Glad you enjoyed the game! And sorry you don't start full health, it's not a bug just set it up that way, I didn't want players to die and try again just because they had little amount hp left where they could maybe win if they push through but I realize starting with only 3 isn't fair as well, I'll find someway to address it. Pearls aren't really in this dd, it tracks how many pearls you have but you can't buy anything with them yet, they'll be scattered throughout and you can buy health upgrades etc with it so I should put an indicator somewhere like the menu or something. Text speed could be fixed with the character number thing or just adjusting manually, I realize I read it too fast since I already know what they're saying so I should probably slow it down a good bit. And lastly idk how you got all the maximum spawns that many times in a row, I'll check it out why but either it's your luck or something to do with wine wrapper. Which by the way I was planning to export for linux by now but it's been a little more annoying and busy than I expected so hopefully next time you can play it it will be without wine wrapper since there are few things that look odd like there's no eye on player spawn point but idk if it's affecting the gameplay other than that many maximum monster spawn which could be luck.
In my experience, it was probably my bad luck getting those high spawn numbers. I still think the difference between low and high should be minimal.
Pearls need some info that they are not implemented. Kinda like how you got the little notice before the dragon boss fight.
I think starting at max health should be in the game. You just gotta make the death punishing, so players wouldn't just suicide to recover health - dropping some currency is the usual thing.
I look forward to a possible linux build in future, but I am happy to play test with wine for you since it work ok for the most part.
- Very loud - spiderweb hitbox is larger than it looks - typos... https://i.imgur.com/ym4I94n.png - couldn't even talk with rug guy boss started immediately - tpd to start center of the room after boss - boss hits didn't lower hearts - star hit sfx is super loud/wand hit on ground claws - Can't move hat while it's falling in game over - Hitbox feels inconsistent when entering doors: https://i.imgur.com/fQpgzDp.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/lEM2c6Y.png - Skelly guy in church talks too fast - Skelly boss sorta spawns in your face, feels like it needs a bit of an intro i guess. - bolt sphere spam seems op and expensiveless. - I think it would look nicer if frost giant walked one leg then the other - Dorothy bell in my hands while also in the floor. Text stacking on top of eachother. - Immediately after, the event got reset? - Claws can hit you even while buried? - Is it normal I could get the fish skelly key before fighting it? I think I got hurt though - Moth says to get in summoning circle but that doesn't do anything - I guess you can't trade pearls in the demo - How can you break star spell with the ring (dash)? doesn't seem possible - Doesn't seem I can give life to my acorn bomb with fire - I only found out ESC menu when I was gonna quit so I had no flowers to test the variable object summon based on familiar
Sounds are recently implemented, you can change the volume with 8-9-0 buttons but not in the game menu yet, hopefully next dd it'll be better.
- spiderweb hitbox is larger than it looks
I'll rework it once I make her into an actual boss, it's just a slowing effect so far.
- couldn't even talk with rug guy boss started immediately
Shooter bits are bit janky and only there to test as of now, why you can't really die in them.
- tpd to start center of the room after boss - boss hits didn't lower hearts
Which boss? skeleton one?
- star hit sfx is super loud/wand hit on ground claws
What do you mean by claws? sound effects are mostly stolen from morrowind but not all so they can be bit mismatched.
- Can't move hat while it's falling in game over
You can press down to fall quicker, only moves once you fall all the way down.
- Hitbox feels inconsistent when entering doors:
Someone else also complained about that, I'll change the door sizes once I start making new tiles for dungeons but I'm aware of it.
- Skelly guy in church talks too fast
Textbox stuff is also put in game few days before dd so there's tons of jankiness there.
- Skelly boss sorta spawns in your face, feels like it needs a bit of an intro i guess.
After she gots into the cauldron? I can probably slow it down either how much she waits on the cauldron or right after she jumps in.
- bolt sphere spam seems op and expensiveless.
It is op at the moment, I can drop it down to hitting 1 enemy then disappearing and making double hit a future upgrade but I let it be op for now.
- I think it would look nicer if frost giant walked one leg then the other
I was thinking he'd hop a longer distance instead of walking around but couldn't do it in time before dd so left it like that, but that sounds interesting too so I'll try and see how it works.
- Dorothy bell in my hands while also in the floor. Text stacking on top of eachother.
I know about the text bit but idk why bell spawns twice, I'll check it out.
- Immediately after, the event got reset?
The tree event resets after? Did you had to re enter the room or just reset while standing?
- Claws can hit you even while buried?
Right now they can, I'll change that at some point.
- Is it normal I could get the fish skelly key before fighting it? I think I got hurt though
I'm not sure but I think you could, reward is afterwards you get a faster attack upgrade so if you die to it with the key and skip it entirely you'd have slower attack, nothing gamebreaking.
- Moth says to get in summoning circle but that doesn't do anything
I forgot to fix the dialogue, circle now works when you use your weapon on it.
- I guess you can't trade pearls in the demo
Not yet.
- How can you break star spell with the ring (dash)? doesn't seem possible
Item upgrade isn't in the game yet so you have to upgrade it from the Esc menu, it only works if you didn't die and goes away once you die unless you get the actual items for it(like the moon icon with teleport). You can basically start with all the upgrades if you decide to upgrade from the menu just to see how it works only for the demo basically.
- Doesn't seem I can give life to my acorn bomb with fire
Again only works if you upgrade through the menu before dying, it is functional but doesn't have the item for it yet.
- I only found out ESC menu when I was gonna quit so I had no flowers to test the variable object summon based on familiar
Maybe I should put that on tutorial as well.
Thanks for playing and your feedback, seems like you played a good bit so hope it was fun enough.
> Which boss? skeleton one? No, the snake lady you fight on the rug
> claws The enemy that burrows that can also hit me while burrowed. Just that same sound you're using; even though the game was loud as a whole, that one felt louder than the rest too, but it's fine if temp.
> press down to fall down faster I think the game over screen has charm the first time, but I'm not sure why you wouldn't just allow moving to the sides already while falling and not needing to fall down all the way.
> skelly boss on your face Well I wouldn't worry for now if you plan on making some intro sequence where it moves from the cauldron to the center while the game auto-walks you back to in front of the room door, but yeah.
> op bolt I think it just needs to be more scarce yet still usable in some way. If you make it resource-based I'm not sure why you've got so much of it. General balance thing, I guess.
> event reset I didn't leave; I tried to screencap with ShareX (external program, might've made the window lose focus) while the previous double bell double text bugs were happening. Maybe that caused it?
> upgrade through ESC Oh, even after i found out the menu I didn't realise that was a thing. Also the end text says to hold ESC but you gotta quit with the door.
> played a fair bit Yeah it was pretty fun and I want more :)
Yeah snake is janky and mostly there to show visuals of it all
> Just that same sound you're using; even though the game was loud as a whole, that one felt louder than the rest too, but it's fine if temp.
I'll check the sound on that!
>I think the game over screen has charm the first time, but I'm not sure why you wouldn't just allow moving to the sides already while falling and not needing to fall down all the way.
there's actually no reason, I could just let players float down with the hat whichever direction, it just stayed that way and wasn't a priority to change but I'll do it at some point.
>Well I wouldn't worry for now if you plan on making some intro sequence where it moves from the cauldron to the center while the game auto-walks you back to in front of the room door, but yeah.
