itch.io

Thank you! I had a lot of fun writing Moira’s dialogue.

It could still use a lot more refining, as it does not quite balance being short, teaching the game mechanics, and showing off her personality.

I also hoped to do more with her throughout the game and give her a bit of character development in the way she interacts with the player. Sadly, that did not really pan out since I had to cut the game where I did.

Yeah, the lack of UI and sound effects does take a lot away from the experience. I just did not have enough time to refine everything since I was working on it solo.

I am glad the tutorial was well received though. In my previous jam, quite a few people mentioned the lack of one, so I made sure to include at least something to guide the player this time :3

Thank you, that is really high praise for a game jam submission :3

I originally called it queue, but I changed it because it felt a bit too programming coded ;p Though I have to admit, Conveyor is probably an even worse name for it and does not really fit what it does.

Out of curiosity, what is the first game?

Yeah, I tried to do two things at once, establish the character and explain how the game works. In hindsight, it ended up being a lot to take in.

I should have spread it out a bit more and simplified some things.

Waiting is always an option :3 Hope to hear from you in 2126 then ;p 

Thank you :3 I am personally a sucker for them, but I get way too addicted to endless ones, so I have to stay away from anything that does not have a clear ending ;p

Yup, it definitely takes way too long to get to the main game loop. It is mostly because I did not realise the conveyor was the heart of the game when I balanced the early game.

I also did not revisit the start with a more critical mindset. During testing, I could click through the first parts in less than 30 seconds, so I lost that new player perspective.

I will have to keep that in mind more going forward :3

The UI is definitely lacking, so thank you for pointing that out.

The automatic launch is not even something I would have thought of myself. You get so used to doing something one way that you do not realise it could work better differently. It is great to hear feedback like that, and I will definitely keep it in mind going forward :3

Good premise.

I have always been a sucker for deck builders, so it is a big plus in my book :3

The fights do feel very snowballing sometimes, as only getting 2 cards and 2 energy can leave you with unplayable hands on first turns and then trying to catch up can be a bit rough.

Cutouts are great. Amazing voice acting :3 My mouse felt a bit floaty, but other than that, great game,

Really good music! I did lose track of my count once I got teleported somewhere ;/

I wish the projectiles would fly straight ahead or travel a set distance instead of going exactly where my cursor was.

I also managed to walk out of the map by going to the right on the circular path.

Still very enjoyable and a cool concept!

I love the meta concept! A game jam game about making a game for a game jam, hehehe.

The music is nice. It could have been a little more stress inducing, but it is still very good for a jam game ;p

Thank You :3

Yeah, the early game could use a bit more to do; it really should be more engaging at the start, especially for a game jam game ;/ 

The late game could have been a bit more refined. I should have got more friends to playtest the end of it, as they would have 100% caught that as well. It's the problem of testing by yourself and knowing things ahead of time that let you speed through it. That got me to slow down at the start and end, as I was getting through them too quickly.

You must have missed it when you bought it the first time ;( but good to know. I will add it to the description for people to know

Glad you enjoyed :3

Yeah, the yellow work fourth upgrade is a bait. 4 isn't lucky ;p It and chill are one way to get no cd loop.

You can get free vacations (no cd or gold cost, but it doesn't recover energy or stress) and use that to end the game with, but it needs you to get a good chunk of knowledge in the second stage saved up before you go into the third one, and not put any points into vacation extending life. As with it giving more life back, you can get the clock back up to 100 years and beyond, but it makes it impossible to finish with it.

The other way is to just upgrade sleep until it does 3 months at each click and click through with it.

The xY is there to get to the end if you did f it up somehow, but it needs you to save up money.

One funny thing I found is that sometimes you want to leave slots empty so you only rotate two or three things.

There are two more silly things you can get by the end game, but they are a bit harder to figure out, so I will leave them not spoiled ;p

Out of curiosity, did you end up resetting to get more resources from the first and second stage, or did you go without saving and skipping ahead?

It happens, my own fault for uploading at the last minute ;p
Thanks. Will make sure to check out your game.

Straightforward idea, well executed.

Straightforward idea, well executed.

