The HP bar in the game doesn't show up -- this might be due to the resolution have you have set on itch.io Otherwise, neat idea!


A very unique game. I like your take on dungeon crawling and RPGs. Also I love the pixelart!

Neat little menu based dungeon crawler. I like your take on needing to not succeed too much in order to "delay the inevitable" rise of your own possessed tyranny. Some of the options are rather humorous, though I can see that many of the enemies are far beyond the characters ability to deal with effectively. Cool pixel art and great base for a more in-depth game. Great job!

Reaaally fun, I don't get what's the point in using the shield, but I really enjoyed the game.

Love the atmosphere of the game. I almost magic slapped that scorpion but instead I beat the game by being freeeeee!

Thanks for taking me on an adventure!

Cool game. I didn't manage to beat it but I liked it.
I love the art but I guess its not your own because you opted out. But either way, great asset choice.
Maybe make the UI more fitting to the theme for example using a font or colors from the game art color palette

At first I was bad at reading and played the game like I thought I was supposed to (didn't read the text), then laughed when the final boss exploded on because of a "Imp'a-tient", escaped and accidentally destroyed the world in the process. I laughed really hard, really great game premise.

Second run through I end up being freed, poisoned and on a sliver of my health! My sacrifice will not be in vain. :joy_cat:

I liked how simple it was, but the number of choices seemed endless even if I'm given just three at a time. That's a good thing, by the way. On my first run, I was halfway from killing the final boss. I was on the edge of my seat! I loved the atmosphere of the music, ambient noises, and sound effects. The art is also well done. Great work!

My hp bar was there. Interesting game. The amount of choices in combat was a bit overwhelming at first.

Love the idea! The pixel art is awesome :D

I looove menu games, and this one was pretty cool.

I really like the interplay between damage, potions, and MP - it took me a quick playthrough to really get a handle on the whole idea that +1 potion was like +6 seconds if I was damaged enough to spend it, little things like passing turns in combat with the shield (something I initially thought was mostly useless) was a way to "turn on" potions that otherwise would just sit in my inventory. Having 0 potions when high-time path gives -1 potion is just full upside, so trying to set myself up to benefit from those situations was fun.

There were a couple other little things that came up too - at first I saw the "skip time" spell and thought it was clearly the best one, but then I saw the magic slap was 9 + 9 = 18 sec for equivalent mana. Then I came *back* around to realizing that for "skip time" to deal damage equivalent to magic slap I'd have to do at least 1 sword swing - we're back to skip time being 15 + 5 (or more), making it +2 over slap in the worst case. Slap was still good to clear out the worms that could add back to the timer, though.

So yeah, thanks for making this little sandbox of comparisons to play in, I had fun! Despite all of my strategizing, I couldn't beat the "hard" mode - I'm guessing there was some fundamental tactic for wasting time that I missed, or else I just had some rough runs of luck. Or maybe it was just the real inevitability of the theme showing itself. Regardless, I had a good time!

Loved the mood created! Its crazy that you did this all by yourself!! Holy!
The sfx were great as well as the art!

Thanks to everyone who has played and enjoyed the game! For everyone to know, I did not make the art, sound, or music for the game. I added a line to this in the description last night and am about to publish a build that states this on the main screen. Sorry if I gave any wrong impressions in that regard. I opted out of voting in those categories for that reason and thought it would be understood.

For any Unity devs interested in getting the art assets I used, check out the creators here: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/characters/pixel-monster-pack-75508

Very fun game! I'd like to see more variety in the exploring options

That was a rather enjoyable game, I love how the premise got flipped on its head. Masterfully done!

This is literally just a UI game and you managed, to not even make your own button sprite...

Very unique concept with the skills / actions take time aspect. This was very enjoyable!

It was fun to choose between the different paths and options. Felt like there were a lot of different ones. I don't think I played very well, though.

I liked it. I think that the background while exploring and battling should be different, but great job!

Nice! I started on 444 seconds and close to the end thought it was too easy, I could've done 555 or 666, but then Cerberus appeared... Managed to hold him off long enough for Imp’a-Tient to get bored. Yay me.

Well done. I liked it

Huh, this is pretty innovative! I don't mind the "programmer art" since the game mechanics make up for it. Music was surprisingly good, better than the art lol.

had a blast playing, great take on the theme!

I think you have something great here, which could it's own small standalone game. Just forget the theme and polish this game out! I really like it!

