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A jam submission

Tower of KalemonvoView game page

Hack and slash ARPG inspired by Diablo 1
Submitted by osur (@kalemonvo) — 2 days, 23 hours before the deadline
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Tower of Kalemonvo's itch.io page

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Viewing comments 6 to 1 of 26 · Previous page · First page
(+1)

Hey, very nice. Glad I'm getting a chance to play this after seeing your progress.

  • Presentation feels very high quality right off the bat. 
  • I like the intro text, music, background image, etc...
  • Controls feel good and solid, look and sound of the game is great
  • Doors on bottom edges are a bit hard to see, maybe dont make them go transparent
  • Bit of disconnect from the intro text and the beginning of the game. The intro said I knew of a back door to sneak into. But I sort of woke up on the floor with some items around me. I think the fiction can be maintained a bit more consistently.
  • first little crawling enemies are fucking creepy. nice.
  • A little more visual indication that I hit them would be nice
  • Beat a magic skelly and got a fast magic sword. Feels fantastic
  • Just got monkey-stomped by a bloodsoaked guard. Seems like this is a bit of a roguelike? Wasn't quite expecting that, not sure how I feel. Or did I just forget to save or something?
  • I somehow dont feel very empowered when confronted with a large pack of guys. I feel like I'm going to be taking damage no matter what I do, especially with melee weapons. I can sort of kite and attack with the bow, but it turns into a very slow and somewhat tedious process. I tried to bottleneck the guys in a door to reduce damage, which helped a bit. But generally, it feels a bit too punishing too quickly. i truly believe that one of the strengths of Diablo is that it isn't actually very hard. The "failstate" is more often being slow and inefficient, rather than outright death. 
  • I see now that I can save. I am a huge proponent of autosaving. Not as a convenience, but as a central feature. There is no reason to offload the work of remembering to save onto the player, and punishing the player harshly for forgetting to save. That's just bad feels. I wish I knew that so that I didn't lose that magic sword on my first attempt.
  • I think there is a bit of cruft around the targeting. Feels like my guy wanders away a little bit, or changes targets a lot when I don't intend him to. Perhaps if I clicked on a guy, it would stay targeted on that guy until I clicked again, or until he was dead. If I was holding the mouse down and killed a guy, automatically targeting the next-closest enemy and continuing to attack. Little things like that help a lot to make the player feel more in control. Especially when all the damage you're getting matters so much, all the little mistakes can feel a bit frustrating
  • Difficulty swings seem high between attempts. My first attempt, there were only a few creepy crawly guys in the first level before I got to the second level. The other attempts have had what feels like far more enemies, and tougher ones. 

Great job on this. It feels very high-quality and when I got into the groove, it felt really good. My post is sort of a running tally of things that "stuck out" to me, which doesn't really include any of the stuff that was executed perfectly (which was a lot). So I hope it doesn't come off as too negative. If the game had autosaves, a bit more smooth targeting stuff, and was a bit more forgiving in terms of taking damage, then I think it would really be able to shine. Keep up the great work brotha.

Developer(+1)

Thanks for the feedback fellow Orbdev! A lot of what you found lacking is completely accurate and just stuff I haven't gotten around to doing yet, esp. the autosave and some story-related things. I'll get around to it .Thanks again for trying multiple times - you don't come off as negative in the slightest. I will be reviewing Necrovale soon! Keep up the good orb fight

(+1)

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

I'm not a fan of this games so you can disregard my feedback but if you want to hear the perspective of someone who is opposed to playing games of this genre then read on: 

  • no run feature, i know these games are supposed to be slow burn 
  • game needs a brightness setting, i know it's supposed to be a dark dungeon but there's so much of the screen that's covered in dark, players should have the option to at least see the level if they want, but you can still make the enemies outside of close vicinity not appear
  • when i open a door and walk in to a room full of enemies it feels like there's not much i can do, there was a purple skeleton guy who had some goons with him that surrounded me, i felt like i clicked on purple 20 times before all the barrage of attacks drained my potions and killed me
  • clicking on an enemy to attack consecutively is annoying, runescape was ingrained into my brain so when i was starting out i just clicked on enemies once and expected the player to continue attacking (Edit: I forgot about the hold option, still would be cool if there was a setting in the options to make it so you consecutively attack when you click on an enemy holding click is still unintuitive)
  • whats the point of empty chests
  • so much of the UI is taken up by the item description/enemy description box. why can't this info be text that shows up next to the mouse? the reason i don't like the ui taking up all that space is that when you're moving toward the bottom of the screen you have less view than you do going up the screen
  • too many menus 

things i do like tho

  • enemy design is well detailed
  • ui art design is top notch

unfortunately i didn't get very far sorry, i get killed too easily.

Developer

I appreciate feedback, especially from people who don't like the genre! Thank you for taking the time to play and write a review! I'll look into making this more enjoyable for people unfamiliar with the genre

Submitted(+1)

Played for half an hour.

