I think I beat the game? Ended up with three parties that could clear level 3 pretty consistently. Found stacking dwarves to be pretty effective! A lot of the other classes kept dying so stopped hiring them :sweat_smile:

Had a lot of fun! Always look forward to checking our your jam entries when I can! The overall game loop was pretty satisfying, although I did wish I could keep throwing money at people once I amassed thousands of gold... oh well gotta pay for retirement somehow!

Hey @ursagames , i hope you are well! Always nice to see you around :)

Thank you for the feedback! We had a bug where the outro would not trigger after you'd slain the final boss, so i fear your game went on forever :D

Beautiful Graphics, Sound Design and overall vibe. Super impressive game. It feels satisfying to just look at the litthe heroes duke it out inside the dungeon. Mad props to everyone involved, you guys killed it.

Absolutely amazing assets! Crazy cool pixel art for the sprites and especially the background-tiles and maps! Music and sounds are on point!
I mean, you have a pretty stellar track-record, but you REALLY need to add a banner or screenshot to your LDJam-page to showcase your great looking game or people might miss this absolute gem! Fun game-loop as well and novel concept! Amazing work! 5 stars!

The art for this is amazing and then combining it with the nice animations and sound effects just makes it even better. I really like the screen that shows you how the expedition is going its super satisfying to watch, ill save the itch page to play it even more. Great work!

This is a super polished LD entry. Very impressive what you managed to put down. It looks very good and is very immersive. Only point of feedback I have is that I want more direct ways to influence adventures. There are a lot of details and stats for each adventurer, but they randomly form groups and I have little control to swap or kick them.

I love this game, the vibes are amazing! You're all super talented! The music, art, gameplay are just spot on! It reminds me of old final fantasy games in someways, feels like you're part of a story. Hope you do a full game of this, it's really a great idea and lots of ways you could build on it.

p.s. visiting a friend, gave me the feelz

I have nothing to say, everything is perfect !

This was great! I loved the vibe and found myself playing a lot longer than I expected for an LD game! Well done all around! :D

absolutely insane game, just wow

It's really impressive for a game jam! Everything looks very polished, with an amazing level of detail.

I only wish there was some way to interact during the battles, to tell our people that it's time to come back to the village before they die :D

The music and visuals are truly awesome!

Great game!

I played this game for way longer than I thought I would! It is quite addicting and satisfying :)
The pixel art is so beautifully done, and the music is top-notch as well. There were so many nice little touches, like how the heroes chatted with each other in the town as they went about their business, or how they would visit fallen heroes in the graveyard. Making the right side of the dungeon black until the heroes progressed far enough in the dungeon to reveal it was a very clever way to visually represent their progress through the level. The speed up buttons were useful, too.

Overall, this is a great game and I'm really impressed! It took me a minute to realize the chest in the middle of town where taxes were collected was effectively my inventory. Might be nice to have gold displayed somewhere on the UI so you can always tell at a glance how much you have. Also, this might have been intentional, but I found myself wishing I had more control over team placement rather than just having a "swap" button I could press a limited number of times. But I imagine that was just part of balancing the overall difficulty and such.

I didn't realize I had grown so attached to my S-tier lady with the giant sword until she fell in battle.... T_T rip Eigranorn

Again, fantastic job!!

Insanity! This is by far the best game i played in the jam so far! <3

The game is incredible!!! Concept, sound, art - everything feels fresh and polished. You need to finish and publish it for sure.

This is awesome. Got me hooked in a jiffy. And once you get them heroes to spend some real cash in your shops, that's just capital. Got a few issues with the UI, though: as my parties grew big, at some point I couldn't close the recap window. Otherwise, great job guys. Looking forward to getting it on Steam one day! :)

Wow this game is great, and the art is amazing!

EXCELLENT. That town is beautiful, the pixel art is so well done.

I didn't understand that you had to click to hire, thought blowing the horn was enough for a long part of the game.

Wish there was more things to do, in the town and in the dungeon.
Very good entry.

It ended with a bug though, after my last expedition, the close button disappeared and I got stuck on the heroes screen !


Very nice and fun entry. Your team is big, but I've rarely saw so much content for an entry. Graphics are amazing, sounds and music are excellent 👍

I was stuck by a bug related to screen size and the size of the end raid panel. The bottom button can't be clicked (3 teams of 5 heroes). Fortunately I was able to find a workaround by sending a new raid (it has closed the panel)

PS: thanks for the nostalgia feeling, I was a player of the first Diablo...

Stuck on hell level and only 5 heroes in two squads. Something wrong with sound. But! Overall very good and addictive game. :)

To be honest at this moment this is my fav game of LD, 5/5 :D I spent like 1 hour and still grinding new heroes. Art syle is gorgeous and dungeon mechanic is really impressive for 72 hours game jam.

Insanely good for a jam game. It feels so polished. Amazing whats possible in 3 days!

Very fun and addictive! Always great jam games from you guys, Good job :D

Really really good job ! wow

Cool game, I liked it!

