This is a solid foundation for a bigger game if you want to keep going after the jam! If I had to nitpick, I'd say that enemies are very hard to hit.

super cute game! i loved the graphics, and it was fairly easy to get into. great job!

Combat is a bit difficult but the stacking power ups are really cool,I really enjoyed the bouncing arrow! The art was really well done.

This game is super fun!! It was a little bit confusing at as to what to do, and what's a powerup and what's an enemy but I eventually figured it out after reading the description. Also, I'm not sure how I died but I'm assuming it was because my moisture was going down? The controls were really fun once I got the hang of them and I wish the earlier levels were a bit more populated so I could test my bow on more enemies! Definitely will play again.


had some problems with enemies in the early game, but I guess I'm just a noob!
Good idea overall :D

@cheese-team I realized the enemies were hard to hit early in development but kind of ignored it - shows my judgement! I guess I just wanted to make more of them! I don't know what the solution is but if you had one I'd be all ears! Thanks for the feedback!

@matthewi I realized the base mechanics of the game with powerups and enemies and hazards would be hard to read so I tried to get it in text, but I realize I failed a bit there. I think you fell to a bug I call - the fire was waaaay to *bleepin* hot. And by that I mean a fire that should've done 1 damage was doing 300 due to a bit of a copying bug. Oops!

wow, the game is strange but in a positive way, quite complex which for me is also positive. Nice job in such a short time!

Nice atmospheric audio and graphic support. imho you should work on gameplay flexibility as sword attack have quite a loss of precision and the bow is nearly impossible to use agains normal enemies. Nice job!

I quickly avoided all forms of combat and opted for a defensive/avoidance strategy. Couldn't find any water. My moisture content...

Well done!
Nice job on the procedural map.
Would be great if the weapon could rotate toward the mouse position and friendly fire would be turned off.
Other then that, its really fun.

Just Amazing game! I love the Diablo vibes and melancholic music in the background. What really surprised me in a good way was the weapon design. I love how it merges sword and bow in the same weapon. Just brilliant!

The only thing I would give you as a little bit of negative feedback, is that I would appreciate if the girl attacked according to your mouse position. I often forgot that I needed to move to the right for example, and then click.

Fun game. Maybe a bigger slash angle can be better^^.

That was a nice game! I couldn't find any jug though, I don't even know what they look like.
The game feels nice to play. The sounds work well. I like that enemies are kinda afraid of the light the character emit. Nice job really!

Good job!

The mood is good!
The controls and understanding of objectives took me a bit of time.
As stated by others, enemies are really hard to hit. I guess it is mostly due to being locked to shoot in only 4 directions, and them having what feels like random following patterns, often coming at you at an angle.

Thanks for the game!

I liked this one. Nice, pleasant mood, and the sword-bow is sweet. I would like it to have been more difficult, so that the powerups are more important. I would also like to see more contrast in the graphics, where important things stand out more, or just to make the overall feeling more striking. Animations and sounds very nice, its a little world to explore. The controls are easy to use, though only four directions to shoot made the bow largly ineffective. It's always impressive to see a game that is this complete in a jam-- it feels like a real game.

Wow, there's quite a bit here for a jam timeframe, but after glancing at your older games it looks like you already had experience with this kind of stuff so I'm sure it helped.

The power up system was pretty interesting, and I don't think I've seen too many games where the enemies could use them too (outside of the really classic/hardcore roguelikes).

Like some others said, the 4-way attack was a bit tricky to handle, especially with the bow, but it is what it is and you just adapt your firing pattern to it.

Positives:

- Really cool environment art
- Super impressed that you did some procgen in a jam, we thought about it but ditched it super early
- With the exception of the giant bow/sword sticking out I really like the look and animations of the character, simple and effective
- Music was cool and moody and really fit the environment well.
- Once I remembered the bombs they were fun to use when they worked.
- Super cool that you support both keyboard and controller!
- I like the idea of the timer that forces you to move, in your case the moisture.

Critiques:

- I had no idea what the powerups do, they didn't seem super clear to me.
- Jump and bow shoot sounds effects have a really high pitched squeal at the end that hurt my ears
- 4 directional aiming makes it hard to hit enemies, especially when the sword swings in such a small arc

Overall really impressive for a 72 hour jam, especially with just 1 person. I didn't get very far because of the sound effect setting off my tinnitus, but very cool jam game!

I like the details, the game looks great.

Background music is great! Had no idea what powerups do and enemies were difficult for me to hit. With some more polish it could turn into a nice little game :)

Great game! Lots of content! :)
Some of the environment art confused me a bit where I was not sure if I can walk on something or if it is a wall

I've never seen any water to pickup but other than that game looks cool, have some problems when you shootings same projectiles as enemies.

