itch.io

Hello everyone,

We just released Dark Queen of Samobor, an atmospheric 2.5D side-scroller action-adventure set in a beautiful and haunting world of old Croatian tales and legends, inspired by games like INSIDE, Neva and God of War.

You can play it here: https://alienplay.itch.io/dark-queen-of-samobor-demo

Demo lets you play through a single chapter (out of 5 planned for the final game), encounter 4 types of enemies, try out combat mechanics, experience some beautiful environments and cinematic moments, and hear snippets of the story narrated by a fantastic Croatian actress Sandra Lončarić.

Our goal is to make a game that feels like stepping inside of a magical book.

And we mean that literally. You are drawn into the pages of a book and experience the story told there firsthand. You play as a hero on a raid against the evil Dark Queen who cast darkness over your homeland. This is a tale of myth, blood, and shadow, told through gameplay that invites you to live out the heroic stories you imagined as a child.

• Unique Visuals inspired by the classic Disney animation and the dark fantasy movies of the 80s
• Cinematic Moments with a fully manually directed camera
• Hack & Slash Combat with attacks, parries, and dodges
• Boss Fights & Special Abilities mimicking the powers of the foes you have defeated
• Environmental Puzzles
• Slavic Mythology Story based on and inspired by the old Croatian tales and legends

This is a big milestone for us as we've worked on this game for 2 years and even though we've playtested it a lot during in-person events, this is our first public demo. We're very excited to hear what all of you think so make sure to let us know!

Very exciting news!

Our first publicly playable Demo is out now! You can check it out here: https://alienplay.itch.io/dark-queen-of-samobor-demo

Demo lets you play through a single chapter (out of 5 planned for the final game) which is around 30 minutes of playtime, encounter 4 types of enemies, try out combat mechanics, experience some beautiful environments and cinematic moments, and hear snippets of the story narrated by a fantastic Croatian actress Sandra Lončarić

We'd really like to hear what do you think so let us know in the comments.

Hello everyone!

I've be quiet for a long time it feels like. Our new trailer has just dropped as a part of the Best Indie Games Summer Showcase and I'd love to share it with you:

So far, we only did in-person playtests (we did one just last week) and small scale online ones. We've noticed that with each new playtest people have enjoyed the game more and more. There are still some things that give us headaches (mostly to do with combat) but that's probably something that we'll have to polish to death until the full launch.

Anyhow, we are really excited to show the demo to the wider audience and very excited to hear what feedback and ideas we'll get from all of you.

Now back to the grind...

Hey everyone,

We've been preparing for a Kickstarter campaign for some time now and after a lot of small issues that delayed it, the coming soon page is finally here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1857860034/dark-queen-of-samobor-an-adventu...

Following the page is highly appreciated and would give us more visibility and overall boost in the algorithm!

We are planning to have many different tiers with rewards that would include stuff from simple game keys and credit mentions to themed physical rewards, art book to adding your name or likeness in the game, and so on, so that everyone can find something interesting at various price points.

We will have an early bird option for some tiers as well, allowing you to get a discount within the first 24h. For example, with the early bird tier you'd be able to get a game at a 20~30% discount to the planned launch price depending on the exact VAT, launch discount and stuff like that.

Here are some snippets from the page:

Again, check out the Kickstarter page and follow it, it means a lot to us: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1857860034/dark-queen-of-samobor-an-adventu...

And definitely do let us know if you have any feedback for us!

We are planning for a closed playtest soon so stay tuned for that as well.

Thank you!

- Aleksandar

Hello everyone,

We've are working hard on improving Dark Queen of Samobor, more specifically, preparing for the Demo release coming in a few months. Our top priorities right now are combat (enemy behavior, responsiveness of the controls, etc.) and level design.

We don't have anything major to share yet on that but meanwhile Mato, our level designer, wrote an article explaining his process of doing level design for this game, you can read more about it here: https://itch.io/blog/1470038/building-the-levels-of-dark-queen-of-samobor

Let me know what you think and follow me for more info about the game.

Hello everyone,

I decided to start sharing our progress here about our upcoming game Dark Queen of Samobor, a side-scrolling action-adventure game heavily inspired by the atmosphere of INSIDE, Slavic mythology, Croatian folk tales and combat mechanics from games like Neva, Dead Cells and Song of Iron.

I'm planning to set up a proper Itch page sometime next week: [upcoming Itch io page] and start doing devlog articles there and share those updates here as well.

