Fun game!

really like the concept but the game feels a bit unpolished with the level design, cant complain on the sprite work though

I like the gameplay, and really like the idea of unlocking the parts of the game as you go!

As far as concepts and execution of the theme go this is perfect. The feeling of progression is awesome. Level design is a bit meh but the core concept is really good.

@NachtWitch @kyle3wynn I appreciate the feedback on the level design! That aspect of the game definitely needed some work and was kinda half-baked. Thanks!

glad to help anyway I can, but don't beat yourself up over my comment, the game was definatly fun to play

It's a very neat idea. I couldn't end up making it all the way to the end, but it would be definitely be cool to see this game expanded more. Good job :D

Nice game. I find the game a little grindy though. The idea is on-point for sure though

I really like the unlock mechanic!

There's a minor bug in the slime AI where the platforms will confuse it. If the slime is on a platform RIGHT above the player, it'll just sit on the platform and not try to jump off. It's a simple thing, but also easy to exploit.

I managed to get to 105! Not sure where all the upgrades occur.

Fun concept! A bit grindy and the controls were floaty. If they were tighter and there was some point of checkpoint mechanism you'd have a great game here -- still, pretty fun!

@davidsheadgames that's awesome! I've updated the description with the levels for unlocks.

It`s awesome!

I think this is one of the best games on LD #45 :clap: :cool:


Whew! That escalated quickly.

Nice concept, nice execution. It felt good to unlock things, particularly the visual ones (sprites, background).

Nice concept. Though the floor was very jarring in the beginning since there is no visual to show you moving.

The jumping and controls were a little weird but this was on point for the theme and I still had fun. It was cool unlocking new things and I liked the ammo counter before ammo.

interesting concepts. :D
had a good solid 5 minutes of fun. Would love to have a strong gravity tho. Didn't really like the jump

That's so funny I had the same concept for my game xD I loved to see this variante of the same concept idea xD Great job :)

@fictions Thanks! I played your game yesterday and definitely saw some similarities. I'm happy we both took unique spins on the approach.

Nice idea, good button crasher. Monster could use an explosion kind of effect

@dk5000p @stefanie-leitch thanks for the feedback. The player jump height was actually due to an issue with the gravity we had set. I've fixed that bug and it should feel a little less floaty/insane now.

@binarysystem I understand, but we tried our best to use the walking animation and the other enemies to give some contextual clues.

@jeremy-ryan How many tries did it take? Was it easy or difficult? I'm glad you were able to finish all unlocks!

@finnthepirate lol is your mouse alright? We didn't really have time to implement some of the FX we would have liked.

@mildmelon That was my first try, but it was a bit challenging! I sort of had to cheese the enemies near the end (get them bunched up, then hit a bunch at once and back off), and almost died before I got the health regeneration unlock.

Good luck for the rest of the rating session!

@jeremy-ryan Thank you so much for the kind words, and during the end you really need to kinda run them in a loop and bunch them up, otherwise you just get over run. I'm glad you enjoyed the game.

Good luck on your game ratings as well!

Good idea!

i like it, it fit the theme nicely

Kept smashing that unlock-things-button for a long time :) I like how it starts grey and boring and then gets colors and stuff. Nice one!

I'm actually a big fan of the grind-y nature of this. Very engaging!

@mira @philarmon @serhm thanks for the feedback! We really tried to take the theme in the most literal way we could think of, and I'm glad you guys enjoy the unlocking of the world, UI, and colors.

Hope you all enjoyed playing it as much as we did creating it!

This is a wonderful and very fun game to play. The unlocks are spaced just right and I'm sure balancing them made the design very interesting. I'm curious if the style of this game is its own genre. I've not seen another game like it and I'm tempted to design one of my own! Great entry and Well Done!

@kunonooni Thanks so much! I think one of the beautiful parts about indie games is they often fall somewhere in between genres. I would place Unlock hero Somewhere between tycoon games and wave suvrival games. The unlocks took a lot of tweaking to get set up, and I'm happy that work showed in the final version. I definitely want to play more with the concept in the future!

Great game! My main issue is with how the controls interact with the platforming. I think that either the platforms should be designed so that the player can jump upward through them, or the player should lose their y velocity when they hit the platform. Fighting was a bit difficult, as I often felt that I had to be hit in order to hit, but I understand that might just be down to experience with the game. Maybe a little bit higher knockback?
Other than that, the progression felt great and I liked the way the graphics started upgrading.

@mungo Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, there was some weird bugs with the collision system we were using and the velocity when hitting platforms (jumping -> htting the platforms slows your velocity for some reason). This is a bug and something we identified but didn't get a chance to fix during the event.

Good game :) I lost all my health in first stage and after that I struggle with 2 hearts for 100+ kills :D :D

Very good game ! I quickly lost at first, but finally we progress a lot ! Very good concept, one of the best I have tested for now :D

What I see is a Sidescroller Hack & Slash game where you progress your visual and auditorial experience by slaying slimes. Neat idea and the theme is used innovately. Good work!

