The fireballs launch from the top of the player's sprite, making tight sideways corridors pretty much impossible places to fight in.

My first time giving pleasure with the cursor keys ;)

Very fun game !

Fireballs launch from the top of the player is intended. Its not easy to summon a big ball of fire!

That was some great sound design :) The boss kind of took me by surprise and it would have been nice to have some way of healing. I really enjoyed the concentrate-to-shoot and concentrate-to-recharge mechanics! All in all, a very fun game to play, great job!

This is great. Great graphics and sound. A little short on challenge and I would have liked to restart at the boss fight when he killed me.

as sol says, spawn the fireball where you are, not the staff...

Great mood, though. Good stuff

This game is mildly disturbing, largely due to the atmospheric sounds-- that's a good thing. The charging mechanic is intriguing.

Fun little game! Dungeons get kinda repetitive, overworld adventures would have been appreciated. And variation in spells. Boss encounter is pretty hardcore!

The fireball appearing on top of the head made the aiming a bit difficult. The sound design was the best.

Not much variation in the rooms, but the tight spaces made the fights interesting, trying to navigate around the enemies to line a shot.

I love the game, very hard to play in in sideways corridors but fun game

Agree about firing from head. Love the art and aesthetic though.

Pretty neat. I would have aligned the horizontal fireballs a little closer to the enemy paths & offered the player some way to regain health.

One of the few games that have made me smile! :) Awesome.

A fun game, but the fireballs flying from the head of the player are kinda challenging.

Good game, was funny until I reach to the boss :)!

Woloo, woloo.

Good fun, well done :)

Game itself was a lot of fun, boss seemed a bit cheap

The fact that fireballs launch from the top makes it specific, but I don't think it's impossible. I liked the idea of meditating in order to gather mana.
At some point I entered the next screen and ran back from where I came almost instantly and previous screen didn't load, instead I was running outside the screen and there goblins killed me.
But that's fine, my son will probable avenge me.

Give me pleasure! :D

nice game, not sure where the minimalism comes in tho ?

Cool and very fun!

Loved the audio a lot!

Funny, but I didn't really feel the "minimalism", sadly.

Great audio!

It's hard, but i made it to the boss (is it the end?). I had the same bug as "mortus", and the "fire from the head" thing is difficult to grasp. I use the "run" tactic, but it was fun.

I love the meditation mechanic, it made each combat scene a fun game of positioning and solves the mana potion problem very nicely. The tutorial text was nicely placed as well. I'd have liked a reason to engage in the combat - life refills or something. As it is, it felt like I should just be running away as much as possible.

This was pretty fantastic. Only issue really was path finding which is something AAA games have trouble with. Awesome job

I love this game... Well Done! ;)

I like what you did, the sideways attacks are a bit hard to get used to

I had troubles using the fireballs; not only did they only shoot left and right, but the also shot from the top of the character, making it hard to shoot enemies below you. Also, the combination of the spacebar and arrow keys made it hard to actually fire when you wanted.

Otherthan that, nice colorful game~!

Game was overall positive. I think the fireballs shooting from the top of the player was a poor design choice (intended or not). Eventually it became easier/more-fun to just avoid enemies and skip rooms instead than fighting them all. The loading of the mana was boring and broke the flow of the game.

The sounds were pretty good, were they original? The bats dying had the same sound (or very similar) of the squishy things in Dungeon of Dredmor.

I fell in love with the goblin sounds, very nice job! :P

The boss fight was pretty intense and he finally killed me, not sure if there was any indication of how much health he has?

Not really minimalist, but it's very strange in a good way. I liked the control scheme as well.

Good graphics, i like the animation of the wizard !

Fun but hard game.

Its so easy to accidentally run into a goblin and instantly die because you are acceleraiting, maybe you should add an invincibility timer or something :)

The game has its perks, but the fireball shooting needs some adjusting and the final boss needs polishing (you're teleported instantly and when you realize that you don't have time to avoid the boss coming to you).

It's a little tedious to refill mana every time when you clear a map. Except this, everything works well

Congratulations, very nice game! Also, i died because of the fireball position problem. It could be launched from the center of the char, not the top.

I agree with sol_hsa but develop this mechanic further! :D

nice graphics but it lacks in potatoes :)

Nice game! I'm on Your side with the fireing from the staff thig - make things different, event if it makes the game hard! Unique is better. Nice drawing and I love the sounds, but i'm afraid you missed the theme. imho, 8bit does not mean "minimalistic" soo, i'm gonna have to take a point or two away :(

Fireballs position feel a bit akward, but even with that issue its still really enjoyable to play. The mix of everything makes it really cool :)

I love the animation of the wizard too

nice game, good works :)

"Give me pleasure with arrow keys". Remembering that line. Will use it next time I'm trying to be seductive. Really cool. I particularly like how you can actually just kinda avoid the enemies, if you're of a pacifist nature.

golbin: nappa....nappa...nappa...