The music is nice, and I had a lot of fun body blocking and pushing enemies around ;p

The shooting felt a bit strange because the bullets seemed tied to the player’s movement. Moving would also shift bullets I had already fired, making enemies harder to hit. I also wish the shield was not a one time purchase, or at least clearly said that it was, since I ended up wasting money on it. I’m not sure if the boss worked correctly for me either. All the enemies suddenly went crazy and positioned themselves around, but after I shot them, nothing else happened ;(

Still, the game has some fun ideas, and the music helped make it enjoyable.

Using a bomb fuse to control the power of the jump is a cool idea.

I wish a short fuse allowed you to make several smaller jumps. It would also be nice to choose where to drop the bomb with the mouse, giving you more control while in the air.

Still, the fuse mechanic is creative and makes the movement feel unique.

I’m a sucker for pixel art, so the Count and the nun really hit the right spot ;p

It could use a little more variety, such as blockers between paths. That might appear later, but I only made it to level 5 because there were too many stages per level for such a simple mechanic.

Still, it was nicely done, and the candlelight created a great mood :3

I like the art, and I love the talking skeleton ;p

The text could stay on screen a little longer, or the player could click to continue when they are ready.

The upgrades are a nice addition and give you a reason to try playing things in a different order.

Shooting things is always fun.

It would be good to have something specific to shoot instead of just text. It could be even better if the target moved or if you had to dodge things while shooting.

I liked that the bullets fall back down, so I could shoot into the air and make them rain over the countdown ;p The trail animation behind the bullet also looked good.

I really liked the smoke and explosion animations.

I think it would be helpful to explain in the description how to access the flipping minigame and mention that the pot was removed. Having to search through the comments for that information is not ideal.

The failing the flipping animations looked great and gave the game a lot of character.

I really like the idea, especially how different attacks work better against different enemies.

I think the game could be a bit faster, since there were times when I had to walk around for a while before finding anything to fight. I would also prefer the dash to follow the direction I am moving instead of the mouse, since it would make escaping and kiting enemies feel smoother. It would also be nice if hovering the weapon over enemies dealt damage over time, and if the dash could go over rocks.

Overall, the combat idea is fun and has a lot of potential.

Yeah, it definitely needed more to do early on and a quicker way to get to the good stuff. That was a pretty big oversight on my part, especially for a game jam. I’ll keep that in mind for the next one ;p

It plays in the browser by going to https://html-classic.itch.zone/html/18553800/Fated Century/Death%20Countdown_BurstDebugInformation_DoNotShip/index.html?v=1785088796 (but it doesn't always have music working(), or you can go to the second project  https://losttimegm.itch.io/fated-centuryv2

She was the only thing I spent time drawing; every single other sprite was made in less than a minute each.

Thank you, the conveyor was spur of the moment idea that turned into the core mechanic of the game :3

Yeah, it is too big of a jump. It is there so people can get to the end of the game without grinding through the 80 years if they just want to experience the end of it.

I should have put extra months speed and then years. But you don't have to use the speed-up; that's why you can change it to a lower one and just use it to get a boost of hours (in case you didn't get enough by skipping too quickly) ;p

And the game could use endless mode, I think or rebalance some of the hourglass costs, as there aren't enough hours to get everything, but you can achieve one of the different endgame builds based on which one you do focus on, and all of them do go through the years very quickly.

I think she probably will :3 Call it fate or destiny, if you will.

Outside the game, I also highly recommend reading about the Moirai, the Fates, from Greek mythology. They were the main inspiration for Moira, and their stories are fascinating.

And I’ll definitely check out your game once my brain has recovered from the whole build fiasco (I love cooking-themed games!). Discovering that the working version had been sitting inside the submitted ZIP the entire time, just buried in a subfolder, was certainly an experience.

I found the cause of the broken build. The working version of the game is included in the ZIP I submitted, but it is inside a subfolder. Itch.io is launching the broken index.html from the folder above it instead.

You can play the actual submitted game here:
https://html-classic.itch.zone/html/18553800/Fated Century/Death%20Countdown_BurstDebugInformation_DoNotShip/index.html?v=1785088796

This is the exact working file inside the submitted build.

