I played for quite a bit but might have gotten filtered by the difficulty, as I did not find everything. The game is beautiful and has a great variety of enemies, but is for sure hard. The low health is fine, but unforgiving. It wasn't clear until I grinded for 15 blue coins and bought yellow fruit that my max health was where the little white line is, rather than the entirety of the hp bar, a strange choice as far as ui is concerned. I also didn't realize what filling up the xp bar did until I read a comment here, but I did grind the first left screen a bunch for coin and xp to see what would happen. It's an interesting non-linear game and it has clearly taken great inspiration from games in the genre, so I commend you for that.
Adore the art, the music kick ass, a delight to play.
This seems like a fairly early demo, and I had a lot of trouble telling what was a fully implemented system and what was not. I'm not sure if filling the XP meter does anything for example?
I love the unique jump handling. It's committal, but with a small degree of freedom.
If I were to offer a significant piece of feedback, I think anything you can interact with by hitting down should be highlighted / have a prompt appear. It took me a while to figure out how to get in houses.
The game is BRUTAL! But I love it. I think you're going for La Mulana, and it blends that quality with early video game silliness wonderfully. Love the dialogue, love the art direction, love the animation and sound design.
I played for a while, exploring to the best of my ability. I pretty much only found spike balls and shurikens, a lot of seemingly dead ends, and the tank head boss fight guy. That boss whooped my ass for like 20 minutes straight but I did eventually beat him.
I might play more, I think I remember there being something I could afford with the upgraded wallet in the skeleton cave? And I never figured out how to survive the big drop into the acid pit below the knight either. I think the ultimate takeaway is that I was engaged enough to get that far, because your game is really hard.
Thanks for playing! Glad to see that someone was able to make good progress.
Not having indicators for interactive objects was a design choice. There’s a lot in the game to learn through experimentation, and showing everything that’s interactable might make players more narrow-minded and make secrets too obvious. (That’s why the elder gives the katana, you can’t progress without first learning the basics.)
The XP bar is very basic, all it does is heal the player completely when it's full, there will be no leveling up system in the game. La-Mulana (and its predecessors, like Maze of Galious) were big inspirations, from visuals to gameplay, so some mechanics, such as the XP system and jump, were borrowed from them. The game also tries to follow the MSX-1 graphical limitations, just like the original version of La-Mulana. The idea is to create a similar game but more focused on non-linear exploration and replayability.
You can't survive the acid pit in this demo, the map is still very WIP so there are a lot of missing parts. But you were almost finished with the content of this demo, there is another boss to kill and a small snippet of the grasslands area. Did you manage to find the secret health upgrade at the beginning?
No I did not, and I just returned to the game briefly today, only to discover I have triggered a tiny military invasion. This game is badass. Every discovery puts a smile on my face. Keep up the good work
This really feels like one of those hard-core platformer games. That being said, I kinda hate having to go into the room with the Elder Ninja to get a katana every run. And was Muscle Ninja suggesting that I f*ck the walls???
You can save the game by interacting with the gravestone, it starts flashing after you get the katana. Muscle Ninja's dialogue has some innuendo as a joke, but it could mean anything
I like the premise, alien color palette and enviromental puzzles (?), it reminded me somewhat La Mulana. Still, even on easy the game isn't easy. I found the secret, gave the yellow fruit to the primitive man, found two fruits in the wild and managed to kill the red swordman, but he's tough!
I'm not a fan of the limited air control while jumping. It's awkward, especially when dealing with the white square puzzle. Hidden room with husk - he offers me a spikeball for 35 coins, and I managed to scrape 9 at most. Leveling up heals you but doesn't increase your health meter - I'm kinda disappointed with it. Also it feels like every new screen can kill you with new and creative ways. Laser puzzle is tough - please put a save point before it? Going all the way from the starting point to there or to the red castle is really draining my will.
Overall good attempt, but ease up with the difficulty!
The difficulty has been an issue for almost everyone, i'm going to improve the map's navigability before making more balance changes, adding more shortcuts and less annoying rooms.
I'm reluctant to change the jump, it's a core part of the game, everything is designed around it. The white block puzzle is supposed to be a place to learn how to control the jump better, the npc gives hints about this. But I understand that the text may not be entirely clear.
