It looks great, and is fun, but I dont think it fits with the theme very well

​Fantastic art and music! I had a hard time using the hammer, and couldn't seem to get very far, but I am really impressed with the polish on the assets.

This game reminds me so much of the old NES games, the retro music and the cool graphics. Even the game design is similar to legend of Zelda. Great job and keep up the work.

Wow, that music - so good!

The game looks and sounds great - overall really good asset polish. Feels like a few things could have been tweaked for better game play, some of the collisions felt a little harsh and sometimes I felt like I didn't have time to react to enemies after entering a new room.

I thought the idea of enemies taking up space when they die was great.

I had a great time with your game. He is really polish and the change palette color was really funny !

I had some frustration with some collisions that made me die a few times.

Nice work !

Awseome art and feel, it lacks a bit of theme relation. But it's a nice game.

Great graphics and music. I find the game too hard however.

This game is difficult, but in a very satisfying way. It keeps me coming back for more. I like the back-and-forth mechanic between the crystal spells and the hammer. I do wish the hammer would clear a larger area at a time. The sprites are well done and fit together stylistically. Great job!

Wondurful graphics, gameplay and music on point even if I'm not sure with the theme ...

Great fun, and looks great as well! Would definitely play a full game like this.

wonderful pixelated graphics , love the gameplay and the dynamic on the swap weapons, difficuly quite hard especially that you need to swap weapon just to have a room lol, well done !

Finally, took me **ages**!

Very nice art and tunes, as always. Controls were kinda clunky but they worked quite well with the slow and methodical gameplay anyway. At least after I got used to them. Would have preferred for the hammer to be its own key instead of needing to swap between the two weapons. It was slow enough to use already that it was punishment enough not to use it in middle of combat. The clear area of the hammer was also quit awful, it could have almost been doubled in size. And having to manually clear the room for path was just a waste of time and didn't feel too fun (would have been better with forementioned better hammer hit area). I think the crystal rod was also quite inconsistent. There should always be some crystals left behind when hitting enemy or jar for that sweet sweet multikill potential.

The enemy and their bullet hitboxes were too big. Quite often I got hit by something that I didn't think hit me and it felt very unfair. And speaking of unfair, I hate those flying ball enemies with a passion. I mean being invulnerable 90% of the time and still able to hurt the player and move faster than them was just bad. And when they weren't steamrolling over be hitting several times in a fracture of a second (invincibility frames please), they were being dicks floating around on the other side of the map wasting my time. The same somewhat applies to those spider enemies. I think they should have not been able to hurt the player mid jump.

The slight randomness on enemies did more harm than good in my opinion. It made me sometimes instantly take a bunch of damage right after they spawned. And some rooms were just huge death traps if approached from the wrong direction, like this one.

Good job, a very fun and frustrating game!

The game looks really nice, and the idea is pretty good, too. But I'm not really sure if there is kinda "running out of space" thing. Really great job, anyway:)

Really cool game ! The music is nice, the graphics are too and I was really enjoyed to play it ^^ This kind of game can be like these ones which are realesed after a Ludum Dare ^^ You just have to fix the hitboxes ^^'

Cool entry ^^ Keep coding ^^

Man this game is so damn good polished. Love the artstyle. Had a blast playing it! Keep it up.

Saw this on twitter! Liked the look of it so came back to try it. Really difficult! I was terrible at it. I wish the hammer & wand were on two separate buttons since you only had two and had a button to switch them anyway. Good job, really well done!

Really cool, loved the art & music. I was a bit confused about the crystal debris at first but got the hang of it after a few tries.

I had a fun time playing this, I like all the detailed sprites and art that you made. I think the difficulty was pretty high as I died a bunch on the first few rooms. Maybe ramp the difficulty a little smoother so the player can get used to the enemy pattern and attacks slower, my first room had a jumping spider and a bunch of bats, it was overwhelming in the beginning. I hat the ball dudes, they felt broken to me as I died a lot and never was able to kill them.

Nice work very impressive compo. I found your use of the theme creative as I did run out of space during some of my kiting and had to switch to the hammer to get more space which I had ran out of. I felt it was creative.

Fun entry!

First thing's first; I really like the graphics. As someone else mentioned, they reminded me a lot of the Legend of Zelda series; especially the Link's Awakening/oracle series. I tend towards retro gaming a lot, so the gameboy-esque feel is quite nice! The music was pretty enjoyable as well.

