Summoner's Pit by tomi-vahamaki

[raw]
made by tomi-vahamaki for Ludum Dare 55 (COMPO)

As a practitioner of forbidden dark arts, you have been banished into the Pit to battle endless hordes of deadly monsters. Collect scrolls and use them to summon creatures to fight by your side.

Summoner's Pit is a fast-paced old-school survival shooter. I recommend downloading the executable for better performance.

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Ratings

Overall 132th 3.636⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Fun 131th 3.568⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 306th 2.786⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Theme 214th 3.455⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 44th 4.159⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Audio 47th 3.833⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Mood 34th 4.023⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Given 11🗳️ 11🗨️

Feedback

jk5000
15. Apr 2024 · 10:18 UTC
The visuals and the music is really good. The idea is simple and pretty fun. For me the game was a bit too difficult, and I was never able to survive for very long. But overall a very well made compo game. Well done.
freamdev
15. Apr 2024 · 12:25 UTC
Thats some very nice Q1 vibes you got there :smile: Very well made submission. Bit on the harder side for me, did not expected the bat to kill me while I'm looking for my button to summon a golem.
LDJam user 385593
15. Apr 2024 · 12:49 UTC
Really good quality gameplay here! It's fun to play, satisfying to shotgun a bunch of zombies and golems. Music is pretty epic, and the general sounds are good.

Suggestions:
- It was quite hard to keep track of your current health, perhaps adding some additional visual feedback for when you take damage would help
- I couldn't really tell if the monsters that I summoned were actually that helpful
- I noticed that I was able to damage and kill my own summoned zombies, which didn't feel very good. Also, when my shotgun shots DID hit my own zombies, they would then start to attack me! I would personally have appreciated friendly-fire to be disabled for my own summons ^_^

Overall:
- really slick game here
- fun to run around and blast some monsters with a shottie
- great sounds and visuals
LDJam user 385878
15. Apr 2024 · 13:02 UTC
Visuals, audio and gameplay are really good! The only things I was missing was a dash and a double jump :smile:
el-pepi
15. Apr 2024 · 13:46 UTC
I love these graphics. Nice and simple gameplay. I only wish there was beter feedback for when you are being hurt, and for which monsters are you alies.
LDJam user 5243
15. Apr 2024 · 13:52 UTC
Really nice game! You nailed the old-school feel and the controls felt nice. Maybe could have started out a bit less harsh, but other than that... a really fun experience!
pebkac
15. Apr 2024 · 14:28 UTC
Nice! Good fluid controls. I could have done with crosshairs, but that could be age... Loved the music!
LDJam user 296265
15. Apr 2024 · 20:41 UTC
Nice game! Somehow this effect of shooting without bullets is really satisfying. I think your summons could be a little more powerful to fit the theme better.
Hot Noggin Studios
15. Apr 2024 · 23:33 UTC
Very good job! It's a tad difficult but the gameplay is great (You've done a good deal in just the time limit)!
Henno
16. Apr 2024 · 02:04 UTC
Well done! The game is very dynamic and fun to play! I also like the art of the game.
CaptainDreamcast
20. Apr 2024 · 16:30 UTC
Super stylish, I love the music together with the FPS-style gameplay, it's super cool!

My best score was 50 enemies and 609 score, the golem summon had respawned but they got me when I tried to take it. Super fun and fast gameplay! The type that makes you want to immediately jump back into it and try again, it's awesome. Very well done, great job on this game!
Okamit
30. Apr 2024 · 13:57 UTC
Fun fastpaced game with nice graphics and snappy controls. Only thing I miss is a bit better feedback for when you hit an enemy, perhaps displaying score during gameplay and ensure enemies won't spawn on you or too close to make it unfair.
sillyman987
30. Apr 2024 · 14:17 UTC
Really nice game you got here! I enjoyed round after round, and my best score was 548!
Human
01. May 2024 · 03:26 UTC
I love it when I can play it directly in LDJAM page. Good graphics and gameplay feels like in a good way. One feed back from is that when I hit enemies feedback is good but when enemies hitting me the feedback is not much observable. There is a sound but a screen wide red splash or something would have been great.
unless games
01. May 2024 · 12:36 UTC
Good job with the textures and look of the arena, also cool music!

I think the game could be improved with a bit more juice, particularly for killed enemies, them popping out of existing without much feedback is not as satisfying as it could be.

Being damaged should have some sound effect or more feedback in general. Most times I was killed by enemies from behind without noticing them which is a bit of a let-down. To combat this issue the newer Doom games for example made it so that enemies outside your field of view will be less likely to attack you and damage less, they will also try to get in front of you to attack. The former tweak is somewhat easy to implement and could already make a big difference in game-feel I think.

You should try enabling threads (and SharedArrayBuffer support on the host), not sure if it's possible on the LD page but on itch.io this fixes the stuttering audio on Godot web builds, which happens on this game as well.