Wow, genuinely don't know how this got made in a weekend. Probably one of the most impressive and addicting LD games I've played! Praying for an expanded version with a larger town mechanic

Beat hell in 22 years!

But, but... WHERE IS THE BUTCHER ? 😭

Just joking, awesome game, keep up the good work 😉👍

To be honest losing my S-Rank mage I had from the very beginning nearly made me want to ragequit!! RIP Ayin your DPS will be dearly missed.


I also didn't notice I was able to rebuild the smithy until I was very far into the game.

But yeah it's a very impressive entry to the Jam. Everything from graphics, sounds to gameplay is excellent. Would love to play Football Manager for Diablo Heroes in the future.

The thing I missed most was proper control over squad and dungeon assignments for my heroes. Also a button to abort a run would've been crucial for me to save Ayin.

Sooo good, it never ceases to amaze me how much people can do in 3 days, top marks.

Oh wow, that's a lot of content for a Ludum Dare game! The idea is fun and the gameplay reminds me of Darkest Dungeon. It was a bit light on the theme, but I would seriously consider continuing to work on this, since I think it has a lot of potential as a standalone game.

The pixel art is beautiful, especially the characters and the mood of the town.
There's so much variety in both heroes and enemies!

The game feels well balanced, and I found myself getting attached to the characters and feeling bad when one of my best heroes die.

One thing I'd loved to see is more agency in party formation. Sometimes the swapping wasn't as beneficial as I hoped, and I'd end up with healers on the frontlines. Maybe I am missing something?

Overall, this looks super promising! I really hope you guys keep developing it or exploring this idea! Great job!

It's a wonderful game, one of the best I've played on the LD 55. Great art, although I'm not a fan of pixel art. Very pleasant vibes of Majesty and Loop hero. I love games with indirect control) Special thanks for the menu with sound settings, my ears thank you)

Holy crap this is polished. For the love of god, change whatever you have to so Blizzard doesn't sue you, add a bit more content, and release this on Steam!

My fave game of the whole jam. Superb art, amazingly polished, good story telling without a proper narrative, I love it

Very cool, liked the mood, but coming from an already created game, there was no innovation there.

Very cool, very moody. Gave me the old-school Diablo goose-bumps. Congratulations on a fantastic submission.

Great entry. Looks and feels very polished and cohesive. Party management before venturing out was a bit finicky and very random, but maybe that was on purpose? It felt very satisfying spending that hard-earned gold on upgrades!

Thank you so much for you comments, it is simply great for the whole team to read and to see that we hit a good spot for many. We wanted to do more with the interactions in the village, so you could have more influence, but ultimately the time is quite limited and we focussed on making the heroes fight as interesting as we could and have some relation to each other and the player.

We appreciate the feedback, it's really helpful! We are fiddling a bit with a post jam version and will improve some aspects :)

@xzt i'm really confused, what "already created game" do you mean? Our reference was diablo 1, which is a hack'n'slash game, but this is, as @vinzbad put it amazingly well, basically a football manager with an rpg setting. Maybe you mean another game though (that i'm not familiar with).

Amazing game, you should definitely continue working on it. I would buy it in Steam for sure.

Daaamn, just wanted to checkout the lovely pixel art and now an hour later, I thought I should rate and leave a comment like, LOVE IT! and now back to it.

The artwork in this is truly stunning, and when paired with the delightful animations and sound effects, it elevates the experience even more. I particularly enjoy the screen that tracks the progress of the expedition; it's incredibly satisfying to observe. Excellent job!

Ok, this got me hooked for almost an hour. Love how each hero has their own gold and spends it. The game feels very alive with all the little detail, random dialogue lines and animation. And yeap, you indeed *feel* like a mayor of Tristram haha.

I understand indirect controls over almost everything is a conscious choice, but to me it felt limiting. I enjoyed watching the heroes fight in the dungeon, but I wish I could form the parties myself.

I liked the game a lot overall, especially in terms of mood, congratz!

That was so much fun! Great game, I felt so bad at first with the people I leveled just dying, but it felt fitting to the setting and gameplay. I would have liked a way to specifically set up parties (not just swapping), but I understand if that isn't the intended design. Biggest flaw is there isn't more!

This is awesome, I can't tear myself away. It's beautiful and interesting and funny and sounds great!

I am very impressed by the quality of the game, I felt like I wanted more when I reached the end !

A minor complaint I could have is that I had a bit of a difficult time rearranging the teams before sending them to the dungeon, that part could use a dedicated screen if you end up doing something more with the project

So fun to play. I got sucked in for a very long time and found it hard to stop playing.

This entry looks and sounds like a full Steam release, and the amount of content is insane!

First thing: I must admit, I've never played Diablo 1 (or any Diablo at all). But that did not stop me from enjoying the 20 minutes of playing this!

