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A jam submission

DuatView game page

Egyptian themed dungeon crawler made for the dungeon crawler game jam 2024
Submitted by ColdEmber, Tutas (@tutasmaster) — 6 hours, 46 minutes before the deadline
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Duat's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Overall fun and playability#153.6743.674

Ranked from 43 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Theme incorporation
The themes inspired us to use Egyptian Mythology. Every day, the sun God fight the dark/Chaos God Apophis.

In this game you play the sun God daughters, trying to restore this endless cycle, before it's too late.

Apophis is also the god of Dark/Night/Space and the last level is space like, with a fight against it.

The levels features ruins, but that's a bit easy.

Finally, Egyptian myths are probably one of the main inspiration for the Chtulu mythos.

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Comments

Viewing comments 39 to 20 of 39 · Next page · Last page
Submitted

Similar to Errance, my laptop sucks too much to run this (Even the music can't play properly for me), which is unfortunate cause I like the general vibe here from what I can see. Not leaving a rating, obviously, I'm just a bit disappointed cause this one seems good. Lol.

Submitted

Nice game! Quite a lot of combat mechanics, which is great. Dungeon exploration was also pretty nice, with the verticality and lootboxes. I'm not a big fan of random encounters, but in this game they didn't bother me that much. I could explore a lot before being randomly interrupted :D I enjoyed the story and the characters, it's always a nice addition.

I think it would be more fun if the loot you picked up was more tangible, so you can choose who gets to equip what. Just a little bit more character building to spice things up. But it's not a necessary change; it's quite fun as-is as it rewards exploration.

Speaking of exploration, the dungeon levels felt a bit short. It's nice that there's a focused path to the next area, but some more exploration and dead ends wouldn't hurt, I think.

Overall, pretty solid and enjoyable game! Well done! :D

Submitted

Wow this was really cool!

I love the egyptian theme, the artwork was nice, the movement felt great, and I especially liked the camera shake when bumping into walls!

The inter-party banter I think works quite well, and I found it kinda funny when they dealt with the Sphinx. And the scripted encounters, especially the final boss were good too.

I do kinda wish the combat screens were more like the final boss though, with the enemies in front of the player in the actual world rather than on a 2D screen. It was a bit of a letdown that the win screen just keeps you frozen in front of the final boss, but that's a nitpick.

I liked the verticality to the level layout and how you can drop into different areas for extra items. The automap also worked very well I think, something I wish I had time to add in my entry.

I liked all the sound effects, and I especially liked the music!

Overall this was very well done, great work!

Developer(+1)

Thanks for all those kind words! They mean a lot!

Submitted (4 edits)

I like the nice handcrafted visuals. The use of colors in battle screens reminded me of Persona 3 Reloaded. I think the game looks clean and polished in terms of visuality. The movement is also smooth snappy but it gets staggery when player climbs up/down stairs. Story and setting of the game didn't piqued my interest that much but Ancient Egypy and  Pyramids are always a nice setting for dungeon crawlers i think. 

I think it would be better if you had done the battle screeen on first person camera as well. It looks weird when character portraits are attacking the monsters. Also it may be a personal thing but i think random battles really interrupting  the flow of the game. They are not too frequent but still it annoyed me bcs the dungeon is like a labyrinth, navigating through is  is already a challenge and you get into battles in every 1-2 mins. I played a lot of old school JRPGs and i still love them but i never liked this random battle thing.  Another thing about battles, i think in a JRPG style battle system there should be Item and Run options too.

I like the party banter stuff, it adds more depth to the story and makes the game  feel more alive. Encounter are also nice, you advance the story progress as you explore the dungeon further. I encountered the Sphinx boss and it killed me very easily. I think my party was underpowered for that boss. I believe it serves as a skill check for  players by guarding the enterance to the  next area.

In terms of UI/UX, automap looks very good and functional. Lack of an inventory i think is a downside in this kind of game. Checkpoints where you can heal the party and respawn when the party dies is a good idea. Otherwise the game would be much tiresome and frustrating bcs you can die a lot in this game.

I like the JRPG style music. It made me feel like i play Futaba's dungeon from Persona 5. It's theme was also Ancient Egypt.

Overall i think the game almost works perfectly in terms of gameplay mechanics except inventory system but it is not a big deal since it's a jam game.  This is  a pure JRPG style Dungeon Crawler  game, a genre which i am not very huge fan of but still i think it's a pretty soild entry.

Submitted

This was a very solid entry! Exploration and movement were very smooth and rewarding, you were encouraged to explore the entire level, music was good, RPG systems were very solid. Even though I'm not particularly a fan of JRPGs with their random encounters and slow combat, here it felt very well implemented: combat was quick paced and didn't waste your time and the encounters were spaced out very reasonably. 

Enjoyed my time here and beat the snake, setting free Ra and the stars!

