itch.io

This demo was great! The concept is something I haven't really seen before, and was a lot of fun to try out.

+ The loop of exploring through the game, constantly finding new routes and things to try is really fun. The meta-progression introduces new elements and ways to progress at a satisfying rate, and you are rewarded for getting creative with the spells and items you have, often with unique endings (I was particularly happy when my instinct to try out the revival spell on the dark Knight after defeating him payed off).

+ The writing is consistently funny (to me anyway, comedy is subjective and I am easily amused).

+ The combat, while fairly simple, has enough strategy to it to be fun, and the option to sometimes use items or dialogue to resolve it in different ways keeps things interesting.

- A few times, having to grind money and xp could interrupt the game's pacing. In the end, I kinda hit a roadblock with the harpy, with it being too strong to beat without grinding and me not seeing any other path forward I hadn't tried.

- Sometimes it seems like the dialogue options I got before in similar circumstances won't show up again. Most notably, I can't get the low health dialogue for the dark Knight to show up again after reducing him to 20 or 10 hp, seemingly locking me out of getting the code for the chest.

Overall I really enjoyed the demo, (it's probably the one I've spent the most time on so far), and I look forward to seeing how the game develops in the future!

An interesting mix of a slay the spire-type roguelike and fighting game.

I ended up playing 3 runs of it, Two as the fighter and one as the rogue. My first run, as the fighter ended in failure as I didn't really plan ahead and had no idea what I was doing. On the second run, as the rouge, I was able to reach the final boss, but couldn't beat him (that run had me relying heavily on ranged cheese, and that strategy stopped working when the enemies got ranged attacks too). On my final run as the fighter, I once again unfortunately lost to the final boss, this time because I didn't have enough health (though my block button also inconveniently seemed to stop working? That might have been a bug, or I might have been mistaken).

+ The game has a good concept, and it executes on it well. It's fun integrating the character building strategy of traditionally turn based games like Slay the Spire with a skill-based fighting game. 

+ The strategic aspects of the game are very well balanced. It felt like success depended on effective planning ahead, scoping out the map and ensuring you had the right path. I feel like if I had kept trying a few more runs, I probably would have eventually beat it, it's a tough challenge but about as tough as a roguelike should be.

+ The games visuals are pretty good. Locations are full of background detail that makes them feel realer. There's very nice attention to detail, with the backgrounds all reflecting what part of the map you're on, and I was pleased to note that equipping different items visually shows up on your character (an oft-left out detail that really helps sell the fantasy). I think (though I'm not certain) that at least some of the assets are from unity asset packs, but they're used well, and for a (presumably) small indie team it's not really a big issue. The game ran quite well, occasionally stuttering but I'm on a low end computer so that's not really it's fault.

- While the game does have the option to block and dodge enemy attacks, they both run on very limited resources, and movement is somewhat limited too, meaning that it's almost inevitable that you will take at least some damage (or at least it feels that way, this may be a skill issue on my end). This compounds with how rare and inefficient healing is, leaving you feeling as though you are more at the mercy of attrition than your own skill.

- While you gain upgrades at a pretty good pace throughout the game, most of them seem to be fairly low-impact stat increases rather than more exciting bonuses. This is especially notable with the charms, which, while presented as quite valuable, often just seemed to increase certain stats. This isn't true of everything though, unlocking the different moves your character could use and trying them out was always fun, and there were some fun effects on the gear and charms, like an explosion when you dodge or gaining money when you hit an enemy.

Overall, while it had a few issues, I really enjoyed this demo! I wish you good luck on further development, with time I think this concept could be something really great!

A pretty fun short demo with a very strong art style

+ The FMV-style graphics, with live-action recordings and photos as the sprites lend the game a really distinctive feel, it's not a style you see often and it works quite well here. The muted colors and short render distance fog really effectively convey an oppressive atmosphere.

+ New gameplay elements are introduced at a good pace, with the core loop even changing midway through, and new abelites and enemy types being introduced at a frequent rate.

