The art is amazing! I specifically like the animation of the goblin/orc enemy when he is rolling. :)

There are some gaps in the mechanics right now. For one, there is no limit on the number of shots you can take, so its pretty easy to make a ton of tiny shots just to line yourself up perfectly to sink an enemy into the lava. I feel like the game should encourage more challenging shots. Secondly, the physics are wonky. I can never predict how i'm going to bounce off walls. Once, my player bounced off a wall at about 45 degree angle, and bound dircetly back to where he was shot from. Hitting enemies at an angle doesn't make them bounce how you would expect in real life.

I still like this game though. Its addictive! Well done. <3

Y'all made the combination of roguelike rpg and pool-based combat work really well, it was a lot of fun setting up perfect shots to bump enemies into eachother, or ricochet perfectly around something and knock one into the lava.

At times I found myself in a corner of the screen with no enemies visible so I was forced to either shoot blind or take a bunch of small shots, it would've been nice to be able to zoom the camera in/out.

Also as mentioned I think it would be a good design choice to try to incentivize players to take as few shots as possible, perhaps even just by tracking and displaying the number of shots taken.

Overall, innovative and fun!

That's a very solid entry. The art is very polished, the controls were smooth and the concept is quite unique.
It's amazing that you managed to put a whole inventory system in the game. We tried it for 5 hours or so, but then threw it away, because it would've taken too long. :D
Good work! Keep on going, cheers! 🐱

Loved it. Awesome art, concept and sound. Very fun. Well done!

I love this. I was just playing Pool the other day :) Made me happy that someone made something like this. It''s also one of a kind, I don't think anyone has ever mixed a pool/billiards game with any other type of game before. Very nice artwork and sound design too.

Wow! I gave nothing for this game on a first look but after playing it I have no doubt this is one of the best games I have seen in this jam!

Except for the fact that the bouncing out of walls and objects doesn't make any sense, this game is as solid as it can get. Charming art style, solid controls, solid premise, a killer sense of humor and an adventurerous soundtrack.

What more could you want?

Wow! Loved the game!! The combination is weird yet creative and the roguelike element makes it even more fun! Sometimes is hard to control (because of all the bounciness) but I guess it's just a matter of playing and getting better. Congratulations on a great game!

Very good Game =D. **Game and controle are very poliched**. Maybe hitbox of lava hole are to big for main character.

Great idea. Physics feels a little bit off, but still awesome.

Loved this game! LUMP BUMP!!! haha

Amazing game, trying to take out enemies is both challenging and fun. P.S. Dragon's rolling animation is priceless.

Cool Graphics design. The music fits the gameplay. Good Job!

Beautiful artwork! Nice music. Agree with @Bodaciouslycrazy on the gameplay. Great concept and well executed!

Woa, the animations so funny and the art very cool! The idea is pretty original, keep working on it!

Really good game! It doesn't look like a jam game at all. Nice art (the animations <3) and awesome idea. I like how you combine those genres and how it turn out. Maybe having ilimited amount of shots make it a bit easy, but is fun to play.

Gostei do jogo, parabéns

Checking this place today and I'm already humbled. So many comments, so much feedback. Our team is grateful. Alas, it's time to check 'em comments!

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@Bodaciouslycrazy Thanks for the feedback! At one point we discussed stuff like damaging the player on each shot or when hitting walls, but because of the limitations and testing, we decided to keep it on its current iteration. Possibly not as realistic physics-wise, but it's something to work with in the future.

@Troll-tamer-games Thanks to you too. And I agree, players should be rewarded for completing levels with less shots or something. We'll see upon that if we retake the concept. And a zooming out button or something.

@AwesomeAlliterationAlliance Hey, I remember you from LD38! Glad and grateful of you guys for gracing us with a grandiose game. Good gravy. Anyhow, thanks. @kroltan put his sweat and soul on it, and we're impressed at his work.

@DrunkardWolf Oh, thanks! I'm also proud of the accomplishments of the team.

@Aim Well, turns out, there's a lot of untapped potential in pool clones with odd gimmicks. I've already seen a few around, so be sure to check 'em as well!

@Fil089 Glad that it got past a bland first impression. @robinhoodpt's music work really lifted it up.

@quijipixel Thanks for the feedback as well! We'll see upon adjustments to that if time allows it.

@Kaiomoi That's actually something we should be considering, thanks!

@theslate We get that a lot. We'll see upon revising them if we find an opportunity, thanks!

@Mister_Kweh Woo! Bump!

@Goplite I had a lot of fun drawing it. I wanted to make the still menacing, but make it supremely silly while rolling. I'm glad that it actually can get a laugh or two.

@EkkoEkko Thanks! @robinhoodpt and my work have been compatible so far. Always great to working to the tune of his work!

