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A jam submission

DiademView game page

A bullet hell RPG.
Submitted by KingW, ZahranW (@zahranworrell)
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Diadem's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Audio#74.1434.143
Overall#104.1964.196
Gameboy-ness#104.3574.357
Fun#113.8573.857
Graphics#154.4294.429

Ranked from 14 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

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Comments

Submitted(+2)

No way ! This is such a complete and polished game it's really impressive ! The spritework and transitions are so crisp and the music is pretty upbeat. I don't think I've bumped into any bugs outside some of the save issues, but I do agree in terms of UI during the battle scenes next to the 'action!' call there could be a 'use item' too to remind players that they could use items during fights. All round great job !

Submitted

This game is very nice!

The Undertale combat style, the amazing graphics, the great and almost too gameboy-ish sound effects... It all adds up to the greatness of this game.

The graphics really stood out to me for two reasons. They are very very professional and well made. The sprites, the animations, all of it breathes professionalism. Although, a great point of a game can alaso be its Achilles' heel, which happens to be the case. By being such a good looking game, it ends up being just that. A good looking game with a Gameboy palette. I have noticed with a couple of submissions in this game that people tend to forget the lack of sprite work adds to the gameboy feel that a game can have. The sprite and animation works in this game are so good they end up damaging the Gameboy-ness of this game, being only saved by the accurate sound effects that feel like they really bellong in a GB game.

The way the save house is supposed to work isn't really that explicit. Actually, it isn't at all. It's just an empty house, which leaves you wondering if you need to interact with something there. I tried interacting with everything but to no avail. No sounds, no pop-ups, nothing. I thought something had happened, i decided to give it the benefit of the doubt but once I died and went back to the beginning, I had understood the two save houses I had gotten in were useless.

Talking about the save system, after I lost and started the game again, the whole screen was black besides the character, no matter where I went.

The gameplay is fun for those who like UT or never really experienced that type of combat. Although, it becomes a bit dull and repetitive (at least in the beginning. I only played a bit, until the caves, then I died. It's just walking to the next screen & finishing up the enemies. 

But all in all, it's a very well made game! Congratulations! :)

Developer (1 edit)

thanks for the positive feedback!
it appears that you have encountered two bugs with the saving system in the game.

1. inside of the save houses there is supposed to be a old man you can talk to, it sounds like none of the npc's spawned for you. 

2. because there was no one to save with, the game loaded a empty save when you died and pressed retry, placing the player at 32,32 (which is his starting point) and also not loading in any of the object.

these have been fixed in the post jam version of the game. though i believe i need to wait for voting to end to update it.

Submitted(+1)

Wow ! Impressive amount of game there !

And very nice combat system !

Submitted

Very nice, and fun combats! The "eyes" monster's pattern was super interesting.

Submitted

Very nice game with an interesting fighting system and very good art and audio. Cool, that you also implemented a save system, very well done!

Submitted

Absolutely wonderful game.  

Submitted

Nice art , gameplay and good use of colors.

Submitted

Everything about this is pretty great! Though, my favorite part has to be the quirky dialogue. I encountered a glitch of sorts. I saved the game with a key in my inventory, but when I went to use the key after loading the save, the door would not even register that I had a key.

Developer

glad you enjoyed, sorry to hear that you ran into that error. 
I will be sure to fix it when uploading the post jam build.

Submitted(+1)

This is really good! And the combat system is very interesting too, if we could a bigger rez, I would suggest to put the monsters on a back and to actually see them getting hit, like old Dragon Fantasy. I understand why this game doesn't have it and it's really not relevant. The game is really good! Well done!

PS: Feel free to try my game out! Cheers!

Developer(+1)

Hey! Glad you enjoyed it! I'll be sure to check your game out :P

Submitted

Thanks!

Submitted(+1)

Light spoilers mentioned, as a heads up for other players.

I loved the graphics in this game, it definitely felt like something I'd see out of a gameboy game. The palette switches were nice and really helped set the mood. The enemy dialogue you received when entering a battle that could be different each time was a really fun and nice touch. Also the audio was pretty satisfying, and the music was really nice.

I do have a few criticisms though. To start, the game was registering my input even if I was not focused on the window. For example, when focusing on my discord window, "c," "enter," and etc. would register in-game. Also, the dialogue that talked of "weird lookin' men in dresses," I think "men in robes" would have not only been more apt, but would have also immediately given me the vibes of "oh, this is a cult thing," instead of what my initial thought was. And when it comes to the final boss fight, I honestly could not beat it. I probably could have if I spent a lot more time on it, but considering it came right after a different fight that is also somewhat difficult, I was never able to enter it with full health and I just could not get through it.

The fighting mechanic was fun, though I wish there was a way to recover health mid-fight. Almost makes the mushroom in the save house in the hallway feel redundant, as by that point I had nowhere else to use it. The gameplay was interesting though, it was amusing how you saved your progress and recovered health. It was also fun how at the very end there was a save house smashed through the hallway, I thought that was a nice touch.

Developer

Hey! Thanks for the criticism, I really appreciate it! We'll be sure to address it in our post jam build.

You can heal mid fight by the way. Just press X or Enter to open up the menu.

Submitted

Oh huh, I never realized about the mid-fight healing! Thanks for the heads up!

Submitted

What a charming RPG! It seems like the battle system draws a lot from Undertale, but it works quite well here. The names and designs of your enemies are great, though I felt some of the battles (Stallawalla, perhaps) were a couple turns longer than they needed to be. Maybe I get better gear later, I didn't make it super far before dying and spawning in a black room.

I wasn't sure if I was in a Mother 3 scenario where I needed to trust and walk for a while, and I ended up coming to a cloudy room with towers and a broken heart, which looked to me like the end of your game. I kept exploring for a bit, but I was stuck outside all of the walls. My guess is that I died without ever properly saving (I entered a couple save houses, but wasn't sure if they saved automatically, I couldn't seem to interact with anything in them). Without setting a spawn point, I think I defaulted to the top left screen of your map. Walking down a couple screens and right maybe 6-ish got me to the cloud-heart room.

I think your menu text was invisible for me, too. I could see a cursor pointing at nothing when I paused the game. Battle UI all worked great, though.

Anyway, there's some promise here for sure, but there are a couple big issues you may want to address.

Developer

I'm glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for those bug reports! Btw you have to talk to the save man to save.

Submitted

Save man? The houses were empty for me... very peculiar, I wonder what could have caused it?

Submitted(+1)

What a charming RPG! It seems like the battle system draws a lot from Undertale, but it works quite well here. The names and designs of your enemies are great, though I felt some of the battles (Stallawalla, perhaps) were a couple turns longer than they needed to be. Maybe I get better gear later, I didn't make it super far before dying and spawning in a black room.

I wasn't sure if I was in a Mother 3 scenario where I needed to trust and walk for a while, and I ended up coming to a cloudy room with towers and a broken heart, which looked to me like the end of your game. I kept exploring for a bit, but I was stuck outside all of the walls. My guess is that I died without ever properly saving (I entered a couple save houses, but wasn't sure if they saved automatically, I couldn't seem to interact with anything in them). Without setting a spawn point, I think I defaulted to the top left screen of your map. Walking down a couple screens and right maybe 6-ish got me to the cloud-heart room.

I think your menu text was invisible for me, too. I could see a cursor pointing at nothing when I paused the game. Battle UI all worked great, though.

Anyway, there's some promise here for sure, but there are a couple big issues you may want to address.

Submitted(+1)

Awesome job with the general feel of this! I really dig the characters and personality you gave them. The battles were challenging but fair and the music worked very well in setting the pace. Well done!