Summoning for Dummies by Cievers

[raw]
made by Cievers for Ludum Dare 55 (JAM)

Our little witch in training accidentally summoned a demonic portal! If she can just survive for long enough, the portal should close again. Help her use all the summoning spells she has learned so far to defeat the diabolical creatures that come out of it!

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This game was tested and developed for Windows systems with a 1920x1080 resolution, and platforms that differ from this might experience unintended side effects.

Ratings

Given 37🗳️ 32🗨️

Feedback

Mcgiants
16. Apr 2024 · 01:28 UTC
Simple but enjoyable. Only complaint is how abrupt it ended (I didn't realize it was the last wave of enemies). Thanks for sharing! (Never did get my lemon...)
LDJam user 386314
16. Apr 2024 · 17:59 UTC
Very good
HollowBearGames
16. Apr 2024 · 18:06 UTC
Simple concept executed really well. Loved all the animations and the art style is cute. The audio was simple but worked great with the art direction overall. I felt the difficulty was pretty well balanced and I was challenged at a few points for sure. Only minor negative is that I ran into a few bugs with card rendering that made it so I couldnt read the text due to card overapping, nothing major though, otherwise a great game :)
Maurits Dijkman
16. Apr 2024 · 18:07 UTC
I love the art style, great job!
ALeal_Dev
16. Apr 2024 · 18:07 UTC
Cute pixel art and perfect idea for a jam game. Some bugs with cards positioning but overall its a very good entry. Nice work!!
Santi Barra
16. Apr 2024 · 18:07 UTC
Lovely art and fun gameplay!
Rokevicius
16. Apr 2024 · 18:10 UTC
Simple fun game! Pixel art is pretty!
Salanyel
16. Apr 2024 · 18:36 UTC
Simple concept but effective.
Game is also difficult so it's cool!
Pimeko
16. Apr 2024 · 18:39 UTC
Honestly one of my favorite games of the jam. Love the simple yet super effective concept :) I was able to go pretty far but at some point no cards were drawn anymore and I couldn't drop any card on the deck.
Would have liked the ability to specify which monster to target but I guess that's part of the gameplay.
Great visuals, great vibes, good job!

Me right before the drama:
![436485695_388111760762423_6355810479153507599_n.png](///raw/66e/14/z/63ce2.png)
EklBirifine
16. Apr 2024 · 18:57 UTC
There is not much to do, I was defeated very quickly, but I still had fun) Art is cool and little creatures are cute :D
asfdfdfd
16. Apr 2024 · 20:11 UTC
I wonder how some of the folks was able to finish game. It's soooo hard. But i love the idea. Nice entry!
Ilinx
17. Apr 2024 · 09:07 UTC
hahaha that's my "Summoning for Dummies" doppelgänger ! Nice entry too, enjoyed it a lot :)
Rita.PressAnyKey
18. Apr 2024 · 11:45 UTC
Hehe great game's name to U))))
I really like deck-builders and yours is well-done.
It's simple but captivating, with a space to add extra mechanics.
I wish the game has no end, but some score points instead (as I've made a good deck, but, nope, fun is over :(
![Screenshot_2.png](///raw/839/d5/z/644f7.png)
Rild
18. Apr 2024 · 17:41 UTC
Nice and simple. Good job.
Persepolis
18. Apr 2024 · 17:42 UTC
It is such a good game! Very easy to understand and very innovative. Always make me wanna try again
6Knowledge
18. Apr 2024 · 18:13 UTC
Simple art-y card game. Gameplay was very smooth with nice little animations. Got myself stuck on the fire card when I had no cards in my hand (knew what I was getting into before playing it).
yule4ka
19. Apr 2024 · 12:23 UTC
Well, the Linux build is not working (I can see the "summon lemon" stage, but when I am pressing all buttons or clicking on the mouse nothing happens), but the graphics is awesome!
Megh Menghani
19. Apr 2024 · 12:24 UTC
Great slay the spire X peglin like game. Good background music. Should have been a bit more challenging.
karln
19. Apr 2024 · 12:27 UTC
Woo I won by the skin of my teeth :) Nicely balanced. I liked the artwork and the variety of card effects, and that it was pretty self explanatory.
Atan
19. Apr 2024 · 18:28 UTC
It si cool but i have some issues with casting after i get hited
Yanato
19. Apr 2024 · 19:45 UTC
Funny game. There are prerequisites for increasing the variety of cards and monsters. Some technical points need to be improved. When you take a card to use and are given a new one to choose from, one of the three is automatically taken into the deck.
Timidger
19. Apr 2024 · 20:35 UTC
This one was able to hold my attention for a while! Ended up playing three session (unfortunately two ended due to bugs and one was because I lost).

I wish it would tell me the deck size. I guess at some point the cards reshuffle into the deck but it's not clear to me when. Showing the deck size is the minimum needed for a player to be able to strategize about whether they should use what's in their hand or gamble for a better card. Without knowing when the reshuffle happens it's just a card draw without enough knowledge to know what I could possibly be getting.

The frog effect's description was vague to me. I thought he stuck around and would leap after he attacked, but it looks like he always attacked the second enemy in the line? I like the effect, the description just wasn't clear to me.

Similar nit with the lightning -- I thought it definitely struck an enemy just not necessarily the front one. Instead it's like the boulders falling from the sky. If they have similar effects they should have similar wording.

Final nit: I hit escape after I hit the first game ending bug since I was playing around trying to fix it. This closed the game and I lost the progress (which was probably lost anyways). Would have appreciate a pause menu.

The art and sound effects, though fairly simple, were great. They communicated well what was going on even with the limited color pallet. I was able to quickly scan the card upgrades and choose what I want as the icons were distinct. This was something I missed in my own game and I wish I had had time to give distinct images to my upgrade screen. So good job there.

I found a small visual bug where cards would overlay. To reproduce: Play a card. Before the action completes, click and hold another card while the game draws the next one. The cards then overlap. Fixes itself when I move one of the cards. It happened a few times even when I kept this in mind so there may be other cases where it's triggered, or I just wasn't paying attention.

Can falling rock not do damage multiple times? I would prefer if it did -- I had enemies grouped up and I was hoping I could use it to barely escape by hitting multiple of them at once during my much less successful second run. A boulder fell on a group stacked together and it wasn't clear which if any of them were hurt.

On my final game I ran into the same bug as my first game where I couldn't play cards. I don't have a reproduce strategy but I can explain the final state I was in. I could move the cards up and they'll snap back to the hand but if I move it above the grass line then they won't play -- they'll just remain on my cursor until I bring it back below the grass line (and then it will snap back into my hand).

I really enjoyed the gameplay for this one!
LDJam user 374028
20. Apr 2024 · 07:36 UTC
Fun card game. What I like the most about it is that it is simple and fast paced. The music is good too. Congrats!
Wouter52
20. Apr 2024 · 15:18 UTC
This is a fun game! I like how there are random elements in here, like the rocks that have the potential to deal lots of damage, but have a chance to deal nothing either. The cards itself felt glithcy to me, somethimes they would not release, sometimes the would not get played and then the enemies take their turns. Sometimes the cards would overlap. That took away from the gameplay a bit for me. Nevertheless, fun and unique game!
ThiefViolinist
28. Apr 2024 · 10:39 UTC
Beat the game on second try. Would be nice to see some roguelike with this mechanic, also want to have abilities to skip turn and choose what enemy to attack(with certain spells)