Really nice work, this game has a lot going for it!
I enjoyed the graphics, Ive been wanting to make a gameboy style game for a LD entry for ages, this is exactly why. The boss in the top level looked great too, really solid pixel art. And not to mention theres so many details in this game, like the fact the boss (or at least the 1 boss I did find) actually has multiple attacks and parts to the battle, that was cool to see and added a lot of challenge. And other details of polish, like holding E speeding up the text, just good overall gamedesign. Its good to see a game that has so much effort put into law and world building too. I wonder how big the entire game map is as well? Seems quite large! I definetly didnt have time to see all of it.

10/10 aesthetics, well done!

There's an amazing amount of polish here, including the sound effects and music, really well done. The boss battle was underwhelming because it was too long, but otherwise an incredible effort.

@alex-adedge Thank you so much for the feedback, I'm glad you enjoyed it! The world and graphics were something I was really trying to push for this jam, and I'm glad they worked out!

The game is very cool with cute graphics. It's amazing how did you managed to make this game in only 2 DAYS.

You truly nailed the gameboy aesthetics.
Also, I'm impressed you've managed to build a world this big AND managed to create a boss fight within 72 hours.

Ahhhhh that one bit pixel art style!!! :open_mouth: It has one of the best movement and top down combat system!
Everything seems so polished here including the gameplay, the music, the sound effects, the art, the story!
Greato Jobu! :smile:

@slimbun Thank you! I'll be honest, I had to go for the 72 hours jam to cram everything in, but I'm still really proud of it all!

@phoenix-fireflower Thanks! I'm glad I managed to get the gameboy aesthetic right, I wanted to experiment with a new art style for the jam, so I'm happy I pulled it off!

@god-colo Thank you so much! I wanted to make sure the gameplay and art were as polished as they could be - though there's plenty more polish I want to do post-jam! :)

The graphics are really impressive, and have a very nice and consistent aesthetic. The world is also very fleshed out, and developed, kudos! One aspect where this game could be improved, is in the communication with the player. I had to go searching through web pages to find out how to progress in the monologues, which isn't ideal. And i couldn't figure out how to attack with the sword :thinking:
But that being said, this is a nice and polished game, that's very impressive for an LD jam :smile:

Wow that was a very nice game! Congrats for making it in such a short time, graphics and controls are great! Just a very quick tiny little feedback for the attack: the character can only face left or right so it's a bit tricky to attack enemies from the top or bottom (I mostly had to go to their side to touch them). Also about the HP, the interface isn't really easy to see when you're in the middle of a fight. Other than that, great job! :clap_tone1: :clap_tone1:

@benjamintausen Thanks for the feedback! 100% agree that it needs some clear communication on the controls - I think given the scope of what I wanted to do for the jam, adding an in-game controls screen just slipped my mind somehow haha. Definitely something I plan to add to the post-jam version!

@azathothep Thanks! I'd actually intended for combat to only really happen from the sides, but I can see why it might be frustrating given how the levels are designed. I'll be sure to try to work on it some more post-jam! And yeah, the HP bar is definitely a weak point. I wanted to improve it during the jam but didn't have much time beyond having empty hearts be filled in black, so it's a little bit easier to see how much damage you've taken. it's not perfect though, and I'm totally going to polish it up post-jam as well! Thanks for your comment, glad you enjoyed!

I love the art style. The game in general is very polished and has a distinct style. Great concise and consistent submission!

I like the throwback to NES style in pretty much everything, artstyle, sound design, zelda esque gameplay. I liked the boss design and the gradual ramp up and addition of ideas, though the ending part of the boss was a little dragged out after I'd killed all the henchman ghosts.

Overall, still a really solid game, well polished and fun to play!

Wow, wish I could play but I'm on mac. Looks awesome, if you ever need original music keep me in mind.

Looks and plays very old school. Great job! Pretty good boss fight. I think it should be more challenging, but I still love it!

Great work!!
I think you absolutely nailed a special mood there, it really threw me back to the old days of playing Gameboy!
Maybe it could improve by having the transition between scenes a bit quicker and the text typing skippable, but that's just my personal preference.
Anyway this is really great, amazing work!

