Dragon Slayer Ultra by retrosaurdev

a revolutionary new platformer adventure
(it's still a work in progress, and may crash occasionally / constantly / roughly every 10 seconds)
controls (keyboard | gamepad)
movement arrow keys | left stick
jump -- z | a button
attack -- x | x button
restart -- l-shift | b button
game by @retrosaurdev
music by @mothense
| itch.io | https://retrosaur.itch.io/dragon-slayer-ultra |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/dragon-slayer-ultra |
Ratings
| Overall | 158th | 3.957⭐ | 71🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 231th | 3.787⭐ | 70🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 256th | 3.71⭐ | 71🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 104th | 4.217⭐ | 71🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 169th | 4.235⭐ | 70🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 153th | 3.912⭐ | 70🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 119th | 3.858⭐ | 69🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 301th | 3.746⭐ | 65🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 3🗳️ | 9🗨️ |
Joke aside, it's really a clever and pleasant game. A good surprise actually.
You can tell that so much love went into the details on this one. The pixel art is clean and full of character. I particularly liked the fact that the wings change direction when you've used your double-jump and the fact the dragon breathes!
The gimmick of the game crashing is fun and flavorful. The little "save icon" was a great way to work it in, and you really went all-in with the presentation ("don't turn the console off" for a web game).
A couple very small spots that felt less-than-perfect:
- As others have said, it would be nice if you could reset before the ten seconds. A few times I messed up and just had to wait it out.
- The platforming felt a little bit slow at times, despite you being forced to move really quick to get to the next checkpoint. In particular it felt like the character took a while to fall, which slowed things down when climbing "ladders" of stacked platforms.
- It was a little odd that the game crashed when you hit enemies as well. At first I didn't realize what was causing it and thought the timing was changing.
Music was well-done and awesome to have different tracks for the title and several different areas.
I can't get over how funny it is to just shoot a dragon with a gun.
Great entry. I added the main character to the fan art compilation on [my profile](https://ldjam.com/users/jeremy-ryan/).
But this still got me for a while trying to beat it, and I liked the sense of discovery/surprises
Very nice concept and execution, some timing where maybe a bit tight and required too much precision on what to do to reach the next checkpoint but it was still beatable.
Also not sure what I expected but the ending sure got me !


(Good job)
Color palette, pixel art, music, Level design, humor....
ALL!
The final TURN-OFF is hilarious! I LOVE IT!!!
I want to make games like this when I grow up.
Congratulations and thank you very much for the experience.
PS: Seriously, some people thought he played it really crashed?!?! :O
My criticism would be that sometimes I know I'm not going to make it to the checkpoint after turning the wrong way or not jumping in time so it was a bit frustrating waiting for the 10 seconds to be over so you could restart, if the restart would work all the time I think it would make my experience more enjoyable and the game flow a bit better.
Overall a really great entry!
I am facing the same problem!
I will try again now!
Controls are fluid and it feels good move around. having to go through checkpoints within 10 seconds and being able to go back and save at previous checkpoints really turns what could be a boring platforming section into an interesting puzzle.
The biggest problem I had was that you cannot reset unless there is a "crash". If you mess up crucial jump and don't have enough time to retry you have to wait the rest of the timer till you can restart. This doesn't seem like a big problem at first but gets very annoying over time.
I like the sprite work, music and sound effects are also on point.
Very good entry overall, couldn't finish the entire thing tho, sorry :[