Comments
I played for quite a bit but might have gotten filtered by the difficulty, as I did not find everything. The game is beautiful and has a great variety of enemies, but is for sure hard. The low health is fine, but unforgiving. It wasn't clear until I grinded for 15 blue coins and bought yellow fruit that my max health was where the little white line is, rather than the entirety of the hp bar, a strange choice as far as ui is concerned. I also didn't realize what filling up the xp bar did until I read a comment here, but I did grind the first left screen a bunch for coin and xp to see what would happen. It's an interesting non-linear game and it has clearly taken great inspiration from games in the genre, so I commend you for that.
Adore the art, the music kick ass, a delight to play.
This seems like a fairly early demo, and I had a lot of trouble telling what was a fully implemented system and what was not. I'm not sure if filling the XP meter does anything for example?
I love the unique jump handling. It's committal, but with a small degree of freedom.
If I were to offer a significant piece of feedback, I think anything you can interact with by hitting down should be highlighted / have a prompt appear. It took me a while to figure out how to get in houses.
The game is BRUTAL! But I love it. I think you're going for La Mulana, and it blends that quality with early video game silliness wonderfully. Love the dialogue, love the art direction, love the animation and sound design.
I played for a while, exploring to the best of my ability. I pretty much only found spike balls and shurikens, a lot of seemingly dead ends, and the tank head boss fight guy. That boss whooped my ass for like 20 minutes straight but I did eventually beat him.
I might play more, I think I remember there being something I could afford with the upgraded wallet in the skeleton cave? And I never figured out how to survive the big drop into the acid pit below the knight either. I think the ultimate takeaway is that I was engaged enough to get that far, because your game is really hard.
Thanks for playing! Glad to see that someone was able to make good progress.
Not having indicators for interactive objects was a design choice. There’s a lot in the game to learn through experimentation, and showing everything that’s interactable might make players more narrow-minded and make secrets too obvious. (That’s why the elder gives the katana, you can’t progress without first learning the basics.)
The XP bar is very basic, all it does is heal the player completely when it's full, there will be no leveling up system in the game. La-Mulana (and its predecessors, like Maze of Galious) were big inspirations, from visuals to gameplay, so some mechanics, such as the XP system and jump, were borrowed from them. The game also tries to follow the MSX-1 graphical limitations, just like the original version of La-Mulana. The idea is to create a similar game but more focused on non-linear exploration and replayability.
You can't survive the acid pit in this demo, the map is still very WIP so there are a lot of missing parts. But you were almost finished with the content of this demo, there is another boss to kill and a small snippet of the grasslands area. Did you manage to find the secret health upgrade at the beginning?
No I did not, and I just returned to the game briefly today, only to discover I have triggered a tiny military invasion. This game is badass. Every discovery puts a smile on my face. Keep up the good work
This really feels like one of those hard-core platformer games. That being said, I kinda hate having to go into the room with the Elder Ninja to get a katana every run. And was Muscle Ninja suggesting that I f*ck the walls???
You can save the game by interacting with the gravestone, it starts flashing after you get the katana. Muscle Ninja's dialogue has some innuendo as a joke, but it could mean anything
very nice art and i like the music, i think the running jump feels good but the vertical jump feels a little to ridged
I like the premise, alien color palette and enviromental puzzles (?), it reminded me somewhat La Mulana. Still, even on easy the game isn't easy. I found the secret, gave the yellow fruit to the primitive man, found two fruits in the wild and managed to kill the red swordman, but he's tough!
I'm not a fan of the limited air control while jumping. It's awkward, especially when dealing with the white square puzzle. Hidden room with husk - he offers me a spikeball for 35 coins, and I managed to scrape 9 at most. Leveling up heals you but doesn't increase your health meter - I'm kinda disappointed with it. Also it feels like every new screen can kill you with new and creative ways. Laser puzzle is tough - please put a save point before it? Going all the way from the starting point to there or to the red castle is really draining my will.
Overall good attempt, but ease up with the difficulty!
Thanks for playing!
The difficulty has been an issue for almost everyone, i'm going to improve the map's navigability before making more balance changes, adding more shortcuts and less annoying rooms.
I'm reluctant to change the jump, it's a core part of the game, everything is designed around it. The white block puzzle is supposed to be a place to learn how to control the jump better, the npc gives hints about this. But I understand that the text may not be entirely clear.
Cool graphics and art style. I really don't play platformers so my more than casual ass got kicked pretty hard.