LudumData

Saturna's Hand by parkuhrmd

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

Story & Description

Summon the fiendish devils from the nine hells into your realm through the power of dark magick.

Saturna will take charge of Lucifer's children...

Screenshot<em>2024-04-15</em>22-22-29.png

Gameplay

You play cards to summon demons. Place each card in one corner of the pentagram.

Each card has a sigil. Capture the demon if played sigils align. Sigil strength depends on sigil alignment and other cards' sigils. Burn cards to change them.

To play you need a mouse. A touch screen might work, but it's kinda experimental.

Created by Nils Foerster, Adrian Herbers, Patrick Herbers and Patrick Quiskamp. Featuring the original music of Dragona Mortoria! She composed the music for this game! Check her out on Spotify!

Programming by: NF, PH, PQ

Design: NF, AH, PH, PQ

Art: AH, PH

Sounds: NF

Music: DM

A message just for you:

Thanks for taking your time and playing our game. We hope you have a great day.

:heart:

Link https://tosmaster.itch.io/saturnas-hand
Link https://github.com/NilsFo/saturnas-hand
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/55/saturnas-hand

Ratings

Overall 95th 4.118⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Fun 206th 3.882⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 118th 3.941⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Theme 48th 4.412⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 150th 4.357⭐ 37🧑‍⚖️
Audio 81th 4.106⭐ 35🧑‍⚖️
Mood 75th 4.227⭐ 35🧑‍⚖️
Given 58🗳️ 51🗨️

Feedback

0x0961h
16. Apr 2024 · 18:38 UTC
That's quite a great puzzle mechanic for a card game within the theme with some pretty graphics! Combining cards to adjust the pointer within the zone is pretty fresh, at least I haven't seen it around that much. I would personally maybe made the drop zones a bit bigger so dragging cards towards them would be easier and the score counting either faster or actually showing during the summoning process in order to see and combine cards in a better way. But those are merely nitpicks, great job! :muscle:
Pusheeneiro
16. Apr 2024 · 19:49 UTC
![Screenshot_266.png](///raw/23d/22/z/63d5f.png)

Great Job!
Gabrimer
16. Apr 2024 · 20:26 UTC
Really interesting idea of a game! The game loop makes me wanna keep trying to get the best combos I can. I love the aesthetics too, the music was matching really well with sounds and the art of the game.
![Screenshot 2024-04-16 172301.png](///raw/41f/c4/z/63d95.png)
AllDee
16. Apr 2024 · 21:56 UTC
The card game's puzzle mechanic is quite fantastic and refreshing, especially within the theme and with those good looking graphics ! (The style immediately reminded me of the game Inscryption and that's what made me want to click on this game!)
LDJam user 389319
16. Apr 2024 · 21:57 UTC
Love the puzzle mechanic and the overall setting is also super neat :D 10/10 would summon again!
Chiara Sanviti
16. Apr 2024 · 21:58 UTC
The most original game I've played so far. The thematic idea on how the points are calculated to then summon the demon is beautiful. The mood is also very cool. TOP
kristirose88
16. Apr 2024 · 22:05 UTC
Very cool! Gave me major Inscryption vibes!
zablas
16. Apr 2024 · 22:08 UTC
Absolutely an amazing game! Make sure to expand upon this idea. Could be the next Balatro ;)
laulau
16. Apr 2024 · 22:33 UTC
super fun to play, even if i didn't quite understand the gameplay right away. worthy enough of a few replays. music's amazing too. only bad thing i could notice is that it's easy to accidentaly burn a card when trying to place it on the upper right corner (or maybe im just bad at using my hands
PatteDeCanaard
16. Apr 2024 · 22:33 UTC
The concept is very clever. I love the fact that the cards come out of the demon's mouth! I also really like the mechanic of burning the cards. The graphics and music create a very polished ambiance. I enjoyed it a lot. Well done!
Tristan Doell
16. Apr 2024 · 22:35 UTC
I enjoyed this game. It's got a lot of strategy and I like that you can take the cards back so you can change your move later. I don't quite understand the way the points work. I think you make rings of the same and on the other side make them the other way. the first time I caught 0 of them but after a few tries I was catching them all. can be hard to catch a demon with a demon they end up so much more powerful than the other cards, but it is a nice balance mechanic because they also score a lot. I liked that you are weighing scoring over getting another demon.