I will say that enemies destroyed me very quickly - making the character invincible for a second or two after getting hit makes a world of difference. The game was very difficult, and I think this might have made it more bearable. It also seemed like there must be an optimal way through the dungeon - I found myself walking into enemies as soon as I went through a door very often.

All that said this was still a super fun entry to play - great accomplishment for two days! Thanks for a fun entry.

In my opinion the game lacks a way to get you out of trouble when you make a mistake and get hit. There are no invincibility frames after damage is sustained, so playing this I die a lot and I feel like it's essentially a one hit kill game. The visuals and audio are great though. Very coherent.

I love this game but agree with the previous comment, there was not a long enough invincibility period after taking damage. Other then that very polished fun and difficult game. I LOVE this style of game.

All around a great entry. I really enjoyed the little palette swap option. I'm sure it was pretty simple to implement but it looks great.

I was a little frustrated by the floating bouncing ball enemies since when I entered the room from the bottom they immediately swarmed me and I wasn't able to hit them with the rod because my shots would pass underneath them. Just a small nitpick in an excellent all around entry.

I'd echo some of the other comments about a separate key for the hammer. It would make everything just a little smoother.

Nice palette work. Not sure how it relates to the theme, but still a great execution.

This game is pretty fun. I enjoyed the zelda-esque dungeon navigation and the gameboy inspired aesthetic. The chibi pixel art style overall was very effective. Having dead enemies block off spaces is an interesting idea, as it makes you change your tactics with the shifting terrain. My only major gripe with this game is how tricky it is to dodge certain enemies when they first spawn in. Other than that, this is a very solid entry. Nice work!

The pixelart looks beautiful and the sound effects very satisfying. Great work!

I am blown away by this entry! I love the old school look and feel of the game, especially the music. The controls to me are fine. I have no problem using a button to switch between hammer and rod. It is a tricky game to master but I look forward to the challenge! Congrats on completing your game!

It's really sad to see people complaining not seeing the theme connection on this one. I mean, sure it was a clever take on it but it should be quite obvious how it relates to the theme after playing it for a while. Did they even give the game a fair go instead of just getting bodied in each three starting rooms and rage quitting after that.

Theme seems like a hard category to do well in. I don't think I've even tried any of the previous theme category winners so I don't know what their take was but I'd think going with the obvious take wouldn't score very highly. It's kinda like if the graphics category had a footnote of *"You have to vote 1 if you can't tell me what 11x12 is in under 3 seconds"*.

@antti-haavikko I must confess that I've felt my approach to the theme could be a bit loose, so I can understand why some people may not get it right away. The fact that many people made the connection and thought it was creative makes me really glad though!

Also, I want to say that I am blown away by the reception my submission got so far. Reading all of your comments and feedback makes me super happy, specially knowing that many of you enjoyed the game despite of its roughness.
Taking all of that in consideration, I've uploaded a new stand-alone version on Itch with some fixes and changes (while keeping the original version intact for the sake of ratings).

Thank you for everyone who took their time to play, rate and comment. I appreciate ya! <3

I loved the visual style and sound effects! The hammer was a bit weak and clunky for my taste, and the lack of invincibility frames made the game a bit too unforgiving in an anti-fun way, but other than that, incredible work. Can't wait to see how you update the game, and the work you've put in so far is obviously outstanding.

Wow, the best entry I've seen for this jam yet, fantastic. That death animation is perfect

Graphically the best game I have reviewed so far! Super polished, looks like a complete game straight off of a game boy! The mechanic works well with having to tidy up the crystal debris after firing, and the enemies are well animated and tough to beat. Well done!

Where is the theme!?! Game is difficult, but good difficult as you understand why you died and can work to avoid it next time. The overall look is very nice especially with the colour choice. Much polish is evident in the gameplay and sprites. The music goes well with the gameplay and sounds great. I can see the theme is slightly evident with enemies leaving crystal debris on death but this mechanic feels like its there for the sake of the theme rather than to make the game better (it feels out of place and unnecessary)! No story is evident, but I wasn't able to beat the game (If it had an ending), so take this statement with a grain of salt. Great entry, well done.

I really like the change palette feature! Love the retro feels with the graphics and sound too.
Getting stuck because of your own crystals was a tad annoying, and the hammer didn't work on crystals that are super close to you. I felt that the the hammer could have used a bigger area of effect. I was hoping it'd work on the enemies as well but not being able to do so felt a bit counter-intuitive, and the swapping thing instead of just having 2 buttons made it a bit annoying - I couldn't collect hearts dropped by enemies quickly enough, before they disappeared.

