that they would be on par with weapons in terms of usefulness. I originally intended there to be enemies with different attack patterns so that health and armor would be more valuable stats, but I guess they ended up not being too necessary in the final version.
Anyway, thanks for playing, and thanks so much for the feedback :)
I wouldn’t be surprised if someone told me that this is a full game released on Steam; it is really polished and the drawings/graphics are superb. I also appreciate the facial animations when hurt. The card animations when looting and upgrading all add up to the polish and make the game feel good. Every effect/ability is unique in its own way and represents a different playstyle that can be mixed and matched. There was no cheaping out on effects, each one is different, each one has its own animations, and each one is useful; very well designed and implemented in this aspect, I am very impressed. It is a great game, I had fun and I managed to beat the Mothership boss in about an hour with Daria but there are a couple of problems and criticisms I wish addressed.
On my first playthrough with Maja, there’s a bug where I couldn’t get past the first level. There were 16 enemies left I think, and they just never came. I walked around the whole map and there was nobody. So I had to restart, and in my 2nd playthrough with Daria, I just stayed relatively near the center and it was fine. I’m not entirely sure what caused it.
Minor complaint but the cards need some sort of filter/sorting as it gets difficult to manage when you have a lot of it. Perhaps a way to quickly open boxes is good too, rather than having to click every card to reveal them every time. I know I said I had fun, and I really did, but the gameplay gets monotonous after a while. It’s interesting and fun to build the character and watch havoc break loose, but it’s not interesting at all to just hold left-click and press 1-2-3 for an hour - I’d rather have auto-attack than having to hold left-click for another second. Perhaps have more movement options like Armored Charge, increasing the pacing, or have defensive options like erecting walls, something to spice up the monotony.
Overall, I had good fun and it felt good playing Zemtar Assault. Great job!
I'm really happy to hear so much positive feedback and I'm glad you enjoyed it :)
Sorry about that bug in the first level, it was super annoying but I solved it in the end. I'm still not sure what caused it since I was never able to reproduce it in the Unity editor (weird!) but I implemented a different system for counting enemies and it works much better.
You're certainly right about the cards... I'm hoping to do a little overhaul of the UI and inventory system soon so I'll definitely be looking into ways to make the
Auto-attacking is definitely something I'll consider implementing - I was originally thinking of having gameplay elements that would incentivize not attacking for periods of time (like a perk that makes you build up damage by not attacking for a while, etc.) but as it is there isn't really a reason to let go of left click.
I'll also be looking into adding more ability cards, since I do think they have the potential to spice things up. There is also a system almost fully implemented for modifier cards (you'd attach them to your equipped cards to add extra damage or special effects and stuff) so once / if that gets implemented, it should hopefully add another dimension to the gameplay as well.
Thanks for the feedback, and thanks for playing!
Game reminds me of vampire survivor, ofc it does the games fine when you figure out that TAB is where you equip your cards/spells to actually do things, the leveling up you can actually skip out accidentally, idk if movement speed actually gets faster if you level it up, didn't feel any different. Otherwise the game has much potential with some polishing on animations and sprites to give better visual indications.
Submitted
MagiCardGlad to see a fellow Vampire Survivors enjoyer lol, I can see we had some similar ideas for our games :]
I've had some other people tell me the same thing about the levelup menu, I'll probably make it come up a little slower so it's not as easy to click one accidentally. Also, in regards to the movespeed upgrades, it was working but the amount it increased by was so small that the result wasn't noticeable. I buffed it substantially in more recent versions so it should be a better levelup investment now lol.
Thanks for playing & thanks for the feedback! :)
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