Also want to add thank you for not making it timed. I don't have the fastest reaction times so having no timer is nice! All in all, fantastic puzzle game my high score was 600 something when I finally got some of the demons rather than them all getting away. Thanks for the great game!
Josion
16. Apr 2024 · 23:03 UTC
Coupled with beautiful graphics and a fitting soundtrack, you've created an engaging and memorable experience that players want to return to. Great work on crafting something fresh and enjoyable!
Kirass
16. Apr 2024 · 23:04 UTC
I really liked this game! You guys are great!
Joriska
16. Apr 2024 · 23:47 UTC
I'm a bit dumb, so I didn't immediately realize how to play :) But the concept is so great! The graphics are stylish and atmospheric. Great game and work!
nidjo123
17. Apr 2024 · 07:18 UTC
Really like the overall feel of the game, it is nicely polished.
SoBad
18. Apr 2024 · 02:00 UTC
I think the tutorial text could've sacrificed some flavour to become more clear. I made it through quite a few summonings before I finally understood what the goal was. I don't think "Sigils combine to form a protection rune, trap the daemon by creating the binding sigil" actually means anything to someone playing the game for the first time. (But it makes sense in retrospect!)

That being said, this is an **excellent** jam game. The lighting and animation polish is great, and I loved the card burning mechanic! That in particular felt so "discovered". The core gameplay is a very neat idea, and once I understood the larger goal, it was fun to solve each puzzle.

Really good stuff here. Well done!
🎤 parkuhrmd
18. Apr 2024 · 09:56 UTC
@sobad Thanks for the feedback! Yes, the tutorial could use some improvement, maybe we can expand on it a bit :)
LDJam user 364744
19. Apr 2024 · 03:42 UTC
love the presentation, the music and graphics fit the theme very well!

the mechanics are thoughtful and well-designed, and play together off each other. i think it's a little too "analysis paralysis" for me, with being able to redo your entire turn. but some others might like that zen aspect of it!
Anachrone
19. Apr 2024 · 06:35 UTC
Very fun to play, love the mechanics :)
Hélicule
19. Apr 2024 · 18:10 UTC
Really great game! Every aspect is nice and polished, I had a really great time playing it!
Saprina289
19. Apr 2024 · 23:30 UTC
I loved this game! It was so interesting and well-designed and also it has a lot of cool mechanics! I like that summoning the demon is not the same as building up said demon's strength and it requires balancing both! I also liked burning the candle to singe the cards. The graphics, music, and overall mood was really amazing!
Meranolean
20. Apr 2024 · 08:59 UTC
Hey! That's one of the best card summoning game I've seen on the jam! You made really intersting system with finding the best solution for getting more score.
In the future I'd really want to see how I summon some units and if I did it inefficiantly the penalty would be death and game over:)

Thank you for your great game!
Wendel Scardua
20. Apr 2024 · 15:22 UTC
I liked the mechanics a lot - at least when I finally got the hang of them :) (forgot to capture the screen but I got 6 demons and 512 points)

Only thing that I found a bit weird is that there were two different goals that (apparently) don't talk to each other - the score and the number of demons captured. Maybe the demons should add a large bonus to the score, or failing to capture them should cause a penalty, etc.

This doesn't stop me from thinking this is a very good entry, though. Very polished. :)

ps: I hope you all have a great day too 😁
mremmele
21. Apr 2024 · 11:32 UTC
Great job! The graphics are really cool. I adore the combination of pixel art design with 3D, especially with all those lighting effects. It was a bit tricky for me to grasp the rules of the game at first, but eventually, I found it quite addictive. After my first try, I immediately wanted to play again. The sounds are also very atmospheric.

And yeah, my highscore is 411 with 4 demons captured.
Custodi
23. Apr 2024 · 15:39 UTC
Awesome idea. Really enjoyed playing this game, nice concept.
Prismapunch
27. Apr 2024 · 18:58 UTC
Cool idea, really liked the layout and graphics. The card mechanic is fun and encourages a lot of replayability and experimentation to figure out what produces the best combos.