Although the difficulty was high, remembering the positions of enemies after dying a lot of times helped, ahaha.

Very good graphics. I found it to be difficult, and I think it's because I could only shoot in the direction I was running in, making it hard to evade enemy attacks while also trying to kill them. I'm also pleased to see another person using Construct 2.

I'm amazed by how polished this game is. It's really hard tho.
Nicely done.

Nice game! The pixel art and music are lovely, a little bit hard to control, and difficult raises because no "invincible time" after being hit, but a great game nonetheless. Thanks!

great work, nice game and very polished, love the idea and fits the theme very well.
Just found it a bit too difficult and could never get very far, maybe 2 different butts for each weapon instead of a switch button? Just a thought, and thanks

Great graphics and presentation. The theme fit was fine, but not mechanically good.
The biggest question is why do you require the player to switch weapons to use a hammer when literally allowing the other button to BE the hammer button is much easier? It feels like an artificial barrier to make the game more difficult than it is. It's a frustration rather than a challenge.
Also, the hammer can't damage enemies? Or at least that's how it felt? That feels counter intuitive if it's the case.

Anyway good execution, not sure about the core mechanics.

Really neat graphics and great idea around the theme. A bit too difficult for me but I've enjoyed my time playing it.

I really liked the diffuclty of the game. I will make sure to play it again later!

I didn't find too hard. Maybe for a jam where you have to rate 2 games per minutes. Love the graphic, the nostagia feels. But how the hell did you managed all that?

Awesome entry. I actually liked the crystals filling the space and thought it was a good way to incorporate the theme into a familiar game, also makes you a little more careful of spamming shoot, then switching to the hammer for simple pots. There's a lot of work that you put into this kudos.

Oh, nailed that graphics and music/sound so bad. True talent at its best.

Pretty difficult game, I think the enemies move too fast for the controls you are allowed.
Appart from that, really good design, art, and audio, great work !

great job!

Looks great, sounds great and I really liked being able to adjust the palette scheme on the fly. I can see the attempt was made to incorporate the theme into the game play but it doesn't exactly fit. It caused a bit of confusion on my behalf when my first instinct(break vase) created what I believed to be items but turned out to be impassable rubble, then I crushed it thinking I destroyed my items. Rinse repeat. I figured out on my 3rd life that it was working as intended and that I had to crush any rubble left behind from destroyed/killed objects. Still fun, still enjoyable. Great job!

Excellent pixel art and audio, and appreciate the palette swap options! Controls could be tighter, and the enemies spawning after you step into the room is kind of jarring and could be a little unfair at times with an instadeath with the wrong enemy. Not really feeling the theme in this, however this is a great roguelite dungeon romp, well done!

Game play was very fun and the art was great. I love the idea of the room filling up with crystals! The only issue I had was that it felt too easy to get chain-hit by enemies. Some more invincibility frames would have helped. Otherwise it's still a great game.

Very cool game! I especially liked the music and retro-pixel style.
The variety of enemies was very nice, since each allowed for a different strategy. Because of that, the game was difficult but not unfair. The hitboxes were a little confusing (as was mentioned before) but overall a fantastic entry!

Great fun, reminiscent of zelda on the old gameboy. Loved the fact that you could change the palette too.

wow... the graphics are so so nice! game itself is a bit too hard for me but it was quite fun nevertheless. also i'm glad that you sort of convinced me that it is possible to make a good game in construct2 (sorry! i usually see bad construct games on jams...)

Wow, really good game, graphics are amazing. You should add a boss, the game is a bit easy once you get used to the controls

I like the Gameboy style graphics and music. The idea is a pretty neat one in that you were encouraged to plan where you want an enemy to die so you dont have to constantly use the hammer. It is a pretty tough little game but very well done.

I understand your intention on with the theme but I thought it was a little bit soft. I loved music and art. Overall is an excellent game for a game jam!

The game looks good and is pretty solid for a compo entry. The art style is a bit of a copy of other games, but the combat is unique enough.

I did find that the player's movement would often be hindered by invisible walls, which led to a few unfair deaths.

There is a lot of work done in a little time and it's a full game, nice job.

Very good game! Reminded me of old Zelda games for the Gameboy which I absolutely loved as a child. The controls were a bit clunkly though. Did not find the hammer that useful, as I mostly died when getting into close ccombat.^^ Well done! :smile:

Link's Awakening meets Binding of Isaac with a tweak that fits the theme well and very polished. Thats a solid 5 for me. One of my favorites. Although you had me with the pallete change ^^

Very good job!

