THE WIZARD BOSS FIGHT IS SO DIFFICULT!!!

wow, really nice game, the time loop was used perfectly! I enjoyed the puzzles very much. Really nice job!

I loved the rewind effect! :rewind:

_That boss fight was too hard for me, though :(_

One of the best games I played so far in LD51, but the boss fight is just way too hard :D

Loved it! The boss fight was... invigorating! :) Took a few tries, but it felt good to finally put the dang chartreuse wizard (i'm going to say that color is chartreuse) in his place.


this is really awesome! ^^ my score \o/


Thanks for submitting your game for me to play on my stream!

If you’d like to rewatch the playthrough, you can find it here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1608296174?t=2h20m23s

Good luck on your ratings, see you next LD! :D

💜 Elysia Griffin AKA Button Feedback Lady
https://www.twitch.tv/elysiagriffin


This was great. It took me a bit to get used to the platformer controls but once I had a good feel for that it was fun. Some of the edges preventing you from dashing are rage inducing but I think that's part of the charm of this game.

I absolutely loved the boss fight. I initially thought you have to fight the arch nemesis by blowing up their own spells in their face but later found out about the destructible ceiling.
I think it would be good to introduce that concept before the boss fight so that people can figure that out quicker and not get stuck trying to time the boss spells.

I think? you can damage the boss by timing their spell cast but it's hard to do. Adding some kind of telegraphing of the cast, for example by making the staff charge up with some light would add another fun element to this.

Finally, I think the rewinding would've been nice to incorporate into the boss fight somehow.

Real fun game!

Really enjoyed this up until the boss fight :) It felt very much souls like in that I had to look stuff up, up and raged hard at the hitboxes.

Did not figure out how to damage the boss for a long time, gave up, but went back after watching the hall of fame video. The wizard's projectiles did get a bit overwhelming at times but eventually figured out how jump and dash around them.

The fight was still immensely frustrating, and I'm not quite sure whether it was the good type of soulslike frustration, the fight needs polishing, or I'm just too big of a noob.

Outside the boss room, the game was very enjoyable. Figuring out the pathing/puzzles was fun and the timing constraint was just right. Great compo entry overall!

As a dark souls fan I approve this game

The graphics are astounding.

Great game - very well designed levels, nice graphics and sound, and cool use of the 10s theme.
As others have said, the boss is extremely difficult - I got to the second phase, but couldn't beat him after about 30 tries. My biggest gripe was shooting his wildfire-ball when it's fairly close but hasn't hit you still results in death. Awesome game!

the boss is too hard!

This was awesome!! I do apologize for breaking your game so much as I played. I nearly reached the end, but stopped when I fell through the floor that one rewind. Loved my time with the game though! The way I played it was not mouse friendly (arrow keys on left hand, sprint on the right) so it was a bit of a challenge near the end there. xD

I could not get past that boss. I figured out what to do, but that second phase instantly kills. I enjoyed the time mechanics up to that point though!
Good job!

Great game with juicy explosions! Completed first in 15 minutes, might actually do some speedruns...


Great game, it's like Minit but in 2D, and last boss is very tough XD

Fantastic game! Loved the difficulty and art style. I won the boss only by missing him and accidentally shooting the roof lol. My only problem was that sometimes when I'm shooting the bosses projectiles, they still kill me even if I was far away.

I love sound design and art, and theme was utilized pretty well. I didn't handled boss fight tho, it was really hard :(

Really cool concept and clever level design! A bit frustrating at times but then again its only 10 seconds you have to redo

Really solid. Theme is used well and level design is great until the boss. I personally don't think that the boss is necessarily too hard but it is probably too difficult for a jam game when people often do not have much time and patience for one game. The fact that so many people are giving feedback about the boss quality is a good sign about the first part of the game. If it kept people intrigued for so long, a little redesign of the boss and this could be a gem!

Great work and bonus points for the stylish rewind effect.

Damn that boss was frustraaaaaaating. But satisfying to beat.

Really like what you did with the theme!

The boss was definitely tough, but the overall game had an interesting concept! It's a good execution and, tbh it's a bit similar to what I did for my game 😅 Nice job!


I REALLY liked the platforming puzzles. Even though it was easy, it was fun, and it was built well enough that each time I got an upgrade it properly unlocked a new path - a small metroidvania if you may, which are surprisingly hard to design properly, yet you did it! The graphics did what they were meant to do. The small downside I found was that aiming the magic was a bit off, especially in the bossfight I felt it. I had moments where I was 100% confident I shot right at the enemy orbs but NOPE :D Probably mostly user error/bias though.

