The Cursed Knight by djayne

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

Arthur has always wished for more strength. Little does he know; all he needs to do is ask.

A witch who lives in a nearby cottage tempts Arthur with a potion that will transform him into a fearless knight. However, Arthur doesn’t realise that with this new courage comes a catch: he has to fight forever!

Will Arthur die in battle? Or will he break free from the haunting loop of ghosts and ghouls?

It’s your job to help Arthur survive this gruesome onslaught and find out if there is a way to break the bloody curse. Save the knight from his nightmare … if you're brave enough.

Controls:

Right-click: stab Left-click: slash Shift: dash Space: jump Arrow keys: movement

screenshot-1.png

Screenshot-2-the-cursed-knight.png

screenshot-3-the-cursed-knight.png

Screenshot-4-the-cursed-knight.png

Ratings

Overall 1386th 3.036⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1294th 2.875⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1514th 2.5⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1209th 3.19⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 1186th 3.117⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Humor 680th 2.854⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Mood 876th 3.315⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Given 24🗳️ 34🗨️

Feedback

HumanIsRed
06. Oct 2020 · 09:00 UTC
Wow! The controls are very funny and smooth, I would make the attack a bit more understandable because you definetly wanna feel it! Overall pretty fun! Would appreciate if you play our game too!
Tom Stephenson
06. Oct 2020 · 12:41 UTC
I really enjoyed my time with this entry! I love the art style and the game makes great use of the theme. The story was a lot of fun and a great concept!

The controls felt smooth and responsive, however gameplay would have benefitted if the camera was slightly offset so that you can see more ahead of you. Only a minor issue, but it did make the large jump over the fire more difficult to begin with!

Overall a great game entry and a fun experience. Well done! :)
gnx
06. Oct 2020 · 21:52 UTC
This was fun to play :) Reminded me of Ghost 'n Goblins series!
meadjix
06. Oct 2020 · 21:57 UTC
Really good overall result! I would have made the attack a bit faster but I suppose it's matter of personal taste :)
Charlotte Raymond
06. Oct 2020 · 21:59 UTC
Good job on the art and the humor! I don't know if it was intentional or not, but I laughed super hard after I died the first time. Like, it zoomed in and focused on his death state just burning away in the fire for *awhile*, haha. Overall really liked this though.
Codeman1010
07. Oct 2020 · 05:31 UTC
THis was a neat little entry, I really enjoyed my time with it!
🎤 djayne
07. Oct 2020 · 08:35 UTC
Thank you all for your comments so far, it really means a lot to us. We'll be playing your games together later tonight and commenting back. :) PS. Check out Tom Stephenson's and HumanIsRed's games if you haven't. Played last night and they are both great!
digital bacon
07. Oct 2020 · 09:47 UTC
Fun little game, liked the pixel graphics. Movement controls were nice and smooth, but attacks seemed a bit slow and there wasn't much feedback when the attacks connected, so I wasn't sure if I was actually doing anything. Clicking through all the introductory story was a bit of a chore, and I found the font hard to read (and clashing a bit with the fantasy setting), but all-in-all a good effort.
🎤 djayne
07. Oct 2020 · 10:44 UTC
Thanks @digital-bacon, we completely agreed with all of those points haha. Will try and implement them for a post jam version. Just a matter of too much scope for our first game and not getting a chance to change those bits. Really appreciate the solid feedback you've given here. Will play yours later. Dan & Georgia
Angelee
07. Oct 2020 · 13:35 UTC
The controls felt floaty to me and it was hard to tell if I was damaging something or being damaged. Nice pixel art for 3 days though.
G C Williams
07. Oct 2020 · 22:01 UTC
@charlotte-raymond Thanks, Charlotte! Hahaha! We’re glad you enjoyed his uh, death scene LOL. He’s a dramatic kind of knight... Means a lot that you liked the art, too! It’s our first game, so we’re learning a lot! As you’ll see from our comment, we just played yours and love the hamster, ha! Such a fun game. :)
G C Williams
07. Oct 2020 · 22:10 UTC
@gnx Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it! Just looked up Ghosts and Goblins and can totally see what you mean. It’s really similar, actually. We may even use it for inspiration throughout our game improvements! I probably would have enjoyed playing that years ago. We got our pizza too, on a second play through as we were being silly. Such a clever little game (feedback on your page). :)
solmir2000
07. Oct 2020 · 23:45 UTC
nice little game, with good graphics and good character movement , well done.
Conneli
08. Oct 2020 · 05:08 UTC
Very fun! I'm not quite sure how I broke the loop but I was super happy when I did, and then I won! The pixel art was really nice, great indicators on how defeated enemies were. Nice work.
svyatozar
08. Oct 2020 · 21:18 UTC
nice little platformer, but the sound effects are a bit annoying. Do something about them pls :-)
Coding4rtist
08. Oct 2020 · 21:39 UTC
Nice little entry! Art is nice and music is amazing! I didn't like the controls that much, they were a bit unresponsive and often the character got stuck in certain corners. Good job though!
TheCrittersCove
08. Oct 2020 · 22:22 UTC
Very strong Halloween theme going here! Nice pixel art, though the art styles clashed a little in the intro. The audio was also very suitable, just needs to have the volume turned down some.

