Deep Sword Cultivator by ellaris

[raw]
made by ellaris for Ludum Dare 57 (COMPO)

Your wife has been killed and you must delve into the depths of hell to bring proper punishment to those who killed her.

Move with W A S D, use the buttons presented on screen to cast corresponding abilities (there is cast time so you need to stand still), destroy enemies and dive deeper.

  • Created using GameMaker
  • Music done in https://www.beepbox.co
  • Sounds generated from https://www.drpetter.se/project_sfxr.html

Zrzut ekranu 2025-04-07 011441.png Zrzut ekranu 2025-04-07 011924.png

Ratings

Overall 174th 3.375⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Fun 125th 3.417⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 157th 3.271⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Theme 166th 3.458⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 215th 3.14⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Audio 200th 2.826⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Humor 80th 3.229⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Mood 209th 3.125⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Given 28🗳️ 31🗨️

Feedback

dnp
07. Apr 2025 · 13:14 UTC
The effects for the attacks are very cool. However, they feel a bit imbalanced. The 'e' ability feels much stronger than the rest, though it is very satisfying to use. Needing to stand still to attack is a bit too annoying to make it an interesting tradeoff between attacking and dodging, but I understand what you are going for. A very visually interesting game with a fun little story.
Palerus7
07. Apr 2025 · 13:22 UTC
Felt a bit unbalanced, but the dialogs and stuff are very cool ^^
Sicosiber
07. Apr 2025 · 13:42 UTC
I pet the puppy and then killed it, my life is now complete
Clintor24
07. Apr 2025 · 23:13 UTC
I downloaded it, but the game window was too tiny and I couldn't figure out how to expand it. Bummer.
hubol
08. Apr 2025 · 03:15 UTC
I really love the character design! The constant shoe-horning of the theme into literally every piece of dialog is really good, too. Once I realized that the game plays at your own pace, I felt a bit overpowered. Some of the spells you have seem pretty creative! The dodge feels very nice.

Nice job!
Chuckiee
11. Apr 2025 · 11:37 UTC
Love the movement of swords and whole game in general :100: I think it'd be better if powerful skills had more cooldown, and more polish to characters. Impressive how many enemy and attack types you got in :o: Well made!
Anton Florey
11. Apr 2025 · 11:42 UTC
Somehow I really love the pixe art drawings of this game :)
And the feeling of being super overpowered was also great!
🎤 ellaris
11. Apr 2025 · 12:05 UTC
Yeah it is a bit easy, if you get enough damage in your arms and head you get a stacking cooldown increase, though it's pretty easy not to get hit (and you slowly heal over time), probably could have added a timer (ticking up) to incentivize players to go faster.
bravelytyped
11. Apr 2025 · 22:25 UTC
fun game! it took me a few tries to figure out that you had to stand still to cast (duh, it was written on the top of the page... xD) but once i got that i had a good time!
Dingbat
11. Apr 2025 · 22:28 UTC
It took me quite a while to realize you can't cast spells while moving which really confused me, other than that the game is fun. Unique spells and interesting creature designs. I could totally see something like this being expanded into a full game. Nice work!
LDJam user 408627
12. Apr 2025 · 15:33 UTC
good and old GMS2
someone
12. Apr 2025 · 22:28 UTC
Neat idea. The flying swords were great.
The E ability was somewhat overpowered but quite satisfying. The Q ability seemed completely useless, and space seemed to do nothing at all. A visual indicator for the cast time would have been useful.
ryusui
13. Apr 2025 · 02:25 UTC
Not a huge fan of "bullet hell but you can't attack while dodging." Your attacks do so little damage relative to enemy HP that it feels unnecessarily punishing to force the player to stop before they can counterattack. That said, I thought the spell effects were neat, like the the trails on the arrows and the way they'd swoop about in midair, though I also feel like the music was a mismatch for the gameplay and the intended vibe - less "descent into hell for vengeance" and more "leisurely stroll into hell for a polite chat" XD
Eugenik
14. Apr 2025 · 11:03 UTC
Nice music and artwork!.
LDJam user 243193
14. Apr 2025 · 14:20 UTC
This must be the first entry with the most *depths* in it. Every single action has *depth* in its chanting. The enemies don't give good impression about depth well but there are some encounters to show your current depth.
I'm not sure if the boss did disable my attacks or it is a bug but with depths of experience I have, I did defeat it.
Good short game anyways, I love the sword rain which cuts really deep if done at right time.
🎤 ellaris
15. Apr 2025 · 11:17 UTC
@someone Q is pretty useful but probably not very well indicated, it's AOE damage push back and interrupt with short cast time, it also refreshes all swords and calls them towards you. For space you actually have to "move" as it is a dodge, so it's my fault for telling you to stand still. For casting there are 2 animation frames but it kind of makes it hard to notice.

@ryusui It's not really a bullet hell (except for the boos, but he's got only 2 "bullets"), the enemies have a cast time so you can dodge and then attack them, I wanted to give enemies an opportunity to hit the player, because if he always moved he couldn't be hit. I'm not very good at music, I noticed that the music I made for the past jams kind of all sounds the same XD

@bloodbane Thine deep in-depth dive diagnosis of my deeply depth deprived dialogue delivers me deep delight.
commanderstitch
19. Apr 2025 · 18:02 UTC
took a bit and several restarts to figure out why the spells weren't casting. one of the persons commented it was no movement meant casting spells. derp a herp a derp. i got it now. xD

nice bits of animations, swords and feelings of constant yelling out how deep this game really is. Felt like the lowest of lows and the deepest darkest place in all the world.![deepenough.png](///raw/b24/z/6c555.png)
I_POTS
23. Apr 2025 · 08:49 UTC
Interesting game! Very cleverly combined with the theme!
koalabear
23. Apr 2025 · 17:20 UTC
Haha deep fisting