Tower Lord: Sword Loop Saga by hexkritor
Controls
Move - WASD
Easy mode - Hold WASD
Skip cutscene - Esc
Team name: "Wonderwaffle"
Team line-up:
https://hexkritor.itch.io/ - Alexander, POGrammer, Team-leader, aka @Hexkritor
https://jarnerogd.itch.io/ - Yaroslav, GD, QA, manager - Thats me! @Jarnero
https://itch.io/profile/andreisanka - Andrei, Our best in the world sound-designer and composer
https://itch.io/profile/nevernox - Valentin, creator of original arts and adaptation of borrowed graphics.
He tested the last game build.
Our borrowed and adapted assets:
Rogue Fantasy Catacombs (author - Szadi art)
Monsters Creatures Fantasy (author - LuizMelo)
Wizard pack (author - LuizMelo)
2D Pixel Art Forest Tent Tileset (author - ThomasWasTaken)
Pixel Art Fire Effect - FX018 (author - nyknck)
About game:
The game was developed while participating in the Ludum Dare 47 gamejam from the "Indikator" Community of Authors. We are Russian indie-developers community.

Main features:
• Unique turn-based combat system (i tried my best with the game balance)
• Attractive sound design
• Game plot with cutscene
• Boss fight at lvl 6
Hope you will enjoy it!
STORY:
Our hero - Dark Lord, he is going to Dark Tower of Great mage, because he wants his black and big…
“Sword of Absolute Power”!!!

But then appears [REDACTED] and creates [DATA DELETED], that why our main hero Stuck in the Loop

That's all for description. Have a great Ludum, and…. yep, look at the picture below.

HOW TO START
Hit at Google disk link below => Download=> open Ludum_47.exe in the build folder
BONUS
Game Soundtrack:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5EqzTpOrt8
Updates
V 1.1:
- Added the level and enemy counters
Ratings
| Overall | 521th | 3.689⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 598th | 3.514⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 1072th | 3.069⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1105th | 3.319⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 80th | 4.139⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 227th | 3.662⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 245th | 3.929⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 61🗳️ | 17🗨️ |
Try one more time to reach lvl 6 - there will be a Boss!!! You should try to beat Lvl 6 - then you are really won this game.
I just love the music in this game! And graphics-wise it looks satisfying and polished! Nice! :thumbsup:
@thebugger Thanks!
@yngvarr STOP RIGHT THERE, YOU CHEATER SCUM! Just kidding. Thanks for feedback
@gonzalol Thanks! We tried our best :)
Thanks that help us all getting better!
And i think, that I know which one streamer can help us with rating on the next ludum. He-he.
About animations and art - we will rebuild it so from now we wont use any borrowed assets^)
Ands our artist said - "Pls say her that i will be proud of myself from today, XD"
Music was maided from scracth also as a main hero + animations. So we all maid this game with our Souls.
Ofc we will think about mobs variations and will add some abilities. Thanks again and really hope you will try it again when we will do Steam version.
Anyway, got a bug, explained it on your blog post, i dunno if it was fix in 1.1 already tho.
Great game overall
However, you already have almost all the ingredients to make such a good game, but I think you should get some extra idea to come up with something unique.
First of all, you should keep the HP of the player at everylevel, or give them a fixed amount. I you really wanna give the rogue like feel, players have to feel rewarded for understanding IA and mechanics, right now, it's just about being able to survive the floor, rather than survive the game.
If i wanted something special about that kind of game, that would be RPG elements. I tend to be more attracted to games that give me progression through the run like [Magicite](https://store.steampowered.com/app/268750/Magicite/) does rather than entirely RNG progression like it the case in [The binding of Isaac](https://store.steampowered.com/app/113200/The_Binding_of_Isaac/)
So yeah, maybe some powerups / abilities you can perhaps increase through the run could be a great addition to the game.
Mobs variation, and even "Theme" mobs per level (let's say floor 1-3 is dungeon, 4-6 is forest, 7-9 is the magician hideout) could be really interesting. Rogue-likes game where you're stuck in the same environment through all game is kinda boring in my opinion.
You could think about an other way to interact with the music, i don't have any idea right now, but that could be interesting. Maybe some sort of "Casting spells" with a better outcome if you are in the rythm, maybe even some customise spell, who knows.
You could have some sort of rewards after each levels, wich, based on how great your rythm is, the better is the reward.
Treasure and secrets are really a good thing about rogue like. Treasure chest can give you some randomness, and secrets can give you some way to reward people that try to discover the game entirely.
You should also give the mobs the ability to "trap" the player, right now, it really feels like they're unaware of the environment. Coming with a great AI in 3 days is hard, but that's definitly something that will help the game entertain the player.
If it's gonna be a rogue like game, don't worry about increasing the difficulty, as long as it's still fair (don't make it unfair, don't fall to this trap). For example, most of the time right now, you can clear an entire room without being hit. That's not that easy, but the fact that enemies hits like babies, and you recover HP at every room, that make it really easy to just go berserk through all game, without being punished from taking risk.
With that said, I think there's enough idea here to start beginning with, good luck for your game ;)
seriously think about UX later.
Game one version. So we just keep concept about some dark lork who go to the Tower and try to do something in unexpected situation. Thank you so much. We tryed our best. Now want to finish it, get all feedback and try to go publish it on Steam. How do you think - is it good idea?
I'll try the final version for sure, can't wait to hear some more amazing soundtracks!