Very good =]

I liked the graphics and simplicity. How much health does the boss have? Felt like I was running around in circles and throwing fireballs for ages.

I really like the charging mechanism and the sound effects are great (and quite funny for some of them).

My main grip with the game comes from aiming left & right... Because the fireball starts from the upper staff extremity, it's really hard (and sometimes impossible) to aim at monster walking toward the base of your character.

Nicely done. Liked the sounds and music. Is it possible to beat the boss? I hit him more than any wizard can be expected to and he still wouldn't die.

Nice game! I lol'ed with the movement of the goblins ears :D

I agree with sol_hsa that it's hard to aim. But, a nice game.

I agree that the fireballs would be a easier to use if they came out a bit lower, not from your head. But nice game otherwise

Funny sound effects and interesting idea to load up mana for rapidly firing fireballs!

I loved the fact that even the English Translation/Localization style was 'Minimalistic'. I thought it fit the theme pretty well. Movement keys plus a single action key, a small number of enemies. Though, at the end with the spawning goblins? That was NOT minimal at all.

Amusing to play.. Good job making all that, efficiency going on somewhere! Combat mechanics need a bit of attention as others have also said

I'm not sure how I feel about shooting from the top of the player's sprite. I know you said this was intentional, but it made aiming more difficult than it needed to be. The meditation mechanic is what defines this game. Really like the risk-versus-reward system you put in place.

Thought the boss battle was pretty intense. Couldn't defeat him, but it was definitely the highlight of my experience.

That being said, I'm not sure how this fits in with the minimalist theme. Nevertheless, nice work!

I like the charging mechanic. The fact that you can't easily shoot at approaching enemies sideways surprisingly adds a lot of strategy -- suddenly it matters where you stand. Some music would be nice.

Give me the pleasure! (this really cracked me up)

Fun game, died on the boss, would have been nice to have a checkpoint there.

Difficult to shoot monsters which are lower than you.

The mana gathering mechanic is cool! The point that the fireball comes from isn't very intuitive and I kept forgetting and missing by miles.

Nice and simple. Though it's annoying to die very quickly when you run accidentaly in goblins.

Great job! Very simple, but works great!

Really well done, congrats! Only complaint is having to start at the beginning when dying... possibly restart in the same room with one less than however much health you started with last time?

He is really serious while concentrating )
Also firing horisontally is very hard to hit enemies.

Pretty cool game, I'd like to see more polishing.

Phenomenal job! Liked the dialog and it had great style!

That was fun/amusing!

Controls are smooth, but it's hard to aim because the goblins move towards your feet but the fireballs emerge from the top of your staff. It would also be nice if enemies stayed dead so you can safely flee back to the previous room. Graphics are nice, and sound is charming :)

Cool and silly game. I'd like more control over the fireballs position though.

Liked this one. So hard to do an action rpg like this in 48 hrs. Good job. I really like the game mechanism of how you recharge your mana. Shoot small enemies seems a little difficult though.

Fun game, keep up the good work!

Good game. Really liked your audio. It is quite hard to aim the fireballs

Nice Game. It was a little difficult, because you only had one heart. Maybe you could make the goblins drop hearts, or make a healing spell. Awesome game, though.

Aiming was a bit difficult and mana dropped too fast! Anyway a nice little game, thanks!

It was fun, very difficult, which made it last more then 5 sec. That was nice.

I liked the shooting/charging mechanic, pretty much the only thing that made the pre-boss game challenging at all. That said, I couldn't beat the boss. That massive horde of goblins made it pretty much impossible. Otherwise, very nice (although not very minimal?).

That was awesome haha, the boss scared the shit outta me

Pretty fun- I liked the zelda style camera transitions. It was really difficult to land the fireballs though, especially on the tiny goblins.

I'll echo mire: "love the meditation mechanic, it made each combat scene a fun game of positioning and solves the mana potion problem very nicely."
Also, it would be neat if you could knock back enemies with your staff - not for damage but to give you time to recharge a bit. I also wish there was more health. I wasn't able to make it to the boss. :/

"Give me pleasure with arrow keys" :P .. sounded so wrong
Love it :)

summons remind me of Age of Empires .. nice

Done rating.

Please do show some love on my game too :)
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-26/?action=rate&uid=21211

Mechanically I thought this was pretty neat, if not super groundbreaking. The fact that the fireball comes from the top of your sprite was particularly interesting (if sometimes not ideal XD).

