Finally submitted my game, So I can vote now! Yay. Thanks for reaching out on Twitter yesterday. I was great fun to play on my work lunch break. The game was really straightforward and well executed. Very Great work in pico8. I mentioned it on Twitter, but I struggled with the dash, it felt a little... delayed perhaps?
Overall excellent submission!

Overall, I like your game. Super high difficulty curve, like Dark Souls but 8-bit. Only thing I personally found the music to be a bit too loud. Then again, I could have just turned my system volume down. Great job!

Oh, a challenge! That was a hard game, but I really liked it. Love the retro graphics and the music is simple but somehow awesome. Well done! Pico-8 is such a great game jam engine

Neat game! I included it in my compilation video series of the Ludum Dare 42 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://youtu.be/Bq9IqSUYX8Y

Happy to reach out @draperdanman , always exciting to see what devs are working on ^_^. I'm really glad you liked it :grin:. I really wanted a chance to fine tune the dash but I ran out of time :grimacing:. I literally added the restart button 30 seconds before the deadline @_@.

The dash has a one second cool down which I think is the cause of it feeling kind of glitchy. Without some kind of visual or audible indicator or, heck, an actual animation for the dash, I think people will just think it's broken instead of intentionally delayed. Maybe if I reduced the CD so that you could dash almost right away after you finish a previous dash it would feel better. I think I might try to polish the game up a bit now that the jam is over. Right now the game has a kind of fatalist ending but I wanted to add a secret way to beat it ;). Plus some stuff like screen shake, or maybe having the wizard burst into particles with each hit and reform from particles when he spawns.

I'm really glad you had fun with it :grinning: I'm looking forward to trying Follow the Light.

I thought it was both too easy and too hard. You could just wait for the wizard to charge up and then run straight at him and attack and it would be really easy. But if he spawned in an unlucky spot, you were basically screwed. So it was either super easy or impossible. Still, I got to level 4 a couple times. Overall it's addictive as hell and the lazer beam graphics are really cool, which is enough to make it enjoyable. Audio was a bit sharp/garrish. If you start at a lower pitch and arpeggio upwards, it can sound a lot better.

GG my dude :smile:

This game's audio was very good and reminded me of retro 8-bit games! The graphics and pixel art also reminded me of 8-bit games! Good Job

Cool idea, I like the way the stage gets smaller, fits the theme well. I found it a little difficult to actually kill the wizard. Good job!

Kudos! on making a game in Pico-8!
Pretty challenging fight.. Gets addicting to try catch the wizard and progress its levels..
Wait till wizard readies up its laser and attack will eventually lead to multi-beam glitch (level 3+) when executing this strat.
- Seems like there's a cool-down period for using dash..

Optional Suggestions:
- Secondary button + direction for dash.. but it eats away a chunk of a stamina/action meter.
- Player to have a charged Area of Effect Attack
- Time-trial mode?

The sounds when you kill the wizard are very disturbing! I guess they fit well :D. Quite good for your first game! I liked the beam spell the wizard used!

Very cool first entry! Reminds me of the old Zelda / Aghanhim fights a little bit. Tried to chase the wizard down but I guess that's not the proper strategy since he can infinitely teleport. Fun little game, man, nice work! I like the 8-bit audio too.