I grew up playing and writing these kinds of text-based games so it was a real blast from the past for me. Had a great time dungeon-crawling. :-)

Cool idea being able to pick your own paths, knowing full and well that some of them are going to cause you harm. I know it's all down to random chance, but I never hit one where I couldn't easily avoid one I didn't want. It might be cool to purposely set the play up in some scenarios where they have to choose the least bad option for them

I really enjoyed this a lot! I'm super impressed at how many options you had going through the dungeon and the amount of variety there was going through it for multiple playthroughs. It has a nice atmosphere too with the ambient music you chose. I really liked it, great job!

Hey, I was mulling things over and realized what I was missing. It was very satisfying to figure out and execute it - hard mode was defeated! Thanks a bunch for the game!

Interesting take on a dungeon crawl! It got a little repetitive toward the end. It seemed really well balanced for the amount of time you had to make and test! If you continue working on it, I think some little story snippets between choices/battles would be a cool additon.

This was really impressive. The variety of the path outcomes and the interplay between the resources of time, health and magic gave a suprising amound of mechanical depth to the game. There were some paths where one road was better in every way than one of the others, so it didn't feel like I was making a trade off, just picking the obviously better option. I know that's the way it goes with randomized elements, and I guess balancing the choices is something you could focus on if you expanded the game post-jam. It was really fun finding the most efficient ways to get through combat while blasting through the remaining time. Nice job on this one!

So happy you all are enjoying the game! Thanks for the positive and constructive feedback!

Really interesting concept, and a fun little game! I played through twice (lost the first time, won the second). The only thing I think it needs is a couple of simple animations. Great work!

Really nice twist on the dungeon crawler genre ! It adds an unexpected layer of depth. It was quite fun to ponder on what was the best option.
I came reeeally close to winning 3 times in a row in normal mode so I guess the balance is on point :,)

I would have liked a way to speed up animation, when you're on your fourth run it can really slow down the pace ...

Gratz on the submission, pretty solid for a solo dev

Stuck in the game for 25 minutes, a great idea, but the implementation is lame

Nice job! It was interesting trying to balance the resources available. I just barely won on easy mode on my second try so the difficulty seems about right :) I think the UI could use a couple of tweaks to reinforce the counter-intuitive parts of the game like "progress is bad" and "running out of time is good," I kind of forgot what I was doing halfway through my first try. Congrats on the submission!

Was really fun to figure out the strategy! Art and audio were picked really nicely and contributed to the mood. The gameplay itself is surprisingly well-balanced and encourages experimentation. A great entry!

Really cool game! I didn't get it at first but that's probably a problem with me, since I was so used to normal dungeon crawlers. Second playthrough was much more fun for me.

Only feedback I have is to make the shaking animations of the buttons when you end the turn/your turn starts to be slightly faster, or at least an option for faster animations. Because I found myself already knowing what ability I wanted to use and had to wait for the animation to finish to input it.

Did a first run without reading the rules, I was confused by the bad ending! x) My second attempt after learning how to play was much more successful! Trying to lose as much time as possible was pretty fun, especially given how the writing describe the situations. It's a pretty cool concept, although not so much challenging. Even if the hard mode might be tougher, in the end selecting options doesn't feel engaging enough to look for real strategies. As be narration is the strongest point of the game, maybe it could use more visuals to illustrate the silly situations it offers? Anyway, it was a cool twist on the dungeaon-crawler genre. Good job!

Nice take on dungeon crawler! I alwaays wanted to play a next turn :grin:

Fun dungeon crawler, with some depth and planning needed to advance. Have to juggle between HP, MP, and damage to try and beat your way in time. I'd add some kind of option to fight quickly, because I found myself spamming the mouse in order to progress in the fights, bacuse I already knew what I plan to click on. But game had me on the edge the whole time, while being not too complicated - and that's a good thing!

A lot a good idea, lacks in a little polish and balancing: waiting for the animations to finish during the combat really kills the vibe.

But great submission anyway, very solid! :v:

A good jam entry that made great use of the theme. I think mixing time into the traditional dungeon crawler is a neat mechanic and you could take it a lot further. The chicken :joy: Keep on making games \o/

Clever design! Really like how a timer lets you balance out other pros and cons and lead to interesting decisions. I opened up the itch page at was checking that while playing, so I missed the first time that you were trying to get the timer to run out. Might suggest mentioning it on the itch page itself, like you do on this page. Really neat idea though, great job!

Very interesting twist on the dungeon crawler, getting as ready as possible while also balancing the limited time and fighting the inevitable human reflex of "big negative number = bad", the big scorpion kicked my butt anyway 😅

Oh man, I really liked the idea of the second main resource being time, and how it works differently then the player may be accustomed too! Very inspiring twist!

Like a few other folks, I am guilty of not reading the rules before playing. I was very confused when Imp’a-Tient (:laughing:) showed up and started killing stuff.

