THE FIVE KINGS by pymiro

Try and prevent the Five Kings from awekening once again, but you might just be delaying the inevitable ...
Grab the chain fragments to pause the rise of the Kings' Statues and try to last as long as possible !
Special thanks to Pataya for the character controller. Otherwise I did all the art, music and code myself.
Still a lot to polish but let's call it done !

| Link | https://pauloks.itch.io/the-five-kings |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/the-five-kings |
Ratings
| Overall | 1120th | 3.158⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1367th | 2.316⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 1317th | 2.447⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 255th | 4.026⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 170th | 4.342⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 755th | 3.028⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 189th | 4⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 12🗳️ | 0🗨️ |
I don't want to critique it much because for art style, which seems to be what you were going for, you did a flawless job, but... it took me a second to understand that the pickups were binding & stopping the kings, and only in understanding that did I understand they were chains. Also some effect when the chains appear & get picked up could've gone a long way.
Loved it 💖
There are a couple of things I think might improve this without vastly increasing the scope. One would be tweaking some of the timings a little: I'm definitely delaying the inevitable here, but not in a particularly meaningful way. I'd like for there to be enough chains that it felt as though I *could* hold the kings back if I were a little quicker, but at the moment I'm spending a lot of time standing around waiting for a chain to appear in the first place while the kings keep popping up decidedly un-delayed. I'd also like a little more audio feedback: a noise when I chain a king, and a noise when they break free (or just grinding while they rise - either option would do the job). I'm also not positive the soundtrack fits. It's not wildly inappropriate, but your characters are super sombre and mysterious: I think some kind of eerie drone might be a better match.
All in all, a satisfyingly polished entry. I think this is probably one that I'll point people towards when I need an example of a jam game - it's definitely one of the best presented that I've come across!