Guardian Angel by Raven

made by Raven for LD 40 (COMPO)

A single-level 2D top-down Action Game(Shooter?) with a rather full(maybe) plot.

Unfortunately there is no stamina for me to polish the game and add in sound and music :(
I am also not very good at drawing :(
Also not much balance test (do not know the difficulty to most of people)
The only sound effect for not silent version is to alert Energy Wave charge complete. (because I think it is an important feedback)
If you don't like the sound there is a silent version~

I will be very appreciated if you can have a try on my game and leave any opinion~

In-game instructions should be enough (if not unlucky).
Full tutorial (If you are unlucky to have some instructions skipped (Because I want to do a immersive tutorial!)) - W/S/A/D for moving - Hold Left Mouse Button to charge and release to release an Energy Wave - Click Right Mouse Button to release a Holy Blast when charge timer(bottom left) is full - Defeat demons and cleansing cursed fireballs to get charge for Holy Blast

Collect souls to open a portal through darkness! (on the top is the progress bar)

Hope you can enjoy my game!

Windows	https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LZmNkHYoZi4X9MtdRw7SQ65snxDvZUvS
Source Code (GameMaker Studio 1.4)	https://drive.google.com/open?id=1J9yPTxN3FaLVL2DmsGD11lj1_tMsF_Nn
Original URL	https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/guardian-angel

Ratings

Overall	574^th	2.9⭐	22🧑‍⚖️
Fun	590^th	2.675⭐	22🧑‍⚖️
Innovation	444^th	2.925⭐	22🧑‍⚖️
Theme	477^th	3.105⭐	21🧑‍⚖️
Graphics	564^th	2.643⭐	23🧑‍⚖️
Humor	444^th	2.278⭐	20🧑‍⚖️
Mood	494^th	2.725⭐	22🧑‍⚖️
Given		23🗳️	19🗨️

Feedback

Linky439

07. Dec 2017 · 11:48 UTC

Congrats on making a game for the compo! :)

I have to say your game feel a bit too slow. What didn't help was the WASD keys for my AZERTY keyboard as well x)
The idea is nice, but I think it would need more polish. Plus, once you get hit twice or three times, it's like a game over considering how slow you become ^^

Overall, it could be better, but congrats for making the deadline. Keep on working! :)

🎤 Raven

07. Dec 2017 · 12:05 UTC

@linky439
Very sorry for I didn't considering AZERTY keyboard will have a big trouble with this _(:з)∠)__
I actually also had a big headache on balancing the game. Probably there is indeed too less of mistake-tolerance.
I think it would be better to have several levels with progressive difficulty, but I didn't have enough time and stamina for doing this.

Thank you for your comment!

settings

07. Dec 2017 · 13:25 UTC

Cool story! I think it was pretty nice how you tied tutorial+mechanics with narrative, not only I think it was very well made, but it shows you have a knack for it. I agree with the first comment about getting hit 2-3 times equaling death, I would say that balance was the biggest issue. Maybe the step after that would be adding some upgrades to the character? Also, consider lowering the top bar when you take too long to get souls, I feel it would help set a better pacing for the game (although it's also harder to balance).

Congratulations!

Brendan Milos

07. Dec 2017 · 13:33 UTC

Awesome work on the compo! Overall it fits the theme well, and is easy to pick up and understand. You may have benefited from spending more time revising the feel of controls instead of adding the intro story to it. The narrative would still be clear without the opening, and the character moves a bit stiffly. Overall, the idea works well though :)

🎤 Raven

07. Dec 2017 · 13:53 UTC

@settings

Thank you for the comments and all the opinions on the gameplay!

Because I had only tested gameplay by myself, I actually have no idea how to estimate the difficulty to other people (sadly I thought it was too easy and raised difficulty...
Maybe next time I shall also put more attention on the pacing of the game.

