Critter Conflict by SpiRiTs
Once upon a time in a magical forest there lived a goblin village, One day the protectors of the forest told the goblins to stop hunting the woodland creatures, the goblins weren't happy about this so they sent you, Sheim, to... "negotiate" with them.
WASD to move, Space to jump, E, Enter or Space to Select, Left click to shoot, Right Click to throw a Molotov Cocktail.
Dinosaur- Art
SpiRiTs- Programming
Scrumblob- Music & SFX
| Itch | https://spirits.itch.io/critter-conflict |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/critter-conflict |
Ratings
| Overall | 70th | 4.145⭐ | 85🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 87th | 4.036⭐ | 85🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 415th | 3.457⭐ | 84🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 450th | 3.795⭐ | 85🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 117th | 4.386⭐ | 85🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 115th | 3.932⭐ | 83🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 121th | 3.875⭐ | 82🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 160th | 4.024⭐ | 84🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 62🗳️ | 115🗨️ |
I like the story and setup, not to mention the really charming art. Love a good ol' boss rush, Cuphead style. My game actually froze/crashed after one of the times I got hit by the seed from the bird boss.
Either way, this is really polished for what it is, good job!
We somehow never had that crash, must be our latest polish build that somehow broke something. Thanks for letting us know!
The characters have quite a bit of personality as well, and it's nice how you can sense touches of humor from the start with the Goblin, wielding its grand impressive rifle to negotiate. 😂
графика и стиль рисовки - огонь!!!
Small nitpick that the difficulty of the levels was reverse (earliest were hardest and latest were easiest), but that didn't matter because I LOVED all the bosses.
Best game I played so far
A normal boss rush with a tiny story, not too unique but still very good boss design.
Very solid entry and thanks for the hard work!
Hi David, thanks for your feedback!
It's true that the boss balance is slightly lopsided for the earlier bosses, particularly so with the Sky Raptor.
We had anticipated that the players would challenge the bosses in any order they wished (Before the Crab), but it seems it's more intuitive to go for the closest one (Sky Raptor).
Thanks for the kind words and feedback :)
Simple and nice soundtrack, cool boss mechanics.
You've done a good job
The bosses had interesting and unique mechanics, but felt a little bit punishing. It would have been nice to get health drops during the fight to stay alive for longer. The biggest thing I felt missing was a health bar, because I had no idea how close I was getting to finishing up the bosses.
Still, amazing art and amazing effort for a jam game!
Hi Tom, we appreciate your feedback!
The crashing issue still remains a mystery to us, not a clue what's causing it sadly. Your point on the health bar for bosses is valid, it's a criticism we've received a few times, fairly so. It was an intentional design choice to obscure how close you were to winning to some degree, but it would have been ideal for the player to have some way of measuring their progress. I can understand why that would be frustrating, it's something we all agree could have been done better.
Thanks.
I obviously loved the art, theres so much character in each boss and the abilities are so fun and fit super well, I love the extra tiny creature that has its own effect as well. The character is easy to maneuver too so I never felt like getting hit wasnt my fault. The sound effects are perfect too, they add so much fun to the characters and a bit of extra warning for incoming attacks which really helps get out of the way in time. Overall I really liked it, which is why I had so much to say about it, so please don't take it as negative feedback even though I probably could have said it nicer, I just liked what I played so far and wanted to offer how I would think to make it even better. Nice job ^^
Funny you should mention! I heard about your game from a team member who thought your game looked similar in concept to ours. I will absolutely give your game a try when I can!!! Haven't been rating as many games past couple of days but for another boss rush game I think I can do it lool.
Thanks for commenting Nick.
I really like the art style, presentation and atmosphere. Animations are great, and so is the music. The controls feel responsive, although I did try to crouch with Alt for a long time (as it is so conveniently next to Space) before my brain switched to S :laughing:
Bosses are imaginative and fun. If I can venture one suggestion - in the last crab boss fight, there seems to be not enough time to run from the claw if you happen to be on the far edge of the same side when the warning starts.
Really nice jam game!
Hi Andriana, we appreciate your feedback.
I went ahead and booted up the game to try and replicate the issue you described, but I could not find any additional velocity being applied to the character during bomb throws.
It could be a niche hardware issue with how your computer interacts with the game, a keyboard thing perhaps? I'll think more on this, thanks!