Yes, there were a couple of questions/problems, like flipped sprites in battles, closing hiring popups when someone bought something from the store, etc. But those are tiny problems, what was much more important is that every part of the game worked for the same "vibe goal", and I vibed with it! Definetely see looots of love in a dozen of tiny details, like names, artifacts, dialogues... I know that you find time for such stuff on gamejams only if you are really into what you are doing. (could not resist and did something similar this time as well, haha)

I am also curious about strategies for this game, as I just ended up going by hunch when sending parties (like putting best members+healer in first 2 dungeons and randomly mixing low and high levels later on to buff others and gain more money), not really worrying about any other stats... But I guess it's their's lives to lose, not mayor's :D

Anyways, thanks once again. Everybody already mentioned, but from the presentation standpoint this is a loveletter - can't say about Diablo, but for gamejams for sure :heart:

Really great atmosphere and graphics. I liked how the little town started to feel alive with the heroes visibly moving around chatting and buying things. I wish the player had more involvement somehow. I really didn't do anything except click "go to dungeon" and choose to hire people, then triple the speed.

This is so incredible its nuts! I can't process how you turned this into actuality. Like I understand how this big a team is needed for such a high quality entry, but to deal with all the team management in 72 hours is impressive! Either you are already running a business together or you ought to be!

Amazing entry! The graphics are so good, I just want to explore more of the world. I spent much longer than I anticipated playing this :smile:. I think the arrangement method could have been made a little bit easier, but it does not detract from the game.

Like you could even walk up the stairs on one of the houses. Details are crazy!

Amazing, I came back to play it again. Great work!

Really loved the attention to detail. This game felt complete and it was fun managing your party. I ended up playing this game a lot longer than I planned on! Thanks for a fun time! Nice work!

Awesome submission!

Had a very addicting game loop.
The music and art style were absolutely charming!

Great work!

Amazing game

I was following your updates guys once I saw your first post in the feed this jam! Really happy to see the results!

P.S. Just out of curiosity, what approach you used for managing AI of your heroes? I'm stil quite new to a lot of this, so my amateur guess would be GOAP, but please let me know whether my guess is right or not!

Hey @spica, nothing so complex, the heroes have a set of actions they can take and randomly pick one in the village. In the dungeon its just turn based combat, every class only has 1 action it can do.

(The village actions probabilities are weighted, and things like purchasing upgrades are usually checked first)

GOAP would be great but definitely overkill for the current scope :smile:

@pirey awesome work, thanks for sharing!

very polished game ! congarts to all the team !
(Big wolf is strong, but king skull is stronger !^^)

Excellent execution! Graphics, music, gameplay - everything is top notch. Thanks, I had a fun time :) 5 / 5

Just incredible, the game is so polished and really fun to play! The game loop is pretty addicting!

Very impressed with the art, songs, mood... Looks like a game that takes more than 3 days to make, GG to you all !

Absolutely bonkers. Best entry I've seen so far, congratulations to the team !

Very solid submission. Loved the graphics and overall quality to every detail.
See you on the next one!

Enjoyed alot! Simple but addictive. Not quite in the theme though.

I liked this game very much! Always a fan of amazing pixel art :)
Loved the vibe of the game.

Here my feedback, hope it helps a little :)

1) I didn't like the team building mechanic. Swapping was too random to really have an influence on the groups. I wished I could build the groups myself and decide who is going with who. (And also in which dungeon, because sometimes I'd want to send them to a lower level floor just to practice / level up)

2) I think the heroes got dumber, the higher level they got. I had multiple S-Tier heroes trying to 1v1 the endboss and die. That was a bit frustrating.

Great game! Thanks for making it

@rild Thanks for the kind words! I'm glad you enjoyed it :D

Our approach to the theme was summoning heroes (using the horn) to fight for you.

A very beautiful and enjoyable game. Personally, I’m not a like when a game plays itself (in fact, there was practically no dicision making on my part in the game). But thanks anyway for a pleasant experience.

What an amazing game! Loved every second of it! Was a bit bummed that it ended this early but I hope to see more updates in the future! Maybe add more buildings? Or maybe make them change appearance with each upgrade for that sense of completeness? The possibilities are endless for this one :)

You have a well-defined Core Loop, and a great artistic direction! Very good work!

This is the best game that I've played during this game jam. Excellent work! I wish I had the option to save my progress, and definitely I'm looking forward to seeing updates for this game. At the beginning, I was struggling to understand how much money I had. For some reason, I didn't pay much attention to the huge chest with gold. My bad.
Maybe it would be cool to have the option to form groups manually.

I won!

Great game. Absolutely every aspect is so well executed.

WOW great game and nostalgia pusher XD

I cannot believe this is a jam game, everything from gameplay to art and music is so well done. Great work!

Really well made art and a very unique idea. I enjoyed playing it.

This was an awesome entry, kudos team. The graphics felt super polished, loved the look and feel! The SFX could have maybe been a bit more punchy or interesting especially in the dungeon but it's a jam, it was well done! The game was surprisingly fun... I say that because it's kind of a mix between idle game and active play; I bet it would translate really well to a mobile game since it lends itself to taking breaks in-between dungeon crawls. I could see an option to let adventurers go out for 15-20 mins and then it pops up with the results (and you could watch a replay, if you want). Then you add more to the city building/upgrades and bam, you've got a mobile game that's fun to play!