Submitted

I defeated Apophis, and all was right with the stars!

I loved the Egyptian theme (I’m a sucker for it, really), and the banter between the sisters was amusing and well-written – I loved the answer to the riddle.

The art is excellent, and I liked how the final boss fight looked different. Speaking of which, I love your fight screen layout; it very much reminds me of the hyper-polished modern JRPG combat screens. The music during combat was pretty great, too. Combat didn’t pose much of a challenge once I leveled up a little and got a few upgrades, and the final boss was a walk in the park – for a jam game, that’s perfect, honestly.

Kudos for fully supporting controllers!

The only two minor issues were that in the pause/character screen, I couldn’t click on the setting button either with the mouse or gamepad. Also, using Hathor’s healing magic outside of a fight would have been nice.

Great entry; great job to all of you!

Submitted

Great Game! Really enjoyed the Egyptian theme and the map exploration. I made sure to fully explore every part for the satisfaction of filling out the map. I also think it was a really cool idea deviating from the normal battle visuals for the final boss

Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing and noticing the rule break at the end. I felt real smart doing it and I'm happy it pleased you huhu.

Submitted

Everything is really cohesive here and it's very 'complete' for a jam game. The setting and back story is interesting and the graphics really add to the overall mood. I did find the combat a bit dull and repetitive but I'll be the first to admit I'm not the biggest fan of JRPG style combat so it might just be me! Random thing I noticed is the UI would show 'Open (Enter key)' on doorways that you could just walk through seamlessly. Finally I have to mention that the battle music is an absolute jam - love it! Really solid entry. :)

Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing and putting with it, even though it's not a genra that you usually like!
>Random thing I noticed is the UI would show 'Open (Enter key)' on doorways that you could just walk through seamlessly.

Yeah, my favorite game does that (you can do both), so I did it as well, but it seems to bug a lot of people. I might have to ditch it for future games. 

Submitted

Haha, the ending is over a bit soon, the Hud is still overlaid, but it has story and dialogue, which are great! I like the level design and most of the music. The battles are good and the characters are cute! The map was very helpful and I liked that it filled it out with the space you are looking at ahead as well. It would be nice to add the character icons to the person talking as it's a touch hard to tell between the three, and there are a few times Bastet had different spelling in the dialogue. The only other big thing is that when you go up a set of stairs, the camera is really low to the ground. I remember I had that issue years ago with a different dungeon crawler I was making in UE4, so I don't blame you too hard! Overall a solid entry with a fun theme and characters!

Developer

Thanks for the nice words!
>It would be nice to add the character icons to the person talking as it's a touch hard to tell between the three
For sure yeah, I was a bit lazy to not include portraits during discussion. It would have been around 30 min of work, but I just cut it for some reason.
>I remember I had that issue years ago with a different dungeon crawler I was making in UE4, so I don't blame you too hard!
What was the cause for you ? Could help me, not make the same mistake.

Submitted

Apep is defeated!

As an enjoyer of egyptian mythology, this was a fun little delve. The combat felt a bit sloggish in the first area, where I still wasn't doing all that damage, but that was no longer an issue later on.

For some reason the combat music is very quiet compared to the rest of the game. Other than that, the presentation is pretty solid! The combat screen's UI gives me persona vibes, and feels maybe a bit anachronistic, but it's stylish enough to make up for it.

The movement feels really nice, and I especially like the wall bonk animation's inclusion!

All in all this was a good experience :)

Developer (1 edit)

>As an enjoyer of egyptian mythology, this was a fun little delve.
We call it Futaba Palace themed nowadays... Jokes aside, Thanks for playing!

>For some reason the combat music is very quiet compared to the rest of the game.
Ah! I was not crazy, this does happens. Thanks for telling me, I couldn't always tell with my headphones. I will check that at some point because I do not understand what happened

Submitted

Great UI aesthetic, great feel overall. Love the Etrian Odyssey influence with the automap and random encounter danger meter, those things are so so nice to have (getting tired of blindly navigating mazes without landmarks). I also think gaining stats from treasure chests is a clever way to keep the scope more focused for the jam.

The battle system seems really well fleshed out (I like the cooldown-based moves especially). Battles can take a while, but it makes those skills that lower defense and whatnot feel more calculative and useful. In many games I never actually use every skill I’m given, as some often seem to be in there just to make up the numbers, but I actually see some design intent here to make battles into more of an optimizable puzzle rather than a grind. It is on the easy side, so I could see not needing to use them effectively, but for a jam game I think the balance is right.

Some nitpicks/suggestions: Light up the art for the enemy the cursor is pointing at. (I noticed I was setting a visual order in my head and then selecting based on which one I saw my characters hitting in the previous round.) Could also be helpful to show active debuffs on an enemy (unless you want to force the player to track that themselves), as well as having a turn counter. Oh, and the screenshake when you bump a wall is a good touch but it shakes a bit too aggressively, haha.