I love the ambience of this game. It really reminds me of the original diablo, the art, the sound, the gameplay. Very nice work! I reached the second level by using the bow and then a staff while kitting enemies. Nothing gave me much trouble except the ghoul creatures which always catched up with me or the minibosses, which took ages to bring down. It was difficult to notice blue items on the ground, even when highlighting them with "alt"

The game performance in my pc was not very good. When I booted up the game it was 2 FPS, reducing the resolution and playing it in window mode increased it to 15 so it was playable. This is a unity game and I have had difficulties with unity games in the past so it might be completely on my end (I had the same situation playing the looker). But maybe you should try the game in lower end PCs to see how it runs.

I saved the game and plan to continue the run later, maybe I can figure out a way to improve the FPS on my end. If I do I will leave more feedback. Very nice game.

Developer(+1)

Thanks for the feedback! Poke All Toads is on my list, so you'll be getting a review this weekend as well

The performance is an issue i'm slowly improving. Usually every patch adds a couple of dozen frames on my machine, since I honestly believe a game of this nature should be able to be played on toasters. I know of an issue that some testers have with Unity games, where they need to add -force-opengl to their launch settings in the .exe. this brought up a tester's frames in the main menu from 5 to 700+, perhaps that might be the same issue you're having?

Either way, looking forward to hearing more from you should you decide to play more!

Submitted(+1)

- the introduction text is hard to read (small size + a lot of text + fancy display font)
- you give the player a sword and a bow at the start, it would be a good time to show you can toggle between two weapon sets (pressing Q on most diablers)
- the game feels too dark, would be nice to have a gamma option
- mauler as the first enemy makes anticipating the stronger ones to be even bigger
- still no double-wielding, a real shame
- only some of the barrels being destroyable feels inconsistent
- outline colour to indicate health state is nice
- damage numbers would be nice to see how the rng rolls work
- blue spell to restore health and red spell to restore mana is bold
- the pathing gets finnicky when you hold mouse across a wall, I think you should move the player in the direction of the mouse instead of pathfinding to the location being held, died because of this
- not seeing the xp bar at all times definitely adds tension, not sure if intensional
- second run got door stuck:
 
- I guess the game is teaching me to save often
- door stuck on the next run too, right after the boss, good thing I saved this time
- lightning seems op, but switching spells is hard to do fast, so probably balanced
- not a big fan of the "find the lever" levels
- it's hard to tell the stronger mobs from the weaker ones
- the large blue two handed items never feel worth it over one hand + shield
- unequipped the +1 all stats ring multiple times and now all my stats are -1 (the one real bug)

Good and clear improvement since the last time I played. All I really have is nitpicks, which you seem to continue to iron out. Balance was nice, mobs were always dangerous. Gonna make it for sure.

Developer

that door bug will be the death of me

Can you confirm for me that you're on the latest release version? The zip (and the folder within) will be named ToK .17b Windows (or Linux) DoorFix. I uploaded it about an hour or so ago, and it should have fixed this

To address the some of your comments:

>switching weapons
Planning on doing this - it's my most requested feature
>dual wielding
I'm looking into this - but I never really liked how that was done in other games. I'd need to find a solution I'm happy with, so it's still not past the idea phase
>inconsistent barrels
noted. the non-destroyable barrels serve as decoration and I can see how that would be very annoying
>moving player towards the mouse direction
i never thought of that - it's a very good idea. I'll try it out and report back the results
>find the levers is bad
noted. I'm experimenting still with a "you have to do something except kill everyone to progress"
>balance regarding two-handed weapons vs sword/shield
another popular complaints. i'm slowly working towards balancing things better - thanks for the input
>ring bug
will look into this

Thank you very much for your detailed list of feedback and ideas, I appreciate it a lot!

Submitted(+1)

Yeah, it's the hotfix version:

You could just make the dual wielding worse than using anything else, like two identical swords is always worse than one of them + shield, because you are effectively just holding one sword. It's the fantasy that makes me want to do it, not the power level increase.

(+1)

Decided to give it a brief play since I played it a couple demo days back. I like the overall improvements. The paladin before the fifth level was neat, it's a breather and adds to the lore a bit. I also think the pacing is better now. It felt on the slow side previously, so it going by much faster helps keep the early levels breezy. 

Developer(+1)

Thanks for the feedback! The pacing is an issue I'm slowly tackling, especially since there's no "break" due to the lack of a hub screen - right now it's fight -> go next level -> fight, which can get pretty tiresome. It reminds me a bit of Serious Sam games, where while I'm enjoying myself, my brain screams due to the constant action with no breaks in between. I'm hoping to expand on the paladin level a bit to give players time to relax before going into the arguably most action packed floor. Either way, that's for another time - thanks for playing!

Submitted(+1)

Greetings fellow orbdev,
just had a nasty bug the cost me my (characters) life:
On level 1 i encountered a room with cult apprentices throwing fireballs and a green glowing boss type. The problem was the stone door behind me because i was somehow locked into opening/closing it in an endless loop. At that time i was using a bow and sometimes throwing fireballs myself, if that helps. If i can reproduce it (and maybe be more precise) i will let you know.
Also stat tooltips dont get resetted when closing the stats tab. So if you hover an attribute, press S, move the mouse away and press S again, the tooltip will appear again.