I really liked the adventuring aspect, I felt like I was incentivized to help the adventurers so they'd buy more stuff and then I could outfit them better. It was also fun to watch them; I do think that's a different take on idle games. It could be interesting to influence that active play somehow. I liked the leveling mechanic as well.

Super well done, A+!

This was a beautiful experience. Loved the art, loved the music, loved the mechanics. All-around excellent work; be proud, and please expand it! (I'll buy it.)

Lovely game, amazingly detailed and polished. Love the character's wiggly walks.

IMO this is the best game I've tried so far.
Awesome graphics, cool idea, great execution, good sounds and music, concept well executed.

Super fun game, liked the environment art and the little interactions between the people (well I liked everything about the game those are just two things I had in mind xD)
Took me a while to beat but after I did I kept going and my gold snowballed into this monstrosity :D
I also got all my heroes to S tier because why not :D

Great game! Love the art and the music.

Without a doubt, one of the best games in terms of graphics, atmosphere, and sound that I've seen at this jam. I thoroughly enjoyed playing it until the end. I especially liked the cozy town where the characters interact with each other, reminisce about fallen friends, and jump into hot springs.

As for the factors that were not very convenient:

- I wished for a bit more control during the team composition stage. If a player has a favorite, they cannot give them a stronger amulet or tell them to be more careful. The only way to prevent their death is to kick them out of the team, but then they stop leveling up.

- The UI wasn't the most user-friendly. It's hard to select a hero to swap them out during the gathering stage - you don't always understand which group a particular hero belongs to or which dungeon they are going to. I didn't immediately understand the hiring process.

- The progression balance of the town seemed quite linear and unvaried. Of course, achieving the current result in just 72 hours is simply amazing, but by the middle of the game, I realized that I just needed to grind out 200 gold to upgrade 2 houses, and I could easily do that by sending crowds of adventurers without really thinking about their success. So, empathy for the characters diminishes a bit, and you simply accumulate gold closer to the end of the game.

Nevertheless, this is still one of the coolest and most memorable games at this jam. I hope the feedback was constructive. Excellent work!

This is the most solid proposal I've tested so far, but there are plenty of others.

It remains on a high level of finish in every area, so I was keen to keep moving forward with the adventure.

Excellent proposal, congratulations!

So far my favourite entry! Especially for D&D fans! Did you made all of it from scratch?

I would love to look at the stats of my champions during the dungeon crawl. I'm not too familiar with the auto battle genre, so I don't feel too qualified to give feedback on things, but I felt like I didn't have many decisions to make. The one I remember was to upgrade now or hire two more heroes. The presentation is, of course, top-notch. I love the soundtrack and art :)

wow! just wow! very good job guys!

All around, this was a very impressive game! The art and presentation are truly fantastic. I did however encounter a bug where a hero was not attacking and apparently could not be attacked, which meant that I was stuck watching them "fight" forever and I lost my progress.
I think the only flaw I can see in this is that the fights are very uninteractive, especially after the first few encounters. The choices regarding the building upgrades were also not very clear to me, as there was too much going on for me to be able to focus on the specific upgrades the heroes bought or might have bought. So, gameplay-wise, I feel that there was more potential in this game. But the general idea and the execution are nonetheless really cool to see and I had a lot of fun playing this!

Despite I was initially quite skeptical regarding this game it's absolutely marvelous from art & sound perspective. The gameplay is not THAT fun, but I've enjoyed my playthrough, so it's definitely was worth it.


Nice result, guys, despite being on a bigger team size it feels a bit different from other entries on the jam to be honest.

Attention to detail on all levels! You've done an excellent job, I think I'll play a bit more into the evening.

G-dang guys, this is just about ready to ship... The idea behind this is solid, and the graphics and audio are probably the best I've seen in this jam. The guitar really nails the Diablo/Tristram vibe. Hats off!

I have only a few gripes with how this stands, and the first two are taste, really. I don't generally like games where you are not the protagonist - I feel the quality of a game is expressed in great parts through agency. In this case I'd either want less of the adventuring screen (and focus more on the management) or have more to do in action (like order a recall before the party wipes, or tossing in complementary healing potions, or prioritizing targets, ...). Also, it's a bit light on the theme, really the only category I can't give you full marks.

The only objective bit of criticism/feedback: there could be a better screen for assembling the parties. Now having to swap or kick a member is tedious, because it is hard to see at a glance what role each character has and how well their level fits with the other members.

Holy damn, someone else except for me is this obsessed with Tristram's Theme?! This recreation gave me life! Huge kudos to the audio person, and to the rest of the team for making a fun game - great job with the assets and animations :)

The graphics are amazing, and the entire game feels complete, great entry!