I want to keep it sort of a surprise since she gives you the jar and seems nice (throughout the dungeon once I'm done with it), then turns on you unexpectedly which is bit cheap but also something I thought would add character a bit. I'll kinda lenghten her first sequence but I won't make player walk back to safety. There are like 3 times control is taken away from the player and they all basically make player stand still due a spell or because something hit him, I really don't want the character to move without player's input.
> op bolt
I think it just needs to be more scarce yet still usable in some way. If you make it resource-based I'm not sure why you've got so much of it. General balance thing, I guess.
General balance isn't that great at the moment but I do want to give players a bit of an ammo to play around with magic instead of going through thinking it'll be scarce. I probably could balance it better not only with drop rates but also enemies that require magic to kill etc.
> event reset
I didn't leave; I tried to screencap with ShareX (external program, might've made the window lose focus) while the previous double bell double text bugs were happening. Maybe that caused it?
I think I messed it up when introducing textbox, I'll fix it soon enough.
> upgrade through ESC
Oh, even after i found out the menu I didn't realise that was a thing. Also the end text says to hold ESC but you gotta quit with the door.
That's so old I'm surprised I haven't changed it yet, thanks for pointing that one out.
> played a fair bit
Yeah it was pretty fun and I want more :)
This game feels like playing a bizzaro version of Zelda 1 lol. Maybe a bit too much... some of the world map felt identical to Zelda 1's (forest maze to the west, beach area to the north with a dungeon on an island across a bridge etc), it should be changed a bit lest Nintendo sues you lol.
I liked the aesthetics which felt like a children's storybook. The star spell comes out too slowly, I think it should be fast like the boomerang in Zelda. Also the game should pause while you're choosing spells. The NPC dialogue is very bare bones but I assume that will be expanded on. Overall though the game shows promise.
You can hit the star spell with your staff and make it travel faster. I did try to keep some of the beginning areas similar but they aren't exact and map opens up( will open up). Spell change is on the go and without a pause to keep it fast. Npc dialogues aren't final but I want to keep it extremely simple for the most part. Thank you for playing and hope you enjoyed!
The way the ocean on the main menu freezes on two nearly identical frames between waves looks bad. The water needs to recede more and with more frames.
Add a proper options menu instead of just two buttons on the pause menu to change resolution (what exactly does "low resolution" even mean?
Pressing X should close the pause menu.
Only enable vibration when detecting controller inputs, and disable it again on keyboard inputs. Don't make me unplug my controller.
I don't like these shadows originating from the center of each screen. That's not how sunlight works. Why don't the braziers cast shadows?
Fade out the HUD if it overlaps the player.
If a flying enemy drops an item in a non-navigable location, it should be teleported to the nearest navigable location.
Left/right door collision is still wonky.
Are you meant to have to use the lightning spell for the genie boss? That kind of attack doesn't really work when fighting him in melee, and there's no telegraph. What if you run out of crystals? Do you expect the player to go farm some more before letting him retry the boss?
The HUD icon for the ring is too small to be useful. Add a sound and/or particle effect to indicate when it's ready again.
Who's the trickster the water fairy's talking about? Is it the genie? Does she give you the sword just for killing the frogs, or does the dialogue not update?
Fade out/fade in subtitles between lines. It helps a lot with readability and ensures that you can't miss when a new line appears.
The charge attack seems pretty useless.
I managed to keep a charge after letting go of Z, but I couldn't replicate it. I think it happened when I got hit by an enemy.
I don't like how the carpet boss's bullets block yours. I just circled around her the entire just so I could hit her. It doesn't add any challenge; in fact, it undermines any attempts at making the boss challenging, because if the bullet density was high enough that you couldn't dodge them in your sleep, you'd never be able to hit the boss.
Does the carpet that lets you cross lava need to be aligned to the grid? If you're inbetween two tiles (like you'll always be when entering a screen), it spawns too far to the side for you to cross.
Enemies need to move around less. It's really annoying trying to hit an enemy with the long windup when it could instantly change direction at any moment. A lot of the time you end up taking contact damage because the enemy decided to go towards you with no warning.
There's no indication that the ring only works with the star spell other than the description.
The walk back to the volcano dungeon is really fucking annoying.
Stunned enemies shouldn't cause contact damage.
The blue ring projectiles in the room with the laser statue shouldn't be able to spawn right next to you. Sometimes they even spawn inside you and you take damage for seemingly no reason.
I ended up leaving and re-entering certains screens until no enemies spawned rather than bothering fighting them.
Couldn't figure what I was supposed to with the laser statue, and the bottle, candle, and item that lets you push blocks all seem to have vanished, so I had to stop there.
The way the ocean on the main menu freezes on two nearly identical frames between waves looks bad. The water needs to recede more and with more frames.
It could use few more frames.
Add a proper options menu instead of just two buttons on the pause menu to change resolution (what exactly does "low resolution" even mean?
All the menu staff is still not final, but I'm trying to come up with a solution where I can keep it all in one page.
Pressing X should close the pause menu.
I can implement that.
Only enable vibration when detecting controller inputs, and disable it again on keyboard inputs. Don't make me unplug my controller.
It checks keyboard and controller inputs simultaneously atm, I've not been bothering with controller for a long while since for some reason it doesn't work on mac but it is on my list.
I don't like these shadows originating from the center of each screen. That's not how sunlight works. Why don't the braziers cast shadows?
I thought it'd give bit of a dramatic feeling to entire thing.
Fade out the HUD if it overlaps the player.
Maybe I can make it a little transparent if player walks around top left but I didn't think it was that big of an issue, usually there's always a wall there or something.
If a flying enemy drops an item in a non-navigable location, it should be teleported to the nearest navigable location.
I could maybe magnetize them to player but you can pick them up with your weapon as well, unless it's too deep in the walls.
Left/right door collision is still wonky.
Do you mean in dungeons or certain specific room? I don't know what's wonky about them but I remember you or someone else telling me something.
Are you meant to have to use the lightning spell for the genie boss? That kind of attack doesn't really work when fighting him in melee, and there's no telegraph. What if you run out of crystals? Do you expect the player to go farm some more before letting him retry the boss?
Genie boss only takes damage from the eye, you can actually spam attack and win fast. His body doesn't have any collusion.
The HUD icon for the ring is too small to be useful. Add a sound and/or particle effect to indicate when it's ready again.
I thought in the end ring is either up or not, and after a few uses you get the gist of it, little sparkle animation or something could work but maybe could be a bit distracting, sound might be too annoying imo.
Who's the trickster the water fairy's talking about? Is it the genie? Does she give you the sword just for killing the frogs, or does the dialogue not update?
Fade out/fade in subtitles between lines. It helps a lot with readability and ensures that you can't miss when a new line appears.
It's the genie, you get the sword after you defeat it and return back to the pond but I don't think dialogue updates after that. Textbox stuff is all really recent so there are some issues I've overlooked.
The charge attack seems pretty useless.
It attacks in a wider area and sends tiny projectiles that goes through shielded enemies. Although I've been thinking about putting something in the game that lets you upgrade the projectiles into something more convenient like sword beam attack.
I managed to keep a charge after letting go of Z, but I couldn't replicate it. I think it happened when I got hit by an enemy.
I know about that one, I think it happens if an enemy pushes you out of the room.
I don't like how the carpet boss's bullets block yours. I just circled around her the entire just so I could hit her. It doesn't add any challenge; in fact, it undermines any attempts at making the boss challenging, because if the bullet density was high enough that you couldn't dodge them in your sleep, you'd never be able to hit the boss.