+ The game presents dual stories pretty well, with the visual novel-style bits between the levels conveying the post-apocalyptic story the gameplay occurs in, while the short video segments are a bit more meta, showing the story of an indie dev trying to get the game you're playing published. It was a good choice to present both in different styles, this leaves both stories easily distinguishable where two narratives could have otherwise been confusing. While neither story has gotten very far yet, they grabbed me enough that I'm interested to see where they go next.

~ On mouse and keyboard it took a moment to get used to the controls, using the W and D keys to turn the camera instead of strafing. While mouselook is standard for first person shooters usually, the fairly simple nature of the FPS segments and the generous enemy hitboxes meant I could get used to it pretty quickly, so this probably isn't really an issue.

- While the sprites and animations look good, enemy death animations can be quite long, and I think they keep moving as they die. Due to this, and the occasional similarity of the death and hurt animations, it can often be hard to tell when you have killed an enemy, especially the ones that take numerous shots.

- In a similar vein, the kick animation was quite slow, leaving it hard to judge the timing on when it dealt damage.

Overall a really interesting and unique demo! It was quite short so it didn't overstay it's welcome, and the story and gameplay had me interested to see what you do with it next. Good work!

This game has been updated a few times since the jam started and I'll probably keep updating it throughout. I'll continue editing this comment as I update the game.

Most recent update: September 11th

Changes so far:

Picking up guns no longer equips a new one if you have that gun already.

Reduced enemy counts and fixed soft locks in multiple levels.

Updated tutorial.

Updated menus.

NPCs are immune to player's attacks.

You can hold spacebar to swim up.

The earlier tomb levels have had their layouts edited to hopefully allow better use of the game's movement system

Unique summons now properly summon

Number keys can be used to select weapons

Changed the wording on some menu button to be clearer

Moved the merchant on the island level closer to where the player starts

Changed underwater movement to be less insane

FOV and mouse sensitivity can now be changed from the pause menu

Added motion sickness warning to the title screen

You can now "clear" a level by killing every enemy in it. Doing so will reveal how many secrets that level has and how many you've found, as well as (mostly) preventing the enemies in said level from respawning when you revisit it.

Added tutorial level to hopefully teach the movement better

levels with no secrets no longer show the secret counter

A number of other smaller things.

Dune meets Metal Gear, and it works really well. 

Took me a bit of time to get the hang of the gameplay since I don't usually play many games like it, but when I got the hang of things it was great fun. The stealth felt satisfying to pull off, and I liked the shield generator mechanic, essentially forcing you to sneak around and knife dudes a bit before you could start landing some sweet headshots. While a lot of the levels were clearly using placeholder textures, the models and textures that were there looked really good too, perfectly catching that ps1 style vibe, and the world and backgrounds really sold the game for me, especially the enemy spaceships and helicopters constantly flying overhead. I also really liked the depth and variety of things you could and had to do, like interrogating enemies for key locations, or burying yourself or your newly created corpses in the sand.

As criticisms go, I think my biggest one is the lack of  checkpoints. What otherwise feels like a difficult but fair game becomes overly punishing when you have to start over from the very beginning every death, redoing a lot of gameplay. The sandworm that patrols the map also feels somewhat underutilized. While it makes for a cool visual, it never felt like it was actively threatening me. It seems like it only stays outside the outposts where the majority of the gameplay happens, and when you are out on the sand, the board you spend most of your time on hides you from it. In future updates, it could be fun to use it against the enemies too, maybe running around to lure it into them, or having it leap out of the sand to attack the helicopters. Finally, while the headshots with the rifle felt really satisfying to hit, I feel like the knife takedowns could use a bit more feedback, maybe a snappier animation or visceral sound effect would help.

Still, this demo was really fun, and the gameplay formula has a lot of promise. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with it in the future, and seeing a bit more of the storyline the demo hinted at. Good luck on the ongoing development!

In the dev suggestions, it says that to get the most out of the jam, you ought to contact some streamers who may be interested in similar genres to your game. What's the best way of doing this? I don't think itch.io or twitch have direct messaging, and I don't have many social media accounts.

A fun bullet hell boss rush kinda thing. Kinda easy to cheese by circle strafing, but still nice. I like the art.

God I love movement shooters.

Nice visuals too