Your entries are always very compelling. The party selection gets hard to click and hard to make out who belongs to what party, after a certain point. There doesn't seem to be much you can do with the gold you are getting as well. I think more stuff for the player to do will not hurt. In any case incredible music, very charming art style, and awesome mood. Great work!

Yikes, this game is so good! Somehow I played over an hour, what the heck? I always become so addicted to incremental games and here was no different - trying to increase my townspeople's dungeoneering prowess.
Fantastic job!

This is really great. Got me hooked for a good while. It is really gratifying to see the village grow and to see the heroes rank up. Was also blown away when the screen divided in two and then in three.

Amazing look and feel, very lively characters!

It hangs in the middle of fights for 5-10s, not sure if it's a bug or an issue with my browser (Opera).

really great game with comfy vibe and sound

Awesome game. Love the concept, and the art and sound are perfect. Excellent work!

Can't believe this is made within 72 hours. This is so far the best game I've seen in this jam. The art and sound are really good. Gameplay is also fun. One minor complain is some mechanics are not crystal clear to me. Congrats on this entry!

It's a very impressive work and I enjoyed playing this one a lot :) I like that some of my heroes mourn their fallen friends or say occasional hello to each other! And I wish there was a hard "retreat" button, as sometimes I was watching my S warriors with an obvious death wish marching onwards to battle further only to meet their sad end :( but overall it's a solid little game, I liked both graphics and music and character design was cute. Amazing work guys! :D

Great game! Nice work coordinating such a large team and making such a polished game so quickly. Loved the music, the diversity of enemies/classes and the animations (especially the characters jumping when you summoned them).

Was some interesting interactions with different parties - when I sent 3 healers, then saw a skeleton and ran immediately.

It would have been nice to see the amount of gold all the time. It would have also been nice to have a UI to rearrange parties - using Swap/Kick was pretty tedious if I wanted to change the parties.

Nice work!

I can't belive you made this in a 72 hours! Congratulations it's incredible I finished the game and I loved it!!
If I had to say something: It took me a long time to finish it as I did not really understand how the dungeon system worked.

Love the art and the whole concept! very nice and polished.

its insane that this was made during the game jam, they must have had such a clear vision, the graphics are a highlight aswell

thig game already feels complete

This game is incredible! It's crazy how much you were able to pull together for this game in such a short time! And I know I played the post-fix version with update visuals but it's still so incredibly impressive. You made a combined game and management sim in such a short period of time and i am blown away by it. So many elements of this game are just so great! You have great art, great music, fun gameplay, I could see myself throwing hours and hours at a scaled up version of this game. It really feel like something you could finish up and sell after this jam. What a fantastic job you all did!

I absolutely loved the visuals and would love to see where this goes if y’all continue this game!

Really awesome concept! I was a huge fan of the visuals, audio, and overall presentation. Definitely would love to see what ideas you have in store for any post-jam work. My biggest criticism is that while I found the gameplay engaging enough to keep me playing for a decent while, I didn't find myself making any interesting decisions or solve any problems through the gameplay that left an impact on me, which could be solved by leaning a lot more heavily into the management side of things. Overall fantastic work though!

Extremely well put together! I love the life you were able to squeeze out of everything. From the characters mourning each other to the squash n stretch animations. I think I would've liked some more decision power in the gameplay though. Fantastic stuff, yall really cooked.

Loved it! For a jam game, it's quite impressive. Aesthetically, it's very cool, even UI got some attention. I only wish I could do more than hire, swap and upgrade. But I get it, for 72 hours it's great work :thumbsup:. Thank you for this love letter :love_letter:. It brings back memories. Congratulations to the whole team! :v: :cake:

Amazing work! :open_mouth:

I don't know where to start, and don't want to write a novel, so I'll just do a pros/cons list... ^^

Disclaimer: I played the Jam version, I don't know what changes you made in the new one.

**Pros:**
- Amazing music
- Good sound design
- Really nice graphics
- Original and fun gameplay (You don't do a lot of things when you think about it, but you never get bored... A masterclass :clap: )
- The heroes and enemies AIs are pretty consistent.
- The heroes are active in the village, talking, visiting the graveyard... :cry:
- Diablo <3

**Cons:**
- You don't have access to the classes descriptions on your heroes or in the heroes panel, only when you recruit new ones.
- The heroes panel should be next to the horn to allow you to consult it when you're about to recruite.
- When you can't send all your heroes in the cathdral it would be nice to be able to choose which ones gonna stay.
- A better overview of the parties composition could be nice. With 5-heroes-parties it starts to be a little complicated to see who's inside.
- It can be frustrating to see a low-life hero stay in the fight insteed of fleeing... (No idea how that is managed :thinking: )
- I would have liked a little more control on the parties composition, or at least getting extra actions when the heroes count increases. (But that's just my opinion ^^)
- A visual indication of the shops upgrade could be great.
- A more accurate animation for the heroes in the pool would be a must. :rofl:

Great game anyway. I hope you will add content, polish it and publish it, I'll play that with great pleasure.