The sounds are awesome (mweooo), and I think the graphics were quite nice. The lack of checkpoints and healing are not. I really didn't want to go through the whole dungeon again after the boss killed me.

Not sure what it has to do with minimalism.

Killed myself on my own fireball. Ha!

Nicely done! Your graphics kinda rule too :D

Simple, but with lots of charm.

Fun game! The tutorial text and sound effects made me chuckle. Good amount of gameplay as well. One thing was shooting the fireball horizontally, would usually go over the head of smaller enemeis (goblins). Overall, really nice entry!

This is mostly nice, though I eventually came to a part that killed me because the fireballs fired from further up than the enemies were. It's very pretty and has lots of decent sound effects, and I like the mechanic of charging mana.

Cool. Liked the idea and story. A few rough spots, but very cool. Liked the change-up at the boss fight. Figured out half way through that I could skip the enemies.

This game is AWESOME. I love it.

But yeah, I wish the char's action point was on his mid body, not his head.

I really enjoyed the magic mechanics. Also great sound design!

Not sure anyone else here actually beat the boss, it took forever and seems to require knowledge of two non-obvious game mechanics: you move twice as fast going diagonally and your mana kind of recharges in the background, letting you just tap space occasionally instead of sitting and concentrating. It's also really mean that you have to kill all the little goblins before the king will go down D:. Still I suppose I have to give you credit for making me want to beat it.

Good job!

As mentioned below, the fireballs shooting from the top of the staff make it challenging, but I enjoyed the first play through!

Fun little adventure, the dungeon gets difficult when you're trying to fend enemies off the sides.

Very cool game. Love the graphics and your idea with the concentration. Hard to aim sometimes.

Seemed like I could mostly just run between areas, sometimes only shoot one creature or so. I like the idea!

Nice game ! The boss got me, he was too fast :)
One thing you could improve is to add a sprite for doors, it is sometimes hard to see where the exit is.
Great audio too !

It's a good game but the final boss is too hard compare to the rest of the game. And it's too easy to move on without kill monsters. I had just need to avoid them. Sounds and music are very good.

I love the graphics :D When you go out of a room and then enter again all the enemies respawn, which i think it is annoying. Else good game with awesome grapics ;)

Enjoyed it a lot!

Cool game but firing left or right was near impossible

Well done. Pleasuring with cursor keys was my favorite and the sound when concentrating is hilarious.

GOBLIN KING IS AN IMPOSSIBLE BEAST!!!

lol

Cool game, although it would have been better if fireballs shot from center instead of top. Also, the way monsters move makes it easier to just run instead of fight. Congrats!

Not a big fan of having to stand still to regain mana.. well, not a big fan of having to press space while standing still to regain mana. Guess it makes sense from a wizard point of view, and for making the boss fight very hard, but it wasn't fun to just regain mana all the time. Maybe if it had recharged when changing rooms. Now, before exiting a room, I just stood holding space every time, and it got a bit tedious. Not a bad game though.

Lack of checkpoints is irritating, while shooting mechanic is just killing. I found bug while was charging mana between lvls - I was standing on the edge of map and instead changing lvl I went out screen, once i realized where I am goblins were already on me:P
Btw i spend more time writing this then playing coz this 'fire from staff' thing is pissing me off.
Tip: skipping lvls is much more easier then fighting.
Thanks.

I like it! Though the fireball probably shouldn't launch from so far above my head.. makes it next to impossible to deal with some monsters.

Great game, love the music, sfx need a little work, controls are a little floaty. This game is well done.

Haha, great tutorial! The mana/concentration mechanic was neat. Cool game!

This was a fun game. Aside from problems lining up the fireballs, I really enjoyed playing. Charging up the mana was an interesting concept.

Very nice game . Classic and minimalistic. like the concept. :)

Nice little adventure!

The mana-reloading-machanism is quite nice, it the idea of magic in that world scope.

Aiming is a bit difficult, as the fireballs appear on top of the character.

Other than the sideways fireballs being too high, a great game. Well done!

Good game ! Fire control are hard to master, the fire ball seems to be launch with an offset, so it's hard to aim.

I really like this game! A few details that I found should be corrected.
* It's way too easy to just skip ahead all the enemies, especially since it is so hard to hit them.
* The Fireballs shoot from too high, it's way more difficult to shoot stuff this way.
* You can cheat on mana regeneration by tapping space once in a while (I don't know if this was intended)

Other than that, I loved the concept! Simple yet requires some strategy.