The flying bosses are just wip bits I put to show how it's going to look, I should've tried to make it more fun tho. They're just spam button to see how long it takes right now, I do want to implement different type of projectiles and sequences in those fights.
Does the carpet that lets you cross lava need to be aligned to the grid? If you're inbetween two tiles (like you'll always be when entering a screen), it spawns too far to the side for you to cross.
It is on a grid based alignment so for the sake of keeping it consistent it does need to be like that. But there's probably be a better solution I've not thought of yet.
Enemies need to move around less. It's really annoying trying to hit an enemy with the long windup when it could instantly change direction at any moment. A lot of the time you end up taking contact damage because the enemy decided to go towards you with no warning.
I think it becomes easier once you get the swift attack upgrade but I've been thinking of starting with fast attack and using that upgrade for something else since slower attack can feel sluggish when you're just out of reach sometimes.
There's no indication that the ring only works with the star spell other than the description.
Every item works with the same page spell except the crystal and summoning circle, which isn't finalized still.
The walk back to the volcano dungeon is really fucking annoying.
I was hoping finish the flying broom witch carry you to the dungeons of your choice, ofc the ones you've been before but I couldn't finish it in time, but you will be able to fly to those dungeons after you rescue her.
Stunned enemies shouldn't cause contact damage.
I probably can do that. I'll try and see how it works.
The blue ring projectiles in the room with the laser statue shouldn't be able to spawn right next to you. Sometimes they even spawn inside you and you take damage for seemingly no reason.
Those are invisible enemies, they get visible once you dash through the star spell but the item isn't in the game yet and you need to unlock it from the menu before you die. But there are enemies that's shooting the blue rings so you can hit them even if you can't see them.
I ended up leaving and re-entering certains screens until no enemies spawned rather than bothering fighting them.
Yeah enemy spawn rate does fluctuate a lot, I've been meaning to change how it works but I couldn't come up with a nice solution yet.
Couldn't figure what I was supposed to with the laser statue, and the bottle, candle, and item that lets you push blocks all seem to have vanished, so I had to stop there.
If you got the candle you've been using the bottle, once you pass the laser statue with the invisible enemies there's a mini turtle boss that drops upgrade item for you where you can bottle the lightning spell and release it again for teleporting around. Other than that you can capture fairies and heal up and use it for few other side quests in the game. I'm not sure what you mean by item that lets you push blocks, the crystal that creates pushable block? If that it should be still in the game.
Again thank you for playing and letting me know all these issues, I will try to tackle some of those until next dd!
>I could maybe magnetize them to player but you can pick them up with your weapon as well, unless it's too deep in the walls.
It kind of breaks the sense of depth and perspective when an item overlaps the walls.
>Do you mean in dungeons or certain specific room? I don't know what's wonky about them but I remember you or someone else telling me something.
The collision extends too far down. You can't pass through doors all the way down to this height, while the character overlaps all other objects. The trigger zone is also too far in; you have to go almost entirely off-screen before it switches screens.
>Genie boss only takes damage from the eye, you can actually spam attack and win fast. His body doesn't have any collusion.
No, I know about the collision. I'm saying there's no way to avoid his projectiles when you're in melee range, or even any way of knowing when he's going to do it. Also, you probably don't want to encourage or enable DPS racing. What's the point of bosses having mechanics if you can just ignore them and stand in place while mashing Z?
>It attacks in a wider area and sends tiny projectiles that goes through shielded enemies. Although I've been thinking about putting something in the game that lets you upgrade the projectiles into something more convenient like sword beam attack.
Pretty much everything about it needs fixing. The charge time is extremely long; It's just not worth using it when you could do more damage by just attacking normally. A long charge time also encourages a passive hit-and-run playstyle where you wait for it to charge far away from enemies and only get close to hit them once and then back off again. The random spread makes it keep missing; either make the angles fixed or have it home in on enemies. The range is so short and the projectile speed is so slow I'm not sure if I ever managed to actually hit anything with it. The sword hits the enemies before the projectiles and knocks them out of reach.
>Those are invisible enemies, they get visible once you dash through the star spell but the item isn't in the game yet and you need to unlock it from the menu before you die. But there are enemies that's shooting the blue rings so you can hit them even if you can't see them.
That's a bad way of introducing invisible enemies. Put just one or two of them in a room with nothing else to distract you.
Some more things:
The animation before the main menu appears should be skippable.
Just let me pause the goddamn game. Not pausing while the menu is open adds nothing to game.
The pose the character does when picking up an item lasts for slightly too long.
I somehow managed to miss the path to the snow area entirely.
Wouldn't let me give the pearl to the guy in the cave.
You should be able to switch spells while moving. For example, if I'm moving left, I should be able to press Space and up to switch to the star spell while still holding the left arrow key, and then continue moving left.
The page flipping animation should only play once instead of repeatedly flipping to the same page.
The frost giant's contact damage hitbox is too big.
Some areas are too dark. The woods where the cat is are pitch black when playing in daylight.
Sacrificing the fairies to the altar didn't seem to do anything.
You should be able to attack at the end of a dash.
Don't make it seem like the turtle miniboss is taking damage from attacks if he's not actually taking damage.
It's not that obvious when the octopus boss is vulnerable and when he isn't.
About collusions, I'll widen the doors once I draw the new dungeon tilesets, which size wise will be same with starting tower doors. I'll have to remake most of the dungeons but I've been planning to anyways so it might take some time. But there's still going to be a difference in feeling since character collusion mask is taller than it's wider, so even though the doors have 160pixel opening when you walk up or down into them you don't feel it because of the collusion mask.
About the genie boss, I was thinking of making an almost screen wide projectiles in a row attack for the genie to teach that you can dash through them with the ring, and putting some sort of indicator then, but most of the bosses are just looping sprites atm and they need few more frames of chargeup animation or something to indicate an attack.
>It attacks in a wider area and sends tiny projectiles that goes through shielded enemies. Although I've been thinking about putting something in the game that lets you upgrade the projectiles into something more convenient like sword beam attack.
Pretty much everything about it needs fixing. The charge time is extremely long; It's just not worth using it when you could do more damage by just attacking normally. A long charge time also encourages a passive hit-and-run playstyle where you wait for it to charge far away from enemies and only get close to hit them once and then back off again. The random spread makes it keep missing; either make the angles fixed or have it home in on enemies. The range is so short and the projectile speed is so slow I'm not sure if I ever managed to actually hit anything with it. The sword hits the enemies before the projectiles and knocks them out of reach.
About the chargeup weapon, it was passively charging before this demo and I didn't get to try it all that much, I thought charge timing was ok with it being not too fast and with possible sword beam upgrade it'd be powerful enough. I'll try around with timing and maybe even double damage after you charged it enough, I tried the double damage before the demo but thought it was too powerful but maybe if the chargeup feels slow double damage would work.
I agree with you on the invisible enemies, like I said dungeons are bit of a sketch for me right now like I'll introduce this enemy before that room and so, I'm kinda putting them on another time since there's bunch of tilesets need to be drawn but it's starting to catch up I guess.
The animation before the main menu appears should be skippable.
I don't understand what you mean by that? Do you mean the walking and looking at the moon animation?
Just let me pause the goddamn game. Not pausing while the menu is open adds nothing to game.
I'll think about it but I don't think pause adds all that much, especially when a lot of rooms are just safe spaces where you can walk and wait.
The pose the character does when picking up an item lasts for slightly too long.
I can tone that down
I somehow managed to miss the path to the snow area entirely.