I gotta say that i love the fireball spell though. The big flamy boom is so nice and now i wish i had bigger fireballs in my game! And i like the spell wheel idea. Its a great way to keep the original D1 idea of only having one active ability on right mouse click, but be able to switch it more easily.

You will get more praise once i find that green hood you promised. 

To be continued...

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

damn, that can't be good. i'll try and reproduce it and upload a fix before the americans wake up

thanks for playing!

edit: the hood only drops starting at level 3 (Lower Dungeons 2) - good luck!

Submitted(+1)

Run number 2!
This time i found good melee weapons, so i went that route. This way i encountered other issues: The biggest one, was that shift + left mouse click sometimes didnt work in the middle of a fight. For instance if there is a barrel or some candelabra (i think its called that?) in front of a monster, the character just wont attack. There were other situations with lots of enemies in front of me where that happened, so i just left the shift key alone.

After a while i found some shield that distributed some of the dmg received to your mana pool. I figured i go even further down that road when i found a book of mana shield. However i noticed that once the mana shield runs out because mana is at 0, the effect above the players head wont disappear. If i reapplied the spell it works well again until i lost all mana. I couldnt test if this was a combination of the shield item + the spell, because in the end i tried saving, accidentally hit some key and opened the cheat console. Im stuck at that console screen now and cant close it with the backtick (maybe im just too dumb) :(

Anyhow, i came as far as the breeding grounds and still didnt find the green hood. There were like 2 or 3 items with green names that i found, so i guess its just a matter of time and runs until i find it. So the quest continues.

Now that the important things are covered, i have some thoughts about aesthetics and usability too. Lets start with the former: 

- Some animations seem to be way too fast. Dropping items feel like they are in a hurry. Explosions feel like sped up 2x at least. I like your art, but i think that could be a quick win for some style points.

- Another small thing for style: new footstep sounds. The current one is fine, but monotonous after a while. Breaking it up with variations for example would do a lot. Also once you reach those caves in the breeding grounds one would expect a different sound. 

- I really like the newer models and content. Progressing through the game clearly shows progression on the development itself, which is wonderful to see. Music is great, 2d art thats not placeholder is great too (love the spellbook <3).

About usability:

- Right click does different things in the inventory depending on item. Its confusing that right clicking a book consumes it, but a potion will be dropped. Especially in a tight battle thats an issue, as you have to do at least 2 clicks more to consume a health potion if you dont have any left in your belt slots. (i had such an situation and just right clicked 4 potions in the inventory to quickly pick em up again to restock the quickbar)

- Doors were a bit confusing at times: Barrels have an outline when usable, doors do not. So you are never too sure if you are gonna open one or not. Also i was confused at first that holding down left mouse to walk constantly, also triggers doors. Once i knew about that, it had some perks, like doors practically not existing because you just breeze through them lol.

- The automap was confusing at first, because the player indicator isnt that prominent and the positioning makes it a little worse imho. If you stand around corpses or enemies that are bloody (and theres quite a lot of blood), the indicator has pretty much the same color and is lost to the eye. As with the other things you can get used to it, but it would be a relatively easy thing to change and provide better QoL.


Some of these things await me too, so im excited to see how future versions of Kalemonvo turn out! I will continue to look for this great hood, try to break the game in other ways and reach the end. But i must say that im a bit jealous of how far you have gotten in making this.

Developer

Thanks for the extensive feedback!

The candle things - i forgot to include a proper player interaction script on them, so they mask any clicks on them (you can't click the ground/enemies behind them). I should've done than when I pushed out the door stuck update, but I forgot. Dang.

As for the shift key - it's messy and needs work. I didn't test it with 2Handed weapons recently, so it's probably awful to use. I added it to the list of things to fix

In general, things after the Halls of Pain are very messy - I don't think I've checked the manashield spell in years, so anything could be wrong with it

For the console - the ` key *should* work. if you have the game still open for any reason, try it out and see what's up (make sure you're not clicked on the text input field by accident and are typing ```` over and over). If that still doesn't work, I assume something somewhere broke and the key is upset. If you want to, you can always send me your log file output (C drive -> Users -> You -> Appdata -> Locallow -> osur -> ToK .17 -> playerlog.txt) and I can investigate further. If not, that's fine - you've done more than enough as-is

>Doors have no outline
They will - it's my most requested feature at the moment, especially since if you get a certain terrain color, doors are hard to spot. It will be done by the next major patch

Everything else you mentioned makes sense and is something I'll consider doing after the standard DD cleanup update.

As for the hood luck - greens spawn semi-randomly, most often from the 2 gold chests and from named baddies! Some are fixed spawns (the paladin shield from the super-unique baddie), but the rest are all random. If you don't find it now, there's always next DD!

Thanks again for playing and for the detailed review

Submitted(+1)

Regarding the console thing: I just tried to reproduce it. With the german settings of my keyboard i couldnt even open the cheat console. After switching languages it worked. So my guess is i accidentally did exactly that and locked myself in.

Better just ignore that part then, most people will probably never experience this series of mistakes :D

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