Nerdfence by okk

Game introduction:
You like books, study and don't like fights. Sometimes you've been attacked by bullies, loose money and honor. But today, today is the revenge day. You got your team and ready to fight back.
Call your team and fight back you right to study.
Game screenshot:

Controls:
- Hold left mouse button to move.
- Press Z to start summon.
- Hold X to see summon combinations. (variations of QWER keys)
- Press M to mute sound.
Your team:
| Neardy friends | Weird uncle in kimono | Brother | DAD |
|--|--|--|--|
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| Combination: Q W E | Combination: Q R Q | Combination: E W Q | Combination: W W Q |
:warning: Important note:
It may be not too obvious how to summon an allied character. Let me help you and explain how it works: - One time press Z key on a keyboard. If you have a QWERTZ keyboard use Y key to summon - You'll see the white pop-up over the player - Type the command. For instance: Q W E - Hoorah! Congratulations! You've summoned an allied character)

| itch.io | https://okk.itch.io/nerdfence |
| itch.io | https://okk.itch.io/nerdfence |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/55/nerdfence |
Ratings
| Overall | 825th | 3.364⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 760th | 3.273⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 409th | 3.545⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 486th | 3.795⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 391th | 3.977⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 372th | 3.568⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 189th | 3.773⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 358th | 3.81⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 66🗳️ | 21🗨️ |
The amounts of bullies are overwhelming and i am not quite sure what to do since fighting back via summoning is not effective.
I enjoy this kind of control style a lot - Magicka is probably my favorite version of it, but there's also some similar (in spirit) mechanics in games like Helldivers. There's something cool about slamming a combination of keys that's perfect for the situation. I guess the appeal is that it's how I imagine it'd feel to really cast a spell.
When playing this game, I enjoyed splitting my attention between running away from enemies & typing out the summons. Executing both halves at the same time was satisfying, and it gave me a good feeling of control.
About the game's presentation:
The fact that you have a variety of options to summon (and the fact they all look so different in entertaining ways) is really nice. The book at the bottom of the screen was difficult for me to understand at first, but I eventually figured out what each part represented.
I know it can take a lot of effort to make the UI communicate game information in an intuitive way, so I appreciate the work you put into the summoning book at the bottom of the screen. Playing a sound effect and making the pictures of your available summoning options glow when ready were both really helpful.
By the way, the art style was cool! The music was too, I was rocking out as my 6 dads put the smackdown on those bullies.
Gameplay-wise, I've already mentioned that I like the core mechanical concept. The gameplay that sits on top of it ended up being pretty bare-bones, though, and the way fighting works (everything stacks on each other and attacks immediately) meant that either my summons or the enemies would eventually turn into an unstoppable ball of death.
The times I won mostly came down to getting Dad down early and snowballing into additional summons until the enemies were always completely overwhelmed. Having more obvious tradeoffs between different summoning options would be cool to have, or having enemies with varied strengths & weaknesses. It's definitely possible that those kinds of plans were in your original designs - the jam's time limit always leads to things getting cut, in my experience.
I can imagine lots of ways to add variation (enemies spawn in different assortments, or allies / enemies move in unique ways that prevent them from stacking up as easily, hand-designed scenarios with objectives like 'go get this special thing') which is pretty exciting! If you decide to expand the game I'd be interested to see what you do with it next.
To summarize, I thought the look and sound of the game was very cool. I appreciated some very handy (though initially tricky to understand) UI elements as I played, and I thought the core mechanic was fun and has a lot of potential for expansion. The gameplay itself didn't have a lot of longevity to for me, though, and the outcome (whether the forces of good or evil became an unstoppable blob) usually got decided pretty early.
You did an excellent job getting the "complete package" of gameplay together with really nice presentation, and the gameplay offers lots of ways to expand in the future! Nice work, and thanks for making the game.