Wouldn't let me give the pearl to the guy in the cave.
I didn't add the pearl items yet, I understand the confusion since he mentions it.
You should be able to switch spells while moving. For example, if I'm moving left, I should be able to press Space and up to switch to the star spell while still holding the left arrow key, and then continue moving left.
The page flipping animation should only play once instead of repeatedly flipping to the same page.
I kinda have some idea how to implement that but I'm going to try to redo bits of how you change your spell anyways, instead of using spacebar you'll use x or k +direction keys and when you release it after a bit you'll cast the spell like the charged attack, so I can maybe change it while doing that. Same with page flipping animation so possibly next dd or so there's going to be some changes with those.
The frost giant's contact damage hitbox is too big.
I know didn't test it enough, that whole dungeon is 2 rooms so they're basically boss sketches atm and wanted to show it since demoday to get some feedback instead of keeping it hidden. I'm going to rework bits of those bosses at some point.
Some areas are too dark. The woods where the cat is are pitch black when playing in daylight.
I do like the contrast between dark and light areas but I've gotten similar comments before so maybe I can tone it down a bit, but I personally don't mind how they are atm.
Sacrificing the fairies to the alter didn't seem to do anything.
Someone else said the same thing, I thought it was working ok but there's some sort of issue with it, I'll try to fix it.
You should be able to attack at the end of a dash.
I don't understand exactly, like a fast attack right after a dash? because I thought you can attack after a dash, also dashing does a little damage as well.
Don't make it seem like the turtle miniboss is taking damage from attacks if he's not actually taking damage.
It is taking damage but it'd take a bit until it's dead, maybe I can just make it block everything except the bomb, but I like you can defeat some enemies with just hitting them as well.
It's not that obvious when the octopus boss is vulnerable and when he isn't.
When he's being shadowy you can't hit him, I guess it could look bit vague so I'll check it out.
Again thanks for playing, I hope you saved the cat and gotten the candle after you got the jar. One of the reasons I didn't want to make charge attack a long range thing because you can hit the candle flame for ranged attack, although it collides with walls unlike lightning orb. Thanks for your feedback, it's very valuable!
>I don't understand what you mean by that? Do you mean the walking and looking at the moon animation?
Yes.
>I don't understand exactly, like a fast attack right after a dash? because I thought you can attack after a dash, also dashing does a little damage as well.
I mean pressing Z during a dash to attack while keeping some momentum from the dash. It's just something you'd expect would happen and would make the game feel more responsive. I never would have assumed the dash did damage since the character doesn't hold his weapon out during it.
It's a great-looking game. Nice blend of some Fantasia with middle eastern aesthetics. Here's what I haven't liked so far.
Space to select spells and then using them with another button is clunky. If you don't want to have too many buttons, why not just have the book selection be what casts the spell? There's enough keys to make that work.
Map zones that are nothing but plain enemies on an open area with no additional design to it are no good. Zelda 1 usually has some twist that makes each screen different in how you tackle them, and even then the limited diagonal movement is a huge part of why it works there with minimal environment props, since you cannot so easily run circles around enemies and their projectiles.
This game is at its best when it leans on the magic theme rather than Zelda pastiche. Items, enemies and maps taken straight from Zelda just leave me with a feeling that I have played this before.
The level design is much more linear than Zelda 1, but there's no cohesive world design like you see in later games in that franchise. It's a bit like the worst of both of these worlds at the moment.
Dialogue has some jank. Sometimes it seems to fly by randomly, not sure what's going on there. I am playing with sound off if that matters.
The flying sections are too long. They could work as spectacle at the end of a real boss or something, but their gameplay in itself is not good. For whatever reason, the one with the dragon controls slippery.
I'm glad you like the designs. I understand page selecting can feel a bit odd at first but it's basically a wheel inventory with 4 directions and makes things a lot faster after playing a bit. Using spell cast button to change does sound interesting tho so I will try and see how it'd work.
World design and maps aren't final but I see what you mean since you can maneuver better and start more equipped than link, except for the few last things that aren't done yet mechanics are kinda recently finalized that I can actually tackle world and screen design more in tune with the movement speed attack directions and whatnot.
I recently put the text box stuff together so some npcs don't even have those but the ones who do if they're moving around in scripted event they're talking on timer, game doesn't pause after each line for you to press a button to continue because of that. And the npcs that stay still show the text once you're close enough.
Flying bits are definitely not final, they're basically spectacle like you said, planning to scatter them around to break the regular gameplay and I'm planning to add a few more. Dragon controls slippery on purpose since there's going to be a strong wind visual effect to indicate you're flying with resistance and you're gonna have to avoid more stuff.
Thanks for playing it and leaving feedback, I really appreciate it, definitely will try the x/k for spell changing.
As a fellow WizardLike dev, I felt compelled to give this a go. I liked it!
Things I liked:
The art, especially the title screen. Except for the main character, weirdly enough... But generally I like the style a lot,
The evil witch is wearing skimpy clothes, I approve.
directional staff swinging. Feels good to hit an enemy on an angle!
The interplay of the staff and spells in general- when you first hit the star with the staff and launch it, it's a great little moment of 'oh, I can do that?', and incorporating it into your fighting style afterwards is fun. I hope there's a lot more like this in the game!
The general wizardly vibe is pretty good, too. Although- if you have all your spells from the start, and are mainly finding items with which you utilize them more effectively, aren't you really multiclassing into rogue? Interesting...
Things I didn't like:
There are a lot of people on this island. I know there's the explanation that they were all sent here by the witch, but the first one who says that is off to the top-left... Fewer NPCs, more dialogue per NPC?
There's lag between pressing to move and the character actually moving. I suppose they might be accelerating to full speed? But with the way it's tuned now, it doesn't feel good- it feels slightly sluggish. If I quickly tap 'left' in succession, the character doesn't move at all, even though it definitely feel like he should!
The current controls are a bit clunky in general. WASD/JKL is fine, but selecting spells is a pain. I imagine you directional spell selection would work well on a gamepad, and that's why you've chosen it, but for keyboard couldn't you add bindings to let me press 1/2/3/4 to pick the spells?
The enemies are a bit mechanically samey despite looking different... generally I'd rather fight 1-4 enemies that are actually smart and have different mechanical behaviours/moves rather than a room full of dumb enemies that move and shoot at random. I feel like there's an opportunity to tie the enemies and environment in with the magic some more, too.. I like the tortoise enemies in principle, but then I'd hit them from the south while they were facing west and feel like I should be hitting underneath their shell. Not sure how to solve that one.
The cliff walls look good when they're only 1 tile high, but for me the 2+ tile high cliff walls looked unnatural due to the seam between them at each 'height-level'.
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I realize there's a lot of negative in the list, but I do like the game! I suppose it 'feels' like an actual game more than a lot of the things I've seen this DD, so I'm judging it as if I'd downloaded it off steam, hah. I really want to see this made as good as it can be, though, so I've tried to give honest feedback.
Looking forward to playing this some more, and when it's updated/done!
I try to keep the art consistent, title screen is new, hoping to change it very little when I implement the save/load system with that. And I'm a big fan of naga/skimpy evil witch archetype so I'm glad you liked her design. Weapon always interacts with spells except for the summoning circle until you get a familiar. Having spells unlocked from the start works the best imo since there's still a progress with items and upgrades that make you combine same page items with spells like lightning and jar combines and makes you teleport etc. Also he's still an apprentice so he can be a bit of a rogue even after I scrubbed the sneaking in hat thought.