@gimbalock The team really appreciates the kind words, thanks!

@CrazyHomeboys That's on me. Had to make art that could match the design and music. Can't ask for a better team.

@Barbaarian Yeah, people seem to limit shots somehow. We should really address that. Thanks for the feedback as well!

@Marcial I don't understand a word. But @robinhoodpt says "Obrigado!".

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[The team](twitter.com/whalesandgames) is once again grateful for all the comments we've gotten so far. Lots of things to take in mind for revisions and further consideration in the future. We're hoping you're having a great time as well with other games. Kudos! :whale:

I liked the game, congratulations

Really nice work, I can't believe you did this in so little time. Many beautiful arts and animations, great idea with the theme, controls are smooth, the gameplay is really fun (a bit difficult in the beginning but if you have a little luck it works fine), audio is nice. Congratulations ! 5/5 for me

This is such an addictive game. Really great work!

Wow, it is the most complete game Ive seen in this jam. The arts, animations, levels...all elements are so mature that it is hard to imagine how you guys finished it in 72 hours! Very impressive!!

Definitely addictive, but the wonky physics made it a bit frustrating. :) I liked the loot system, it definitely added a variable of fun to the game, along with the different maps and enemies. Overall, a solid entry!

Loved the music, animations and the adaptation of the theme. Very fun and polished game. The mechanic of get rid of the equipment to gain life is very good, but loosing life when you equip the new loot is a little confusing for me.

Anyway, great work!

Took me a while to realize that disenchanting equipment gives health. Even after that I wasn't able to progress much, managed to only clear 2 maps and only had a helmet to my name before the physics ruined me by bouncing me straight into the lava. Talking about physics, they're very inconsistent and it drags the game down. Combining that with a very strict health limit makes it very frustrating to progress.

That being said the audiovisual quality of this is superb. Rarely do I see pretty much everything done right, especially in Jam timelines, in that regard I can't really ask for anything else, this is as good as it can get for the time you had.

This is how far I got before getting eaten by a dragon

tl;dr Very polished audio and visuals, inconsistent physics drag the gameplay down a fair bit.

I love this idea and I'd really like to see it made into a full game. The graphics are great, the audio is good, and it's very clever. It does need a little work on the mechanics, though. Not being able to scroll the map often led to landing in lava pockets that I couldn't see, and bounces were a bit inconsistent. Seems like there are invisible corners the ball is hitting and leaving at weird angles. Also having two of the same item and disenchanting one causes the other one to unequip, or at least it seems that way, and thus health games are lost when disenchanting duplicate armor.

Fun idea, would make a nice mobile game I feel.

__Fun__
The game feels really polished, which make the game already really fun. I have a few comments: the game seems to pick the next level at random. I'd rather learn a map and retry until I finish it. It also helps with progression so I have some easy levels in the beginning. Also the disenchanting doesn't feel very intuitive, and I'd suggest random health drops instead. I guess the best strategy is to do very small shots to get in the perfect place, but I lack the patience for that. My shots often backfired being instantly killed by a dragon because he does twice half a bar of damage, making the game really hard for me, could be the progression issue I pointed out. All very minor things, but I like to point out some areas of improvement. And all entirely explainable by the lack of play test time jam games are bound to have. But other than that I think it was really great, a feel a near perfect score is in place.

__Innovation__
At first I thought it was pretty much how classic rogue-like games work. But it requires a bit more mechanical skill. So I guess I'll have to up that score a bit.

__Theme__
The two genres are very clear, and work decently together. One of the clearest mashups I've seen this LD. Very well chosen.

__Graphics__
The graphics are really great. It's very simple and maybe a bit close to the majority of mobile games. There is a reason for that: the style works extremely well given the effort. The amount of detail pushes this score really far up.

__Audio__
Simple, yet works well. A bit like the graphics. It's really well polished.

__Humor__
It's not really humorous, but more comical. It wouldn't make me LOL but the silliness is appreciated.

__Mood__
It doesn't really move me. So I can't give a very high score for this. But it wouldn't fit the game so it won't affect the overall score.

__Overall__
Extremely well polished and a pretty fun concept. Well done!

The concept is amazing and I also really liked audio and graphics. After a few runs where I unwittingly dropped into lava, fought monsters far too tough for me head on and was generally just really bad, I managed to clear a map by carefully lining up every shot (and missing half of them anyways) and an enemy dropped some rare loot which made me really overpowered allowing me to one-shot skeletons and after I shot a dragon into lava and got a rare head-piece and was basically unstoppable (except for lava which I stupidly rolled into on my like 6th level). There should be some difficulty progression here but getting to my first rare equipment was extremely fun and I can see this turning into a bigger game with only small changes. Great job.

