Oasis Dawn by pickens-inc
A Living Myth
You're a mythological swordsman living in the depths of the most desolate desert, far from the past and the future. Here, there is but a single source of life - a sacred oasis. You play out the story others canonise in myth, taking up your golden sword to defend it from the fell shadows that seek to despoil it. The Guardian has fought them for a thousand generations, but all stories must some day come to an end...
Hello! This is a wave-based melee-combat game, developed by just me! As such it's a little rough around the edges and, clasically, I didn't have time to add a tutorial, sorry! Hopefully it's something you'll get the gist of with a few plays.
You must try to survive as many "Days" as possible. Each day will be longer than the last, consisting of more waves of multiple different enemies. Between each day is a rest period where you'll regain all your health.
Controls
Press attack multiple times to combo!
Press parry just before an attack hits, then attack again to Execute Riposte for big damage!
Press parry just before an attack hits, then press parry again to Whirlwind Riposte for knockback!
Execute Riposte next to the moving crystal to heal!
Let me know how far you got, and see if you can beat Day 4! So far the best I've seen is Day 6 Wave 3!
Tips
Red swords cannot be parried!
Your dodge roll has i-frames, use it!
The aoe riposte does good knockback for clearing space!
You heal all your health at the end of a day!
Software used: - UE5/C++ - Blender - Mixamo - Audacity - FL Studio
Additional hardware used: - 1x actual hand-forged talwar and 1x actual hand-forged scottish claymore for the parry sound effect :laughing:
| Link | https://crossguardinteractive.itch.io/oasis-dawn |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/oasis-dawn |
Ratings
| Overall | 743th | 3.06⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 466th | 3.34⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 847th | 2.308⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 868th | 1.769⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 549th | 3.423⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 416th | 3.24⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 639th | 3.22⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 16🗳️ | 37🗨️ |
I loved the prologue as well, great little touch. Lots of animation work on this one too, I loved the big dudes with the swords, they were properly intimidating.
Overall an impressive entry, especially for a single person!
Oh, nice water shader btw lol
Pretty ambitious to make a 3D game as a solo dev! The graphics have a "Lego" vibe, pretty cool =)
What are the crystals for? I thought maybe you could heal?
On a side note, I don't know if I'm the only one, but the game was reaaally stuttering (and no, I'm not running it on a potato haha). It would be great to have a way to tone down the VFX, maybe it would help?
Thanks for letting me know about the lag. I know a lot about UE5 but the one thing I don't know is how to make packaged builds more performant. There is actually zero VFX this time around, and I implemented all my normal procedures for making the game less intense. Alas, I have a beefy PC so testing this is tricky. I'll see if I can figure it out. Thanks again for playing!
Btw, I tried again on a more powerful computer and it was way more enjoyable! Timing these parries is really hard though haha
Otherwise, only made it to the first gang of giants :sweat_smile:
Gameplay was snappy, and punishes you if you mindlessly button mash. Combat had a nice level of depth that rewarded you for learning the moves, and practicing timing against various enemies.
One bit of polish I love is when you skip the dialogue (after listening to the whole thing the first run of course) you just say "very well then" hahaha, that was hilarious.
Thank you for playing! And for recognising the details, paritcularly the way the I tried to make the combat reward intelligent play and punish spamming buttons :D
I really like your combat mechanics. They're simple but effective, and I enjoyed the way different mechanics interlinked and encouraged certain playstyles - for example, the combo system discouraging spamming, parrying allowing for both more attack capabilities and healing, and the vanishing healing crystal encouraging moving around the space. I gave it two attempts and almost beat Day 3 - it gets a lot harder when those larger enemies start appearing!
In terms of critique, mainly, I think you could tighten the gameplay more. The game could do with a bit more juice - not just for game feel, but for responsiveness. The player should really feel when they or the enemy land an attack, or when things like parrying/healing are successful (parrying can be super satisfying in games, but here I never nailed the timing). That could include things like more impactful SFX, bigger/snappier animations, screen effects, stuff like that. I would also have appreciated a target button to lock the camera onto enemies - I was playing on controller, and I found myself wheeling my camera around more than actually fighting.
Overall, one of my favourites so far! Super addictive.
Fortunately, I was able to overcome my skill issue and actually learn how to parry :sweat_smile:
It's super impressive that you managed to put this all together solo. Crazy impressive job!
@rhoka Thank you very much for the lovely comment! Sorry about not having time for a pause button ahaha. unfortunately yeah the animation cancelling you can peform on enemies is a little too powerful, that will be fixed ;) and that is absolutely just the regular ole UE5 open world level ahaha. Thanks for playing!
It took me quite a while before I was able to become a murdermachine, one of the things I personally found very useful was to start rolling into combat, rather than just rolling away. This makes you able to gap-close quickly and allows you to get a few hits in before the enemies have a chance to react.
In the end I perished on day 4, but I was super close to beating that wave, and whould have only had 1 more wave after that to reach a new day.
I wish I could have made it further, it was so cool to see the new ranged enemy which appeared on day 4, I think that one is the coolest of them all, such an amazing animation to go from a creepy crawling spider to standing up and shooting.
In short, cool action gameplay. Gorgeous visually (love the shine on the sword and the smooth animations), fun with voice acting in the start and overall just a fantastic entry!
As a DMC/Souls enjoyer, I couldn't miss an opportunity to play this game :D
Surprisingly, many things already work.
For example, I successfully parried on the first attempt.
The timing appeared to be very close to the same in souls :)
Nevertheless it's a very good attempt of implementing a 3D action game for the JAM there are a couple of things that distance it from a solid experience:
1 - is the overall lack of clarity. In most cases, it's quite hard to tell in what exact state the game is: Did I get damage? Did I damage an enemy? Is an enemy in stun lock still, or is he ready to fight back?
2 - Instability of mechanics. The parry sometimes works really great and is very conservative for the player. However, sometimes it doesn't work, even if the player is properly facing an enemy. I tried to find out why this happens, but I didn't succeed in identifying any pattern.
3 - Whirlwind Riposte is less reliable and useful than a regular parry. I've been damaged several times during the execution of this move. So I stopped using it completely, what is upsetting since the visuals is great!
P.S. Hahah, parry and attack moves are still working after your death!
It reminds me of a Jojo episode :D
Overall, a very nice entry, I hope to see your further games!
https://www.youtube.com/live/UsbxyfIYWuc?si=rovzazszjm1ez9mW&t=6741
In any case, I love the 3D models of everything here! The player animations are great, and the big dudes with swords have absolutely perfect indication when they are bout to attack! I just can't figure out what I was doing wrong with the projectile guys.
My recording is a bit sloppy, as it was in untrawide cropped to 4:3, so the healthbar is missing in the video (definitely intentional on my part to add suspense.)
Anyway, here's the video. I hope it provides some good feedback!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtx9eNGOAO4