There are a lot of people on this island. I know there's the explanation that they were all sent here by the witch, but the first one who says that is off to the top-left... Fewer NPCs, more dialogue per NPC?
Story isn't fully set yet and I'm aware that I'm not telling whatever story I have in mind with clarity. But some of the npc's are the actual inhabitants of the island, only 4 of the npcs are sent by the witch. There's a town to the west that you can access after you clear the tomb dungeon, although town bit is very barebones right now.
There's lag between pressing to move and the character actually moving. I suppose they might be accelerating to full speed? But with the way it's tuned now, it doesn't feel good- it feels slightly sluggish. If I quickly tap 'left' in succession, the character doesn't move at all, even though it definitely feel like he should!
The current controls are a bit clunky in general. WASD/JKL is fine, but selecting spells is a pain. I imagine you directional spell selection would work well on a gamepad, and that's why you've chosen it, but for keyboard couldn't you add bindings to let me press 1/2/3/4 to pick the spells?
That lag is for player to be able to change directions and attack quickly, otherwise it's more frustrating to walk into enemies jut because you wanted to attack in one direction, but I agree walking around and changing spells feels better with gamepad stick.
The enemies are a bit mechanically samey despite looking different... generally I'd rather fight 1-4 enemies that are actually smart and have different mechanical behaviours/moves rather than a room full of dumb enemies that move and shoot at random. I feel like there's an opportunity to tie the enemies and environment in with the magic some more, too.. I like the tortoise enemies in principle, but then I'd hit them from the south while they were facing west and feel like I should be hitting underneath their shell. Not sure how to solve that one.
There are few more enemies and some enemies can follow you around mechanically although I know it's not that easy to tell. With shielding enemies stun from the star spell makes them keep their direction so you can walk around and attack their openings. With tortoise one you avoid the fake eyes so either hit the head or the butt from same direction, also they're weak to magic. With animated armor enemy aligning your hit is easier since they only block from front although they walk faster and more erratic also can follow you around and take less damage from magic. But yeah I'm trying to make them more varied, the one's that are varied so far could be just too slow to notice if you're clearing them up fast enough.
The cliff walls look good when they're only 1 tile high, but for me the 2+ tile high cliff walls looked unnatural due to the seam between them at each 'height-level'.
I had few ideas about tiles and how walls could kinda merge but not working on it since it's not an urgency right now. And I personally don't mind how it looks but I understand exactly what you mean by unnatural looking height and I do want to adjust it some day. But I also do want to keep that weird zelda fake perspective of the walls.
I realize there's a lot of negative in the list, but I do like the game! I suppose it 'feels' like an actual game more than a lot of the things I've seen this DD, so I'm judging it as if I'd downloaded it off steam, hah. I really want to see this made as good as it can be, though, so I've tried to give honest feedback.
Title screen and diagonal attacks and possibly few other things you liked in the game are there because people didn't like how the game was before those were in and told me about it, so I think it's really good you don't filter it. Hope you enjoyed the game and thanks for your feedback.
Comments
I recorded playing games with commentary, and your game is one of them.
Here's the link to the whole DD50 folder:
https://mega.nz/folder/GclCXISL#gwE9S1kRTbe6amYLH2RiYA
Skelly girl no!!!
Glad you enjoyed the game! And sorry you don't start full health, it's not a bug just set it up that way, I didn't want players to die and try again just because they had little amount hp left where they could maybe win if they push through but I realize starting with only 3 isn't fair as well, I'll find someway to address it. Pearls aren't really in this dd, it tracks how many pearls you have but you can't buy anything with them yet, they'll be scattered throughout and you can buy health upgrades etc with it so I should put an indicator somewhere like the menu or something. Text speed could be fixed with the character number thing or just adjusting manually, I realize I read it too fast since I already know what they're saying so I should probably slow it down a good bit. And lastly idk how you got all the maximum spawns that many times in a row, I'll check it out why but either it's your luck or something to do with wine wrapper. Which by the way I was planning to export for linux by now but it's been a little more annoying and busy than I expected so hopefully next time you can play it it will be without wine wrapper since there are few things that look odd like there's no eye on player spawn point but idk if it's affecting the gameplay other than that many maximum monster spawn which could be luck.
Thanks for the video, it's really great feedback!
In my experience, it was probably my bad luck getting those high spawn numbers. I still think the difference between low and high should be minimal.
Pearls need some info that they are not implemented. Kinda like how you got the little notice before the dragon boss fight.
I think starting at max health should be in the game. You just gotta make the death punishing, so players wouldn't just suicide to recover health - dropping some currency is the usual thing.
I look forward to a possible linux build in future, but I am happy to play test with wine for you since it work ok for the most part.
Skelly girl is cute, please redeem
Lovely game, here's some debugging feedback:
- Very loud
- spiderweb hitbox is larger than it looks
- typos... https://i.imgur.com/ym4I94n.png
- couldn't even talk with rug guy boss started immediately
- tpd to start center of the room after boss - boss hits didn't lower hearts
- star hit sfx is super loud/wand hit on ground claws
- Can't move hat while it's falling in game over
- Hitbox feels inconsistent when entering doors: https://i.imgur.com/fQpgzDp.png https://i.imgur.com/lEM2c6Y.png
- Skelly guy in church talks too fast
- Skelly boss sorta spawns in your face, feels like it needs a bit of an intro i guess.
- bolt sphere spam seems op and expensiveless.
- I think it would look nicer if frost giant walked one leg then the other
- Dorothy bell in my hands while also in the floor. Text stacking on top of eachother.
- Immediately after, the event got reset?
- Claws can hit you even while buried?
- Is it normal I could get the fish skelly key before fighting it? I think I got hurt though
- Moth says to get in summoning circle but that doesn't do anything
- I guess you can't trade pearls in the demo
- How can you break star spell with the ring (dash)? doesn't seem possible
- Doesn't seem I can give life to my acorn bomb with fire
- I only found out ESC menu when I was gonna quit so I had no flowers to test the variable object summon based on familiar
Overall it's really nice and i want more :)
Thanks for the feedback!
- Very loud
Sounds are recently implemented, you can change the volume with 8-9-0 buttons but not in the game menu yet, hopefully next dd it'll be better.
- spiderweb hitbox is larger than it looks
I'll rework it once I make her into an actual boss, it's just a slowing effect so far.
- couldn't even talk with rug guy boss started immediately
Shooter bits are bit janky and only there to test as of now, why you can't really die in them.
- tpd to start center of the room after boss - boss hits didn't lower hearts
Which boss? skeleton one?
- star hit sfx is super loud/wand hit on ground claws
What do you mean by claws? sound effects are mostly stolen from morrowind but not all so they can be bit mismatched.
- Can't move hat while it's falling in game over
You can press down to fall quicker, only moves once you fall all the way down.
- Hitbox feels inconsistent when entering doors:
Someone else also complained about that, I'll change the door sizes once I start making new tiles for dungeons but I'm aware of it.
- Skelly guy in church talks too fast
Textbox stuff is also put in game few days before dd so there's tons of jankiness there.
- Skelly boss sorta spawns in your face, feels like it needs a bit of an intro i guess.
After she gots into the cauldron? I can probably slow it down either how much she waits on the cauldron or right after she jumps in.
- bolt sphere spam seems op and expensiveless.
It is op at the moment, I can drop it down to hitting 1 enemy then disappearing and making double hit a future upgrade but I let it be op for now.