I really enjoyed to play this one! This is nice to see, nice to hear, and fun to play - well, if you can get the two better items on the first level, as I had the chance to, after few plays. ;)
I did play on the web, but as I almost never do, I downloded an exe version. So : very well done!

I just replayed it to clarify something, and now I'm sure : there is, not really a bug, but an unexpected behavior. In the backpack, it seems that when you disenchant an item identical as one you have equiped, this one is automatically desequiped when the other is converted to HP.

Really fun! I think I've seen a snooker+roguelike in the past LD so its probably trodden ground, however the charming graphics and level of polish makes it really worthwhile to play - love the dragon tumbling animation! My gripe would be that I wish to see more of the screen and bouncing off rocks and trees is quite unpredictable at the moment. Also, the levels can be quite varying in terms of difficulty, and once you are able to clear the first level the game becomes much more easier which is quite different from your usual game progression. Otherwise its a great entry!

Very cool and unique mood established by the game's description and title screen. I found myself getting most of my kills via "insta-kill" holes and those felt awesome - what did not feel awesome is that I never had a chance to use any of my items because I had to constantly disenchant items to stay healthy/not-die. During my ten minutes of gameplay, I only saw one uncommon weapon. I definitely would have appreciated when starting a level a pan-over shot of the entire level or a zoom-out feature. My first map when I played the game had all the balls out-of-the-screen and made it difficult to immediately capture the goal of the game.

Took me a while to realize that I should push my ball just a little to get in better positions :D Because I played it more like snooker at the start. It's a fun game and I can't believe how polished it looks with all the background art for the site as well and everything. What I felt could be done is level progression, or what I'd love to actually see is a more zoomed out view so you could hit some fantastic shots.

This is a pretty unique title - I've not seen anything else like this at LD41. Those ball characters are like the Madball 1980s toys come to life in a game! Really good level of polish and the physics felt realistic enough to remain fair. All of those powerups just added to fun!

Very fun game! I like the idea of the theme combination. I'm not a fan of snooker but this gameplay was very fun combined with farming new items. The difficulty is a bit high, but replayability is there thanks to generated levels, so it's super fun! Great job!

It seems like this place is getting crammed again. I'm still catching up with plenty of your games, so hold on tight. Meanwhile, it's time to reply to all of theses again!

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@Drazhaar Aye, it's a matter of getting used to it. I still find it very hard, and I'm allegedly one of the most recurrent players. Anyhow, thanks!

@MegRabbit And thank you for the kind words!

@finalspace It's possible with great teamwork and leaving vital functions like sleeping and eating aside.

@Rebecca-Kremer Thanks for the comment, and again, thanks a million for checking other LD games during streams. People like you really brighten up the day of plenty of gamedevs!

@dp3rucha Actually, because the health bar is of a constant size, new equipment increases the Max health. It looks like the player loses health, but in reality, it stays the same, while adding a higher cap. We should add a counter or something.

@fanatrick That's fair. The developer has mentioned that physics are a bit wonky with the tileset system that was added to save on time and be able to make a lot of maps. He's currently reviewing it and seeing if it can be made more consistent. Thanks!

@AugusteTheClown Thanks! We've gotten a few of those comments and we're reviewing how to make up for that.

@abductedPlatypus Thanks for the very in-depth review. Things like replaying a map were not exactly on the table since we went for the arcade/roguelike idea of going as far as you can. Had we had the time, there would have been far more maps, making it harder to remember them all.

@Junber Thanks! We did discuss about the difficulty change of starting the game (with some enemies 2-hitting the player) and finding legendary equipment (which allows to one-shot skeletons). It's balancing we should consider if we retread this.

@LeReveur Thanks for the comments, and for pointing out the bug. It's something that's being analyzed.

@randomphantom The levels are random on each playthrough, so sometimes you'll start in an easy-ish level, and sometimes you may have to be very careful of not hitting a dragon more than once. Surviving the first level is indeed sometimes the hardest part.

@legavroche That whole-level start thing doesn't sound half bad. Also, it's odd that you only found one uncommon. To my knowledge, great equipment is not necessarily ultra rare. We'll see on that.

@Mak3c Yes, having more visibility is one of our most received comments. We'll check that out, thanks!

@darby-costello Thanks for the comment. I'll have to search about those toys though.

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[Team Whales and Games](twitter.com/whalesandgames) thank you all for the comments once again. Keep commenting on more games, people! Share the experience!

Wow, this was so much fun! Great interpretation of the theme. I really had a blast playing this. I would only suggest increasing visibility (as others have said) and maybe making gaining life back a bit easier. Missed shots became extremely unforgiving. Overall though, this was fantastic, and you guys have an amazing logo :)

I really love this. The concept is great and is a very innovative take on the theme, good choice of genres. The art style is amazing and the game seems very polished, good job!
My only suggestion is about the visibility, it would be nice if I could see the entire field before shoot.