The story of the game centers around a knight coming home from a crusade and realizing that an evil queen (inspired by the myths about real-life Barbara of Cili who was accused of practicing witchcraft, alchemy, and sorcery) has woven his homeland into darkness. 

You experience this game by stepping into a book, told through 5 chapters, each one in a different biome and with a few new enemy types inspired by Slavic folklore. We aim create a cinematic experience that would give you a similar feel to being a hero in a fairytale.

For now, the game only has a Steam page but you can follow my profile on Itch here for more info as well.

We also have a Discord server you can join, where we post our weekly (or sometimes bi-weekly) progress and will run some playtests soon.

Here are some screenshots:

Latest update

As a starting point here's an update to game's combat and visual effects I did last week (unfortunately I can't upload the GIF here as it's too big).

People commented before how visual effects were not visible enough and the feel of impact wasn't there, so we worked a lot on that in the past few weeks, these are the results. #gaming #indiegames #gamedev #madewithunity [image or embed]
— Aleksandar from Downtown (@b-aleksandar.bsky.social) March 13, 2026 at 5:14 PM

Moving forward

I hope you find this interesting and will join us on our journey. Our next milestone is adding a ranged enemy, doing some major improvements to combat, and then finally releasing a demo in a couple of months (and hopefully squeezing in a few playtests before that). As I said, for now, you can follow me here on Itch and you'll be notified once I set up the page for the game.

I had a similar question way back although I phrased it a bit differently. Check out the discussion: https://itch.io/t/4008965/will-in-development-game-get-visibility-boost-when-it-...

Music is very well done. From the visual perspective, the game is a bit rough around the edges but I'd say still has a pretty unique style so the quality of certain things is not that noticeable.

Some parts of the game are a bit unpolished. Jumping feels unresponsive (ie. certain tricks like coyote time would be a nice addition) and it feels a bit frustrating to place something then immediately get a fail state because you got stuck.

It's definitely an interesting concept though, I like how things scale along with you when you hold them and you can use things you placed in a previous run to finish a level (the concept of having to die sometimes to reset to starting size is interesting).

This is why I like GMTK jam XD

Once you get into a rhythm it's super fun. 

Very satisfying game and the graphics are nice.

I'd agree with Diamond32 about the building mechanic. It's unfitting for you to gave to think about building and erasing walls while trying to avoid your untimely demise.

Couldn't figure out the moving block level but this game is very good overall.

In particular, I really like the movie studio-like environment, has a very nice atmosphere.

Simple, yet interesting idea. Collision detection for stomping is not always as expected but other than that it's good.

This concept could be combined with controls of Octodad (in 3D) or  even with QWOP for something more dynamic.

Really good game! I'd just like to be able to have a more explicit way of rotating blocks (like using keys to rotate left/right, or maybe even by using right click or mouse wheel for fine-tuning)

I saw the game on Twitter and thought that it looks amazing, but unfortunately controls just spoiled the fun for me.

It's a bit confusing to have to to switch between moving blocks and your character, I think that both could've been done simultaneously (eg. WASD for block + EQ for rotation, arrow keys for character).

Also, being able to jump on up arrow key instead of needing to use space would make controls a bit more flexible and intuitive for me personally.

Anyhow, good job for 2 days of work. :D

Thanks a lot of that info! Will keep that in mind.

I don't agree with the notion that it doesn't matter because of limited effectiveness but I get what you're saying and thanks a lot of the tips.

I haven't published any larger project on Itch in a while so it's good to get as many insights as possible in advance.

Agreed! Every feature has it's purpose and should follow that purpose regardless of how ineffective it seams to many people.

Thanks for sharing this information. It's a very good observation. It's always good to know how these thing work.

To me it would make sense that games that are marked as "In Development" don't appear in Game but that their devlogs still appear in designated places for that.

And then to start counting the game as released and show it on "Most Recent" when it goes to "Released", "Prototype" or any other stage where you have something playable.

Maybe the current implementation was just easier/faster and given that effects of "Most Recent" tab are limited they just didn't bother doing it any other way. But yeah, I'd prefer to have more info on that, like how Steam does it. I don't think knowing such things would make the system easy to abuse or something, it would just give more clarity to developers who are putting a lot of effort into their games and expect at least a little push from the platform.

I mean game dev scene is competitive and if you're trying to make a game seriously you need to take ever avenue that you get. Of course this won't be my only marketing channel. Just a central place where people can track how the project is going.