- I think it would look nicer if frost giant walked one leg then the other
I was thinking he'd hop a longer distance instead of walking around but couldn't do it in time before dd so left it like that, but that sounds interesting too so I'll try and see how it works.
- Dorothy bell in my hands while also in the floor. Text stacking on top of eachother.
I know about the text bit but idk why bell spawns twice, I'll check it out.
- Immediately after, the event got reset?
The tree event resets after? Did you had to re enter the room or just reset while standing?
- Claws can hit you even while buried?
Right now they can, I'll change that at some point.
- Is it normal I could get the fish skelly key before fighting it? I think I got hurt though
I'm not sure but I think you could, reward is afterwards you get a faster attack upgrade so if you die to it with the key and skip it entirely you'd have slower attack, nothing gamebreaking.
- Moth says to get in summoning circle but that doesn't do anything
I forgot to fix the dialogue, circle now works when you use your weapon on it.
- I guess you can't trade pearls in the demo
Not yet.
- How can you break star spell with the ring (dash)? doesn't seem possible
Item upgrade isn't in the game yet so you have to upgrade it from the Esc menu, it only works if you didn't die and goes away once you die unless you get the actual items for it(like the moon icon with teleport). You can basically start with all the upgrades if you decide to upgrade from the menu just to see how it works only for the demo basically.
- Doesn't seem I can give life to my acorn bomb with fire
Again only works if you upgrade through the menu before dying, it is functional but doesn't have the item for it yet.
- I only found out ESC menu when I was gonna quit so I had no flowers to test the variable object summon based on familiar
Maybe I should put that on tutorial as well.
Thanks for playing and your feedback, seems like you played a good bit so hope it was fun enough.
> Which boss? skeleton one?
No, the snake lady you fight on the rug
> claws
The enemy that burrows that can also hit me while burrowed. Just that same sound you're using; even though the game was loud as a whole, that one felt louder than the rest too, but it's fine if temp.
> press down to fall down faster
I think the game over screen has charm the first time, but I'm not sure why you wouldn't just allow moving to the sides already while falling and not needing to fall down all the way.
> skelly boss on your face
Well I wouldn't worry for now if you plan on making some intro sequence where it moves from the cauldron to the center while the game auto-walks you back to in front of the room door, but yeah.
> op bolt
I think it just needs to be more scarce yet still usable in some way. If you make it resource-based I'm not sure why you've got so much of it. General balance thing, I guess.
> event reset
I didn't leave; I tried to screencap with ShareX (external program, might've made the window lose focus) while the previous double bell double text bugs were happening. Maybe that caused it?
> upgrade through ESC
Oh, even after i found out the menu I didn't realise that was a thing. Also the end text says to hold ESC but you gotta quit with the door.
> played a fair bit
Yeah it was pretty fun and I want more :)
> No, the snake lady you fight on the rug
Yeah snake is janky and mostly there to show visuals of it all
> Just that same sound you're using; even though the game was loud as a whole, that one felt louder than the rest too, but it's fine if temp.
I'll check the sound on that!
>I think the game over screen has charm the first time, but I'm not sure why you wouldn't just allow moving to the sides already while falling and not needing to fall down all the way.
there's actually no reason, I could just let players float down with the hat whichever direction, it just stayed that way and wasn't a priority to change but I'll do it at some point.
>Well I wouldn't worry for now if you plan on making some intro sequence where it moves from the cauldron to the center while the game auto-walks you back to in front of the room door, but yeah.
I want to keep it sort of a surprise since she gives you the jar and seems nice (throughout the dungeon once I'm done with it), then turns on you unexpectedly which is bit cheap but also something I thought would add character a bit. I'll kinda lenghten her first sequence but I won't make player walk back to safety. There are like 3 times control is taken away from the player and they all basically make player stand still due a spell or because something hit him, I really don't want the character to move without player's input.
> op bolt I think it just needs to be more scarce yet still usable in some way. If you make it resource-based I'm not sure why you've got so much of it. General balance thing, I guess.
General balance isn't that great at the moment but I do want to give players a bit of an ammo to play around with magic instead of going through thinking it'll be scarce. I probably could balance it better not only with drop rates but also enemies that require magic to kill etc.
> event reset I didn't leave; I tried to screencap with ShareX (external program, might've made the window lose focus) while the previous double bell double text bugs were happening. Maybe that caused it?
I think I messed it up when introducing textbox, I'll fix it soon enough.
> upgrade through ESC Oh, even after i found out the menu I didn't realise that was a thing. Also the end text says to hold ESC but you gotta quit with the door.
That's so old I'm surprised I haven't changed it yet, thanks for pointing that one out.
> played a fair bit Yeah it was pretty fun and I want more :)
It's coming, thanks for playing!
This game feels like playing a bizzaro version of Zelda 1 lol. Maybe a bit too much... some of the world map felt identical to Zelda 1's (forest maze to the west, beach area to the north with a dungeon on an island across a bridge etc), it should be changed a bit lest Nintendo sues you lol.
I liked the aesthetics which felt like a children's storybook. The star spell comes out too slowly, I think it should be fast like the boomerang in Zelda. Also the game should pause while you're choosing spells. The NPC dialogue is very bare bones but I assume that will be expanded on. Overall though the game shows promise.
You can hit the star spell with your staff and make it travel faster. I did try to keep some of the beginning areas similar but they aren't exact and map opens up( will open up). Spell change is on the go and without a pause to keep it fast. Npc dialogues aren't final but I want to keep it extremely simple for the most part. Thank you for playing and hope you enjoyed!
Couldn't figure what I was supposed to with the laser statue, and the bottle, candle, and item that lets you push blocks all seem to have vanished, so I had to stop there.
Thanks for playing the game.
It could use few more frames.
All the menu staff is still not final, but I'm trying to come up with a solution where I can keep it all in one page.
I can implement that.
It checks keyboard and controller inputs simultaneously atm, I've not been bothering with controller for a long while since for some reason it doesn't work on mac but it is on my list.
I thought it'd give bit of a dramatic feeling to entire thing.
Maybe I can make it a little transparent if player walks around top left but I didn't think it was that big of an issue, usually there's always a wall there or something.
I could maybe magnetize them to player but you can pick them up with your weapon as well, unless it's too deep in the walls.
Do you mean in dungeons or certain specific room? I don't know what's wonky about them but I remember you or someone else telling me something.
Genie boss only takes damage from the eye, you can actually spam attack and win fast. His body doesn't have any collusion.
I thought in the end ring is either up or not, and after a few uses you get the gist of it, little sparkle animation or something could work but maybe could be a bit distracting, sound might be too annoying imo.
It's the genie, you get the sword after you defeat it and return back to the pond but I don't think dialogue updates after that. Textbox stuff is all really recent so there are some issues I've overlooked.
It attacks in a wider area and sends tiny projectiles that goes through shielded enemies. Although I've been thinking about putting something in the game that lets you upgrade the projectiles into something more convenient like sword beam attack.
I know about that one, I think it happens if an enemy pushes you out of the room.
The flying bosses are just wip bits I put to show how it's going to look, I should've tried to make it more fun tho. They're just spam button to see how long it takes right now, I do want to implement different type of projectiles and sequences in those fights.
It is on a grid based alignment so for the sake of keeping it consistent it does need to be like that. But there's probably be a better solution I've not thought of yet.
I think it becomes easier once you get the swift attack upgrade but I've been thinking of starting with fast attack and using that upgrade for something else since slower attack can feel sluggish when you're just out of reach sometimes.