This is quite promising, so I hope you will forgive me for making several suggestions. The art is clean and works pretty well despite the rageface balls, the music is fitting, and the RPG mix with pool is pretty fun. However, there are several things you may work on if you make a full game:


* The big one is physics, since that is key in any pool game. If you shoot at an angle against a wall (e.g. in a tunnel), you bounce perfectly horizontally instead of bouncing off the wall at the expected angle.

* Being able to look around by dragging the board would be good, as other(s) have said.

* I kept having problems accidentally unequipping items. I think white backgrounds are intended to tell they are equipped, but you might consider an item border. There also seems to be a bug where if you pick up a duplicate item, the game thinks all copies are equipped, so if you disenchant the duplicate you have to then re-equip the original.

* The levels seem hand-designed which is great, but they also seem to be in random order. I played until I saw a duplicate level. Being able to play through a sequence of levels (maybe with bosses) might be fun.

* Instant kill feels very harsh considering it takes a while to build up good random loot, especially with the physics that sometimes bounce the wrong way (e.g. the tunnel example above). Getting bonuses for fewer shots on levels, or allowing you to hit hazards a few times before dying, might lessen the pain.

The RPG lootfest mechanic mixed with pool is definitely an interesting concept! Love what you guys did with it... I definitely felt it could be expanded upon a bit more however, for instance, it is difficult to tell when the player queue ball is getting hit, and there is no noticible way to tell how much damage each enemy will do to you. It is also hard to tell that disenchanting items heals the player, had to read the description for that, which is okay, but not everyone will do that, and just assume the game is unfairly balanced.

For the time frame given, you guys did well to keep the mechanics simple, however I hope that when/if you expand upon this idea, that the mechanics are improved upon. Add more variables to mess with, and maybe upgrades to the queue sticks. Otherwise, I really enjoyed your game, and hope to see more from you guys!

This game looks so amazing.
When I read your blog post I just felt curious about the mix, and the graphics looked attractive but... I wasn't expecting to have so much fun playing the game.
Everything looks good, but if I had to make one remark, I'd say that being able to move "freely" by just inputting small moves to always have the safest position to kill the ennemies -without any penalty- can make it a bit too easy.
The disenchant feature to get hp back was really cool also.

Very innovative mix of genres, and very fun game! The art and music were top-notch, too. The only thing I wished this had was a mini-map/way to zoom out - otherwise it's tough to find enemies, and you don't know if you're aiming right toward a pit of lava. Besides that, great submission!

Great game. I love games like this, a little bit 'off the wall' and kooky. Great execution too. The graphics where fantastic and fit the game well. Sound added to the feel without distracting. I'd play a game like this beyond the compo. Only niggle is the snooker physics where a bit wonky on occasion, but only a minor gripe. Awesome entry. Good stuff :8ball:

very cool game, I really like the soundtrack. also the graphics are very nice and it's kinda impressive that it seems like you random generated the levels. only flaw that I have is that I don't see the entire "table" and have to aim into nothing sometimes to see more.

I believe that this game has a tremendous potential. There are a few kinks to iron out (some levels seem really unbalanced/unforgiving + the ability to move the camera and see the full layout of the level might be a welcomed addition) but other than that everything is great. I'd play the hell out of this on mobile.

As far as the jam is concerned you've made a very innovative, well-polished entry. Amazing job!

This is a fun game and it is most impressive how many features that we expect from a complete game but are rather are or unfinished in many gamejam entries it get's right with a surprising amount of polish. Music and sound effects are on point, the loot system seems well balanced(against itself) and the inventory works without any issues.
The Graphics are certainly well crafted even if the style does not really appeal too much to me personally.

The gameplay itself is quite intuitive once you realize that your cursor acts as the target not the cue stick(silly me^^). The only thing that I really think should have received more work are level design and a level order. In the beginning the ball has quite low hp, no defense and little offence (as is expected in any rogue-like). This does not pair very well with randomly starting in any level. There should have been an order or at least classes of levels and the next one is drawn from a pool depending on how many levels you have beaten before. This balancing issue does not only result in having some levels that are harder to start with, but also with having loads of trivial levels later on. Once you have the light-saber-thingy or similar you will oneshot most foes. At this point the game becomes almost trivial and the lava-hole play little to no role anymore.

There is also one bug I could find: if you die and click on retry you will sometimes be kicked onto the title screen.

Overall I think this is a remarkably complete game and if there was a bit more work done in the indicated areas I could absolutely see this becoming an addictive hit e.g. on mobile devices.

