I played this game for a good 45 min. Pretty fun. I definitely dig the vibe of it and the music is perfect. I think there could be improvements to the hitboxes and the kockback.
I never could quite figure out the hit timing to safely dispatch enemies. sometimes I'll get a really good attempt and breeze through the first couple screens of the east wing. Others I'll get demolished by the first ghost just because I didn't time my hits properly.
This is really my main issue with the game. Like with the big guys that run at you, often they'll just slightly brush agaisn't you and that'll make you take damage. I haven't played the original zelda in a really long time so I can't say if this is how it was in it. but I think the game would really benefit from trying to make things more predictable.
Someone mentioned the original YS games and it's true it does remind me of those a little bit. but at least with the bump system, if you were facing an enemy and attacking, you were pretty much safe from harm. Here with the not always accurate timing I'll often take damage just because the enemy didn't get kockbacked enough.
The solution could be making it so that enemies can only inflict damage in an attack stage and hitting them with your sword cancel that attack. Or maybe increasing the knockback so that you don't run into situations where you hit an enemy but still take a hit because he kept running into you.
Now for the more positive stuff. I really liked the enemy variety in this. they all feel unique and you learn pretty quickly the strategy to take them on. I only managed to reach the kind of scyth ghost screen once but clearing a screen without taking damage feels very good. I like how you keep the stuff you pickup when you die (also as a reminder of how much I suck).
I ran into 1 bug while playing and it was when I died at the same time as clearing a room. the next time I got to that room, it was empty. which made me very happy but I don't think that was intended behavior :^)
Healing with C could have been explained, also starting the game at the smallest screen size probably not the best idea. they weren't big deals for me because I figured them out quickly but it's definitely something you want to make clearer. Ah and the tips when you die, loved it.
I wish I could have seen more of the game because I really had fun playing and I was pretty excited to see the crafting system. but I think it's just too hard at the moment and I don't have time to grind it some more.
Thank you so much for playing! I appreciate all of your feedback and the bug regarding enemies not respawning has already been fixed on my end ;) I'm sorry you gave so much time and weren't able to complete the demo, hopefully the next demo is more accessible.
This video was enormously enlightening for me, in that I now understand how important it is to show the controls in the actual game! I can't imagine how many people's experiences were similar to yours because they didn't see the description on the game page (which I had no idea you don't have to visit to download the game, my bad) and didn't know they could heal with C. You were super polite for the whole video considering how unforgiving an experience the game must have been without the health potions. Considering you were playing on a single healthbar you did really well!
I'm glad nothing completely walled you, and I think you'd have had a much smoother experience getting to play from the very beginning of the game rather than being dumped into this dungeon. Again, hugely thankful for this video. Thank you.
No problem!! I've really found that playtest videos are king for proper feedback, you really start to see what ideas get clearly communicated to your player and what don't. (I've watched many videos of people playing my game, getting caught in a weird spot, and feeling so frustrated that I can't reach out and explain it to them lol).
I think you've got a solid base and would love to play it again with healing etc. Remember that I also don't play this genre of game much, so others probably could have picked up C to heal. You need noob feedback like mine and expert feedback lol.
It always helps to include a little readme with the controls, although it wasn't so bad here. Futzing yielded results. Got that message on how to resize the window, unlike our friend down below.
This is a pretty brutal bossrush game you've got on your hands, not a bad time at all. Pretty up there with the Ys games. The chunkier artstyle works well with the game, and completely unrelated to anything at all, Yancy is a pretty good name for a protagonist.
I put the controls on the game page, I didn’t realize you wouldn’t see them if you downloaded from the Jam, doy. I’ll include a screen on launch next time.
I’m glad you mentioned Ys! My friend is always noting the resemblance in my boss design, and I kinda wanna include a Dark Fact inspired fight for giggles. Thanks so much for playing :)
It's really fun, screen is too tiny so you need to at least 2x or 3x it imo. Both enemy and sword mask seem smaller than it should be where you're chasing 1 pixel to hit the ghost that's standing right in front of you so I'd get them larger, I think you should at least get the sword one wider. After you get hit it doesn't feel like you have proper time to recover so overall although enemies have nice behaviour about them even when they're predictable outcome changes because sometimes they can hit you over and over and sometimes you can get away with that tiny window of invincibility frames, I would also get the iframes last a bit longer, I don't mind 4 way movement and combat is fun enough to play for a good while, definitely going to steal some enemies.
thank you so much for playing! I’ll be sure to give your game a try, and thank you for the enemy compliment! I always go out of my way to try and make unique goons.