Every item works with the same page spell except the crystal and summoning circle, which isn't finalized still.
I was hoping finish the flying broom witch carry you to the dungeons of your choice, ofc the ones you've been before but I couldn't finish it in time, but you will be able to fly to those dungeons after you rescue her.
I probably can do that. I'll try and see how it works.
Those are invisible enemies, they get visible once you dash through the star spell but the item isn't in the game yet and you need to unlock it from the menu before you die. But there are enemies that's shooting the blue rings so you can hit them even if you can't see them.
Yeah enemy spawn rate does fluctuate a lot, I've been meaning to change how it works but I couldn't come up with a nice solution yet.
If you got the candle you've been using the bottle, once you pass the laser statue with the invisible enemies there's a mini turtle boss that drops upgrade item for you where you can bottle the lightning spell and release it again for teleporting around. Other than that you can capture fairies and heal up and use it for few other side quests in the game. I'm not sure what you mean by item that lets you push blocks, the crystal that creates pushable block? If that it should be still in the game.
Again thank you for playing and letting me know all these issues, I will try to tackle some of those until next dd!
>I could maybe magnetize them to player but you can pick them up with your weapon as well, unless it's too deep in the walls.
It kind of breaks the sense of depth and perspective when an item overlaps the walls.
>Do you mean in dungeons or certain specific room? I don't know what's wonky about them but I remember you or someone else telling me something.
The collision extends too far down. You can't pass through doors all the way down to this height, while the character overlaps all other objects. The trigger zone is also too far in; you have to go almost entirely off-screen before it switches screens.
>Genie boss only takes damage from the eye, you can actually spam attack and win fast. His body doesn't have any collusion.
No, I know about the collision. I'm saying there's no way to avoid his projectiles when you're in melee range, or even any way of knowing when he's going to do it. Also, you probably don't want to encourage or enable DPS racing. What's the point of bosses having mechanics if you can just ignore them and stand in place while mashing Z?
>It attacks in a wider area and sends tiny projectiles that goes through shielded enemies. Although I've been thinking about putting something in the game that lets you upgrade the projectiles into something more convenient like sword beam attack.
Pretty much everything about it needs fixing. The charge time is extremely long; It's just not worth using it when you could do more damage by just attacking normally. A long charge time also encourages a passive hit-and-run playstyle where you wait for it to charge far away from enemies and only get close to hit them once and then back off again. The random spread makes it keep missing; either make the angles fixed or have it home in on enemies. The range is so short and the projectile speed is so slow I'm not sure if I ever managed to actually hit anything with it. The sword hits the enemies before the projectiles and knocks them out of reach.
>Those are invisible enemies, they get visible once you dash through the star spell but the item isn't in the game yet and you need to unlock it from the menu before you die. But there are enemies that's shooting the blue rings so you can hit them even if you can't see them.
That's a bad way of introducing invisible enemies. Put just one or two of them in a room with nothing else to distract you.
Some more things:
I somehow managed to miss the path to the snow area entirely.
About collusions, I'll widen the doors once I draw the new dungeon tilesets, which size wise will be same with starting tower doors. I'll have to remake most of the dungeons but I've been planning to anyways so it might take some time. But there's still going to be a difference in feeling since character collusion mask is taller than it's wider, so even though the doors have 160pixel opening when you walk up or down into them you don't feel it because of the collusion mask.
About the genie boss, I was thinking of making an almost screen wide projectiles in a row attack for the genie to teach that you can dash through them with the ring, and putting some sort of indicator then, but most of the bosses are just looping sprites atm and they need few more frames of chargeup animation or something to indicate an attack.
>It attacks in a wider area and sends tiny projectiles that goes through shielded enemies. Although I've been thinking about putting something in the game that lets you upgrade the projectiles into something more convenient like sword beam attack.
Pretty much everything about it needs fixing. The charge time is extremely long; It's just not worth using it when you could do more damage by just attacking normally. A long charge time also encourages a passive hit-and-run playstyle where you wait for it to charge far away from enemies and only get close to hit them once and then back off again. The random spread makes it keep missing; either make the angles fixed or have it home in on enemies. The range is so short and the projectile speed is so slow I'm not sure if I ever managed to actually hit anything with it. The sword hits the enemies before the projectiles and knocks them out of reach.
About the chargeup weapon, it was passively charging before this demo and I didn't get to try it all that much, I thought charge timing was ok with it being not too fast and with possible sword beam upgrade it'd be powerful enough. I'll try around with timing and maybe even double damage after you charged it enough, I tried the double damage before the demo but thought it was too powerful but maybe if the chargeup feels slow double damage would work.
I agree with you on the invisible enemies, like I said dungeons are bit of a sketch for me right now like I'll introduce this enemy before that room and so, I'm kinda putting them on another time since there's bunch of tilesets need to be drawn but it's starting to catch up I guess.
I don't understand what you mean by that? Do you mean the walking and looking at the moon animation?
I'll think about it but I don't think pause adds all that much, especially when a lot of rooms are just safe spaces where you can walk and wait.
I can tone that down
I somehow managed to miss the path to the snow area entirely.
I didn't add the pearl items yet, I understand the confusion since he mentions it.
I kinda have some idea how to implement that but I'm going to try to redo bits of how you change your spell anyways, instead of using spacebar you'll use x or k +direction keys and when you release it after a bit you'll cast the spell like the charged attack, so I can maybe change it while doing that. Same with page flipping animation so possibly next dd or so there's going to be some changes with those.
I know didn't test it enough, that whole dungeon is 2 rooms so they're basically boss sketches atm and wanted to show it since demoday to get some feedback instead of keeping it hidden. I'm going to rework bits of those bosses at some point.
I do like the contrast between dark and light areas but I've gotten similar comments before so maybe I can tone it down a bit, but I personally don't mind how they are atm.
Someone else said the same thing, I thought it was working ok but there's some sort of issue with it, I'll try to fix it.
I don't understand exactly, like a fast attack right after a dash? because I thought you can attack after a dash, also dashing does a little damage as well.
It is taking damage but it'd take a bit until it's dead, maybe I can just make it block everything except the bomb, but I like you can defeat some enemies with just hitting them as well.
When he's being shadowy you can't hit him, I guess it could look bit vague so I'll check it out.
Again thanks for playing, I hope you saved the cat and gotten the candle after you got the jar. One of the reasons I didn't want to make charge attack a long range thing because you can hit the candle flame for ranged attack, although it collides with walls unlike lightning orb. Thanks for your feedback, it's very valuable!
>I don't understand what you mean by that? Do you mean the walking and looking at the moon animation?
Yes.
>I don't understand exactly, like a fast attack right after a dash? because I thought you can attack after a dash, also dashing does a little damage as well.
I mean pressing Z during a dash to attack while keeping some momentum from the dash. It's just something you'd expect would happen and would make the game feel more responsive. I never would have assumed the dash did damage since the character doesn't hold his weapon out during it.
It's a great-looking game. Nice blend of some Fantasia with middle eastern aesthetics. Here's what I haven't liked so far.
Space to select spells and then using them with another button is clunky. If you don't want to have too many buttons, why not just have the book selection be what casts the spell? There's enough keys to make that work.
Map zones that are nothing but plain enemies on an open area with no additional design to it are no good. Zelda 1 usually has some twist that makes each screen different in how you tackle them, and even then the limited diagonal movement is a huge part of why it works there with minimal environment props, since you cannot so easily run circles around enemies and their projectiles.