I really enjoyed playing this game though I do have some critiques. It would've been great if everything wasn't so green, it's really hard to really see where you can walk and where you can't a glance. I do know that you were limiting yourself to a GB palette, but even then you have 4 colors, that's quite a lot! the brightest color and bright green could've been used for walkable tiles and the other 2 colors for non-walkable tiles. it would've added alot of clarity to the maps. There were these dark ground tiles that I first thought were some kind of blocks because they were so dark, so that's something to look out for. other than that I really enjoyed the music and the gameplay. it's a really nice game and I hope you keep improving in the future.

The graphics and animations look cool!, but I think the transition between rooms should be a little faster I think. Anyway, the game is nice, great work!

Perfect graphics, you really nailed the game-boy aesthetics ! I like the sounds-design too. (Visager is a good choice ;) )
But... err... I think this doesn't deserve the theme really well... Yeah, there this story of keeping hope alive but there's nothing that let you see that, apart of the end text. And, sorry but all I see is a Link's awakening mechanic (more than just a tribute) and just "try not die" is a bit too vague to match, in my opinion, enough the theme.

Your game is really cool, really polished and great graphics though ! And I had fun playing it :)

@guin36 Yeah, 100% agree on the boss fight's final phase. I'd tried to keep the henchmen spawning back in when they die but I found it killed the pacing even more since it was hard to keep focusing on the boss. Definitely something I intend on looking into experimenting with more though post jam! Thanks for the feedback!

@superpatch Thanks for the feedback, I'm really glad I got the mood right! I did add an option to speed the text up a little, but I've noticed myself that really it doesn't do much for longer pieces of text, so i'll definitely go about adding a full on skip! And yeah, speeding up the transitions would be a nice addition! Thanks again!

@inkedsplat Thanks for the great advice! Truth be told, art isn't my strongest suit, so while I'm happy with the individual sprite-work, I 100% agree that there's room to improve on the actual practical applications of it all. I'll definitely keep experimenting and trying to get it right as I keep developing it further!

@wegpast Thanks for the input! I'm glad you enjoyed it! I wanted first and foremost to make something fun, and to work a bit on my graphics. So, the theme being less of a focus is absolutely something I agree with. I still like the idea overall, but agree that I could (and should) have done more to express that story to the player! And, I'm actually quite curious: what's the Links Awakening mechanics you're referencing? I'm ashamed to admit I haven't actually played it! So any tribute or reference or what have you is pure coincidence haha!

Realy nice pixel art work here! The green theme is also very nice and reminds me of my old gameboy games haha! It is a great game and can surelly be expanded to a linger gameplay time! Wish you good luck!

Wow, honestly amazing job with this. I think this is easily the most impressive game from the jam Ive seen so far. It goes without saying that the art is phenomenal and together with the music and SFX it creates a great aesthetic. There was also much more than I was anticipating from a game jam game! You could actually explore and get other abilities like the dash and shield which is so cool. The screen transitions were a bit annoying since they lasted a long time, stopped the music and then sometimes put you right into an enemy to get knocked back to the previous screen. I also accidentally would run out of the boss room because I got too close to the screen border without knowing, and resetting was a bit annoying. But overall incredible job!

Amazing! The Art style is awesome, makes it feel like GameBoy times. The gameplay is solid. The Story is a little bit cliché but cool enough to make me want to know more. I especially loved all the details off the main path, sometimes with additional skills to find and sometimes just with lore (The Scarecorw).

See me slaying slimes and ghosts:
https://youtu.be/Zsu2znXPSK8

This game was great, I really enjoyed the art and gameplay.

Woo, someone definitely got inspired by original Zelda! :D

Amazing graphics and as an action-RPG addict, I loved the game. Sound is also very fitting. I don't have much else to say, since you already got a lot of feedback, so just take my compliments.

PS: I opened and closed the game 3 times because I tried almost everything to move forward in the dialogs and I thought just the game froze. But then I saw you wrote instructions for it.