The art and music for this game are really well done. The idea of combat pool is really interesting and well executed. Sometimes bouncing off the wall or enemies didn't go where I think it should go. The game is extremely hard even with disenchanting materials. I played multiple games and didn't win one. I think if you expand upon the game you should add a zoom out mode to see the entire map. Great work. Interested to see how this game evolves.

Art was awesome, music was great. Took me a second to figure out how to subsist (disenchanting). I think I'd like a way to be able to zoom out somewhat and look around (think hotline miami where holding shift lets you move your cursor out further).

The production quality overall is much higher than most game jam games.

Nice work! Love the mix of mini golf and pool. Cool mechanic. f

One of my favourites. This is how the theme should be addressed! Unfortunately, there is a point (after getting the best gear) where one is basically invincible and just continues playing due to addiction... Anyway: Well thought out and done!

Great submission, I thought it was a really clever mix of genres and the art was fantastic. It would have been nice to be given some sort of a reward for clearing a room and a tracer line to show the direction of shots would have helped a lot too.

One of the best game I played on this LD and probably the one with the best graphics!

Just... GG!

Amazing! This game is so unique, just added to my collection :D!

Amazing game and solid entry right here ! Well done on your work, I had a lot of fun time and obviously this was very well polished :)

Reeeeeally interesting concept and combination of ideas. It was let down by a slightly to high a difficultly and unreliable physics as it often felt like you were just taking pot shots and hoping for the best.

Good job! Cool game!
I loved Thanus's glove!

I left my rating of your game, if you can leave your feedback in our game, Witch's Escape.

I hope you continue with the project.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/witchs-escape

Not too much to say that hasn't been already, but I definitely enjoyed your game. The concept is really, really great. I just wish there was more content so I could keep playing!

I will echo that the physics didn't seem all that accurate. I'm no billiards pro, but the balls didn't roll or bounce as much as I'd hope, and glancing shots didn't work well either, so I'd usually do lots of small taps so I could always get a straight shot.

Also I rolled a rare hat and sword early and easily went 6 maps until I made a hasty mistake into lava. I'd expect there to be a bit more of a power curve normally, but the drops seemed random...

Had a fun play session, great stuff. Innovative and theme-driven game with interesting mechanics. I liked the faces on the snkooerballs, gave them a lot of character. I also appreciate the items and how they can be strategically used for either gaining various stats or sacrificing them for health, made the game a lot more exciting.

**Some suggestions:**
* Player health could be increased a bit, I thought I died too much when I was just starting out.
* Technical problem on HTML5, I'm sure others have pointed that out but here it is: when clicking replay after each death, that click would count towards a move and knock the ball (mostly) into danger, or sometimes instant death.
* Instant death on lava pits made the game a bit frustrating. Slightly reducing the damage (like, making it 90% of hp) wouldn't help in this case either, because the player would practically still die from hitting an enemy after having hit the lava, so I understand where that is coming from. This is a hard problem to solve, but one idea you could use is to burn the player while it stands in the lava. That way the player has to act quickly and get out of the pit. Enemies would have to obey this rule as well, so that could make a few things complicated, but it's just an idea, I'm sure you could come up with better ones with some time.

All in all, had fun with this entry. Keep up the good work :^)

Great game, but I do not know if i am bad at it or it is meant to be very hard, because unless the level is easy enough to give me a clear kill, I would probably die 2 or 3 times before I respawn to a level where i can actually make a kill or two (or 3 if I was very lucky). The graphics and the way you presented the game are awesome. But it would be better if the normal combat is more fair, like if you collide with someone, you also take a huge chunk of their health (currently you barely scratch them, while they could easily take half your hp if they bounced at you after hitting a wall)

This is surprisingly fun! I especially like the learning curve and how the game explains itself. After a few tries I reached over 60 kills and then I had to make myself stop playing. ;)

Just a few remarks:

- It's uncommon for a billard video game to point the mouse in the direction you want to shoot the ball. This takes getting used to. Usually you point behind the ball. Of course, this makes aiming harder.
- Sadly, the physics are broken and with that the most crucial part of the game mechanic. :(

Still the best overall rating I gave so far. :thumbsup:

Nice graphics and solid game play! As others have mentioned I wish bouncing off wall was more consistent. I think the graphics are great but this style can easily look really off unless everything matches. The background and walls had less depth than characters/enemy's and made the graphics look a bit like clip art. With a little more polish this would be a great game!

This was really fun to play! And it's pretty good looking too :)
I was going to report the unequip issue, but it's been already noticed up in the comments, so that's ok.
Nice entry! <3

Pretty fun concept! Pushing those enemies into lava pits and especially causing chain reactions was a satisfying feeling, though as others have mentioned I wish it was easier to execute. I was pretty much unstoppable after getting the rare equips and on the flipside, found it pretty difficult to get through some of the harder maps with no starting gear. But yeah, this definitely has potential!