Thank you for your submission! Might get back to speedrun it later!

You already got a ton of feedback, so I'll just say I really liked it :relaxed: I want to give a special shout out to the rewind animation haha

Neat stuff, Good job!

Love the rewind effect, Initially I walked directly into lava trying to grab some boots and thought that a tutorial would have been nice but after the first rewind it just immediately clicked. Great use of the main mechanic as a hands off tutorial! Great entry overall.

@badcop I have this video on how I beat the boss :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-H861v3wB50

@kepsert so effortless o.o

Super cool little metroidvania! I really enjoyed figuring out where each ability let me go. I also had trouble with the boss fight, I think primarily for me it was that the hitboxes for the enemy's attacks were a bit too big, so it was very hard to avoid all of them. All in all though a really cool game. Oh also I liked the sound effects on the battle!

You psycooooooo!!!! this is the closest a jam game has gotten to a dark souls game in my opinion lol, the rage is definitely there, my smart-butt thought it's a good idea to shoot briks as they fall so that they get thrown into the boss in phase 2, needless to say it ended badly. really great game man! I love how difficult yet appealing it is to finish, really nice work

Loved it, definitely one of my favorite games so far !! The rewinding ability is a nice approach to the theme and figuring out where to go next was fun. The boss fight is... daunting at first (missing those green bullets by a pixel is REALLY frustrating) but once you figure out the correct strat it's quite enjoyable. Would love to play more levels if you ever want to expand it after the jam 

Best crossover of evil mage in my life!
Masterpiece!

In the end I'm be like "Dormammu I've Come To Bargain".

@prologi you beat me! my best so far is 2:13.994

FIRST TRY LETS GOOOO

Cute little game! I found the boss too frustrating. It's really hard to escape the green fireballs, they have a deceptively big hurt range, your movespeed is too slow, and your firerate is also slow. Which makes for very unforgiving (and un-fun) situations where making a small mistake is going to be fatal. Nonetheless, very good work and good amount of polish for a compo entry. The fireball effects were very nice. Control configuration was a little clumsy. If you have to use the mouse to aim, might as well place the dash there, or on an easier key like space. Requiring enter for dialogs is also a bit annoying cause it forces you to move one hand. Core rewind mechanic is very compelling and I think a great use of the theme. Good work!

Boss was a bit hard but overall really nice game! I had fun. I like the fact that puzzles are not too hard cause I usually struggle with those :smile:

amazing game, i think the best I've seen so far!!!

got 11.50.161

Congratulations on the game, I love the idea of the mages, very nice and pleasant game, I liked the balance of the gameplay, sometimes having too many shots generated some moments of slowness, but it didn't get in the way, my congratulations, a big hug.

I couldn't beat the boss! This was a really slick little game though. Simple and to the point. Completely glitch free, on compo as well, and the rewind vision could show me where I could go next in situations I wouldn't have otherwise.
The only oddity that got to me really was pressing enter instead of space/z/x for the dialogue boxes but that was it. Fun!

I wasn't able to beat the boss, but really fun game! I thought that the rewind animation and fireball explosion particles looked awesome. I think that if you increase the fire rate of the fireball and made it so the green fireball explosion radius doesn't kill you, the boss would feel even more fun and less frustrating. Nice work!

Nice visuals and retro feel! Lovely rewind effect!! (and I saw it too much times!!! XD).

Had some issues with jumping and the 10 seconds rewind was a little frustating sometimes.

Solid entry here!!

Thank you for the game. It is a nice game. It takes some time to get used to the controllers and I don't think I will ever fully get used to them. The theme is used well in the game and rewinding every 10 seconds is quite a nice touch.

An interesting take on the theme that had me stumped for way too long thinking I couldn't jump either way, then I actually made the jump, after falling the lava a few to many times. That and being baited by badcop in stream to go for the boots.

Also a damn hard final boss fight and some very very weird torches that had me confused until someone figured it out. Plus side though those boots do come 9in handy during it considering how slow you are normally.

Anyway though, review stuff, I'd say the boss fight is crazy hard, interesting, but hard. Also a little weird that it ignores the 10 seconds, it sort of makes sense, for letting you actually fight it, but also not so much. Also would probably be good to make it a little clearer that the way to fight the boss is to shoot the roof abvoice him. And tbh, I was sorta surprised that the final phase didn't end with you breaking the middle roof out from over him and having lava fall or something.

