Play game
Vengeance in Gold's itch.io pageRate this game
In order to rate this submission you must be logged into itch.io and have submitted your own entry. Anyone with an account can leave a comment.
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
I liked the atmosphere of this game a lot, the somber exploration of a barren place was very peaceful but also somewhat sad. The lack of direction leading to just exploring this world which feels very large and some of the graphical choices reminded me of playing an old elder scrolls game. On the negative side I think the combat was very stiff and my run ended when I couldn't figure out magic. I had full Aurum and the shatter spell to use on the locked gate but couldn't actually use it. I knew I was supposed to do something with my body parts in the inventory but I wasn't sure what.
Still, incredible job with what you actually managed to complete. I'd love to see this finished.
Thank you! There are definitely issues; I would love to hear what you felt made combat feel bad. For alchemy, you have to select a body part, then select it again to toggle allocation. Could be clearer, for sure. Thanks for the feedback :)
My main issue with combat was the lack of feedback. Because the enemies lack any kind of flinch animation or pain grunt, anything of that sort, combat just becomes about circle strafing and chipping down a health bar, which takes a while because they're pretty tanky. I found myself just running past enemies later on. It can also be hard to dodge attacks since there's very little telegraphing in sound or animation, which made especially the duelist class hard to play with its parry.
On a positive note I loved all the classes and weapons! The animations are simple but really charming. It makes the game feel retro in a great way. I'll try playing through the game again and see if I can figure out magic. That might improve the combat a bit too.
I really like the mechanics, especially the class choices and interacting with NPCs. The concept of the golden tower and searching for a Midas-like figure is really cool. I also love the simple rain sounds in the background—they add a nice touch. However, the most difficult part for me was the way the graphics change during movement. The static visuals look great, but when in motion, it gave me a bit of a headache.
Thank you! The idea of the class choice is it determines your starting moveset (2 attacks), and you would unlock the rest randomly over time as you use your sword and "level it up". However due to time, they're just all unlocked from the start, so not super meaningful choice.
I actually prefer how it looks in motion, it kind of increases the fidelity as you get an illusory average of the different frames. Plus it feels like it twinkles. But I imagine it's very YMMV; there's some attempt at dither stabalizing I attempted but it's not very good and requires a certain sweetspot of mouse speed. And by nature, only works on looking, not moving. Definitely something I want to focus on improving after the jam, but it's a non-trivial issue.
Really interesting style and as you put it, it seems an ambitious project indeed.
The shader could be dialed back a little maybe to leave more surfaces (the nearer ones) in plain orange color to give them better contrast to stuff farther away.
You managed to implement a lot of interesting mechanics and one can see a glimpse of a broader open-word adventure game in this prototype.
And also I have a particular level of respect to anyone that manages to pull off a submission as a solo dev. Congrats
Cheers!
Edit: Also please add the corresponding credits to the description page. I wouldnt have known a lot of assets where from somewhere else if it wasnt for the ending credits.
Thank you! I do want to improve the clarity of the shader and maybe add an option to swap to bayer dithering, just didn't have the time. I read doing the dithering at 2x before downscaling can help. Also the color is meant to be gold but it might be displaying differently on my screen because I was surprised at how it looked viewing the itch page on mobile!
I will add the assets credits to the itch page as usual, just taking a break after working on the game right up to the deadline.