Impressive as always. Nice work.

Amazing Idea. Pushing the enemies into each other was fun. I found a minor bug while playing the game and I thought I'll share that. In this image below I shot myself in this little hallway and once I was there I was stuck and couldn't move out. Could you also check that once.

I'm glad to see your art at the one more ludum dare :thumbsup:

After the scrolling this wall of messages I got that my notes will not be news for you. It feels not fair sometimes because of not polished physics engine and a lot of ways to die in a one move. I follow the ideas to make the possibility to see the whole level from the start and making 3 lives before restart or re-balancing damage from holes and some monster damage.

At overall, you made a well-mixed, nice looking, inspirational game. I think, that amount of interesting feedback is a possible way to check how game is cool. You got it a lot :D

I saw this game in the RandomiseUser video, and I have to say it is absolutely one of my favourites from the entire jam. I think your game from LD40 was also in my top faves, you're certainly a fantastic team of gamedevs!

I've seen a few snooker-style games this jam but this one really mixed the roguelike/rpg gameplay into it super well, which really matched the theme. I thought it was interesting that "disenchanting" items restored health, though sometimes I wished there were perhaps health packs or something laying around that you could try and aim for, during the times where I didn't get any item drops because I had low hp and kept not managing to kill the enemies. It felt a little frustrating having low hp and knowing that any attempt I made at continuing the game without dying was impossible, because I would die the next time I hit an enemy. So it was just kind of pointless suicide then. Unless I missed something here and there were in fact other ways of regaining health?

The artwork, music and SFX were all brilliant and polished.

The shot charging felt very smooth and the outcome of the shot felt accurate to the amount charged, which is something I have struggled with in some of the other snooker-like games (where the charge was too powerful so it was difficult to do a small shot) so the game mechanic there seemed very well done!

All in all this is a really brilliant idea that I think could definitely be made into a fleshed out game for full release. Nice work!!

Amazing soundtrack, audio effects and graphics, really nice also the parallax effect in the main menu!
The mechanics are really good, very polished and smooth, I love the balls animations and their graphic style! The game is very funny and challenging, an excellent work! One of my favourites!

Really nice game and idea, and putting the equipment right on the ball itself was a nice touch (it's always nice to see your upgrades in play). I did a few others already mentioned it but the lava being insta-death was pretty frustrating, especially when you were on a pretty great run. I know it's a roguelike but dying in that sort of way always hurts. I think your game idea has a lot of different ways it can go. You chose a pretty unexplored genre here and would love to see you push it more!

A visually polished title, but definitely lacking in gameplay polish.

The physics definitely needs work when banking shots. It looks like many smaller colliders were used as hitboxes, leading to a problem where balls with hit the corner of one hitbox and bounce off of it at a weird angle instead of reflecting off the wall as the player intended and expected. This makes banking shots difficult if not impossible at times, not that they're necessary. The way the game is currently set up, does not incentivize any tricky shots other than hitting enemies into one another. Rather than taking one shot to bounce off a wall and hit an enemy towards a lava pit, it's far more effective and reliable to use 6 taps to line up one shot. Not really in the spirit of billiards, in my opinion. The lack of being able to pan your screen to see your farther shots also doesn't help with this issue, as it's far safer to take small taps to navigate rather than let yourself hit a dragon at the end of a path you couldn't see down.

A few smaller gripes: I wish there was some way to take no/reduced damage during attacks (two balls collide, the one going x% faster than the other is considered the attacking ball or attacks first and can kill before taking damage, if neither are going fast enough then they both attack simultaneously) as it was frustrating that I couldn't strategise the be more effective while at low health (perhaps all enemies face the cue ball, and hitting the back of the enemy causes you to take no damage?). This leads into a general gameplay flow gripe of how the game currently forces you to constantly stop your gameplay in order to heal up after every engagement. I know it's only a few clicks/taps to go to inventory, select unnecessary equipment, and disenchant to heal, but it was frustrating to do that after killing every single enemy when I was trying to recover from a low health situation. A sidebar with your most recent pickups that allowed you to disenchant from there could help with this particular issue, so the player could stay in the flow of the game without being interrupted by inventory after every kill.

All that being said, I did still enjoy the game. I love billiards and RPGs, and I think this was an interesting mix of the two. Unlike some of the other people here, I was quite fine with the lava pits being instant death, as it does still keep it consistent with how the enemies interact with them, and it further drives the point that the player needs to make sure none of their shots sink themself, only their enemies. As far as the game itself goes, I just feel that a few key elements were missing to let this mix of 2 great genres really feel like it was in the spirit of either.