As others have mentioned, the attack could use better feedback(better timing anyways?). Do the monsters cause damage? I was also dancing in the fire and cauldrons and still didn't take a whole lot of damage.

While the game does need some polish, I think it does a great job on the mood and theme. Nice work!
NinjaCatz
14. Oct 2020 · 08:06 UTC
It turned out well, but it is very difficult to understand when you are hitting the enemy. The graphics are well done. In the web version (on the first link), the character does not respond to key presses. The sound does not change when decreasing in the game, as it was loud and remained.
mar3k
16. Oct 2020 · 10:59 UTC
Nice game, but I feel like it's bit too easy, I had way too much HP and was even able to just run to the end and then jump on the boss and kill her in few slashes by spamming attack. But I really liked how you included the story and the animations. Well done!
Arcus
16. Oct 2020 · 11:01 UTC
Good graphics - a rather important thing to do when having pixel art graphics, is to have a constant pixel size. The more detailed graphics have a pixel size smaller than those less detailed, which can be a bit displesant in places.
Arad HamidSamiee
17. Oct 2020 · 12:06 UTC
Cool sprites and animations, nice audio effects and music. I'd prefer to be able to move when I'm attacking tho. good job
BjornStahl
24. Oct 2020 · 09:22 UTC
The game looked nice and sounded nice, unfortunately it felt a little off. I think this is because of how fast the character moves in relation to the camera and how zoomed in it is. When running at full speed the character is almost at the edge of the screen so you cant see what's coming up a head. Would also have liked more feedback on the combat, didn't know the timing of the attacks so just ended up spamming them. Liked the story of a character that want strength too much and managed to reach the witch and beat her, although I got there by just running and jumping, ignoring everything.
xk_the_name
24. Oct 2020 · 09:27 UTC
The screenshots and halloweeny theme caught my eye. The sprites were nice enough. The music is good. The sounds are OK. Now Let's see what's not...
0. The wall of text, I like narrative games, but hey, who likes the wall of text in the beginning? You can give out the story in bits an pieces to the player through gameplay.
1. The jump, besides the fact that it doesn't work sometimes (it should work even when it technically shouldn't see 'platformer coyote time') it has a 'flat' curve, a better feeling jump would be higher if you press button for longer, and the gravity would increase when you release the jump key (google something like 'better platformer jump' there are videos about this topic).
2. The attack is on the mouse but the rest of the controls are on the keyboard, for me it feels unnecessary, could just use keyboard keys, but that's a minor thing. The bigger thing is that there's this sort of swing to it, that feels unnecessary, an instant attack would have felt better in this case in my opinion. The attack animation could be telegraphed better, right now I barely notice it and it doesn't feel good to hit things.
3. The death, the player shouldn't have to wait this much time.
4. You could've voiceovered the wall of text in the beginning, but I never do that myself, but that would be cool...

Wow that's quite a lot I wrote here, anyway, I have much to say just because you use these mechanics which have a lot of specific stuff figured out already, I hope you find my post helpful. Congrats on your entry! You know how they say, finished game worth 10 unfinished games, who says that? I don't know, just made this up.

Good luck on your game development journey, don't forget to have fun!