🎤 Raven

07. Dec 2017 · 13:58 UTC

@brendan-milos

Perhaps I shall give myself one more day for polishing and submit to jam _(:з)∠)__

Thank you for your comments!

gamedevbynight

07. Dec 2017 · 16:05 UTC

this was good. Nice tutorial!!! Some music would have been nice! :) Good job!

GettingRekt

07. Dec 2017 · 17:02 UTC

I enjoy the graphical style and the "thoughts" of the main character. The gameplay started a bit slow in my opinion, and I think I missed what the different things on the map was used for. Tried to shoot everything first, and then collect them (reading the instructions on this page helped).

Overall, nice graphic and storytelling. A bit weaker on the balance like you said. And making the game too easy is better than too hard in my opinion.

Wesxdz

07. Dec 2017 · 17:06 UTC

I liked how the demons turned the pure souls into corrupted ones, that was pretty snazzy. I also thought the story at the beginning was decent. Nice job!

Tiberiusuciu

07. Dec 2017 · 17:07 UTC

The abstract art is really nice for the cut scenes, I love it. Also, the mechanics of the game is well done. If only there was a music to this it would of been even better, but no worries :)

One recommendation is to maybe make the text last less longer. But otherwise the game is great! Great job! :)

Thijs Tak

07. Dec 2017 · 17:29 UTC

Nice game. Some music would have really improveed the overal mood of the game and the sound would get a bit reppetitive after a while.
Keep it up.

🎤 Raven

08. Dec 2017 · 02:02 UTC

Thank you for all your thoughts and opinions!

Sound and music are indeed very important to the "mood". (If I could have finished mechanism and storytelling faster... _(:з)∠)__

@tiberiusuciu
I was also afraid of people cannot finish reading the text...
Test play and feedback from others are really precious for tweaking all the variables and features.

Michael Feldman

11. Dec 2017 · 21:26 UTC

Nice little game indeed. Very good motivational story. I attempted a story at the intro of my LD39 "The Wiz" but did it through vague imagery and people had no idea what was going on and lacked motivation. With yours the motivation is clear, and hey programmer art is par for the course here in LD. I'd say great job. Keep up the good work.

Michael Feldman

11. Dec 2017 · 21:26 UTC

🎤 Raven

13. Dec 2017 · 16:52 UTC

@michael-feldman

Thank you for your comments!
I was indeed intended to put more efforts in story-telling, and perhaps this is the best I can do for art as a programmer lol.

I have also had a play on "The Wiz", it looks too abstract for me, I have to say _(:з)∠)__

dodormeur

13. Dec 2017 · 20:53 UTC

The game is nice, but need more polish and gameplay idea; after a while, it is not very stimulating and gets a bit boring. it could be really cool with a bit more work :)

🎤 Raven

13. Dec 2017 · 21:12 UTC

@dodormeur

Thank you for your comments!

Actually I was trying to do some rebalance after the jam, but I finding it is too hard to do and the gameplay won't change too much.
My conclusion to this is the gameplay is moving slower due to fitting mechanism in to the theme. If the gameplay moves to be tense, the difficulty will become too high.
One of the solutions I came up with would be making it to fixed level instead of random generating all the things.
But that will cost a lot of time :(

Perhaps I could get to some idea works both well with the mechanism and the theme next time :)

atmospherium

14. Dec 2017 · 00:28 UTC

Interesting take on the theme. Gameplay was easy to understand but quickly jumped up in difficulty as more enemies showed up (which fit right in line with the theme). I think faster firing weapons would have been nice. It felt like it took a really long time to be able to fire and I'd find myself releasing fire JUST before the sound and then having to recharge again. Overall good work on this.

PUR3

14. Dec 2017 · 13:53 UTC

Very nice game, just needs a bit more polishing. Some ambient music would have gone very nicely, maybe make a point system so you could purchase faster reload. Other than that very well done! :)

cosarara

14. Dec 2017 · 19:59 UTC

I didn't quite understand the cleanse mechanic, and the sound needs work. I liked the text explaining what was going on a lot.