There is a problem at the start, where hit registration feels weird (maybe a hitbox or animation problem?). It might be design decision where you wanted player to have more reach to the punch in order to survive longer. If this is the case you could try extending the arm swing on the animation cartoon style on the full area of the hitbox. This would give player better visual feedback on the hit registration area. Hitting enemies seems to be the core loop of the game (done 99% of the game time). Try juicing it up with something. Player taking hit could also use some visual feedback like flashing player sprite white for a while after taking damage.

Another problem is that everything starts gray and uninteresting. I think it's kind of a design problem where game gets more visually interesting by playing, so starting over feels like a huge setback. Maybe this could be addressed by juicing up the core loop of hitting the enemies

I see this a first LD game for both of you. Good start! Hope this feedback helps you. :pray:

Nice game! I really wanted to check all unlockables, but I just rage quit. I'll try again later, for sure!

@keppu Thanks for the feedback! I think what you're feeling early on is that the fist you use has less knockback and range than the stick weapon, which you unlock a little bit in to the game. There is a visual component to this, although it may be too subtle. I appreciate the suggestion around the core game loop, and yes, the game starting as gray is intentionally meant to be visually different from the rest of the game. I do like the idea of visual feedback on player damage, and it's something I hadn't considered. Thanks for playing, and I appreciate the suggestions.

This was fun! The unlockables were engaging, and the music (once unlocked) was jammin'. Made it to the cataclysm at the end (you can hide in the rightmost corner once you have the upgraded bat). I almost died at one point, but then unlocked health regen in the nick of time!

Hey man thanks for hanging out in stream, here's the video of your game if you're interested (sorry we lost the beginning because the stream hitched):

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/493367641

@boxedmeatrevolution @the-osk Really happy to hear you guys enjoyed the game. Thanks for taking the time to check it out.

@weeping-rupee No problem. Thanks for playing, and thanks for the video!

This was fun! Seemed to be getting super hard until health regen, but then after that maybe a bit too easy as if I could go on forever my just letting the slimes lump on top of each other into a single blob and get over them.

Would be great to figure out a way to have infinite procedural upgrades also. :)

Super fun game! I feel like the difficulty could be balanced a little more to give passive regen earlier on, and the level design could use some polish. The movement was fluid and the gameplay was fun and rewarding. One of the best I've played so far.

This was well done and felt very solid. I was a little frustrated by the delay between turning around and attacking, but that made the payoff of infinite rocks feel more rewarding. Nice work!

@joe-williamson Thanks so much for the feedback, and I agree the later game upgrades aren't the most balanced. I was able to get a [good score by lumping them up](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/45/unlock-hero/$175506).

We considered doing certain upgrades like: enemy health, player health, damage, and more levels of platforms vertically. Honestly though, we just didn't have the time to implement it. I'm really glad you enjoyed our game!

- I found the controlls and jumps to be a bit too floaty, It could maybe feel better if the player fell faster.
- You really, really needed even a simple tile texture for the ground or a background. At the start when you're in the middle of the grey platform moving feels very weird, because the game doesnt give you any indication that you actually moved. The ground is still the same gray, and background same black. Only you and the enemies move.
Other than that, solid platformer and good take on the theme. Good job!

Jim avatar got me here. My game has like 3 office puns :P

I liked the process of unlocking everything - you never knew what you were gonna get next. I had a really close call and was at 1/2 health when I unlocked regen.

Some critiques:

- Platforming is difficult since jumps are floaty, the character is a little slippery, and it's impossible to stop in the air - to land on a platform you have to jump and wiggle around back and forth until you slowly land.

- It's unclear what the hitbox of your swing is - it's much much bigger than the animation suggests. This isn't so bad once you get used to it but it can lead to taking some unnecessary damage early on.

- You get the final unlock fairly quickly, and I don't really find the gameplay from 250 on all that fun. I got to around 500 kills before getting kinda bored and calling it quits. Getting to 250 and unlocking everything was fun though.

Thanks for the feedback! For control floatiness and buggy platforms, these are things we were aware of but didn't have time to fix. It was not how that part of the game was meant to feel.

@marcin-j I appreciate the feedback on the basic ground tiles for the first stage. I agree with you, it's hard to control the character without a good frame of reference.

@empty-set Thanks for the comment on the gameplay being past 250 not being super fun. I think one of the things we would do if we were to expand this into a full game would be either looping around some unlocks (more regen, more hp increases over time, each music track unlocking independently, etc) as well as focus on a more interesting core mechanic (different weapons, upgrading those weapons, more enemies, occasional wave bosses, etc).

Happy you guys liked the other aspects of the game, and I really appreciate the feedback on the parts that needed some improvement!

Really great game! This game follows the theme really well and it has easy, logical gameplay. I really like how you unlock different parts of the game as you progress. My only problem with this game is the character is a bit hard to control while jumping. Overall, this is a really excellent entry!