Wow, I really enjoyed it, one of the most creative use of a theme I've seen so far. Kudos

Very nice! I knew I had to play this one when I saw the screenshot, because a few years back for the 7-day roguelike challenge I created a game called "Billiard Dungeon" so I was curious to see how you'd approached the same thematic idea.

We went in pretty different directions, which was fun to see. I was really blown away by the art you created for this, especially the rolling sprites which looked just fantastic!

I played maybe 4 or 5 full games before I was like "hrm I wonder what this 'B' button does..." That certainly helped me to get a LOT further! I played until I had looped around through all the levels and was one-shotting dudes, and I considered that beating the game: https://imgur.com/a/vjNesOy

Then I shot myself into a hole to say goodbye.

Overall a very fun experience. The way enemies didn't move meant your game was completely different than mine... in your game it was all about being very careful not to fall into the hole yourself, as that was the most dangerous threat. Because enemies don't move, it's okay to take many mini-shots to get into position for a safe shot to knock them into a hole. It was a lot of fun and I definitely saw myself gradually improving at knocking them in the holes. Once I had looped all the way around the game I had a good feel for it and ran a streak of getting 3 shots in a row that knocked guys in the holes. Almost got the fourth but I couldn't see the hole on the screen to aim properly and just missed (I remembered where the hole was from the prior loop).

Holes being off screen was probably the main source of any player friction. It meant that when I had to travel around the map I had to do it with many tiny-taps instead of bigger shots, and still I nearly knocked myself into a hole. With the many-tiny-tap travel I did feel sometimes like arrr c'mon while waiting for the previous shot to finish rolling, like I wanted to hit the ball again while it was still moving. This was all very minor, but figured I'd mention it since it was the only little splinter.

Overall, I would say that the game was very strong. There is probably an element of chaining multiple shots together and thinking carefully about your "lay" from one shot going into the next, which is the core strategy of real snooker/billiards/pool, that didn't come through here. So maybe if you're expanding you can build the strategy in that direction.

But I still very much enjoyed the core mechanic here, and it the art, sound, music, and just overall feel of excellent polish really supported that core gameplay very well.

Strong entry, really well done!

Hey, I was sometime away from playing games this LD but I'm glad I got to play it on time for a rate.

I REALLY hate pool, but I loved it (well, at least when RNGesus was by my side giving me good gear). Thematically, joining a almost pure skill game with roguelike was spot on. When I had the best items I had only the holes to fear, but when I had regular ones I technically could probably win it with skill.
I'm not very pacient with slowly aligning myself for skillshots but I did get a bit better on the playthrough.

Having limited view of the field was a bit of a problem when I wanted to recklessly throw myself at the other side or wanted to know in which direction to throw the enemies, but wasn't so big. There's a tradeoff between visibility and cool details on the balls that I believed was not in a very bad balance.

I'm not sure about the physics but I believe it behaves a bit oddly sometimes.

The art is great and has personality, the characters were diverse and looked really cool, and the hand of the guy! Sound was also very nice, the music and effects made me almost forgot it was a "pool game" and I felt at home. :P

Another successful ludum dare title - Great job guys!

Loved this one, a great combination of pool and roguelite - With great polish as expected from you lot at whales and games :yum:

Plinking those balls into those pockets was so satisfying and waltzing around the table decked out with my selfie stick was a great fun! :smile:

The characters had alot of thought and personality they really meshed together, I loved the music and SFX too, expertly chosen and was very welcome with the theme and mood of the game!

Just a few nitpicks I will share :blush:

One thing that I did feel was pretty punishing was the holes off screen - It would be great to have a minimap not only for this but for seeing where the last mob is to track them down and put them in the hole! :v:

The dragon is abit harsh for a lower geared character, often I would just force kill myself as there would be no way I could progress with the damage sustained from it.

Other than that.. Wow,
Honestly you guys have excelled and should be proud of what you've made this jam :yum:

Maaan, the team's been busy and these just piled up. But that's not stopping me from replying back! I won't stop 'till y'a ll know that we read everything! ***Everything!***. Here we go!

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@Teo-SK You commented while I was making the previous post, so I didn't see it until it was too late.Anyhow, glad that you liked it despite difficulty. The levels are not generated, but they are randomly picked.

@caterein Thanks for the cheerful words! And that logo is our pride and joy! We're glad that you like it!

@rodrigo-denubila That's some polish we're hoping to address in future projects, thanks!

@gafblizzard That's a lot of feedback. But hey, there can never be too many suggestions, right? Physics, map visibility and difficulty parts have been mentioned before, but the idea of sequences of levels doesn't sound half bad. We do want to add more if the opportunity arises, so we might consider having some strings of easy-medium-hard to avoid many difficult levels one after each other. Thanks!