One helpful thing, that tbf would be a little powerful for speedrunners so maybe not, but being able to reset faster could be nice, sometimes. Cause there were a few times that I was kinda just dead, wait a few repeat for a bit. That or some way to "short" reset maybe. Just for fixing mistakes. That or a little more leniency on a couple of the pits.

Also on the clarity of some of the art I would say the door to the final scroll was a little weird since it didn't have a key, though it's the compo so I'm not surprised, but it would be a little nicer if it was a different door. Or I may have just missed the difference. That and, and this might just be me as well, the torches looked like lanterns, mostly due to how bright the wood was. So that confused me a bit.

Really great game! I absolutely loved the concept, especially in the first part of the game. One thing that could be nice is to be able to control the rewind feature so you don't go all the way back every time, but only however long you press the button. And a quick reset button for speedrunning would be amazing. But otherwise it's fantastic!

So far my best time is 2:39, let's see if I can get faster

Neat game! The boss is definitely the toughest part, but I found the challenge quite satisfying.

One thing specifically that was tough about the boss was in the final phase when he launched three fireballs, one of them would sometimes end up so far beneath the level that I'd forget about it until it looped back around and got me. Maybe if the green fireballs had a time to live, or if they destroyed themselves if they got too far out of the arena that would have made things easier for me.

Also that boss is totally a sponge! A would have liked to see a healthbar for them or something so that I would have a better idea that I was hurting them. You could even fake out the player with two healthbars since you have a multi-phase boss and everything.

Thanks for the game! I had a lot of fun :smile:

9 mins, im ashamed to say :joy: Really good fun, and the rewind mechanic was a great idea that made really good use of a small level space for replayability. Love how well planned out the sequence of unlocks are to make you feel like you're making good progress and always know where to go. Great job!

Nice game, really good level design, good ideas. I felt the movement was a little clunky sometimes and the hitboxes are very unforgiving (both the green fireballs and the corners of the walls). I know you wanted to create a very hard game, but it feels unfair sometimes. Otherwise great game. I could not beat the second phase, rage-quit. :D GJ!

Thank you for submitting this to my stream! What a nice experience, there were obviously some minor gripes you could fix - like more feedback on the boss, but I get that the deadline makes this immensily difficult. Great gem nonetheless.

Rude platforming, a nice sound effect you can enjoy when you run out of time, and a boss who can dodge fireballs but not bricks <3
My type of game. Impressing stuff for a compo game. I wish we had an annoying music in this game though. It'd increase my rage levels perfectly during the boss bit :D

It was cool, played it on my stream

the puzzle ideas are great, i was kinda lost at first but when i discovered i can keep spells or keys after rewind, it just became an excellent game! as many said, the last boss is hard but it doesn't really matter, the game stays great!

oh wait, and it's a compo game??!! wow

https://youtu.be/04UQz6th9Ko?t=9522

Almost 20 min of pain, but all very well worth it! Kinda nuts that you were able to crank all of this out under Compo constraints, nice job!

That boss can burn in hell... :smiling_imp:

great game. Nice idea with time. Fun gameplay

Good game

Very nice! I love metroidvanias, and this is a really nice twist using the theme on metroidvanias. Being a wizard is also always fun!

I liked the graphics. The reverse effect is super cool. The fireballs also look great and the fact that they play the explosion sound effect in stereo according to where they exploded is very neat. The timer not starting until you actually move is a very nice touch.

I think the jumping might have felt a bit better for the player with the addition of some coyote time, but it was still fine even now. The bosses fireball attacks felt like they hit me a bit too early every time -- maybe their hitbox could have been a bit smaller, phase 2 also felt a bit too tanky -- I was wondering for a bit if I should be doing something else, but figuring the boss out was very cool besides that :). Good job making the game :)!

My time was 16:16, probably not the world record :D.

I loved the rewind mechanic, the "puzzle" of figuring out the order you needed to get stuff in was nice. Overall a very cool game but maybe a bit hard. I also felt like sometimes the jump was a bit later than when I jumped, in general the controls could ha ve been a bit tighter. But I liked the way you sued the theme, also the story you made around it. The graphics were all they needed to be. The sound fx were nice but I think some music could have added to the mood. Also the boss is way too hard but ok I guess you heard that already. Good job!

That was so much fun! Until I got to the end.
The boss was, not the greatest to be honest.
My fireball hitbox felt far too small and that poison cloud felt HUGE.
This was especially a problem given that the poison clouds sometimes just, went under the borders and I would be stuck trying to guess where it would pop up. The other solution would be a faster attack time as that long of a delay on a missed shot that visually hits is pretty much guaranteed death.