The battles are quite well balanced, and I appreciated the use of shake animations to make things feel a little more lively. I think if you spend a little time on this after the jam -- slap a pixel font on things, add an old-school _Final Fantasy_-esque menu theme around your buttons, that kind of thing -- it'd move from being really good to great.

Great take on the theme, the gameplay is unique and engaging.
With some more polish I could see myself spending a lot of time on this one!
Great work.

I like the concept. Music is nice, the graphic made me nostalgic, and the humor makes me chuckle.
However, it's just every time I met the Giant Scorpion, I can't seem to get through and always did not managed to kill them...

Nevertheless, great work!

Interesting time mechanic! No real gripes. I dont normally enjoy turn-based games but this grabbed me for a while.

I really enjoyed this game, it has a nice feel and clever take on using time as currency. Sacrifices were made along the way but you have something interesting here. My recommendation: add shake to the enemies when hurt and reduce the shake for my attack options.

I really love the concept of the game, works very well. Was pleasant to play, good job!

Awesome idea for a game! I was able to bored Imp'a-tient. The descriptions of the path are just great XD "You sneezed too hard" and "A ghost kicked you" are my favorite. Well done!

Played a lot of these games as a kid, like te relive that memory good job.

Very ambitious for a jam game. I know games with stats and RPG elements can be difficult to balance, but I think you did a good job with this. I enjoyed the various choices and text, great work!

I really liked the style of game you went for here! I enjoyed the choice-based mechanics and I liked weighing up between moves with more damage and how long they took to happen! I also like the touches of polish like how the UI shakes when you get hit!

I liked the variety in the enemies and the more peaceful exploration time in between encounters was also a nice way to vary the gameplay and give the player some respite!

I think the UI should have been in the same style as the other sprites, like pixel art style, and the same with the font. I felt as though aesthetically it could have been more coherent, but I did like the visuals of the actual world itself along with the visuals of the enemies!

Overall, I really liked this entry, I've not come across many option-based games this jam and I really enjoyed playing yours, this is a really good entry!

Interesting idea for a game-actively trying to thwart progress in escaping is a nice way of making the gameplay refreshing, as it becomes a balancing act of surviving while still not doing great, rather than doing as best as you can. The graphics and audio work well enough in setting a mood, and the overall RPG-like gameplay is well-balanced. Overall, this was a really nice entry, and a unique concept in the game jam.

Pretty interesting game. Unique that you're essentially trying to stall as much as possible while staying alive rather than trying to rush towards an end goal while accumulating upgrades.

Dungeon 'Crawl' I see what you did there lol. I love this time-delaying concept. It's like 'time' is also worked as a HP stat in the opposite way.

Bit of a ridiculous scenario, but the game is a lot more fun than expected. I really like the mechanics. Only criticism I can think of is, I wish the progress bar was a bit more detailed. Maybe some notches to indicate when a monster fight happens? Though really, it didn't matter after the first play through. Anyways, fantastic job on this game!

Cool game. I like your approach to the theme. Game looks and plays great. Nice work.

Pretty cool! Took me a bit to really get it but once I did, it was fun to make good choices. I guess I'm slightly unsure about the theme interpretation since this feels like it could be the condition to any game but it was funny nonetheless 😅 Sounds were fine and graphics were neat, cool to get a bunch of enemy types in there. I think the main strength was really the wealth of choices and use of the main mechanic, like having enemies that would rewind time, that was great. Overall a good game 💪

I was playing the beginning of the game totally wrong, but once I understood what was the goal it was pretty interesting (which shows that I really should, y'know, try reading).

Unfortunately I died just 20-so seconds short of winning and I did not have enough mana for time warp.

I also wish the combat animations were faster, though I do appreciate the screen shake.

I like these entries that turn the prompt on its head.

Took a couple playthroughs to get the hang of this because the concept is so backwards from how I’d usually play one of these games. But it’s really interesting! The idea of trading time for other benefits is clever. Reminded me a bit of Loop Hero. I’d like to see this fleshed out even more!

A fun little game and cool idea, I like stuff like that a lot :) (also like the story/choice bits in FTL a lot)

the graphics are well chosen and the misuic fot the mood :)

Very impressive for a single person - I would have liked if the HP from the enemies were visible a bit better - unless you don't want that - then maybe an action to show the stats of the enemies - HP, weaknesses, status etc :)

The choices were cute and funny, it was fun figuring out what to do during my first run - I was just disappointed I died at the Cerberus at the very end... damn Fluffy grrr.. isn't there a harp to put him to sleep?! :(

All in all a fun entry, congrats :)