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A jam submission

Pharaoh: Ancestors' StaffView game page

Play as Pharaoh and fulfill your destiny!
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Pharaoh: Ancestors' Staff's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Audio#14.2004.200
Graphics#24.4674.467
Accessibility#33.3333.333
Controls#43.6003.600
Overall#63.4673.467
Fun#73.7333.733
Originality#183.0003.000
Theme#411.9331.933

Ranked from 15 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Godot Version
4.1

Wildcards Used
N/A

Game Description
The Pharaoh is about to fulfill his destiny with the staff of his ancestors.

How does your game tie into the theme?
You have inherited a defect staff from your ancestors.

Source(s)
N/A

Discord Username
xandruher, wighz, kyveri, buzzmsc, sashatouille_, travh98

Participation Level (GWJ Only)
10+

My game has an export for Linux, Windows, & Mac and/or is playable through HTML5

name

description

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Comments

Submitted

Incredible graphics and sound. And very ambitious game. As with the  Pharaoh two steps to heaven my computer seemed to have some FPS issues and when I first loaded into a level took awhile before I could move around in a comfortable manner. Once in the game the experience was quite enjoyable. I found the difficulty appropriate (have not beat the game yet - Just beat second boss) - but I would die in a area and come back and play better. First boss took 3 or 4 tried second was 3 tried - so glad there is a challenge but not an impossible one.

Two biggest complaints:

Theme did not really seem to fit

Load times were a little painful - could have been my computer

Overall great submission you guys - really enjoyed it keep them coming - hope you can package the different pharaoh games together into one polished end product.

Developer

Thanks for playing our game and glad you liked it!

Yes the theme got cut unfortunately. The idea was the staff is malfunctioning like wrong aim, or self damage spells etc.

Load times I cannot say anything about it but even we did a lot of optimization it can be surely done better. But 3D is also hard for that and we also provided a lot of settings which might help you. (Not sure you tried them out in the menu with Esc)

I like the idea of putting it into one big game. Still even with those 2 games it already had different teams, quality and other stuff. The Pharaoh is some sort of my preferred Jam Character now and will continue his journey whenever I have to make the design.

Submitted

What an incredibly ambitious game jam project - and it payed off for the most part. The Models, Textures, Environments and 2D art were all beautiful (albeit sometimes interrupted with the odd visual glitch). The music was fitting and sounded really good. 

The only critique I can reasonably bring up is a weak connection to the theme - yes, narratively the staff is broken, but it doesn't show in-game that much. It feels like an usual progression mechanic and less like actual malfunctions. Maybe the staff may have missfired or there was more visual feedback when trying to use a spell that isn't unlocked? I think it'd have been worth cutting a bit of content to make time to incorporate the theme more.

Aside from this point, this is an extraordinary feat y'all have accomplished here.

Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing our game and glad you enjoyed the graphics and audio!

I agree the theme is a bit loose here. The main idea was that the staff is not working correctly and you go out and try to show your worthiness to make the staff working correctly. (like Excalibur, only in the right hands it can be handled). I also thought of you can use the spells, but they have negative effects on you then. Unfortunately almost all of it got cut in the finishing line.

Submitted(+2)

I thought I recognized the player asset from somewhere! 

I remember your GWJ#58 submission: nicely done! As before, amazing 3d models. Though, this time, the camera sometimes glitched randomly. The animation could maybe have been more smooth. Wonderful vegetation assets (trees, grass). Could we maybe hope for some animated grass in a future entry? (^◕ᴥ◕^)

I liked the fighting mechanics, and I really appreciated that I could replenish my health/mana by defeating my enemies. The levels started to become repetitive after a while, and sometimes I had to move around to find the obelisk-like thing. 

I really liked that you could choose an upgrade at the end of each level, and that they changed every time. Thanks for posting! (^˵◕ω◕˵^)

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

Thanks for playing our game and glad you liked it!

Yes, it is the Pharaoh coming back to another jam. (He is even older from my very first jam (GWJ47) which didn’t made it into submission) But last time he got the texture upgrade, while now a massive animation upgrade and new staff weapon.

Thanks for the notice here. I was too tired after jam but also updated that info on game description!

Animated grass would be cool! Although we had already performance issues and I don’t know how expensive that is.