This game is at its best when it leans on the magic theme rather than Zelda pastiche. Items, enemies and maps taken straight from Zelda just leave me with a feeling that I have played this before.
The level design is much more linear than Zelda 1, but there's no cohesive world design like you see in later games in that franchise. It's a bit like the worst of both of these worlds at the moment.
Dialogue has some jank. Sometimes it seems to fly by randomly, not sure what's going on there. I am playing with sound off if that matters.
The flying sections are too long. They could work as spectacle at the end of a real boss or something, but their gameplay in itself is not good. For whatever reason, the one with the dragon controls slippery.
I'm glad you like the designs. I understand page selecting can feel a bit odd at first but it's basically a wheel inventory with 4 directions and makes things a lot faster after playing a bit. Using spell cast button to change does sound interesting tho so I will try and see how it'd work.
World design and maps aren't final but I see what you mean since you can maneuver better and start more equipped than link, except for the few last things that aren't done yet mechanics are kinda recently finalized that I can actually tackle world and screen design more in tune with the movement speed attack directions and whatnot.
I recently put the text box stuff together so some npcs don't even have those but the ones who do if they're moving around in scripted event they're talking on timer, game doesn't pause after each line for you to press a button to continue because of that. And the npcs that stay still show the text once you're close enough.
Flying bits are definitely not final, they're basically spectacle like you said, planning to scatter them around to break the regular gameplay and I'm planning to add a few more. Dragon controls slippery on purpose since there's going to be a strong wind visual effect to indicate you're flying with resistance and you're gonna have to avoid more stuff.
Thanks for playing it and leaving feedback, I really appreciate it, definitely will try the x/k for spell changing.
As a fellow WizardLike dev, I felt compelled to give this a go. I liked it!
Things I liked:
The art, especially the title screen. Except for the main character, weirdly enough... But generally I like the style a lot,
The evil witch is wearing skimpy clothes, I approve.
directional staff swinging. Feels good to hit an enemy on an angle!
The interplay of the staff and spells in general- when you first hit the star with the staff and launch it, it's a great little moment of 'oh, I can do that?', and incorporating it into your fighting style afterwards is fun. I hope there's a lot more like this in the game!
The general wizardly vibe is pretty good, too. Although- if you have all your spells from the start, and are mainly finding items with which you utilize them more effectively, aren't you really multiclassing into rogue? Interesting...
Things I didn't like:
There are a lot of people on this island. I know there's the explanation that they were all sent here by the witch, but the first one who says that is off to the top-left... Fewer NPCs, more dialogue per NPC?
There's lag between pressing to move and the character actually moving. I suppose they might be accelerating to full speed? But with the way it's tuned now, it doesn't feel good- it feels slightly sluggish. If I quickly tap 'left' in succession, the character doesn't move at all, even though it definitely feel like he should!
The current controls are a bit clunky in general. WASD/JKL is fine, but selecting spells is a pain. I imagine you directional spell selection would work well on a gamepad, and that's why you've chosen it, but for keyboard couldn't you add bindings to let me press 1/2/3/4 to pick the spells?
The enemies are a bit mechanically samey despite looking different... generally I'd rather fight 1-4 enemies that are actually smart and have different mechanical behaviours/moves rather than a room full of dumb enemies that move and shoot at random. I feel like there's an opportunity to tie the enemies and environment in with the magic some more, too.. I like the tortoise enemies in principle, but then I'd hit them from the south while they were facing west and feel like I should be hitting underneath their shell. Not sure how to solve that one.
The cliff walls look good when they're only 1 tile high, but for me the 2+ tile high cliff walls looked unnatural due to the seam between them at each 'height-level'.
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I realize there's a lot of negative in the list, but I do like the game! I suppose it 'feels' like an actual game more than a lot of the things I've seen this DD, so I'm judging it as if I'd downloaded it off steam, hah. I really want to see this made as good as it can be, though, so I've tried to give honest feedback.
Looking forward to playing this some more, and when it's updated/done!
Thanks for playing it!
I try to keep the art consistent, title screen is new, hoping to change it very little when I implement the save/load system with that. And I'm a big fan of naga/skimpy evil witch archetype so I'm glad you liked her design. Weapon always interacts with spells except for the summoning circle until you get a familiar. Having spells unlocked from the start works the best imo since there's still a progress with items and upgrades that make you combine same page items with spells like lightning and jar combines and makes you teleport etc. Also he's still an apprentice so he can be a bit of a rogue even after I scrubbed the sneaking in hat thought.
There are a lot of people on this island. I know there's the explanation that they were all sent here by the witch, but the first one who says that is off to the top-left... Fewer NPCs, more dialogue per NPC?
Story isn't fully set yet and I'm aware that I'm not telling whatever story I have in mind with clarity. But some of the npc's are the actual inhabitants of the island, only 4 of the npcs are sent by the witch. There's a town to the west that you can access after you clear the tomb dungeon, although town bit is very barebones right now.
There's lag between pressing to move and the character actually moving. I suppose they might be accelerating to full speed? But with the way it's tuned now, it doesn't feel good- it feels slightly sluggish. If I quickly tap 'left' in succession, the character doesn't move at all, even though it definitely feel like he should!
The current controls are a bit clunky in general. WASD/JKL is fine, but selecting spells is a pain. I imagine you directional spell selection would work well on a gamepad, and that's why you've chosen it, but for keyboard couldn't you add bindings to let me press 1/2/3/4 to pick the spells?
That lag is for player to be able to change directions and attack quickly, otherwise it's more frustrating to walk into enemies jut because you wanted to attack in one direction, but I agree walking around and changing spells feels better with gamepad stick.
The enemies are a bit mechanically samey despite looking different... generally I'd rather fight 1-4 enemies that are actually smart and have different mechanical behaviours/moves rather than a room full of dumb enemies that move and shoot at random. I feel like there's an opportunity to tie the enemies and environment in with the magic some more, too.. I like the tortoise enemies in principle, but then I'd hit them from the south while they were facing west and feel like I should be hitting underneath their shell. Not sure how to solve that one.
There are few more enemies and some enemies can follow you around mechanically although I know it's not that easy to tell. With shielding enemies stun from the star spell makes them keep their direction so you can walk around and attack their openings. With tortoise one you avoid the fake eyes so either hit the head or the butt from same direction, also they're weak to magic. With animated armor enemy aligning your hit is easier since they only block from front although they walk faster and more erratic also can follow you around and take less damage from magic. But yeah I'm trying to make them more varied, the one's that are varied so far could be just too slow to notice if you're clearing them up fast enough.
The cliff walls look good when they're only 1 tile high, but for me the 2+ tile high cliff walls looked unnatural due to the seam between them at each 'height-level'.
I had few ideas about tiles and how walls could kinda merge but not working on it since it's not an urgency right now. And I personally don't mind how it looks but I understand exactly what you mean by unnatural looking height and I do want to adjust it some day. But I also do want to keep that weird zelda fake perspective of the walls.
I realize there's a lot of negative in the list, but I do like the game! I suppose it 'feels' like an actual game more than a lot of the things I've seen this DD, so I'm judging it as if I'd downloaded it off steam, hah. I really want to see this made as good as it can be, though, so I've tried to give honest feedback.
Title screen and diagonal attacks and possibly few other things you liked in the game are there because people didn't like how the game was before those were in and told me about it, so I think it's really good you don't filter it. Hope you enjoyed the game and thanks for your feedback.