You can also verify it yourself through your browser's developer tools, in case you don't believe me:

1. Go to the lunch page, right-click the game window, and select Inspect.
2. Find the <iframe> containing the html-classic.itch.zone address.
3. Then either:
   • Edit the iframe's src directly in the inspector, or
   • Copy the iframe link, open it in a new tab, and edit the address there.
4. Replace the path after the build number with: Fated%20Century/Death%20Countdown_BurstDebugInformation_DoNotShip/index.html

The files cannot currently be replaced because the game-jam submission is locked, but the working build was included in the original submitted ZIP.

Or you can play the exact same build submitted here:
https://losttimegm.itch.io/fated-centuryv2

Does anyone know if there’s a way to make itch.io load the index.html file inside a subfolder instead of the one at the top level? The subfolder version works and contains the full playable game, but the top-level one doesn’t. :( Pls save my submission

The build got corrupted ;( here is working one for anyone interested https://losttimegm.itch.io/fated-centuryv2

All very valid points. Most of them I am already looking to address in the next iteration. I do agree that Slow is pretty useless for the player as it stands, and the balance is all over the place, but that is part of the charm of a prototype, heh.

I plan to split enemies into groups instead of fighting them one by one. For example, in a fight you might face five goblins, each with two or three base cards and one unique card. The fight ends when you defeat at least one of them. The others run off, and you then get to either consume the corpse or graft the unique card of the fallen enemy. This then makes more sense for you to return to a fight, as you still got few goblins that been left for you to fight. Since remaning goblins still have the base cards, there is always a baseline level of challenge, but you get to choose which unique enemy to take out in the first fight to make the next one a bit easier.

A big change I am also thinking of is giving the player five cards in hand, like in most deckbuilders. Instead of using energy or anything like that, turns would alternate between one of your cards and one enemy acting. This should help shield cards become more valuable too, since you can choose to block before one enemies big attack, knowing you will kill enemy but delaying it saves you more health in long run.

Having multiple enemies also opens up a better use for Slow. It would be changed to something like "skip" instead. One enemy in a group having a card that skips your turn is not too punishing, and if you get a card that skips an enemy's turn, it becomes a useful and interesting decision. You would need to choose which enemy to skip. Slow would also be reworked to delay an enemy’s action in the turn order, giving you a chance to prepare for them or end the fight before they act.

Card removal is something I definitely want to add, but it is hard to say how much of it will be in until the game is more balanced. Removing cards is always fun and useful since it helps fix up your deck, but too much of it takes away from the challenge. A big part of a deckbuilder should be about building and adapting the deck, not just piloting a perfect one. If removal is too easy or too frequent, most runs will start to look the same as players just cut everything that is not enabling their strongest card. But if removal is too limited, it becomes hard to take speculative cards or pivot your strategy.

Thank you for the feedback :3

Thanks for noticing that :3
I did notice, while working on a different game, that a lot of deckbuilders benefit from having small decks that you cycle through quickly. That made me consider the idea of punishing players for going through their decks too fast by having too few cards. It creates an interesting balance where players want to keep their deck small to access strong cards quickly, but not so small that they run out of damage and cannot close out the fight.

I have a few ideas for mechanics that would reward smaller decks and tie more directly into the decay theme, but I did not have time to include them in the prototype.

I am also considering shifting the decay from the deck itself to the cards individually. Each card would weaken the more it is used, and players could spend essence to restore them to full strength. This would still encourage larger decks, since you would want other options available rather than overusing your strongest card, especially if you are saving it for a tougher enemy. But I need to think about it and play around with both concepts to see which one feels better.

Yeah, the balance is definitely scuffed, but it’s just a prototype, so the next iteration should be better. Hopefully :3
Once the game has music and more art, the undead decay vibe should come through more clearly ;p

Thanks for the feedback, it’s much appreciated :3

The balance is definitely too scuffed. Once a fight reaches a certain point, there is no real way to come back, but the game does not end. Your only option is to surrender. It does tie into the theme of being undead and decaying past the point of recovery, but without stronger visuals or a clearer cutoff, it does not leave a great impression on the player.

Thanks again for the feedback :3
I will be checking out your game for sure!