Wooow impressive work on this jam!! I did not find any water and was not sure how to use the powerups. Other than that it was a pleasant adventure, good athmosphere, I'm impressed! I spent my time trying to avoind those green blobs and leading them to die on the things that could hurt them ahah

Really cool game idea. I really like the art and specialy the pixel art animation of the character looks amazing. I think what could give a little better feel would be to add a spin 360* slash with the sword similar to Zelda. And the music felt slightly too powerful to the general vibe I though. But overall pretty good game. Well done!

I really liked fun murky feel of this. Felt like the music really contributed. I will say I think I had trouble identifying the exits sometimes since they black and not visually emphasized, and I wasn't sure what my powerups were doing. I enjoyed the cute art style and I'm impressed with your creation of a whole procedurally generated world.

Very great use of systems design in making everything effect everything else (like the environment hurting the enemies or them grabbing the powerups). Some more feedback on whether my attacks were hitting would be nice, and the bow felt clunky to use. You could also use more visual design to communicate what each thing does, because it was hard to tell just from looking at something if it would hurt me, or if it was safe to touch. Consistent color coding would probably help there. Overall great job :)

Awesome procedural generation, I think you aimed high and nailed it. I only wish I knew what the powerups did, like a hover tooltip. Otherwise music and graphics all worked well! Thanks!

Very cool! I love the pixel art and the music is fantastic. The combat controls feel a little hard to use. I'm impressed with your procedural level generation! Very fun.

This was fun! I liked the artstyle and procedural generation stuff was really nice :) Great job!

The animation on the bow was great. I am sure it was one of the easier things to get done, but I never would of thought you could make 5 pixels actually feel like there was tension when firing. It wasnt a very effective weapon to use to kill enemies, but still fun to shoot.

I wasnt really sure what the power ups would do. Maybe some kind of help screen in game to make it more clear.
Overall though, really awesome!

@oligue @iluvatar and all the others suggesting mouse aim - I am so kicking myself for not adding it! In development I only used the keyboard, so I didn't realize the potential of mouse aim, a post-jam version would certainly have it. I made some attempts on getting rid of friendly fire but I think I missed a point or two, there are some extremely deadly powerup combinations!

@microchasm I totally agree about the art contrast. I picked a silly palette at the beginning of development that didn't take into account actually seeing the enemies or important stuff, and never got back around to fixing it. I think letting a palette evolve might be a better way to do so.

@iellswo I'm super sorry about the sound! I usually add sfx and music sliders in my jam games but I didn't quite get to it this time. Many of the sounds were quickly made in sxfr so I didn't give them the care they needed. I appreciate the feedback though. The idea with the powerups was that over a game or two you'd figure out what they do and how they interact, but I think tooltips as suggested by @wetburritosupreme would have been a good medium given more time.

@genpaku The shooting the same projectiles as enemies was intended from the start, but I think something to identify projectiles as "the player's" or "an enemy's" could be good, perhaps a tint.

@kingslee142 I like the idea for a spin slash! Noted for post-jam versions! I agree the sword was a bit underpowered, it started even smaller which was never going to work.

@bea I realized the exits were super poorly distinguished and explained at the end of the jam, I think a lot of it could be solved with a bit of a tutorial but overall I think I need another go around on the pallete.

@corbeng Same as the rest on the palette, when I get to doing it post jam I think all of the hurty things will get much brighter colors than the rest of the game.

@adam-k Thanks for noticing the bow! My girlfriend thought the same on it. I wish I added mouse-shoot to make it more useful, and perhaps a shorter charge time. I only realized how poorly explained the game was at the end, I think perhaps a tutorial level could have done some good.


Thanks for anyone's feedback I didn't specifically note too! I appreciate the comments on the music as well, melancholic was exactly what I was going for!

@nardandas No worries, man. It's a jam game, so not expecting perfect sound design or accessibility features, just thought I would let you know the high pitched sound was murder, haha. Otherwise, like I mentioned, really liked the game!

Hey, came here after reading your post-mortem. Thanks for sharing!

Regarding the movement: Yeah, as you mentioned just 4 directions feels a bit annoying when the blobby things are circling you. Like, it's usually unfair the other way around (enemies restricted, but you are free)

I do kind of like the idea that you can't walk in *any* direction and attack/shoot in another one though. I think if you made it completely independent with something like mouse shooting, it would shift over to be just another bullet-hell game and kind of loose some of its old action rpg-ey vibe, which is one thing I really like about it.

Idk, maybe I'm just rambling, just thought I'd share my thoughts.

In any case the maps and proc-gen is pretty nice and it feels like a big and coherent world.

I also like the music, but as someone mentioned some of the sound effects are too loud and piercing.

But otherwise: Good job :)

Very nice graphics and music. It's a pretty neat concept.

Either the world generation messed up sometimes or I managed to overlook the hole to the next layer at some attempts. Also no water for me sadly...
But all in all a solid base.