LudumData

Leopold the Lich by Grentacular

[raw]
made by Grentacular for Ludum Dare 47 (JAM)

Leopold the Lich lives in his evil fortress on Donut Island, but he's constantly bothered by the troublesome paladins who live in the castle on the other side of the island. Leopold sets out to capture their castle, without realizing that the paladins are leaving to go take HIS castle! Just as he finishes redecorating, Leopold looks outside and... the Paladins have converted his fortress into their own castle! I guess he'll just have to try again...

(Use ~ to quit. I forgot to put that in the CONTROLS file)

There are two versions of the game: the original is the nearly but not entirely complete version that was uploaded at the cutoff. Version 2 is the "complete" version, with fewer bugs, more balanced audio, a working STOR, and an end. Version 1 is more fair for judgement, but Version 2 is more fun. Your call on which to grab.

bonk.png Leopold and the paladins don't get along.

slurp.png Human souls: delicious, and nutritious!

rush.png These paladins are so rude. Won't even check up on a guy who lost his head.

STOR.png The trusty STOR is now accepting regurgitated souls as payment, apparently.

Youtube http://grentacular.com/LeopoldTheLich.zip
Youtube http://grentacular.com/LeopoldTheLichv2.zip
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/leopold-the-lich

Ratings

Overall 625th 3.62⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Fun 324th 3.76⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1067th 3.08⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1257th 3.115⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 378th 4⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Audio 171th 3.938⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Humor 86th 4.06⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Mood 523th 3.646⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Given 17🗳️ 25🗨️

Feedback

Kisk
06. Oct 2020 · 06:09 UTC
Wow, love the colorful art style.
Thorn
06. Oct 2020 · 06:24 UTC
I grabbed the updated version so perhaps my judgement isn't fair within the rules of the jam but great job! Keep on making cool games!
Cwazywierdo
06. Oct 2020 · 06:32 UTC
This was fantastic. The idea, the art, the sound, and the gameplay were all great. I think I might even play it more after the jam. Very good job!
Jeremia
06. Oct 2020 · 06:37 UTC
Really cool game!
The best things in my opinion were the win and loose screens. so funky!

The Control to Lob a Spell was Y and not Z on a QWERTZ Keyboard.
I like that it was that way, but it should have been mentioned in the CONTROLS.txt

sadly i did not come across the shop, even though I captured a castle.
DoctorHummer
06. Oct 2020 · 06:37 UTC
Great art style, nice to see a game of this genre on GameJam. Good job!
Tyler Law
06. Oct 2020 · 06:42 UTC
Really well done! I played v2. A really good balance of mechanics with great animations and the sfx of slurping up souls is next level amazing lolol! I kept fumbling on the keys, this would be amazing to play with a controller. I had fun playing, great job.
Kassie Kitsune
06. Oct 2020 · 07:16 UTC
I have never, ever, previously in my life, been SO HAPPY to lose a game, the loss screen is just that much of a delight! on top of that, Leopold has got to be the cutest lich I've ever seen

my only real gripe with the game is no ability to shoot lob your spell upward or downward making the super fast paladins kinda hard to hit
Kevin Meissner
06. Oct 2020 · 13:59 UTC
Amazing simple but fun, also love the graphics :-)
Some contolles explanation would be nice. At the start I had no idea what to do. I tried space bar to kill the enemies all the time.
kotovnav
06. Oct 2020 · 14:00 UTC
Great art style, if only v2 was complete in time... However u got all 5!
Chocolat-Endive
06. Oct 2020 · 21:41 UTC
Very cool! I tested v2, it was nice and smooth, and overall fun to play.
I particularly liked the animation with the straw, as well as the win/lose screens :)
Paulsams
06. Oct 2020 · 21:46 UTC
Cool game! It was very interesting for me to go through it to the end! Good luck in game development!
piscythe
07. Oct 2020 · 01:31 UTC
This game is great, but the gameplay feels like it sabotages itself. The actual combat is fun - killing enemies is very satisfying and it feels like I have to actually plan my approach for each enemy. The cleanup after combat is less fun. I appreciate the idea that you have to make sure the coast is clear before collecting currency, but I don't think the process needed to be two steps. I think siphoning up souls would feel much better if you didn't cripple your movement. Actually, I'd be much happier with the mechanic if I just had to push one button to pull in all of the souls on the screen. Also, the explosion upgrade feels really double-edged. Watching enemies go flying off the screen or into the water is fun until you realize you can't claim those souls. The 2D animation is absolutely on point. It feels really smooth and helps sell the visual gags.
Eugenik
07. Oct 2020 · 04:56 UTC
I love the artwork! Great job!
Noteworthy
08. Oct 2020 · 08:04 UTC
Excellent game! I played the original jam version and not your updated one.
The gameplay loop is pretty fun, the keyboard controls were a little confusing, but once I plugged in my gamepad the game was a real blast!
The art style is super cute and cartoony, love the colours and the feel, the animations are fun and funny, your artist(s) did a great job! I loved both ending screens too, very funny.

At times the character's movement felt a little bit like sliding, and the penalty for death was a little vague, that true Game Over is when the knights reach your castle.
I also seem to have fully bypassed using the store it seems.

The game's got a good sense of humour as well! All around excellent game.
I hope you have the chance to keep working on it!
Aterlamia
08. Oct 2020 · 19:19 UTC
At first i did not understood i had to defend the caste and not myself so i was confused why i kept dying. After i figured that out it became more entertaining. I like the win/lose screens a lot. I had one problem and that is that the fullscreen version was not playable for me . It cut of a lot of the screen.
Will Isaacson
08. Oct 2020 · 21:49 UTC
@aterlamia is your screen ratio 16:10? I had the same issue when we were testing the game and the v2 version comes with a windowed mode that solves this issue!
Gilad Bar Ilan
09. Oct 2020 · 17:36 UTC
Nice game! Liked the graphics!
Aterlamia
09. Oct 2020 · 19:03 UTC
@will-isaacson, no my screen is 3840 : 2160 = 16 : 9. But i indeed had found the windowed version and played that to rate and comment
🎤 Grentacular
09. Oct 2020 · 21:08 UTC
@aterlamia Huh, thanks for letting me know about that. This is a relatively new engine I'm working on and I haven't had much of a chance to try it on resolutions larger than 1920 x 1080. I'll look into that!

And thanks for all the reviews, everyone! Your feedback means a lot!
Somogy
10. Oct 2020 · 19:30 UTC
Game very well done, I liked the fun provided, good job!
JoeDev
12. Oct 2020 · 17:46 UTC
This art style was very nice, the thick vector graphics look is a favourite of mine and gives big newgrounds games vibes from way back when. Also a funny take on the theme! Kudos
AreyWarlord
18. Oct 2020 · 17:17 UTC
This is adorable. You even get a reward (reviving) if you loose, but you did well enough. Leopold is officially my top-2 favourite lich (top-1 is still Arthas, sorry).
Balance686
20. Oct 2020 · 23:56 UTC
The art/animation is gorgeous! Great style - very fluid. The audio was great as well and overall created a nice atmosphere. I played both versions as the first one only used a portion of my screen in 4K and I kept losing because I couldn't see the enemies running through the cutoff portion. The windowed mode in v2 worked fine though. Kind of strange that the background moves in the opposite direction you're traveling :P Also displaying the controls in-game would really help. Overall I really enjoyed it - nice job!