Thank you so much for giving my game your time regardless! Maybe you’ll be able to enjoy it more with the full learning curve from the beginning of the game rather than being kicked in the catacombs :)
i liked it, good gameplay and music, thought its a bit hard to get to the right position to hit some things because of how fast you move but maybe thats just me being a shitter
Those fine motor skills are definitely honed once you’ve played longer. Games like the Binding of Isaac solve this issue by drawing shadows under enemies, which represent their “true” location on the screen. I do occasionally draw shadows under flying enemies for example, but under every enemy is too messy visually. Thank you very much for playing!!
Really great music and it's pretty hard. I would like to full screen the game to get a better view of everything. I really like the graphics and it's fun. You should also explain the controls at the start. I will tell you that there is a bug where if you talk to the grave keeper while right on top of him, it get stuck. I think you should make this a full game and try to make money from it.
OK: The ghosts are too hard. Got it. I've tuned the ghosts back a couple of notches and made it so you can skip to the end of a characters dialogue withoutt skipping the dialogue itself. These changes are live on the game page right now. Thank you for the feedback everyone :)
I haven't gotten far in it but I'm sure to come back some time later to try to finish it because it's quite fun. My only complains would be those stupid ghosts that charge from random direction and you can't predict and they move too fast for my shitty reaction times. Granted they're not as bad as the medusa heads in Castlevania but they're still annoying
I really like the graphics and the sound design too. The way levels are designed for shortcuts and all taht is also really good, nice job there.
I love Zelda 1, so this game really interested me, and it's made in GameMaker, so I also wanted to support a fellow GMS dev. Despite being a huge fan of some really hard games, I have to admit this one was a little too difficult due to enemies' unpredictable attacks and a lack of patterns. The player is a bit too slow to deal with some enemy attacks, so I struggled a lot, especially early on. Aside from that, this game is great. Nice NES-style graphics that remind me of games that came out around '87, great sound effects and music, the enemy designs were cool and fun (again, despite their attacks being a bit too quick and unpredictable), the list at the top that tells you what you've done and where you've been, and I like the Estus-like healing system. Solid game mate.
Comments
I played this game for a good 45 min. Pretty fun. I definitely dig the vibe of it and the music is perfect. I think there could be improvements to the hitboxes and the kockback.
I never could quite figure out the hit timing to safely dispatch enemies. sometimes I'll get a really good attempt and breeze through the first couple screens of the east wing. Others I'll get demolished by the first ghost just because I didn't time my hits properly.
This is really my main issue with the game. Like with the big guys that run at you, often they'll just slightly brush agaisn't you and that'll make you take damage. I haven't played the original zelda in a really long time so I can't say if this is how it was in it. but I think the game would really benefit from trying to make things more predictable.
Someone mentioned the original YS games and it's true it does remind me of those a little bit. but at least with the bump system, if you were facing an enemy and attacking, you were pretty much safe from harm. Here with the not always accurate timing I'll often take damage just because the enemy didn't get kockbacked enough.
The solution could be making it so that enemies can only inflict damage in an attack stage and hitting them with your sword cancel that attack. Or maybe increasing the knockback so that you don't run into situations where you hit an enemy but still take a hit because he kept running into you.
Now for the more positive stuff. I really liked the enemy variety in this. they all feel unique and you learn pretty quickly the strategy to take them on. I only managed to reach the kind of scyth ghost screen once but clearing a screen without taking damage feels very good. I like how you keep the stuff you pickup when you die (also as a reminder of how much I suck).
I ran into 1 bug while playing and it was when I died at the same time as clearing a room. the next time I got to that room, it was empty. which made me very happy but I don't think that was intended behavior :^)
Healing with C could have been explained, also starting the game at the smallest screen size probably not the best idea. they weren't big deals for me because I figured them out quickly but it's definitely something you want to make clearer. Ah and the tips when you die, loved it.
I wish I could have seen more of the game because I really had fun playing and I was pretty excited to see the crafting system. but I think it's just too hard at the moment and I don't have time to grind it some more.
Thank you so much for playing! I appreciate all of your feedback and the bug regarding enemies not respawning has already been fixed on my end ;) I'm sorry you gave so much time and weren't able to complete the demo, hopefully the next demo is more accessible.
- Good communication of attack patterns for the ghost enemy
- good lore and atmospher
- good forgiving respawns
- the game is hard but it seems like a reasonable "hard" (I'm not good at these zelda type games)
Keep it up! I really liked itThis video was enormously enlightening for me, in that I now understand how important it is to show the controls in the actual game! I can't imagine how many people's experiences were similar to yours because they didn't see the description on the game page (which I had no idea you don't have to visit to download the game, my bad) and didn't know they could heal with C. You were super polite for the whole video considering how unforgiving an experience the game must have been without the health potions. Considering you were playing on a single healthbar you did really well!
