Summon Or Unsummon by DaivyIsHere

Play on itch.io
To become the most powerful thing in the world
(There is an ending!)
[Gameplay]
- Summon mysterious entities out by pressing the correct KEY
- Unsummon them by pressing the opposite KEY instead
- (The opposite key of the first letter A will be the last letter Z, Y is opposite to B, etc.)
- Your player can level up attack by killing weaker entities, the higher attack you have, the more dangerous entities will be summoned
- Be careful with what to summon and what to not!
[Tips]
- If you find typing opposite key too hard for you, you can hold 'Tab' while typing the correct key. This way you can guarantee trigger the opposite key, but cheating come with a cost of your score!
- Mute BGM by pressing 'Down Arrow' Key
[ Note ]
Post-jam version - added letter hints and balanced, changed font
original version in download
| Link | https://daivy.itch.io/summon-or-unsummon |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/55/summon-or-unsummon |
Ratings
| Overall | 324th | 3.8⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 654th | 3.375⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 81th | 4.05⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 156th | 4.225⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 243th | 4.2⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 158th | 3.853⭐ | 19🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 310th | 3.868⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 30🗳️ | 16🗨️ |
i totally did not panic in the middle and lose all my score.

i liked the concept, but pressing opposite keys was really difficult, idk if that's really a skill issue.
also it wasnt obvious if the game ran out of content or was waiting for me to level up more, it felt like a waiting game a lot.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2123757357

it took me a minute to notice the letter hints, once i caught that it helped a LOT, glad y'all added that in.
i also kneejerk wanted a way to check what level things were without having to sacrifice a health to find out-- but I don't hate that sacrificing health was required to check, as it seems like a 'tough but fair' decision. There are times where the gameplay also does feel like a bit of a repetitive task but i think i also might have needed to strategize a bit more and reject more of the 5 point cookies that were coming my way in favor of more nutritious opponents to make things go faster.
The sound effects were useful... My eyes were glued to the left of the screen and i relied heavily on that crunching noise or the damage noise to confirm what the outcome of my summon was! They were super distinct sounds and that helped.
I like the minimal pastel pixel look, i think it suits the rest of the game very nicely, and i think the UI and animations do a good job of helping the player to understand the summon mechanic. Really like this take on the summoning theme and thought this was a cool, creative minimalist gameplay idea around it!
Hard to summon the long one, took me a few attempts haha
Really love the visuals

Well done!
Maybe one could use some strategy to get better score, but it was hard to know what could I do otherwise than just type the letters I see. Typing letters filled up the timer so that seemed like the most obvious thing to do to not lose lives.
Took quite a while but I love the overall feel of the game! Really polished and fun! I love the humor and the slow build up. I now have a fear of fish though haha