You raise some good points regarding how "useful" the weapon feels, if we had more time we likely would have implemented weak points or a similar system.
Thanks for your kind words. :)
Very fun game in the Cuphead tradition, boss fights are extremely hard to make so it's seriously impressive you did so many.
By the way I was killed by the frog and the game crashed! Wish I could skip the opening cutscene on the reset! :p
My boss ranking in order from best to worst: King Crab, Alligator, Bear, Bird.
I think king crab has a little too much health, I was beating him perfectly and executing the pattern and I still had to stick around for a long time.
My biggest criticism is the boss's attacks are chosen completely randomly, so you can get a situation where they repeat the same attack over and over again which can trivialize challenge. It's okay to repeat attacks but I would bias your random to avoid doing it too many times.
I really love the molotov mechanic, and if there were more to the game I would want it to take advantage of the 360 degree aiming, which really sets it apart from Cuphead and Contra.
Feels very polished. It has everything: story, graphics, animations, soundeffects, music, multiple bosses.
The graphic style is very unique and wholesome. I'm not particular good at this kind of games, so the bosses each took me several attempts to beat them. So for me it was a challenging, but in a good kind of way. I liked figuiring out all the moves the bosses do and learn to counter them. Every boss was different but also shared similiar types of attacks, so i could use my knowledge from before to adapt quicker (balancing well done!). I liked that i could instantly retry and not lose my progress overall.
My suggestions:
- Maybe i'm blind but the bosses had no health indicator? Maybe it's a design choice but for me it would have been cool to see the progress i made in form of a healthbar.
- Not sure if that was a bug or intended: Against one boss (the bird) i died but at the same time finished the boss after i loaded back into the map. I was not paying full intention, but probably i killed him with my last bullets during my die animation
- The bubbles from the Crab were some of the easiest attacks to dodge and at the same time the hardest in rare cases (since they had a random pattern). I had at least 1-2 times where it felt impossible to dodge because of the way they spawned. Not sure if there is a soloution to that.
The bear was definitely the easiest for me and the bird was the trickiest!
Tiny request: Being able to skip/fast-forward the story prologue (pokemon skip-to-the-end-of-the-page style) would be a nice quality of life feature.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuddhZScWxo
Thanks for playing!
If it makes you feel any better, know that the goblins don't have a food shortage anymore.
I played Cuphead and it's obvious, that this game is kind of similar, but that's fine of course.
I love the graphics of the game. The intro, the overall map and the levels themselves are amazing for this short of time. The bosses have personality and the little creatures on them fitted nicely.
It was always visible what kind of attack would follow through little hints, so it was never unfair to me. The difficulty level was decent. I think it was in a good spot for a Game Jam.
The music is in my opinion not on the same level as the visuals. One song was good, but the other ones were not so catchy. But I like the fact, that every boss has its own theme.
The "feedback" of the actions (shooting, getting hit) could be stronger. The little weapon dots and the "dot explosions" are very small and therefore the impact wasn't that big. I recognised when I was getting hit by the enemy or a projectile, but it also felt a little weak for my taste.
The controls felt good. When I was hit I couldn't blame the controls for that. ;)
The game overall was a lot of fun for me and one of my favorite games so far. Good job! :)
Hi, thanks for your review :)
As the composer & sound designer for this project I take particular interest in what you said regarding the music, is there any chance you could go into more detail?
Thanks.
5/5 stars!
I still had a great time, visuals are neat and gameplay is tight!
We had some tough choices to make balance-wise, of course no matter the situation it could always be better executed. We find that our current difficulty is just about right for most people, however I myself find the game too easy at times. If we were to do it again with more time, we'd probably have a hard mode for gamers like you and I.
Your art is very beautiful and consistent.
The homage to Cuphead is clear and objective.
I was afraid to play it thinking it would have the same level of difficulty as the one being honored, but in the end it was really fun.
Congratulations!
For your records, here’s my archived stream 😊 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rkg-HvNRZgU
The battles were well designed and varied, I enjoyed all of them. The only thing I struggled a bit with was the bird seed attack, I found it difficult to dodge, especially if there's 2 in a row.
very good entry!
I love platformers and shooters, and this game delivers on every level. Also great job with the music!
Thanks again for bringing the game to my stream :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7ERIeCFIVg
~XpMonster