I agree that the levels are a bit repetitive. As per usual we over scoped here. I had also made a snake or wanted to add more mobs to give some variety to the levels or different mob behaviors.

Making vegetation assets was new for me this jam and interesting to make. Glad you liked the replenish mechanic, I was hoping it makes playing more comfortable.

Submitted(+1)

Obvious things first: fantastic visuals and fantastic music! I'm afraid I didn't get very far, though - one of the mooks in the third levels flung himself into low Earth orbit and I wasn't able to finish the level without him. I'll come back to this one later.

Developer

Thanks for playing our game and glad you enjoyed the graphics and audio!

Yes the issues with the glef guys hasn’t solved until the end. Sad to hear it went bad for you and made it unfinishable.

Submitted(+1)

Awesome graphics and music. I'm really not sure what I'm doing wrong but currently I've not managed to land a single point on the leaderboard on either attempt. Very confused about the combat system! 

Mind you, I suck at action games. I'm all about puzzles and strategy and exploration. So this is not on the creators!

A very impressive effort for a jam. Not sure about the theme, but thanks for including a Mac download so I could play along

Developer

Thanks for playing our game and glad you enjoyed the graphics and audio!

I agree the theme is a bit loose here. The main idea was that the staff is not working correctly and you go out and try to show your worthiness to make the staff working correctly. (like Excalibur, only in the right hands it can be handled). I also thought of you can use the spells, but they have negative effects on you then. Unfortunately lot got cut in the finishing line.

Regarding jam rules, it is stating either browser or all three platform exports so nothing special then! Thanks for taking the extra step with downloading and also happy to hear it worked on Mac!

Submitted(+2)

Wow. A full-fledged 3D entry with AI enemies, a robust combat system (involving melee and magic attacks), and upgrades as the progression system. Setting-appropriate sound and aesthetic that immerses the player in ancient Egypt. 

I might be a cowardly player, but I liked the fact that the gameplay is forgiving (IE: health / mana replenishments as you attack mid-combat) and allows the player to experience the full game in one playthrough. A solid hour of fun.

Fantastic environment design, UI, and a lot of attention to detail in little corners all over (IE: the particles that float out of the pool). Super-thorough menu and accessibility options as well. Amazing what was achieved here within the timespan of nine days.

Sadly, I peaked at 4446 points at the tail-end of the leaderboard, confirming what I already knew: I would've been the guy carrying bricks on my back up the pyramid in the old days.

Developer

Thanks for playing our game and very glad you liked it! It took a lot of effort and I am happy those details get noticed and honored!

(+1)

Very cool and impressive game for the Jam. Although, I personally didn't feel like it fit the theme too well, I did think it was pretty well done. Graphics and Sound were excellent, as well as the amount of options in the menu. I did find the combat a bit boring tbh, it seems like it's just not hard enough, and there is not enough feedback for when you get hit and when you're doing damage to the enemies.

Overall good job!

Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing our game and this extensive feedback! Glad you liked it!

I agree the theme is a bit loose here. The main idea was that the staff is not working correctly and you go out and try to show your worthiness to make the staff working correctly. (like Excalibur, only in the right hands it can be handled). Unfortunately we had to cut a lot of content and polishing things up which ended up in cuts. Same applies to the combat itself. We had more animations and vfx ready but we ran out of time to implement it.

Submitted(+1)

Cool

Submitted(+1)

Great job! Really impressed by what you guys managed to put together in such a short time frame. It was pretty fun and I got all the way to the end with a score just shy of 5000. The lowest on the leaderboard :'(

The sound design was top notch. I found the little clicking sounds in the menus very satisfying. The music was solid too, very professional sounding, but maybe lacking somewhat in identity.

The controls all worked great and were intuitive.

The artwork was really solid all around, both 2D and 3D. I especially liked the architecture and the painting of MC-kun on the loading screen. 

In terms of performance, there were instances where my game would freeze up, usually when multiple enemies were visible at once. Sometimes some strange visual glitches would flash onscreen as well. But outside of this it was fine, especially given the multitude of visual settings I could configure. 

Great work overall guys! 

Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing our game and this extensive feedback! Glad you liked it that much!

Performance was our biggest enemy in that jam. It was even worse and we spent lots of time optimizing it. Luckily at least we offer Settings so you can adjust to your needs.