Yo this game is super impressive. The art is stunning, the audio is great, and the gameplay loop is quick fun and rewarding enough to have had me playing this game longer than nearly any other game this jam. It's clear that this is a team of pros that work well together and were able to execute and polish a shared vision. I think this game has serious potential to be expanded into a full steam release, and I'm guessing that from the structure of what's already here this was the team's hope from the beginning.

Although for a jam game it is astoundingly polished and well done, I do have a few gripes with some aspects of the gameplay if this were to go on and become a full game. The key issue for me is that, autobattler expeditions aside, the game sort of plays itself. You should always buy the smithy and alchemist building upgrades as soon as you can, and you should almost always hire heroes as long as you have less than 15. Outside of that the only way to influence a mission's success is to restructure the team, but the kick button relies on having an extra adventurer hanging around and the swap button is risky.

On the one hand I wanted a more consistent way to influence the team formation and upgrade the heroes I liked but on the other hand I really liked the sort of laissez faire approach where the characters buy their own items and form their own teams. I think having a few more avenues to spend gold or ways to indirectly encourage certain team members to stick together would help. If you do expand on this game I hope you're able to retain that feeling of hero autonomy.

That all being said this is a phenomenal entry and my critiques are for a full game, not one made in 72 hours.
High marks all around, and congratulations.

@blaise-ebuth Thanks so much for the detailed feedback!

A couple of those were addressed in the post jam version :)
- There are a few different variations of the buildings as you upgrade them
- The heroes now actually soak in the water (and wear swimsuits!) instead of jumping on top of it :laughing:

An outstanding game, really. I still can't believe what you guys achieved in 72 hours. It is a stone throw away from being a full fledge Game. Here is my summary of my amazing experience:

**Pros**

+ Gorgeous pixel art. You outdid yourselves
+ Voice acting and storytelling, always nice to have
+ The heroes can totally take care of themselves in the city and most times in the dungeons (Coming back to this later)
+ Classes easy to understand
+ Ennemy variety
+ Overall atmosphere
+ Overall good gameplay loop

**Cons**
- Absolutely no commands in the dungeon. I mean, i get that it is the point, I would have liked an emergency exit horn though, with maybe a save system (like in DnD, the heroes throw some kind of dice to see if they can emergency exit safely)
- Lack of control over the swap is frustrating. If i am going to only have 3 swaps, better make them count and actually try to make the best teams I can.


**For the future.**
I would guenuinely buy this game if it ever comes out as a full game, and here is what I would like to see:
- More variety in buildings in the town. I am thinking about separating the upgrade buildingd between blacksmith, alchemist, mage tower or something, archery range.
- Still about the variety of buildings, some chill building like a tavern where heroes can chill out and discuss. I saw that there is one in game, but it currently doesn't have any effect. Maybe by incorporating a post-battle damage or stress system, the tavern would have a meaningful presence (akin to darkest dungeon).
- More classes to play around with.
- Some out of mission training camp. You might be able to send a hero to training, but that would make the hero unavailable for some time. Wait... Something that would be quite innovative, maybe have a tutor - trainee system, which requires two heroes to actually work. The more experienced hero would train the newbie, perhaps the faster the higher his level is. Say you take a S level hero to train a E level newbie, maybe it brings it to C or B, without ever endangering both of their lives. But then you would have two of your heroes unavailable, and one of your more experienced heroes at that.

Then again, you guys did a really amazing job. I am just sharing what I thought and what I would like to see, but you guys do as you wish. This is one of the best games I have ever encoutered in Jams, and it has a real real potential to be a great game.

**Bravo**

Really great game! Having three simultaneous runs going was a great idea - really accelerated the gameplay. I really didn't like the experience of organizing parties - it was pretty hard to tell who was in what party with them all bunched up together in a small corner of the screen.

Wow, you put a lot of great stuff into this game. You can see by the many comments, that this game will rank very high in this game jam and rightfully so! :)

Like some other people mentioned, I think it would be great to have a little bit more control over the party during the fights. It would be also great if I could decide more about the group constellation.

But overall you did a superb job. My favorite thing is, that the heroes are doing stuff in this village. They´re chatting or having a bath. That adds a lot of flavor into the game.

Loved it! graphics are crisp, so are the SFX, I love watching my simulated peoples walk about in town and fight in the dungeon. (and mourn the dead)
My only feedback would be that I didn't really need to swap or think about their stats, all I had to do was just hire people, send them to fight, get rich, upgrade buildings, rinse and repeat, without thinking about anything. So I didn't need to make any decision other than just press the next action required of me.
Regardless, excellent polished entry. I don't know how y'all did it.

===
edit: I forgot to comment on the cutscene at the start! loved the fire and despair!