I really like the classic feel in this game. It felt unfair that the jumping spiders could still damage you when in midair.

Love the aesthetic, Zelda games are my favorite! The palette swap feature was a nice touch! Music was fantastic too. At first I was pretty confused what the mechanics had to do with the theme but then I killed an enemy and it instantly clicked. It was a bit difficult to use the hammer but otherwise I really enjoyed my time with the game! Great job!

Сool game!The need to use a hammer slightly reduces the dynamics of the game.

Really really good and polish game. There are a few things that could get better, like the invencibility time after taking damage, also feels like it doesnt fit quite well with the theme. But overall, awesome game! <3

Love the art of the game and interesting mechanic of the wand leaving behind the shards. Was a little disappointed that the hammer is only used to clean up the mess, thought it may take care of the underground enemy. Also thought it was a bit rough avoiding some of the enemies in such tight quarters and moving a tad slow. Overall great job though!

Great presentation and gameplay loop! controls are a little hard and the hammer would have been better a separate key than switching I think.

Fantastic game! Very well balanced and polished for such a short time. I'm impressed.

A polioshed game! Cute music and art. And quite balanced. Good Job!

Great work, love the take on the theme and the art style. Good job!

Nice graphics and good job! I found the game too hard at the begining

Graphics remind me of the good old gameboy days which is a good thing. The music fits the game and i enjoyed listening to it. I found the game itself pretty hard and i died quite often :D - especially the constant switching between hammer and staff since the Z and Shift keys are pretty far apart on german keyboards. None the less if was a fun experience.

The enemy movement feels unfair in many rooms (maybe its punishing nature needs some motivation on the story-side). The design of the crystal mechanic seems pointless. It adds no obvious fun or meaning to the game. Maybe I didn't understand them before getting frustrated by them. Aside from the gameplay design decisions, solid work!

I liked the gameboy inspired graphics and the ability to swap your palette is a really cool aesthetic addition. The music was some nice bouncey 8-bit goodness. The game itself was well made if a bit too difficult for my tastes (mainly due to how slow you move and how big you are on the screen). I also feel like you could have taken it in a slightly different direction to fit the theme better. Initially, I thought the hammer wasn't a thing and went "Oh, okay, so the game is about timing where you kill an enemy so you don't block your path forward. That's a pretty awesome idea." I feel like if you took it more in that direction it could have been something more thematically fitting and smarter. As it stands, it is by no means bad, just a bit too hard for my tastes, but I suppose that is the nature of original Zelda-styled games. Good work!

This. is awesome. Oh my god

Fun and cute game, though as a lot of people mentioned, the randomness made the game super hard. You could walk into a room and immediately be attacked by something spawning in front of you. Also, it was a pretty light use of the theme, but I can understand why it wasn't pushed further. So many times the door ended up being blocked so the hammer was necessary though it took away from the theme.

Absolutely LOOOVE gameboy graphics, so look wise, it's right up my alley. Great job!

Really cool graphics and music. It's a pretty lovely detail that you can change de color palette. It was hard to play with the keyboard tho, maybe with a controller could be easier, I hate the freaking mushrooms hahaha Nice job!

Why I'm not surprised this was the best game I've played so far on LD :D Congratulations!

I just thought the sfx where kinda loud, I wanted to listen to the music but couldn't turn the volume up haha

Fun, but difficult!

The graphics and music is cool!

Not my cup of tea, but i can appreciate it for what it is. It's very charming with the Game-Boy like style and sounds!

Very solid and addictive game. Pretty impressive how much can single person do in two days.
The only thing that feels wrong in web version is damage cooldown, it's too short. Because of this and unfair enemy positioning game feels very unpolished and raw.

The game was fun and I love the game-boy aesthetic. I'm glad you took the time to add palette swaps which I thought was a really nice touch.

I did find the hit box on the hammer frustrating though. I figured it was there to clear a path if you get blocked but since the hit box missed a little bit of the space right in front of the player it would get a little tedious to get the spacing just right to actually clear a path through the crystals. I wish I could just hold down forward and wack away to clear through it instead of having to step back a few feet to make sure I get the front part of the crystal.

Also I found it frustrating that the item icon blocked the health bar. I was pretty surprised when I died a few times because I didn't realize how low my life was.

Ultimately though, I really liked the look and feel of the game.

Great game overall. Graphic, sound and gameplay are great. But, it doesn't fit well with the theme.