Great game!

Developer

Thanks for playing! Nice of you to spot some similarities with Etrian Odyssey (I even went as far as to replicate the picnic event), I wanted to have some relentless enemy chasing you in the dungeon, but I cut it due to lack of time, as well as the targeting highlight, as you pointed.

You're the second person telling me about the shake on wall, I really love it personally, but I might disable it/reduce it done in a game I want to make in the future.

Submitted

Take that Apophis!

This is such a fully formed experience with such a strong style it's actually kinda nuts. The story and dialog and stuff was on-point, I also want to uppercut anyone that blocks my way with riddles lmao. The characters had personalities and the fact that it was so strongly themed was really impressive, I actually feel like I kinda learned something about the mythology, though I didn't fact check that at all :D

Combat was well implemented, though to be honest I did rely heavily on just attacking but that's pretty standard for me unless the combat is difficult enough to require using abilities, that's more of a commentary on how difficult it is to balance jam games and my own laziness than anything though. I did have to use healing and debuffs in some cases.

The levels were fun to explore, they weren't to large and maze like to outstay their welcomes and the objectives (Liek the buttons) were super clear so I didn't worry to much about missing key things. That last level is gorgeous, with the space tiles. In general the visuals are very well put together, obviously heavily "sand" coloured but that makes sense given the setting.

Audio was good as well, I appreciated that the audio was reactive and changed when I went into battle and stuff.

I think this is just a really strong and complete experience. Well done!

Developer (1 edit)

Thanks for the comment!

You should definitely check Egyptian mythology out (which I adapted loosely), because there is a lot of cool and unique stuff, but also because a lot of themes are present in other mythologies.
The riddle passage was actually from Gateless Gate, some zen book huhu: https://www.bowzwestchester.org/2020/01/gateless-gate-36.html

Combat is pretty easy, but I felt like increasing the difficulty for a jam game, where people don't come to be kicked in the private parts, wouldn't be fun. Especially since a lot of people are not used to JRPG code/systems in this community.
Thanks a lot!

Submitted

Graphics looks great. The general movement is ok and exploration also. Combat is fluent but still very repetitive after a while. Setting and music are great. Solid Entry!

Developer

Thanks for the nice words! Without abilities from the enemies, you don't really have to adapt and mitigate, making it a simple solution to solve each time.

Submitted

I greatly enjoyed exploration, because the movement controls worked well and the little mini-map drawing as you go was a nice touch (might even add that to my game). Not a fan of the tedious combat though, just a slog with enemies taking so long to go down.

Developer

Thanks! Yeah minimap is a nice touch always. Sorry for the combat! It was my attempt to implement a classic JRPG battler, and while I'm happy with my performance, the numbers I've used wouldnt work outside of a jam.

Submitted

Really love the Egyptian style of this entry! The game played well, with the exploration being especially good! The minimap is helpful, and the handcrafted level really lets all the setpieces shine. The final encounter being there the whole time you're in the last part of the level stood out too. Combat was a little simplistic, but the characters balanced each other out well.

Developer

Thanks for the nice words!

Submitted

Very impressed by this entry, the 1st person dungeon navigation is implemented expertly with solid level design and it makes good use of the game jam themes. Overall a very well-executed and well-rounded entry.

Developer(+1)

Thanks a lot!

Submitted(+1)

Ahh! The another egyptian one! I wanted to test this game while I was lurking on #game-jam channel.

I liked how the dialogues between characters party get introduce you to the story. The final boss finally defeated me and I couldn't fight again :/

Good main music theme, it is not intrusive and accompanies you.

Developer

Thanks for trying it out!

> The final boss finally defeated me and I couldn't fight again :/

Oh noes! In my rushed attempt to slap a ending screen, I probably made it so you can't move if you get beaten. Sorry for this :c (I'm glad he was able to take a few lives though!)

Submitted

This is great! Nice graphics, a bit of story, and some fighting action with funky music!

This is really well put together. It would be nice to see the health of the enemies to give you some idea what you're dealing with. 

But what's this... A map? FINALLY!

5 stars from me on this. Really good job.

Developer

Thanks for playing it and for the kind words!

Submitted

This is great! Nice graphics, a bit of story, and some fighting action with funky music!

This is really well put together. It would be nice to see the health of the enemies to give you some idea what you're dealing with. 

But what's this... A map? FINALLY!

5 stars from me on this. Really good job.

Submitted

Great job all around. Combat reminded of persona a bit, each character had multiple options during combat and everything was nice and snappy, from movement to combat. I loved the Egyptian theme as well, and the final encounter looming over the last dungeon as you go through was a good touch.

Awesome!

Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing! I got inspired by Persona for the UI, tried to replicate a few of their tricks for UI. Glad you have noticed!

Viewing comments 39 to 20 of 39 · Next page · Last page