itch.io

probably the best put-together of all the games i've played thus far. simple gameplay loop but it knows what it wants to be.

my gripes are largely aesthetic. this is a game that's begging for some kind of sound feedback for its combat and gathering. the item pickup animation also ought to be snappier - the way they float and leisurely drift towards you, i honestly thought i still had to walk into them to pick them up. there's also no ingame explanation for what any of the things you trade goods for do - i assume they're all combat powerups, but there's no descriptions given for any of them. (an ingame prompt that you need to press F to do a trade would also be appreciated!)

i would also have liked it if there was some kind of clock indicating when the day and night cycles start, and i feel like enemies ought to despawn during daylight hours.

as an aside, it seems rather easy to softlock the game - the sakura wood seems very hard to find, which is probably deliberate, but if all the NPCs are asking for it and there isn't any to harvest, then that's the end of your run right there.

Quite an eclectic selection of gameplay styles on display here. I think I'd have preferred it if there was only one or two and they were fleshed out better. The music is nice.

Nicely put together. There was something inexplicably satisfying about being able to burn a bunch of enemies at once with my flashlight Alan Wake-style. I do wish there was more feedback from combat - a hit effect, maybe a sound effect, something a bit more than "basket swings, HP goes down."

Also weirdly enamored with the fact that I have infinite health items but their use is limited by a lengthy cooldown. Some neat design choices in here!

Cute but I do wish it felt more like a complete game than a broad sketch of one. Some guardrails in place to keep me from venturing into the myriad "NOT FINISHED YET" scenarios would've been appreciated. (Nothing fancy needed - just omitting the options that lead nowhere would've worked just fine!)

I hope this does actually get finished properly sometime!

Also: is the title screen a bit broken, or is that just on my end? "New Game," "Load Game," and so forth show up with a custom font, but there's also options for "History," "Save," "Load," "Preferences," and "About" in a plain font which overlap them somewhat.

A tip about Raggedy Belle: pay attention to whether she says "Simon Says" or not. If she doesn't say "Simon Says," move to the opposite corner of the shape she calls out.

When her head comes off, she will only use the "silent" variation of the attack.

was a little confused by the controls because my Ludum Dare Game Jam #58 entry was also a dungeon crawler but it had the rotate and strafe buttons reversed (e.g. Q/E to move sideways, A/D to rotate) XD

if there's one feature i really, really wish it had it would be a minimap - there was a lot to explore and i felt compelled to explore it all but there was just so much to keep track of ^_^;

so friggin' much dungeon. the lack of a map made it a little onerous by the end. ^_^;

Minomi kicked my ass pretty handily. i found the shield but she hits like a TANK

fantastic aesthetics and vibes. i love the concept you've got here for the combat, though unfortunately the actual execution leaves a lot to be desired. attacking is really finicky and enemies (even the basic RPG bats!) are ridiculously tanky. i died twice to the first encounter and called it there. ^_^;

i don't know why the blue attack indicators sometimes vanish, but it happened several times that i found myself surrounded by bats and couldn't hit them, no matter how well i performed at the QTE, and was stuck flailing ineffectually until i ran out of "steps" and my turn ended.

yeah i ran out of time before i implemented sound, alas

i hope to fix that sometime

i'm currently working on a version that fixes a few issues - for one, the boss fight was bugged (you're supposed to fight Belladonna as your 12th room), and i've hopefully fixed the black screen issue as well. i've also made a couple more dramatic changes to the gameplay: several cards have had their AP costs reduced and (tentatively) the maximum AP amount is 5, and passing increases it by 2. (i hadn't had a chance to test a run properly before launch and i found it frustrating how often i ran into "deadlock" situations where i had good cards but no option but to pass!)

i'm also completely reworking the ghost's attack; the version that made it into the game was a last-minute compromise and it neither looks nor plays nice. it's still going to be a Snake-themed attack but now there will be an actual ghostly arm chasing you.

i also added one new card: "Spare Parts," which you can only get by visiting the Morgue when you already have all your parts intact. it can be used mid-battle to restore a missing part. as much fun as i had implementing the dismemberment mechanic and its consequences, i realize it's not much fun ending up stuck with only your basic jump kick! (relatedly, i also buffed the one-two combo slightly; the base damage is 2 whether or not you have both arms, though losing one still takes away one of your QTE damage bonus opportunities.)

yeah i rushed to get the game out the door, there is an ending and there is a fight with Belladonna herself but it looks like the game crashes on a black screen, whoops

i will try to get this fixed as soon as possible

thanks. i imagine i've still got a bunch of bugs to hammer out; i rushed this morning to make sure the game was playable start to finish but i missed some obvious things like "does the game actually reset when you die and return to the title screen" and "does the Windows build actually work without the .pck file in the directory

Yeah I didn't realize there were three denominations, whoops.