Nice game. I found it hard to hit anything as the fireball spawns on top of the staff :)

Well, the graphics are quite nice, but the animation is a bit odd: The character moves back/forth, which looks less like walking to me, more like stuttering (I know it's most likely intentional). Also the fireball shooting others have mentioned: The balls should fly from the same height Monsters try to attack you (especially goblins). Oh, and that "boss fight"... before being able to realize I'm in a boss fight I'm dead because he charges at me and almost instantly kills me. At least that part hasn't been fun. ;)

Fighting the boss took me longer than playing the rest of the game.. and in the end I was down to 2 of those cute goblin babies and then I got stuck in a corner and died a horrible death. Damn you Goblin King!! I saw him coming but couldn't get away.

Nice game though :). I also liked the recharging mechanics and didn't mind the fireball being shot from the head.

YOLO, I Like the wizard and his fireballs :) fUN!

Pros: Fun game mechanics loading up fireballs with space!
Cons: Hard to aim horizontally

I died. D:

That said, awesome job. I'm impressed by all you were able to achieve during the weekend! The only thing that irked me a bit was that the fireballs were thrown "off-center". That messed with my mind.

Apart from that, I like the graphics, the monsters and especially the sound effects! :D

Very fun! I like the sfx and how the wizard concentrates, solid RPG!

The spell system is really good, exept the position of fireball when launch left/right.
Get killed (don't understand how, maybe not enough attentive or strange collision box :p) ... bad there were no save point (maybe later in game?).

Very funny and awesome graphics. You, sir, deserve very good ratings :)

Interesting use of the theme. The sounds really set the mood and the gfx are nice too.

Loved the art style :D The fireball may have been more effective if it launched from the sprite's mid-section and firing while holding Space and the movement keys felt a bit weird. Otherwise, I enjoyed it! :D

Pretty good game, I enjoyed the audio and the graphics. As others have said, horizontal aiming is pretty hard. Also, the transition to the boss fight is kind of abrupt. Otherwise, I had fun with this.

I liked firing while charging, and charging during bosses, but waiting to charge while there's no one around got tedious. I died on the boss but didn't feel like trying to get all the way back there.

Really fluid and solid movement. Great audio design and concept here. I liked the sprite style because it's actually more reminiscient of 1980s-era Sierra and less like Nintendo-era sprites, with the vivid colors and really sparse use of pixels.

Potential but needs polish. Fireballs from top of head is terrible :) Dying on Goblin King and starting over is no fun. Nice art and could be fun with more polish.

Feels quite disturbed and I like that. I indeed received pleasure from this.

Cool game. Congratz!

The good:
amazing job on the artwork, it reminds me of ROTMG!
I like the fireball being at the top off the staff unlike most people.
The boss battle was really fun, it took me a while to beat it
(eventually I landed on a strategy of killing off all the minions so I could focus on the boss alone)
very interesting style
I liked the one corridor with the goblins, it looks at first that there is not enough space to even hit them, but you can hit the one on the top and go around the others. Leaving that bit of extra space made the difference between bad and good design there I feel.
The bad:
pathfinding could have used some more work
the gameplay leading up to the boss was a bit too easy, although I would equate that to the pathfinding.
if you time it just right moving back and forth between areas you can get your player out of view of the camera.
other than it having a simple game mechanic of movin' n' shootin' it didn't really fit the theme.
overall great game though, I had a lot of fun playing it!

nice concept, and the graphics and sound were cool, but it was hard shooting the fireballs and hitting with the origin they spawned from - if you continue this post compo - then maybe manna filling itself, or a fire button instead of the arrow keys - as you have to walk into the enemy to aim at them, which gets tricky on smaller layouts.

Fun game! like the retro graphics and the shooting mechanic :)

Really nice one, love the concept. Nice to see a tutorial merged on gameplay that not only shows how to play but also give a reason to kill the goblins.

Controls/collision need a bit of work and some more spells would be cool. The game get somewhat repetitive at some point but for a 48 hours work this is totally amazing.

The position of the fireball (top of the character) makes it hard to aim, but you get used to it quickly.
The sounds are funny, not the usual bsfxr :)

This game is great. I don't like that you shoot the fireballs from the top of the sprite, it makes it harder to hit when shooting horizontal, compared to vertical. This makes it weird that there is a difference in your accuracy depending on the direction you shoot. But aside from that everything else about this game is great. The meditation thing is very interesting.

Love the retro graphics which are minimal enough to work with the theme. Pretty fun game on top of it too!

Very fun and impressive sounds! Great. Great. Great!

Love the play mechanic, but it's TOUGH. The sound effects are so freakin funny. I swear the goblins say 'AFLACK'

Fun game with the most frustrating final boss ever. Can you actually beat him?

Could use checkpoints for enhanced gameplay. And I'm not really sure the background music fits.

Pretty interesting gameplay mechanic and I liked the retro style plus the tutorial in the beginning was rather amusing.