Pretty much all the critiques I'd have have already been said. I do think this is a good use of the theme despite not being super obvious at first. You interpreted running out of space as kind of a secondary gameplay mechanic rather than leaning super hard into and that's fine. I love this game and if I'd had it for Gameboy when I was a kid, it would have been the one that always lived in my backpack.

Really like the art style and music. It was rough that getting hit didn't give you any temporary invincibility and move you away from the enemy. I died several times just by not being able to get out from under an enemy quickly enough. Regardless though, it's a really solid entry. Great work!

Great work on this one, I like the take on the theme. The amount of work on the enemy design is impressive and the aesthetics is just top notch. It's difficult, and sometimes it seems to have a little bit of collision issues. Apart from that, I don't know if there are many weapons in the game, but it could have been great to have a dedicated key for the hammer as you have to use it constantly to progress. Having to switch back and forth with the rod is a bit a tedious and adds to the difficulty for no obvious reason.
Really cool entry!

Excellent entry. palette swap was a nice touch! I found the weapon swap a little difficult, so maybe a different key for each weapon as others have suggested. Very challenging! Well done.

Really solid entry and overall very well handled, but I didn't really get the fit of the theme here. Despite that it is a nice little game and the palette swap is a very nice touch. Good job.

Cool entry, really fun. I get the mechanic with enemies dying making the area in which you can move smaller, but didn't feel like that added much to the game or changed much mechanically. If anything, I think it kind of took away from the fun. Other than that this is certainly a well made little game. Good work!

Tricky and really well formed little game.

Lots of TBoI vibes but its unique enough to be its own thing. Really dig the gameboy graphics! And the variety of enemies. Great stuff.

I love it! Great idea for changing the color palate. I never would have thought of that.

Hard to imagine that isn't the best audio in the compo.

Very nice game. Loved the graphics and the audio, though the SFX were a bit loud at times. Not sure how it's running out of space, though I couldn't get really far. The controls were OK, though it was incredibly difficult to aim the wand and actually hit the moving targets. Nice levels though, and nice variety of enemies.

This game brought back so many memories - I loved the GB look and feel. I found the game super fun (though a little frustrating when I died instantly on enemy spawn in a couple of rooms).

Very good looking and a nice tribute to the golden times! I think it's a bit too hard though ^^

Wow I had to double check this was a compo game! Impressive work! I admit it was a little hard for me. Everything was said in the previous comments, not much to add. I do see how it matches the theme tho. Great job!

Really great work, love the graphics and the retro look/feel of the game. A bit hard but fair. I like the mechanic of using the wand and the hammer.

When I flung darts at the bats with the energetic music, I felt quick. If you continue to develop this, after I died I wished I could see the control list again.

Nice entry, reminds me of my childhood atari days. Very polished.

Very frustrating game, i think i'm gonna play it till i beat it, i dont really see the interest of the hammer right now but overall i liked playing it !

I loved this game!. To me the connection to the theme is clear as soon as you start spamming projectiles, and I found it was a pretty clever usage. Gameplay is fun and solid, and the polish in both art and audio is enviable, I loved the retro aesthetics. The music in particular is so catchy it sticks around after you stop playing the game.

Still trying to beat it though, those spiders are soooo annoying.

Congrats, you've pulled out a brilliant entry! :D

Loved the take on the theme, but the game is way too difficult! Enemies can attack me as soon as I enter a room and it just doesn't feel fair. That said, the music and graphics were spot-on. I really like the palette swap option!

I love the style, it's very solid. The screen shake adds a lot to the feel of the game. Good work!

Great gameplay, art style is nice, as well as the audio! Keep up the good work! :smiley:

Quite hard, but it's a really solid entry.

Great entry! The graphics and sound perfectly capture the original gameboy aesthetic. Controls are smooth, though hitboxes are a bit wonky, especially spiders when they are mid jump and the floating spheres. The biggest drawback is, I never felt like I was running out of space. I see where you were working toward the theme with the enemies dropping crystal shards when they died, but since you can easily clear them and move on to a clean screen, it felt more like a side-effect than a theme. Also, with how many enemies are packed into some rooms, it can be hard to maneuver, heals are few and far between, the the "life" of a heal is really short when you have to dig it out of crystal shards. Still, amazing job!

Beat the game! The only issue I have is the collisions for the floaters, I lost a few promising runs cause my bullet didn't clip them. Other than that, I loved the retro aesthetic and the music!