The Arcane Artist by Savolae

[raw]
made by Savolae for Ludum Dare 50 (JAM)

Trying out spells may have disastrous results.

Paint the spells on the ground in an attempt to delay your demise.

Find forgotten tomes to learn the spells or figure them out via trial and error.

🎮 Controls

  • 🏃‍♂️ Move - WASD
  • 🎨 Paint - Mouse 1

unknown.png Screenshot 2022-04-05 044950.png

Music from OpenGameArt

Note: The game doesn't seem to work well with Mac + Firefox or Safari, please use Chrome if drawing does not work ❤️

Ratings

Overall 142th 4.013⭐ 40🧑‍⚖️
Fun 111th 4⭐ 40🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 23th 4.303⭐ 40🧑‍⚖️
Theme 867th 3.5⭐ 40🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 654th 3.689⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Humor 767th 2.806⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Mood 422th 3.727⭐ 35🧑‍⚖️
Given 75🗳️ 52🗨️

Feedback

vasher
05. Apr 2022 · 02:26 UTC
great mechanic!
Asukanami
05. Apr 2022 · 02:32 UTC
The drawing mechanic is so cool and the slow motion of the hand coming out is amazing.
SAGIII
05. Apr 2022 · 02:32 UTC
Hey! I really liked the concept. With more spells it would be really fun.
sidlovatt
05. Apr 2022 · 02:33 UTC
Great fun!!!!
Nick Saulnier
05. Apr 2022 · 02:34 UTC
Awesome idea! Had me just trying to find my own shapes and actually cast "The Hand" on my own. Spent a surprising amount of time just chilling in the world, good job.
spladug
05. Apr 2022 · 02:35 UTC
Wow! That's a super cool mechanic. I'd love to see more with that. I really liked the art style for the arcane symbols and the effects. A++ would play again.
LDJam user 280755
05. Apr 2022 · 02:36 UTC
Really innovative mechanic! I could see an entire AAA game being based off of something like this.
DaveCo
05. Apr 2022 · 02:44 UTC
Really cool and innovative casting mechanic!
Toto_dawg_
05. Apr 2022 · 02:54 UTC
GOD this was so fun!!! I love it! Great job!!!!
Daniel Mak
05. Apr 2022 · 02:58 UTC
Really cool idea. It may have more replay value if different spell is more effective against some enemies than others. Also, the scene is a bit too dark to see, but it makes the fire and lightning really stands out.
Travis Bittel
05. Apr 2022 · 02:59 UTC
The casting mechanic is absolutely brilliant! Super creative and original and brilliantly executed!
Deraidtho
05. Apr 2022 · 03:05 UTC
Extremely Innovative!
Lvl99Chicken
05. Apr 2022 · 03:08 UTC
Very cool mechanic. Not much else to the game loop but would be cool to see that mechanic expanded on.
s1lv3r Dr4g0n Games
05. Apr 2022 · 04:17 UTC
Love me some drawing mechanics. Stellar work.
UnitedFailures
05. Apr 2022 · 04:57 UTC
Just incredible!
Learus
05. Apr 2022 · 18:06 UTC
Like, who doesn't want to run around weaving spells and killing zombies?
Very cool mechanic. I liked how you had to run around to learn spells, but you could do them anyway once you've learned them once.
I never learned how to summon the hand, though I had it summoned a couple times by chance.
Perhaps, with a bit more time the game could become a full-fledged action game.

Great submission!
kankje
05. Apr 2022 · 18:33 UTC
Thanks for the comments everyone, I wish we had a bit more time to make the gameplay deeper and polish everything but it is what it is 🙂
Duckwings
05. Apr 2022 · 19:00 UTC
The spell drawing is a cool original idea; I think it has potential to be the core of a great game. The game fell short for me because it goes on and on without getting more difficult (or if the difficulty does increase I didn't notice). The fire easily takes out the orcs/zombies and the lightning can sweep up the birds. A score screen (maybe time survived) would be cool so the player has a good measure of how well they do and whether they're improving. Good work!
MikroPiru
06. Apr 2022 · 10:16 UTC
A very nice idea and solid implementation! The mechanic is so interesting that it would be really cool to have time and consider one's actions a bit but naturally running around in sheer panic trying to come up with any possible spell fits the theme better. :-D
Maskrosen
06. Apr 2022 · 14:38 UTC
I had quite some fun drawing the spells. This is a solid prototype for what could be a good full game. Maybe look into multiplayer next and you could have something similar to magicka but this unique drawing spells mechanic as a twist. Good job!
iDeNoh
06. Apr 2022 · 19:26 UTC
Really cool mechanic! I love games that let you draw your spells, I like the fact that you simply let us learn how to do them on our own, however having some sort of reference to help remember what you'd done would be helpful, overall I liked it
Izokia
07. Apr 2022 · 05:52 UTC
I really like the drawing mechanic. Had me playing for quite a while!
![score.png](///raw/962/03/z/4d4d2.png)
Belle
07. Apr 2022 · 18:27 UTC
Fantastic gamae! Got to 6 minutes! ....On my second try. First try I immediately did the demon star just to see if something would happen and oh boy did it haha! Very fun to run around and try to discover new spells. Great job to the team
Emaigualmc2_art
07. Apr 2022 · 19:28 UTC
What a great game!! I really found it super fun with its mechanics and idea. I would love to be able to continue seeing more work on this, you have something very interesting here. The design and modeling are quite simple but they give it a touch, I think that with more polish it would look a thousand times better xD. It would be great if they could add more movements to the characters, like jumps, dash, etc it would be incredible. Great job!!
blobo
07. Apr 2022 · 19:33 UTC
Oh wow, I absolutely love this system of magic! It's something I haven't seen before, and as someone who loves to scribble, it's just a lot of fun! Plus that hand... chills. I love this game so much. I only survived about 3 minutes in my best run, but wow I enjoyed it. Great game!
akitl
07. Apr 2022 · 20:29 UTC
super cool ! i love the spelle system !
Krzyhau
08. Apr 2022 · 18:15 UTC
Creative gameplay idea! Making spells is very satisfying (even though half of my gameplay is just spamming lightning bolts and fire) and the difficulty seems to be pretty balanced, spawning just the right amount of enemies over time. Simply saying, I had a lot of fun! The game's lacking in terms of proper UI design, but I imagine you guys didn't have enough times to deal with it. Either way, nice work. I hope you continue working on it - this could be a very cool little game I'd actually play on my free time.
DGSpitzer
10. Apr 2022 · 15:43 UTC
Super fun with the machine learning gesture being used! Love it!~
Timur_Bahadir
12. Apr 2022 · 17:10 UTC
I love the drawing mechanic! You implemented it really well :)
gamescodedogs
12. Apr 2022 · 17:31 UTC
Incredible great game! I like your idea and visual FXs a lot! I found, that the figure just like on the picture is suitable for both slow time spell and dark hand. Actually, first I saw these spells and than guess which drawing exactly is needed for casting them.
Thanks for making this game!![ld1.jpg](///raw/f6a/2/z/4ded2.jpg)
Doot
15. Apr 2022 · 15:15 UTC
Really cool game!

I was an absolute fan of Lost Magic when I was young so this is just the right mechanic for someone like me!
I laughed when I died by The hand on my first run.

Maybe the game is a bit too dark?

Great job and thanks for the game!
Tobias Kiehnlein
18. Apr 2022 · 19:00 UTC
This is a really nice entry. :thumbsup: I must say that I really enjoyed playing. Sometimes the gestures got a bit confused but the overall accuracy was pretty nice. Great job!