Thanks for devlog tip! I'll check it out.

"... pages in prototype/without downloads will not get added into the search results"
- Good to know. Thanks about that info!

"I guess one way of seeing is that if you would know it too exactly it may be abused? "
- Not sure if it would because Steam also has uncovered a lot about their algorithm and I guess it could be misused bit it's still very limited. Like games that are of very low quality will not get very many players even if they stay in "Popular" tab for weeks (at least that's my theory). You still need some substance to attract and retain players, good thumbnail, reasonably well crafted page to let the players know that you took effort into making this.

If I publish a game page as "In Development", just to gather followers and post devlogs, ie. to be able to promote my game more easily. Will my game still get a visibility boost when I switch to "Released"?

As I understand, games usually get pushed more by the algorithm when they are released (New and Popular, Recently Released tab) so I'd like to know if this happens only when my game gets into a "Released" or "Prototype" phase, only when my page gets initially published, or whenever it goes to a next phase (ie. all of the previously mentioned)?

Thanks! Yeah, I should've added some proper tutorial or something :D

Hahaha definitely! Thanks! :)

Thanks! :)

Thanks! I plan on improving it further so it's good that people see some potential at least :D

You can actually fly up by holding both left and right, but yeah, the game is long way off from being stable :D

yeah, I realized way to late that there's a bug that let's you just fly off uncontrollably
yikes! XD

My intention was to make it a bit less stable to control but I agree that it's not as polished as it should be.
Played your game, it looks good, but honestly it's sometimes difficult to distinguish between background and foreground elements. More contrast would make it a bit more obvious.

Thanks! Yeah, I definitely should've explained all of the mechanics a bit more.

Thanks! Yeah, I definitely should've added more explanation to all of the indicators.

Nice game! Visually it looks good, controls are mostly good and responsive.

My only complaint is with wall jumping. It just feels a bit too punishing, like it sometimes doesn't detect that you're next to the wall.

Nice game but I honestly initially didn't get when does the hookshot overheat and how to cool it down. I think that you should signal this somehow within the game instead of having it on the 2nd page of the instructions.

In terms of some quality of life improvements, I think that switching which side you're shooting from should be automatic, it feels a bit unnecessary to do it manually. Also, the ball can sometimes get "stuck" and then hookshot needs to be canceled (manually) to proceed, and shoot it again. I think that you should just make it that if the ball can't go any further and it's already next to the wall hook just resets automatically and you can continue.

These are some small details but could make the game a lot easier to play.

Pretty brutal game :D the first thing I saw when I loaded it up was fail screen XD

However I generally like the idea + how you combined it with the theme of the jam.

Controls are a bit too sensitive and I also think that tutorial level or at least having a bit easier beginning on the first level would have helped a lot with getting used to the controls.

That's the weird that I'm going for :D
Thanks!

Hahaha, yeah, this bear hasn't been exercising in a long time :D

The game is a bit on the difficult side but also movement feels slow. You could make jumping more responsive by for example making the fall faster. Just search on YouTube "How to make any platformer better?" or "super mario jump" + engine of choice.

Also, for me, it was weird that you need to press Shift, then A or D to dash, I'd expect that you can do the reverse as well, like if I'm holding A or D, pressing Shift should also cause dash, but it doesn't.

The game is a bit on the difficult side but also movement feels slow. You could make jumping more responsive by for example making the fall faster. Just search on YouTube "How to make any platformer better?" or "super mario jump" + engine of choice.

Also, for me, it was weird that you need to press Shift, then A or D to dash, I'd expect that you can do the reverse as well, like if I'm holding A or D, pressing Shift should also cause dash, but it doesn't.

I like how you combined multiple mechanics for such a small game to effectively separate level into multiple stages. Like when you first pick up the upgrade, it feels very impactful, also, when you get out of the ship and just continue using your jetpack part was a bit unexpected but very interesting.

Also, it's amazing how music slowly ramps up to follow the gamepley.

My main issue is with the controls. Having steering on A/D and then moving forward with Shift, shooting on Enter?! :D idk it just felt very weird. I liked weird controls sometimes just for the sake of weirdness but for this game it felt out of place for me.

Thanks! :)

hahah yeah, I was wondering why is everything going so bad when I'm accepting positive changes.
I guess it makes sense that red button with skull would mean "action" or "aggressive action on something" but it has another meaning that overlaps that first one.