Ars Goetia by Nekuake

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

Summon demons with Sigils to get stronger by stealing their souls!

In this game, you'll have to face two phases per round, starting at the preparation phase. Each phase has a fixed duration so try to get the most out of them!You can check the clock in the upper-left corner.

On the preparation phase, you can place the sigils on your basement floor to summon demons by clicking and dragging them from the book. *Some sigils even have enhacing effects on your fighting skills! *

Captura de pantalla 2024-04-19 154816.png

On the fighting phase, demons will emerge from these Sigils, challenging you with some souls as a reward. You will want to keep an eye on your health, it's in the upper-right corner.

tests<em>ldjam</em>55<em>2</em>info.png guia<em>ars</em>goeta_anim.gif

Get increasingly stronger and richer to get even better Sigils.

Controls

W/A/S/D: Movement

Drag&Drop: Place Sigils

Versions

Up to v1.0.2 was made BEFORE deadline.

v1.0.3. dont!! : - Don't play this version, it's broken but we can't delete it for some reason.

v1.0.4, 17-04-2024: - Attack speed broke just before deadline. Normally we wouldn't fix this but it lead to a heavy imbalance, which made the game almost unplayable. You are free to play either version if you don't feel this fair.

Ratings

Overall 525th 3.614⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Fun 929th 3.091⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 736th 3.205⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Theme 410th 3.891⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 48th 4.565⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Audio 237th 3.773⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Humor 936th 2.405⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Mood 184th 4.022⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Given 25🗳️ 40🗨️

Feedback

GreenRadiation
19. Apr 2024 · 09:32 UTC
The game has a very cool graphic style; it would be great if there was more content. In any case, good job!
Saffwong
20. Apr 2024 · 20:59 UTC
I really like the art to this game. Its a nice game, good job :D
monika
20. Apr 2024 · 21:18 UTC
Love the graphics, and the music was both funny and fitting. It takes a lot of luck at the start to get a good build going, but after a few attempts, I was able to beat the game. I'd be curious to see the rules for how things stack, because the attack speed powerups didn't appear to keep improving my attack speed.
LDJam user 314045
20. Apr 2024 · 21:27 UTC
This was fun! Managed to become the winner. I really like the graphical style.
Caveman54
20. Apr 2024 · 21:30 UTC
The graphics and music are amazing. I really like how this game looks. The mechanics are interesting but got repetitive quickly. More weapons or enemy variety may have helped with that. Overall a very solid entry
JamieOK
20. Apr 2024 · 21:50 UTC
This game is GORGEOUS. I love the visuals. The gameplay is super interesting, especially the mechanic that makes you stronger being the very thing that brings more enemies into the fray. The difficulty scaling feels a little off, as I got to the point where I had enough damage to essentially one shot the minions spawning, which meant I would just spam buy more sigils, which would spawn more minions I would instakill, and so on. (My game started freezing and the sheer amount of minions spawning :joy: )
Other than the difficulty issue, I think this is incredible! Super solid result for a jam and the most polished game I've played so far. Amazing work!
LDJam user 355344
21. Apr 2024 · 02:28 UTC
I love vampire likes. And then there's the cool visaul. Overall, very good
Aby
21. Apr 2024 · 02:53 UTC
I LOVE the artstyle! Everything the Ui, monsters, sigils..
The gameplay is however really easy to exploit (just put all sigils at the same place), it would have been great if there was a zone around each sigil where you couldn't put another one (the stronger the sigil, the larger it is).
It would force the player to organise and make little pentagrams by himself.
Overall great game!
🎤 Nekuake
21. Apr 2024 · 10:39 UTC
@greenradiation

Thanks a lot for your feedback! We wanted to include waaaaay more content but a jam's a jam after all and we barely had any time to spare ahahaha but it's something we are looking forward to!

@saffwong
Thanks for playing!!

@monika
Thanks for giving our game a try!! Yes, there are some internal rules to ensure that things don't go too out of control. For example, atk speed has a minimum delay of 1 sec (the time it takes to at least finish the animation). But

@pedryx
Congratulations!! It may look easy but you have to be good at dodging and to have luck in the Sigils. Thanks a lot for playing all the way through


@jamieok
Thanks! Yeah, balancing the different things has been one of the main issues we had (and have), but since the time was running out, we embraced chaos and the feeling that you are getting stronger. Not perfect at all but time was running out!

@aby
Thanks a lot for playing! Our idea was to limit the zones where you place the sigils but it was pretty challenging to implement and balance so we had to discard it for the moment. We will probably revisit it. Love that you enjoyed it!
BitLuderRb7804Fr
22. Apr 2024 · 06:59 UTC
It really needs some visual feedback when losing health, or you will have no sense of danger, you will just die without knowing why. I'm totally in love with the graphical style however!
Shlolo
22. Apr 2024 · 16:52 UTC
I absolutely love the artstyle of your game! The enemy design, the UI, the blood effects... everything looks so nice and clean. Also big props for the sound design as well. The eerie, yet beautiful humming that plays while selecting sigils adds such haunting vibe to it. Same with the ambient sounds that play while fighting enemies. It's by far the best looking and sounding game I've played in this jam so far. It's a piece of art.

As for the gameplay.. it's simple but fun. After a while it gets a bit broken if you manage to stack a lot of sigils at which point you can basically one hit everything. It also gets a bit laggy at the later stages where a lot of enemies are spawning in. Maybe the amount of enemies could be limited, to prevent this.

All in all I love what you made here. Be very proud of yourself!
Nanaschi1984
22. Apr 2024 · 17:19 UTC
I felt that the game is too slow for me
Lamp_p
22. Apr 2024 · 18:39 UTC
I really like the art style and ambience created by the audio. I thought the economy couldve been a little more fair perhaps giving more souls for each kill or make it so the player controls when the attacks happen to have more engaging gameplay. An enjoyable experience.
Retrific
22. Apr 2024 · 20:47 UTC
Incredible artstyle. Love the animations. Probably the prettiest game I've played so far. I also like the game concept. But I felt the start was too slow to be fun. The cooldown was just too long and adding more sigils didn't make any difference until I've spend a couple of rounds saving up and grinding. But that was too tedious. I would like to see a skip button to skip the remaining preperation phase time.
But again, love the visuals and with some balancing changing this could easily be a fantastic game!
LDJam user 389319
23. Apr 2024 · 06:11 UTC
The graphics are incredible! I couldnt focus on the game cause I was completely drawn in by the art haha. Well done!
Nubels
23. Apr 2024 · 09:48 UTC
I love the atmosphere created by art style and the music. The game could be more fast paste though and some sort of health ui would be nice. Other than that I really enjoyed this one. Well done!
LDJam user 147386
23. Apr 2024 · 16:42 UTC
This was a very cool concept!
Would be great to be able to skip the shop section once you've already made your choices, as well as a bit more variety in enemies in a post-jam ver. Great work!
The timer sound is my favorite part
LDJam user 267116
27. Apr 2024 · 20:13 UTC
Super strong aesthetic, gorgeous sprite work. Very interesting gameplay gimmick. Great job!