WOW!! I was so excited to see you had made another game this Ludum Dare, and you once again exceeded my expectations! The gameplay was incredibly balanced, excellent level of difficulty that kept my gf and I playing for over an hour to finish it!! Art was BEAUTIFUl, i especially loved the red glowing church, I would make that more prominent on the screen as it's so pretty. Only comments I have are that it would be great to choose who you swap between teams, and also, the wildlings suck hahaha. And omg my heart broke everytime the heros would go and mourn their friends in the graveyard D: I got so attached to the characters, if anything happened to my Ub + Flavinius, I would've thrown hands. Seriously such an impressive submission, best game this Ludum Dare, and easily the most on theme, can't wait to see what you do next time!

I mean, it's exceptionally polished and fun for a jam game. You do have many people in the team, and I just wonder how you all managed to do it altogether, big teams like that is hard to manage in mere 3 days. I love the game. Good job you all!

Awesome stuff! I ended up trying both versions and spending more time than I realized. Really polished (and even more so the post jam version). I wish there was a bit more player interaction but for a jam it's totally fine and there are a lot of neat systems in there that can be expanded on with more time, whether you focus more on the micro or the macro/sim aspects.

I'm absolutely amazed. The amount of polish on this game is absolutely insane. The mood was awesome, it was immediately apparent how the game worked even without instructions, and you just wanted to keep playing.​ As a musician I also really appreciated the work done by Martin.

The game is too good for a game jam lol

Audio, graphics and mood are world class quality. It was very comfy to hang around the village to the point I was a bit sad to learn there is very little to do there, but I did roleplay a bit walking around, and waiting for my heroes to rest (even if it wasn't necessary).

For the combat phase I wished I could do something as they battled. We play as an old sage, so I though, like a Gandalf, I could send some inspiration for my heroes to fight longer or stun the enemies. I understand this is an autobattler, but I would gladly welcome some form of limited player's intervention, as you don't choose items, or order a formation. On the topic of formation and squads, it was difficult to "manage" parties. I guess it was part of the design to limit swapping, but I often wanted to have "proper" adventuring parties with tank, barbarian, rogue, healer and a mage, but often it wouldn't let me do that and I ended with 2 tanks and 2 healers that couldn't deal any damage but wouldn't die or flee for a long time.

By the way, congratulation for getting featured in Rock Paper Shotgun and fingers crossed for another Dome Keeper like success should you wanted to push this further!

Extremely polished game with beautiful audio and pixel art. I'd enjoy some more control during fights, but this is an outstanding entry! Great job everyone!

Very solid entry ! Maybe more control of team composition, or equipment (etc.) will be great. But for a game jam, it is a very solid game very well polished, one of the best game of the jam played so far well done !

Very impressive and polished game, great job! The only thing I would want more control of is the positioning of the group members in the dungeons, when the tank sometimes stands in the back instead of the front line :)


Wow! This is just amazing! It took you 3 days to come up with something like this.... you are at another level!
This could definitely be a game on its own!
I loved the different music tracks, also the graphics and your use of shaders to convey movement, the different sound effects, and the different stages of the game.
That King Skull is a tough one, it slayed several of my best heroes!
Great job! Have a great jam!

Great polished game! The medieval mood was great and I liked the art.

It was fun hiring the heroes and trying different combinations to fight. The gameplay loop was addictive enough for me to play until the ending. I wish there was a recall button or something to save those barbarians as they always fought until they died.

There were couple of things that were not very clear to the player. One that I couldn't solve was what affected the team size? Sometimes there was 3 ppl parties sometimes 5. I thought I could just fill them up to 5 by getting enough heroes but it seemed somewhat random. Other thing was that sometimes the teams with new people started from the first level, but other times they continued the difficult levels where they had left before.

Other than those little unclear things, the game was amazing and I could have gone on for even longer if there were more upgrades and levels etc.

I like the graphics of your game! It all looks very cute :) I wished one could influence the game a bit more. Because actually, I did not do a lot. Moreover, upgrading everything costs a lot.

Incredible! I loved this game. The pixel art is superb, I had a great time in this sound/musical atmosphere and universe, and seeing the universes of the three dungeon levels with my heroes fighting before my eyes! My only regret: not being able to see what the inside of the tavern looks like! hehe
Well done to the team!

Great entry

You did so much in so few hours

Make me think of majesty .. great concept !

Congrats

Yeap, definitely the best game I played in this jam, probably it is going to be top place.

Insane what you managed to do in 72 hours, even by such a large team of full professionals.

Great pixel-art, music that hits right in the feels for Diablo fans, addictive gameplay loop. Quite polished (even though the game bugged and I got stuck inside the dungeon, one player refuses to leave, it seems like they got stuck between two dialogues playing at the same time)

Everyone brought their A-game, congrats!

I played the post-jam version, but absolutely incredible work! Everything was polished to the fullest. The only thing that felt a little off was the spoken narration. The theme is very present -- which is also why not having full control over the party works, in my opinion -- and the premise is a fun idea. It was a thorough pleasure to play. Extra points for the screen shake slider!

Oh man this is probably my favorite of the bunch. You guys nailed it! The mood, theme, graphics, sound, everything was just *chefs kiss*. Greatly done!