All told, yours is one of the best-designed and implemented entries I've played in this Jam - there are things I have problems with, to be sure, but for the most part they have the vibe of conscious choices that add friction to the game rather than mistakes, bugs, or omissions for time. It's clear this isn't your first rodeo! ^_^;

Two gold coins. It was a bit of a surprise because I went to the deposit box with a regular white bone in my possession and it spat out a gold coin; I'd been expecting silver, but I also expected the shop to allow me to pay with inexact change. Alas!

Fortunately another trip to and from for a white bone got me the silver coin I needed to buy the bass (and for what it's worth, afterwards I had a single gold coin in my possession, so that much at least works properly).

How do you "GRIND," on that note? It's in the directions and in the instructions but I never figured out how. Is this just "click the checkmark and close out the recipe attempt," or is there something else in the workshop that's not obvious besides the mixing bowl?

Love the aesthetics but I wish there was more feedback on actions. It's hard to tell when I've added things to the bowl, and the only way to tell if I've completed the potion properly is by returning to the shop front and offering it.

Also, not sure why the workshop screen is as wide as it is; I had a devil of a time realizing I had to scroll to the right to find the mixing bowl. It's also weird that some potions require a lot more ingredients than others - like, a lot. I'm a bit daunted by the fact that some ask for 5 or 6 Powder and there's no way to keep track of how much you've added except in your head (and it's not clear whether the Powder has successfully been added to the mix in the first place!)

Gives me vibes of both Gregory Horror Show and Return of the Obra Dinn (two of my favorite things). Platforming is a bit janky but it vibes with the retro aesthetic. That said, I will say that the black orb at the end is a bit of an annoying hindrance: I don't appreciate having a quarter of my screen blocked off, especially when it's right in the center of my view, and the fact that it collides with objects makes it almost impossible to traverse stairs once you're stuck with it (I figured out a workaround; you can jump up them backwards). On the upside, it also functionally extends your jump range, so reaching the area with the barrels is a little easier.

I seem to have run into my own problems with the final shop: I went there with two gold coins and I couldn't buy the bass! I had to come back with exact change, which necessitated another roundabout trip.

Cute, clearly a lot of effort put into it, and I really like the "your bullets have random effects which switch up at intervals" concept...but as an actual game, I feel like it came together a bit half-baked. The frog and snake enemies are bugged where they don't seem to take any damage and the boss doesn't seem to have a health gauge. Shooting the boss gives me points but doesn't seem to have any other effect.

Would love to see that "random bullet effects" mechanic worked into a more refined shooter!

I love the concept, though it feels a little clumsy in execution - I'd have liked a default "gun," or perhaps more shots per "pickup" (e.g. each pickup gives more "ammo" but one unit of ammo gives you a single shot instead of multiple waves of automatic fire). As it is, I feel like most of my shots are wasted because I can't really control them.

Wild stuff with that arcade ROM bootscreen intro, by the way - I just wish that level of polish carried over to the gameplay!

Some nice animations and a really nicely assembled workshop but I'll admit the gameplay feels really opaque. I'd have liked some highlights or tooltips to better indicate what buttons to press where. Also, I think there might be something bugged - I tried the "GY" combination marked on the chart and it resulted in a brick of gold, but Brumaire still did the "failure" animation.

Also I know there's a pun in play, but...it really does feel like we're smelting dogs into lead for our alchemical experiments ^_^;

Props to a fellow Godot dev.

A bit frustrated that gamepad controls don't seem to work despite being advertised on the title screen. The alchemy recipes made me chuckle. That said, I feel like the alchemy drops ought to move more slowly - it's often hard to pick them up and dodge bullets at the same time, and if I "juggle" them it's almost impossible to catch both items!

Lovely graphics and smooth controls, but the gameplay was distressingly opaque. I know I'm supposed to "interact with the tables" to obtain goods to deliver to customers, but it's rather misleading how most of the tables are empty, and one gives me an item that doesn't seem to have anything to do what's physically on it. Likewise, matching goods to requests is trickier than it ought to be - I genuinely can't tell what the customers are asking for most of the time, so I just run around with an item in my hands hoping that one of them will accept it! (That said, I'm glad I didn't have to fiddle with an extra button to actually deliver goods, so props for that, at least!)

EDIT: Oh heck, I didn't even realize there was a crafting mechanic in play. I was wondering what that portal-looking thing on the ground was about. Again, I think the skeleton of a good game is in here, but everything is much too opaque for what's there to be enjoyable!

Mechanically it's solid and the work is evident; presentationally, however, it's very bare-bones, in ways that hurt not just its aesthetics but also its playability.

I recommend looking at The Hundred Line - Last Defense Academy for an idea what a really solid turn-based strategy game looks and feels like - or, alternatively, Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles once it comes out at the end of September.

Probably not best that I played this right after The Hundred Line - Last Defense Academy. Lovely models, but a bit bare-bones on the presentation (some sound would've been much appreciated), and the lack of tooltips explaining what your moves do is a bit frustrating. Also, would've liked to have seen gamepad controls supported - as it stands, I'm not sure the keybinds make the most sense ("G" is "End Turn"?)