I'm glad nothing completely walled you, and I think you'd have had a much smoother experience getting to play from the very beginning of the game rather than being dumped into this dungeon. Again, hugely thankful for this video. Thank you.
No problem!! I've really found that playtest videos are king for proper feedback, you really start to see what ideas get clearly communicated to your player and what don't. (I've watched many videos of people playing my game, getting caught in a weird spot, and feeling so frustrated that I can't reach out and explain it to them lol).
I think you've got a solid base and would love to play it again with healing etc. Remember that I also don't play this genre of game much, so others probably could have picked up C to heal. You need noob feedback like mine and expert feedback lol.
It always helps to include a little readme with the controls, although it wasn't so bad here. Futzing yielded results. Got that message on how to resize the window, unlike our friend down below.
This is a pretty brutal bossrush game you've got on your hands, not a bad time at all. Pretty up there with the Ys games. The chunkier artstyle works well with the game, and completely unrelated to anything at all, Yancy is a pretty good name for a protagonist.
I put the controls on the game page, I didn’t realize you wouldn’t see them if you downloaded from the Jam, doy. I’ll include a screen on launch next time.
I’m glad you mentioned Ys! My friend is always noting the resemblance in my boss design, and I kinda wanna include a Dark Fact inspired fight for giggles. Thanks so much for playing :)
It's really fun, screen is too tiny so you need to at least 2x or 3x it imo. Both enemy and sword mask seem smaller than it should be where you're chasing 1 pixel to hit the ghost that's standing right in front of you so I'd get them larger, I think you should at least get the sword one wider. After you get hit it doesn't feel like you have proper time to recover so overall although enemies have nice behaviour about them even when they're predictable outcome changes because sometimes they can hit you over and over and sometimes you can get away with that tiny window of invincibility frames, I would also get the iframes last a bit longer, I don't mind 4 way movement and combat is fun enough to play for a good while, definitely going to steal some enemies.
thank you so much for playing! I’ll be sure to give your game a try, and thank you for the enemy compliment! I always go out of my way to try and make unique goons.
Sorry bro, I'm not skilled enough for this game. Furthest I got was two rooms past the one in the screenshot.
This probably isnt a glitch but the ghosts dont attack me till I attack them.
Also I was able to attack these dudes accross the gravestones. Not sure if that is intended.
Game seems to be well done, but I think its just not meant for me.
Good luck with the game though!
Thank you so much for giving my game your time regardless! Maybe you’ll be able to enjoy it more with the full learning curve from the beginning of the game rather than being kicked in the catacombs :)
i liked it, good gameplay and music, thought its a bit hard to get to the right position to hit some things because of how fast you move but maybe thats just me being a shitter
Those fine motor skills are definitely honed once you’ve played longer. Games like the Binding of Isaac solve this issue by drawing shadows under enemies, which represent their “true” location on the screen. I do occasionally draw shadows under flying enemies for example, but under every enemy is too messy visually. Thank you very much for playing!!
Really great music and it's pretty hard. I would like to full screen the game to get a better view of everything. I really like the graphics and it's fun. You should also explain the controls at the start. I will tell you that there is a bug where if you talk to the grave keeper while right on top of him, it get stuck. I think you should make this a full game and try to make money from it.
very excited to try this once I'm on my windows PC
Awesome music. Did you make it?
All music and sfx were done by the extremely skilled DEADi, fellow game dev legend.
OK: The ghosts are too hard. Got it. I've tuned the ghosts back a couple of notches and made it so you can skip to the end of a characters dialogue withoutt skipping the dialogue itself. These changes are live on the game page right now. Thank you for the feedback everyone :)
Nice Zelda clone bro!
I haven't gotten far in it but I'm sure to come back some time later to try to finish it because it's quite fun. My only complains would be those stupid ghosts that charge from random direction and you can't predict and they move too fast for my shitty reaction times. Granted they're not as bad as the medusa heads in Castlevania but they're still annoying
I really like the graphics and the sound design too. The way levels are designed for shortcuts and all taht is also really good, nice job there.
I love Zelda 1, so this game really interested me, and it's made in GameMaker, so I also wanted to support a fellow GMS dev. Despite being a huge fan of some really hard games, I have to admit this one was a little too difficult due to enemies' unpredictable attacks and a lack of patterns. The player is a bit too slow to deal with some enemy attacks, so I struggled a lot, especially early on. Aside from that, this game is great. Nice NES-style graphics that remind me of games that came out around '87, great sound effects and music, the enemy designs were cool and fun (again, despite their attacks being a bit too quick and unpredictable), the list at the top that tells you what you've done and where you've been, and I like the Estus-like healing system. Solid game mate.