Balancing is HARD in a game jam, though. I'm super impressed by the entry. I would love to play it again if an easier mode a la boss fight were to be made. =)

Thank you for the fun time!

Need to edit in: I loved the level design, the graphics and audio and everything else were absolutely mint.

YOOOOOOOOOO this is so well made especially considering its a one-man compo!!! Love the level design, visuals and sound effects, that's sooooo impressive! The objectives were also really reasonable and well-done!!

Super fun game! Really clever application of the theme, very well executed with the level design as well. The last boss was super frustrating at first (took me over 25min to beat at first try) maybe the hitbox of your fireball vs the enemy bullets could have been expanded. Other than that, I really enjoyed the game :D Did a second run for fun and got pretty nice RNG for the boss bullet patterns:


On a technical note the window title is "LD51 (DEBUG)", might be a debug build? Also on my first attempt I couldn't light up the torches with fireballs, but at least after a restart it's fast to get to that point when you know what to do, love games that let you do that :D

I loved the first half of the game, tiny metroidvania style, awesome effects, great feedback on all your actions, super cool rewind effect. I think people have said it before, but the boss fight needed literally any feedback when you were doing the right actions. It felt terrible to hit the boss in the last phase, and less like you were fighting an adversary and more banging your head against the wall. Its a shame cause the game feel everywhere else is awesome. Also having the explosion after you destroy a projectile kill you was a frustrating design choice.
Apart from that, this game is one of the best of the jam! Really solid idea, looks amazing, great innovation on the concept.

Well we liked your game

Popular entry for a good reason. watched plenty of streams with people having fun playing this. I'd enjoy seeing the exploration fleshed out and more maneuverability :)

A super fun entry! And I just have to point out, I was the GOOD wizard okay? XD
I had a blast playing it, and if I didn't pinch my nerve in my left arm making half of my hand numb from working too hard in the game jam that weekend, THAT WIZARD WOULD HAVE GONE DOWN! Thanks for the fun game! I look forward to the next one!

Great game with a satisfying progression (and super hard boss ^^)! And it was awesome welcoming you to the stream again yesterday! Here’s the VOD if you want to check that out again:
https://youtu.be/m7KJvAJLSXE

I enjoyed it more then I though I would. The difficulty is a bit too hard tho. I love the collecting abilities design and some puzzle solving. Overall a pretty good entry.

Hey, thanks for making the game! I played through it and recorded my thoughts.

https://youtu.be/ielNbn4fQS8

Oh man, it took me way too long to get that first key, and then I IMMEDIATELY glitched through the floor and had to restart the game. For the key issues, it was totally the fault of my coordination, but I do have an explanation - I was having to hit jump way earlier than I thought I would need to and dash way later than that. For the floor glitch, I think the game gets confused if you are dashing when the rewind happens? (I watched the reaction compilation afterwards and it looks like some people were trying to use that to glitch through doors, but I didn't see any successes.)

Rewinding exactly 10 seconds every 10 seconds is beautifully frustrating in the best way. The path through the puzzles is also really well done. Some of the mechanical preciseness was a bit too difficult, and I agree with other commenters that head bonks on low ceiling corners were really frustrating, but along with, like, jumps feeling a little slow (at least in part because of the coyote time thing you mentioned you had heard already), that's all just little tweaks for polish, and it's already got a lot of polish for a jam game.

Good work!

7 minutes 10 seconds and I'm proud... after my first time of 28 mins :D I liked how you married together the puzzle side of the game and then the old-school platformer boss - they felt different but not disjointed! Satisfying mechanics, the only annoyance was some of the jumping puzzles / collision!

this game is very annoying just like the jam theme, humorous tho, well done

[Stream vod here!](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1623146465?t=01h18m44s)

Really nice and polished, quite impressive 😁 The silent tutorial works really well and the continuous flow of powerups makes it very motivating to keep going. The rewind mechanic is slick and presented nicely with the effects. Amazing how much content you managed to fit in. I suppose the sound effects are a bit scarce but the ones there are nice and the colour palette is lovely. Access to manual rewind/reset with R is always a great quality of life sort of feature. Really well done!!

Thanks for the game. I got fun but didn't beat the last boss. Anyway it is cool!

Very good level design! I like the metroidvania aspect added to the restarting mechanics.

This is probably the best game of this jam I played. Very good job

Didn't expect see another rewindable game here. Very impressive. I'm still playing it.