Whoaaaa such a polished game and a delightful experience! The pixel art is like from a finished game. The AI works flawlessly, I was loving my characters running around and made me connect with them a bit :) The only small criticism is that there was not that much strategy to the game. Changing the party members did add a bit, but in the end I just ended just running in with random parties because that seemed to be enough.

not at all my type of game, but it's damn impressive everything that's on offer over 3 days... well done to the whole team, the pixel art is lovely, the atmosphere is great... my regret is is that the game is not played entirely with the mouse.

That was an awesome experience!

You should definitely make a full version!

I finished the game, but at what cost...

As usual great game! The art style is amazing, the music is awesome and the mood... ah! My only feedback would be to have easier way to switch heros between parties. Maybe a screen where player can drag & drop heros to the party player wants the to be in? Anyway, I had a blast! Amazing job!

What a good game! One of the best I've played so far, the sounds are great, the art and the environment are very immersive and very beautiful. Good job!

wow

!Keep in mind: I was playing Jam Version, so some of the points I bring up you might already have fixed in post-jam!

First of all, graphics are gorgeous, main menu looks pleasing and polished, I appreciate the options for music volume and fullscreen.

Really cool to see the changes in the village. From little details like gold in the chest, to upgrading buildings. There seems to be a lot of attention to detail, honestly you did so much in just jam time... Ofc I see there is a whole team but it's still impressive! Almost feels like I got a full complete game from Steam, just for no money x)

It is pretty addicting, ngl. Can't put it down xD


**Random thoughts**:

- I spent so much time in the village that my FIRST expedition happened on 3rd year it seems?? xD


I *really* like just chillin in the village because it it so cozy and pretty and I love hot springs too.

- Seeing the dudes just jump ON the water was funny as hell, I didn't even add it to the "nitpicks" because it seems like "not a bug but feature" type of thing xD


When one of them came out of the hot spring saying :) it warmed my heart. Aww.
Overall them saying random stuff is super cute and a nice touch.

- Then there is even a cemetery for them, and they go talk to their dead... That's just really sweet. Makes them feel more alive <3

- I play during work breaks, but this game took too long to fit in one break so I kept it open while working (book translation) and the music was actually a fantastic BG for that xD

- I like how I can change the speed with 1,2,3

- Not sure what "hire and sponsor" means, I pay for the stuff they buy?


**Nitpicks**:

- In the village, my character goes through tables. I assume you didn't want them to be an obstacle, but it feels a bit strange. Maybe move speed is even a tiny bit *too* fast, it feels a bit... not right. And at 3x speed old man moves in a completely unhinged speed XD

- When I "enter" the house there, old man just suddenly disappears. These are little details that can be improved (ofc that's not a critique as you did an ENORMOUS job in just few days, just something you might want to polish in the future ^^)

- My heroes also sometimes go through pieces of environment

- Considering how we move around with arrow keys/WASD and interact with E, it would make sense to call off menus/screens that appear with a key also, like Enter, or just also E.

- I summoned my heroes and realised the ones I called in with a horn need to be hired. I hired one, he proceeded to buy himself a staff and chill, I couldn't summon him by the bell xD I guess that's the was it's intended to be but would be nice to be able to add him ^^'

- That said, if I have more than 9 heroes in the village, would be nice to be able to choose who is going to the caves (doesn't seem to be possible rn?)

- Would be really cool to add some interaction in the dungeons, like maybe some events where we have to make some choices, or items that we can choose to take, etc etc. Just an idea for a full release +_+

- Also for more content if you release this game on steam, more building could be added for upgrading ^^ I've upgraded both shops to the max and felt like ok, now the only use for my money is hiring new heroes I guess :)

- When I decided to leave the game, I couldn't call any kind of menu to save or even just quit in a polite manner, had to Alt-F4.

**TLDR**

Huge amount of work done, that's impressive! A lot of art (all the BGs in the caves, the monsters), and it looks fantastic. Our village, our home base really is the place you want to spend time in and chill. It already feels like a complete polished games, but I see a lot of potential for expanding!

*I spent too much time playing this... Sorry for the long write-up >_<*


Wow! So much feedback, so much love - thank you folks :D

I'm so sorry i can't be more responsive here, or play more of your games. I wish i could, but we got a big update for our "main game" (Dome Keeper) in the works and i'm very busy with that. Be sure that the whole team carefully read every comment here, or even shared some in the group chat.

A stunning game in all regards, and one that managed to perfectly capture both Diablo and Darkest Dungeon fee— oh no I just browsed through the comments and saw a lot of people mentioning them. Oh well, at least it proves I'm not alone in my reaction :3

The gameplay loop works shockingly well, and coupled with sweetest art and proper ambience it manages to deliver a product of unbelievable quality.

This is amazing! So well done in all aspects!

I have no words. This is something one cannot expect in a game jam... wow.

Something so straightforward, yet so much fun. Quite impressive. I want more levels! :D

Undying cleric