LudumData

To The Slaughter (LD43) by snakemuho

[raw]
made by snakemuho for LD 43 (COMPO)

:goat: After a few unethical experiments on his flock, the magician-shepherd found himself trapped inside a castle, and the flock, now sentient and armed, came after him. To escape the castle, he must sacrifice his poor experiments to the unseen owner of the castle. :goat:

:cow2: Full story, description and spell details at https://snakemuho.itch.io/to-the-slaughter :cow2:

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:waterbuffalo: I had to compress these gifs really hard to fit the 4MB limit :waterbuffalo:

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:ram: The screen might stay red / purple even after healing up, thanks to Unity's stupid deltaTime. The music might stop playing after a while because I forgot to put it on a loop. :ram:

Made in Unity 2017

sprites drawn in Krita

audio from ZapSplat.com, edited in FL12

music lazily made in 10 minutes in FL12

:sheep: If you like the game, there's a downloadable Windows version that is being rebalanced based on the feedback, but your votes should be based on the original browser version :sheep:

HTML5 (web) https://snakemuho.itch.io/to-the-slaughter
Windows https://snakemuho.itch.io/to-the-slaughter
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/to-the-slaughter-ld43

Ratings

Overall 206th 3.5⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Fun 203th 3.375⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 235th 3.225⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Theme 279th 3.4⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 80th 3.9⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Humor 337th 2.263⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Mood 102th 3.605⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Given 23🗳️ 13🗨️

Feedback

DaveDoublee
03. Dec 2018 · 12:15 UTC
Great graphics and theme.
However I did not understand the purpose of holding W, and I sometimes died randomly.
But the game feels really good, I love how you can just jump indefinitely and how demons keepp attacking you after you are dead.
I also liked the armless horned demons xD
🎤 snakemuho
03. Dec 2018 · 12:22 UTC
@davedoublee W lets you drain health in the zone around the character, and you probably died because spells you cast can kill you. And those aren't demons, those are poor innocent bulls who lost their front limbs due to some magic shenanigans :ox:
Aycan
03. Dec 2018 · 12:52 UTC
great graphics and rich background story provide an awesome atmosphere. however, controls were difficult in the beginning.
🎤 snakemuho
03. Dec 2018 · 12:59 UTC
@aycan thanks, I was making the controls with the gamepad in mind, but then forgot to put an actuall gamepad support in the game :ram:
Frippe
03. Dec 2018 · 14:43 UTC
Great game nice graphics and music a little bit hard to control. You could make so the enemys don´t spawn so quickly in the beginning.
artbohr
03. Dec 2018 · 14:58 UTC
Nice graphics and sounds and even have different attacks but I found it to be a very hard game but quiet fun, good job.
anfaas1618
03. Dec 2018 · 15:22 UTC
hard to play but nice game man i like it played 15 min straight
Raphael Maia
03. Dec 2018 · 15:40 UTC
The art is amazingly polished for two days of work. Nice sounds and gameplay too. Just felt like it needed more sacrifice in it, but the sacrifice of health to cast spells is fitting wel into the theme. It's pretty hard too, i guess it could be a little less?! Don't really know. Nice work!
🎤 snakemuho
03. Dec 2018 · 15:45 UTC
@raphael-maia I've spent like an hour trying to balance the HP costs, HP received by Drain, enemy damage and received SP, so that it wouldn't be either too easy or straight up impossible. Ended up just making infinite mode where spells cost less.
CodeKim
03. Dec 2018 · 15:52 UTC
Hardcore is just the first name. This is the only thing I would balance, make it a little bit more fair for new players (maybe I'm just bad). Devil daggers is a game which would be good to look at for this. Otherwise brilliant little game and had to physically stop myself from restarting in the end!

(Added to collection on itch.io ;D)
🎤 snakemuho
03. Dec 2018 · 16:13 UTC
@codekim thank you, I've just added downloadable Windows version that's a bit easier
CodeKim
03. Dec 2018 · 16:15 UTC
@snakemuho Mind if I make a video on it? Really did enjoy myself!
🎤 snakemuho
03. Dec 2018 · 16:18 UTC
@codekim sure, go ahead
Andrea
03. Dec 2018 · 17:45 UTC
Those poor bulls :'(
Very good (and hard) game, well done!
justalocalhero
03. Dec 2018 · 18:03 UTC
I like the way that the two resources interact with each other. The graphical effects were really great. It seems like there were a lot of spells to try that all felt varied and interesting.

Unfortunately the controls made it difficult to experience all that it seems the game has to offer. I was often getting stuck on enemies which pile up quickly, stack on top of each other, and attack really quickly. It's difficult to focus on fighting and also see what resources you have available.

I think it would have been a better experience if I could have acted a bit more quickly(There's already a cost for using abilities so it would seem to self balance).

A lot to like, if a few issues could be ironed out. Really nice entry overall.
🎤 snakemuho
03. Dec 2018 · 18:49 UTC
@justalocalhero I agree with all of your points. Jump and Drain should ignore enemies, and character's animations should've been a bit faster. The compo was ending at 5 a.m. for me, and by the midnight I was too tired to think straight and keep polishing the game.

Thanks for the feedback.
ytaha
03. Dec 2018 · 21:15 UTC
Amazing game, played it for like 30 minutes. The music was depressing but on point. I think the spell that penetrates everything is too OP. I just standed in the middle of the map and used that spell left and right. And of course i get bored and tried different spells.

But really liked the idea, just think of a party game, maybe topdown 4 players. Using different spells and changing them. That sounds cool
🎤 snakemuho
03. Dec 2018 · 22:00 UTC
@ytaha wow, this might actually work as a party game, didn't think about that. Maybe I'll turn it into something later.
JustWall Games
04. Dec 2018 · 01:17 UTC
I really enjoyed this once I got some new spells - Kill Kill Kill. I like the evilness - Good job!
Cipery
04. Dec 2018 · 09:43 UTC
I really love the art, idea(story) and the gameplay itself. It's really enjoyable, and I played it several times to try more spells.

(The "guided sparks" spell is pretty OP btw :) In the rebalanced version).

Good job!
shp
04. Dec 2018 · 18:18 UTC
Cool graphics and concept, playing was a bit difficult and getting the grasp of the mechanics as well, the game kinda doesn't give you a chance to experiment with anything
Mr.MadCat
07. Dec 2018 · 10:17 UTC
Wow, pretty tough game.
Took me a few tries to understand the mechanics and actually beat the game.
But the music and graphics set a nice tone and the game plays smoothly.
Well done.