@Gamekrazzy Fantastic ideas! I'd really like to see stick upgrades as well! We'll note that down

@Yozamu Thanks for the comment. Disenchanting isn't without its need of tweaks, but it's certainly something special for the project

@shohs Sure thing! Visibility is one of the most frequently suggested stuff

@OddballDave Well, the team does want to make a post-jam version, so we hope you get to experience that one if it sees the light of day

@Hisfantor Our music designer @robinhoodpt really knocked it out of the park with the music! I'll forward the message, thanks!

@LemonBalmGames I'd really like to see it in mobile as well! I'll ask the programmer what are the chances of a port happening if the game gets updated

@radow A friend did tell me that the aiming here works the opposite than in every other pool game, so there's nothing to be ashamed of. We do need more visual feedback, like direction of the hit. We're hoping to address some of the things you've commented. I appreciate that you took the time to give us such in-depth information!

@paul-avallone Glad that you appreciate the sound and art! It all fits together thanks to @kroltan's amazing programming job! Physics do need a good revision, but we'll see what can be done about it without breaking the game.

@phearbot Visibility is something we get called for so much I believe we'll never make that mistake again. It'll be our number 1 concern in future games of this kind!

@TravisChen Pool is like mini golf but in a table and lots of balls, right? :thinking:

@Merrow Well, that rarely happens, but when it does, this otherwise-difficult game becomes too easy. We'll check the balancing, thanks!

@Almax Rewards for clearing a room with few strokes is something I'd like to see as well!

@Julink Thanks! I'm glad you liked the direction I went for on these!

@EstacaoMarte I should check it out then! Checking out our peers and all.

@Corbak Glad that you had fun on the jam!

@CaptainPilot Learning through mistakes. We're going to do better on these areas in the future. Thanks for addressing them!

@cristiano-m-garcia It was until late when I realized it looked like a Thanos glove. But hey, if it fits. Thanks!

@forest The drops really are random. We’re hoping to address the balancing if the opportunity allows for it, thanks!

@nikaoto Mhh… HP is a concern early on, yes. There’s some enemies that kill the player in 2 hits after all. We’ll see how we can address that without making the early experience too easy, thanks!

@Mohamed-dkd The game is very hard at times. It takes a bit to get used to it, but once you start coasting or find a good weapon, it becomes more engaging. Still, we’ll see what we can do to make it more entertaining and less frustrating, thanks!

@beh Yeah, this one is unique in pool games and not necessarily for only good reasons. But we’re reading! We’re listening! And we’re hoping to do better as we continue to develop games!

@Linkwin Thanks for the comments as well!

@alex-moralo Thanks for the comment as well! Kudos!

@ddrkirbyisq We hope to live to said potential then!

@ghostmaple Thanks!

@geek-freek Oh, that’s a new one. We’ll revise the maps to see that it doesn’t happen again, thanks!

@Linver I’ll read the same feedback as many times as it’s necessary. It’s better to be reminded of them over and over, so we make sure that we give it a better thought in the future. Thanks!

@goat-toaster-games Fleshing this up is something we’re considering. We’re glad that you liked it, and that RandomiseUser made it all possible. They’re the best!

@mic-matrix91 This means a lot to us, thanks! Audioman will be hearing of this!

@peachtreeoath This theme was very inspiring. There’s so many other mixes we wish we could have done and seen, but we just had to go with this. It showed so much potential. Thanks for the comment!

@MufinMcflufin There’s so many things to address, yes. Some inconsistencies, difficulty and the like. Most of the things you mentioned had already been added to our ToDo list, so we hope that if we end up updating this and you happen to see it around as some sort of Wizsnooks Update Version, you give it another shot and see if we did the theme justice. Thanks!

@krzymsky And kudos to you!

@pkenny Thanks for the in-depth analysis. Since I didn’t get to playtest the game early on, I also ended up with a few deaths without recovering my health when I got my hands in the first build. We should put a sign or something when the first map is loaded, I dunno. Still, thanks for taking your time with the comment. A lot of it really pumped me up for more Wizsnooks!

@Nathalia-hohl I like to think of it as “pool for people who don’t like pool”, but only after taking some of your comments and other feedback we’ve gotten to hearth will we be able to live up to that ideal. Thanks!

@ponchoguy Aww shucks! Thanks for the comments, m8. You be proud of Evil Bunny as well! Here’s hoping I click on your name and see that it made it past the 20 ratings. I’ll micromanage you if I have to!

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Better late than never. The team has been super busy with unrelated projects, but I wanted to at least let you all know that we’ll continue to read, evaluate and improve! Thanks so much once again, and see you in future LDs! :whale: