Nice game! A bit hard to know when you win, it cuts off a bit fast into the Thanks for playing. And I didn't need any upgrades to get there. But really fun game idea! Good job!
The boss fight is hard to balance correctly, but I have really tried. The boss needs 50 bombs to kill yes, but I figured since this is the only combat in the game it's all concentrated into this fight. My hope was that players would find the fight hard initially, but as they figured out the boss moves and the bomb mechanics it would turn into a fairly easy task. The game has been updated with a leaderboard for the post jam release and having the boss any easier would really kill any replayability. I added the information for the game page that you can place multiple bombs which I hope will help.
I really wanted the game to have two different stages but I also wanted them to blend in a good way.
I also generally strive not make my games so not to waste players time. I consider their time precious and I try to make the games responsive and interesting. The main way to accomplish this so far has been to work on fluent controls and snappy movement. But I now also try to balance the general gameplay as well, which is a lot harder to get right. I will keep working on it though.
I'm glad you liked the speed upgrade. It seems like other players don't even notice the speed increase, but the 20% is actually making dodging the boss a bit easier. And the possibility to smashing out bombs also increase by the speed, but the control decreases since you have to time all inputs a bit more precise.
I am working on fixing up bugs and making some polish for the post jam release. If you liked the menu in the jam version you might like the post jam release even more, since I have put a few hours into making it more appealing.
Looks promising. Good basic layout and graphics which will work well. I played through all items until I realized I could buy more than one at a time so I kept clicking indefinitely... :)
It sure takes some time to get into and understand all combat mechanics and tactics, but once you do it is a fun game.
The intricate dies combat system took a while to master.
The dungeon crawler part is kinda small compared to the time you spend in the combat though.
This was the last game I played for this jam, it feels sad to have to wait until next jam for next jam game experience. It feels nice that this jam holds a high level of both people playing and rating and the level of the general entries.
I really liked the graphics and the dungeon were built nicely. Not much of a puzzle to solve but a more linear approach which is fine. I didn't get the combat in the beginning, but once you understand it it gets easy to kill the enemies.
I had issue understanding the soup bar at the bottom and why it sometimes healed me with pressing 1 and sometimes not. I mixed the health with soup I guess.
The movement felt a bit unresponsive and I actually struggled more fighting the movement controls than I did fighting the enemies.
The UI is simple but suites the game well. The game has lots of small details which makes it feel polished.
The module upgrade system is nice and kinda works, but there are so many different items to keep track of and for the jam version they are not really needed to survive I think. When in the construct menu there would be nice to have an indicator for what slots we already got items in and what their stats are compared to an item we plan on producing.
Initially the dungeon combat was challenging but after just a few armor items the player gets overpowered. So some balancing is needed there.
The enemy combat felt a bit basic but the swarms in ship mode still made it fun.
The game took me 1h25min to complete, but in the end I could have competed it quicker if I just understood what I needed to do. I kept looking for a warpdrive site.
The idea is good and the best part is the cards I think, but the dungeon needs some better movement and align to the grid better. Some combat sounds and a more intricate combat system I think.
The game plays very fluently and the combat is fast and snappy.
The upgrade system is a bit unbalanced I guess, since attack and vitality is the only things you need. I think you could go with only attack, but it might have you lose to much health in the end to win.
The graphics for the dungeon and the enemies are great and the music fits!
Sad to hear you soft locked, good thing its not a big.
I know there were a possibility to soft lock, but I tried to create the level so it would be hard. I don't think you can softlock if you only use the bombs on cracked walls though given you pick up all bombs.
There is a minimap, you just didn't find it. Its an item you pick up early in the game.
The coins purpose will become clear at the end. Thank you for playing.
I agree! I have changed the lights for the post jam release version. I also made other updates on various stuff in the game. The light were one of the things that annoyed me as well, but I didn't managed to fix it in time of the jam.
I liked the dungeon part of the game, it felt nice trying to find the treasures on the ship and getting out in time. Nice with the map thing in the control room as well. Grid movement is ok, but could be made a bit smoother.
The rest of the game feels very unfinished and doesn't do much for the experience as it is now. Some more work on it and it might turn into something good though.
ESC twice exited the game. Better have it close the exit menu so people don't accidentally close the application and losing their progress. I might have done that...
Combat was a bit different and maybe a bit fun the first times, but hard to steer and get right, and spamming space or numpad0 didnt feel like a good choice here. I think I would have preferred mouse, and if only keyboard to have the key pressed to auto shoot, or maybe auto shoot all together as default.
Yeah, I ended up ALT tabbing and opening the game page in a separate window to read it again.
Nice with the free option there. I never ended up in that situation but I also started the return to the ship by buying the ticket to prevent it. I should have skipped that and just bought med kits until broke I guess. :P
EDIT: I went back to check the out of funds thing, it's great!
The skill tree is unlocked from the beginning. Not sure this was meant from the beginning of your planning for the game?
I had trouble playing the combat when using up the mana. Yeah there is some mana management, but its hard to use any mana that dont kill the enemy or you run out of health fairly quickly. Maybe I just never figured out the general tactics there.
I would like the controls to be a bit more fluent and responsive. I used QE a few times by mistake when i tried to turn around.
The game looks very polished and the hand crafted graphics are great
Took me 70min to complete the game. I did spend some time at the guardian, but couldn't destroy him. Its a bit strange when you back into a stair/teleporter you are turned around when you exit. Got me confused a few times.
The movement is kinda smooth, but there is a delay when holding buttons which makes you not wana use it, so you are down to tapping only.
The Combat with auto battling and deterministic outcome is a great choice imo.
The itch page has instructions on it, but once you start the game you cant reach them, ESC only opens the in-game menu.
I don't think there is a way to gain gold on the ship, but the tickets cost 100gold, so potentially you could end up spending it all and not afford the ticket out, softlocking yourself I guess.
I would like to have had an option to exit out of the final NPC interaction menu to go finish stuff. Maybe having a % completion could be an additional fun thing.
I took two steps and got stuck in the wall. The tiles are a bit to small and makes you stop facing a corner, which is not what you want in a tilebased crawler.
The combat works breaks if you are not facing the enemt when it starts. I was missaligned and couldnt fight the enemy since the arrows never entered the hit area.
The combat system itself is a good choice, but it has to be tuned a bit and be balanced and consequent.
Many times I got the same answer and questions in a row. Maybe it was just my random unluckyness.
The game does not offer much more content after a while, so could have been made shorter. I think about after 4 levels I felt ready to stop playing but played the last levels anyway.
Some enemies does not align to the grid correctly, and there is some clipping and tear in the tiles and mini map.
Movement could be made a it more fluent. If you tap to quickly it gets unresponsive.
I liked the music and the riddles were generally fun. Keys and doors could be made a bit clearer. I found myself looking for a black key, cause the door looked black, then I found out I could open it with the blue key etc. the 2D key item could be 3D to make it prettier or change the 2D billboard thingy.
I like that the game is simple but still challenging. It takes some time to figure out exactly what you are expected to complete before oxygen runs out. You also really feel a sense of greed in the game with a great execution.
I think it would be even more interesting if you could get up to a non filled level and regain the oxygen meter. This way you really could make trips down into the ship and gather treasures.
I think I laid an egg in the end...
Some more polish and touches to make it really awesome!
The dungeon works semi good as well as the combat.
Moving around buffers up infinite movements which lets the player bumb into walls repeatedly when miss-moving. I did a similar thing on the jam 3 years ago and try to stay away from that now.
The Combat works nice, but since only one of your character can move each turn, you kinda just use the ones with biggest reach and the ones you got and used in the beginning will just be left standing at their init positions.
I like the essence upgrade rooms but the upgrades were very plain, maybe these could be modified someway to become more interesting. The chick in combat were a random addon, but hard to accommodate for when trying to do tactics. So I would have it more predictable or remove it. Actually I would like to have the entire enemy movement and attacks a bit more deterministic so you can plan your actions and use more strategy in general. I would still like the combat length to be fairly short since they are random occurances.
I liked the save system, and thats the only reason I completed the game, since I had to stop playng after reaching the final level and come back to it another day. Super nice.
The full screen mode was a bit wonky for me. It changed one of my screens resolution and the computer struggle every tme I tabbed out of the game or tried to do stuff on my other screens. If possible make it run in windowed full screen mode or similar.
I guess the story is fine, but I had some trouble immersing into it, but maybe that's just a me thing. Maybe a bit to much text for my taste.
I did arrive to your stream during your play and saw most of it live. Just didn't want to say anything to jinx your playthrough :).
You got him down to 4% the second try and blew yourself up at the last one... Yeah the boss needs 50 hits to be destroyed but since you can spam bombs he can be defeated fairly quickly once you get the hang of it. The shop gives you options to change your tactics if you want so if low on bombs you can skip the other power-ups and add another 60 bombs if you want to.
I changed the boss fight several times trying to get it to a sweet spot during development. Its really hard to get it to fit everyone. I initially had the boss retain the same health level at player death, but that didn't feel right so I changed it.
There is a minimap in the game, you just have to find it.
I couldn't pick up the Mons badonicus. I had several laser swords in the inventory and tried to drop them. I could only drop one, and still couldn't pick up the "mons" so couldnt go any further.
Movement is ok. Would be nice with some buffering/queue but since the movement is fast it kinda works anyway.
Nice music and puzzles. Took me forever to find the first game though.
UI would benefit from some graphics improvements and bug fixes. Some items didn't show up visually. And legend didn't update properly.
I got into some issues while using up all the chicks. I couldn't progress. had to restart the game.
The movement keys are wonky with combining arrows and A D. Also the movement could be a bit more snappier.
It took me awhile to figure out what the wall tile thing was in position 1. a spell..!!
There is some missing pixels between some tiles.
In the combat the enemies health bar is almost the same color as the roof and hard to distinguish.
Victory 2:07, prob timer resets on respawn.
The transformation skill is a nice feature, but I think it would suit the game better if it was something you acquired once and then could use indefinitely.
The spells looked different but acted in about the same way so they felt the same. Maybe some more variety there.
The keys looked different but the doors looked the same from what I could tell. Maybe make it a bit clearer what key goes where.
Graphics wise and mood were spot on, I really liked that in this game.
