Midnight Mage by SparkyDoc07

[raw]
made by SparkyDoc07 for Ludum Dare 55 (JAM)

MidnightMageBanner.png


Story

As a young mage in the great magical plains, you find yourself lost among the seemingly endless plains. What's worse, the plains don't like you. They send their wolves and warriors, attempting to purge you of any and all magic.

Of course, a strong mage like yourself could easily fight off a few foes; had you not taken an oath of pacifism. Your oath stops you from attacking these foes, but you are a smart one. The oath does not stop you from accessing the magic of the plains, and the plains just so happen to have runes dedicated to stuff that goes boom.

Use the runes. Survive, if you can. Traverse these plains. See you in the morning!

MidnightMageSS4.png


Controls

W, A, S, D for movement

Cursor for screen rotation in horizontal axis

SHIFT or E to place magic fires on the ground (Beware: Some foes may break these magical fires)

1, 2, 3, or 4 to cast spells

ESC or X to cancel spell casting


Casting

This game allows you to cast 4 unique spells. The process of casting a spell goes something like this:

1) Light magical fires on the ground using SHIFT or E

2) Switch to spell-cast mode using the hotkeys 1, 2, 3, or 4

3) A Guide Shape appears, which denotes the locations of magic fires required by the spell. Align this guideline over the magic fires

MidnightMageSS1.png

MidnightMageSS2.png

4) Cast the spell using ENTER or LMB. Remember, the spell will only be cast if all grid tiles below the Guide Shape are lit with magical fire

MidnightMageSS3.png

5) If you would like to cancel the spell cast, press ESC or X to return to normal mode

Ratings

Given 5🗳️ 16🗨️

Feedback

ROBOWARRIOR1982
16. Apr 2024 · 12:29 UTC
I think used the shift key in the control is a bad idea because that active remanent touch, or other combinaison in web navigator etc (like alt etc..). The game is pretty confuse to use.
🎤 SparkyDoc07
16. Apr 2024 · 12:42 UTC
@robowarrior1982 Thank you for the feedback! I hadn't considered the fact that certain keys (escape, shift, etc) are problematic on browser builds.

I have changed the keybinds for WebGL and am exporting the project. Thank you once again!
Dmitry Mozgin
16. Apr 2024 · 12:49 UTC
When I press 1, 2, 3, 4 the screen appears and I can't hide it back. In the end, I don't understand how to play the game.
🎤 SparkyDoc07
16. Apr 2024 · 13:09 UTC
@dmitry-mozgin you can click escape to exit the spell screen. I apologise for not including it in the game description
Dmitry Mozgin
16. Apr 2024 · 13:37 UTC
Oh, I see, the problem was that the escape key is closing the fullscreen mode in a browser.

I tried the game again, but I still don't understand how to use spells. The spell screen appears I can move the rectangle, but that it is all. I only managed to cast a spell on E, like fire on the ground. The wolf are also strange, because they can't kill you and the spell points increase by their deaths.
🎤 SparkyDoc07
16. Apr 2024 · 13:43 UTC
@dmitry-mozgin lighting fires on the ground (using E) in different shapes will allow you to cast different spells. For example, the Fireball spell at hotkey 1 needs a 1x1 square whereas the Wall spell at hotkey 2 needs a 2x2 square. Spells 3 and 4 have their unique shapes as well, which is represented by the grey rectangle that spawns upon a spell cast.

I would have included a tutorial section in the game if I had slightly more time, but for now I will be including these points in the game description. Thank you for bringing this up!
FabiGhindaru
16. Apr 2024 · 13:49 UTC
I agree with the shift key.
Other than that I had a lot of fun!
Dmitry Mozgin
16. Apr 2024 · 13:52 UTC
Thank you, I finally understood how to cast a spell. You need to place a rectangle on tiles with fire.
Kseniya
16. Apr 2024 · 15:58 UTC
I'm being attacked by wolves all the time, nothing is being set, I don't understand what to do
LDJam user 0
16. Apr 2024 · 21:05 UTC
i'm having similar issues as the other players, i don't understand how to cast spells. i press a number key, then "e", and nothing seems to happen, whether i'm in the top down view or the first person view.
CaptainSpaceCat
16. Apr 2024 · 22:27 UTC
Interesting idea! You form shapes on the ground with magical fire, and those shapes can be used to summon effects. I summoned a square of traps that blocked everything from reaching me, and I thought I was safe until those viking enemies showed up and destroyed them. I think it would be nice to have a sound effect play when you successfully place a magical fire, because sometimes I couldn't tell if I'd placed one or not.
felixx
17. Apr 2024 · 06:28 UTC
The idea is great!
Lexi89
17. Apr 2024 · 08:27 UTC
Some sticking points for me were:

- pressing "e" sometimes doesn't start a fire even when on an empty cell. Was expecting that you could run around and spam "e" to start lots of fire and cast cool spells but couldn't get that to work.
- I wanted to change the spell i'm casting while in the top-down view but couldn't without exiting back to the game and pressing another spell key
- being able to stand in the fire and creatures walking through the fire feels strange... in games usually fire = bad
- using the spells could be much more satisfying!

I do like the general idea though of a survival-strategy-magic game!
🎤 SparkyDoc07
17. Apr 2024 · 08:45 UTC
@lexi89 thanks for the feedback! I will keep these points in mind. Although regarding the spell casting, the issue of spamming spells was fixed using a mana system. Mana regenerates over time, with killing creatures further boosting mana. Perhaps that was why pressing E was not casting spells?
MarkWu
17. Apr 2024 · 10:32 UTC
very interesting play experience though I struggle a little trying to figure out how to cast fire (press E doesnt seem to work for me, i can only do it with shift), the difficulty is incresing after i beat more wolves so that i cannot only rely on the basic fire ball, i need to build fences or stronger things, which is quite nice. could add an indicator to the right side bar showing how much is needed for one fire made. Also i cant switch my choice when i enter one of them(like I cannot switch to fences directly from fireball)
Dymino
18. Apr 2024 · 01:07 UTC
Good overall concept. Quite similar to my submission in fact. I do feel like there are a few problems that let it down. I won't list them all here but I will say the most actionable ones.
- You could try to add some sort of objective like surviving a certain amount of time or killing a certain amount of enemies.
- I think some gameplay mechanics could have had some explanation and I wasn't sure why I would need to use the other three spells when the first spell worked just fine.
- I also feel like some music / SFX could have been nice, even if it was just royalty free stuff off the internet.

I felt like it had some potential but it lacked a lot that would be needed to make it shine.
Taximan981
18. Apr 2024 · 03:56 UTC
The spikes were really cool, if things were communicated a little more clearly then it would have been easier to pick up. Either way, very creative idea, I like the purple particles a lot
nardandas
18. Apr 2024 · 04:03 UTC
The controls were a bit difficult for me. My mouse didn't lock to the center of the screen, and getting out of the spell casting mode was a bit weird while in full screen. I really liked the feel of the play once I was able to get the fires going and stuff, but getting there was a bit difficult.
Vary
18. Apr 2024 · 04:04 UTC
Neat concept! For some reason the game wouldn't full screen for me and my mouse would leave the game window, preventing me from being able to fully turn around haha. I still played a bit and once I figured out how the magic works, I quite like the idea here, it's an interesting take on a survival game like this!
LDJam user 374168
18. Apr 2024 · 04:07 UTC
Pretty interesting idea of using the plains (grid) to conjure spells and kill the enemies that way. I personally found the web build to be a bit hard to play, namely that turning around was difficult because my cursor didn't focus in the game, and trying to press 1/2/3/4 and Esc and E back to back was tricky. The expensive spells didn't feel super helpful either since for me, the recharge time on setting the magic fires felt too slow.

Another thing that would also help is an in-game tutorial, as I had to keep reminding myself what the keys were by scrolling down to the controls in the description. It could use more polish, but the base foundation is pretty neat, so I'd love to see this expanded based on the feedback here so far.
JUSTCAMH
27. Apr 2024 · 08:24 UTC
It was difficult to understand how to control the game, there were a lot of controls that were difficult to discover via trial and error. Now perhaps I should’ve read your game page, but it’s best to have your controls be taught in game too, and to walk the player through the mechanics in a more interactive way. One thing that I think would’ve added a lot to this game is sounds for the enemies, so that you could hear them sneaking up behind you, getting louder and perhaps even being louder in the left / right ear to imply direction. I felt I was often taking damage to enemies whom I didn’t know were behind me. There was also an apparent balancing problem of the persistent spikes vs the single use spells, which you can see in the stream vod, I hope this feedback helps! :heart:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2129902300