Really great take on the souls-like boss format, and really well-executed for the timeframe. Nice work!
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Total Party Kill's itch.io pageResults
Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
BOSS DESIGN | #60 | 3.429 | 3.429 |
FUN | #84 | 3.250 | 3.250 |
ART / VISUALS | #87 | 3.643 | 3.643 |
SOUNDS / MUSIC | #104 | 3.214 | 3.214 |
Overall | #109 | 3.149 | 3.149 |
CONTROLS | #135 | 2.929 | 2.929 |
USE OF THEME | #197 | 2.429 | 2.429 |
Ranked from 28 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Game's take on the theme
In Total Party Kill, you exchange the power of your attacks with the agility of your character. Throw and pick up weapons to shift to the right balance during the heat of battle.
Did your team create the vast majority of art and music during the game jam?
No, we used assets that we have rights to.
Did your game use PlusMusic?
No
Did your game use Playroom?
No
Comments
Really loved the character models in this game. The mechanics of this game took a while to learn but once I did it was a lot of fun. Great submission and good luck!
I liked this game, it is really grew on me after the full playthrough.
At first I rushed through the first boss with not much of a problem and stuck for a while on the second, the eternal fireballs that can be broke only by dashing INTO them and little backward walk after the cast's (I tried to punish her after the earthshock and falling attacks, but range of the weapons and lock in the attack really messed me up) where the real pain in the ass at first, but after the couple of tries I made it. The knight looked impossible or rather just not fun at first couple of tries, so I quit the game.
But then I checked description and found out about tossing mechanic, so I gave it a spin. On the second playthrough I demolished the first and second bosses and after 3 tries beat the last, with throwable swords and second dash it was engaging and even fun! The main issues with the game were the attack animations that soooo slow and lock you on the specific attack direction and the bare handed state in which you can't do anything sadly(I rly wish I could just be Hoarah Loux WAAAARRIOOOOR!!!).
Cutscenes were a nice touch, cool game!
Okay, i have played i think about 20 games in this jam and this is by far the one which frustrated me the most. First off, being forced to play a game like this in windowed mode was annoying but that's ok people can make mistakes. You could have uploaded a downloadable file too though but anyway. Keep that in mind for future jams.
The presantation and visuals of the game looks very promising. You really nailed to capture the atmosphere of Dark Souls visually.
Gameplay: This is where things get messy. The first boss is the type of boss i hate the most in Soulsborne games. It's big and slow but it's accompanied by minions to compensate for the low speed.( Fucking Voracious Spider Rom from Bloodborne. It took me an hour to kill it. ) His jump attack has a very high AoE radius which makes it extremely difficult evade. When you get close to hit, you want to dodge away from it's attack but you can't because the attack animation is too damn slow and it doesn't allow you to dodge in mid attack animation. Not only attack animation, hurt and knockdown animations are too slow as well and to make matters worst you take damage during those animations too. Yes there is staggering animation in Soulsbourne games but those animations aren't this long and you can at least roll dodge during it happens. Anyway i managed to kill the first boss, it wasn't too much difficult. Comparing to the second boss, it was a peace of cake. Second boss is where i rage quit the game. Okay this is boss hurls at you guided fireballs, like every sorcerer boss from Soulsborne games. The difference is, in Soulborne games those guided magic missiles get destroyed after a while. In this boss fight, there's no way to avoid them. You sprint and get near the boss, you get hit by at least one fireball, hurt animation triggers, by the time the animation ends it gets away from you. Then you get close to it again, it does the ground pounding attack which you cannot avoid as well. The only window you can hit it is the time it teleports itself and you can't even give quarter damage to it by then. When it teleports, same shit all over again. Of course you die before it because it has much more health than you. This is not a difficult boss, this is bad design
Other issues i notices about the game is that there is stamina bar i think but that bar is always filled at the same level and never changes. I think you wanted to implement a stamina system to the game but run out of time before adding it. Throwing your sword is pointless. It gives too little damage and you need to pick up your sword where you threw it and it doesn't make you faster or anything with one sword. In the second boss, the sorcerer goes through the wall sometimes and gets stuck there. Also if you make a Soulslike game and made it this difficult, you should have at least added the estus flask mechanic as well.
These are my general opinions and feedback on your game. This could have been a fantastic soulslike game if it not for the issues i mentioned above. But there is no loss here, you gained very valuble experience as everybody else who participated in this jam, me included. I appreciate the hardwork and time spent to create something. I wish you good luck in your future projects.
Man I really enjoyed this game! Felt like a souls game without being overbearingly difficult! The red sorceress was by faaaaar the hardest boss and the knight was weirdly the easiest and the cutscenes were a nice touch connecting each area.
Honestly a fun game to play! Good job!
Haha glad you enjoyed! Definitely could have done some better balancing next time - will keep in mind! Have interestingly found some folks have a really easy time with the 2nd boss, and a really hard time with the 3rd, or the complete opposite like yourself, and not usually a lot of people in the middle haha. Glad you enjoyed the cutscenes :)
I felt stunned each time i attacked and throwing my blades felt kind of useless. the wizard was by far the hardest boss. the last one was rather useless since he was as stunned in his attacks as me while his aim was worse than mine lol
i liked the visuals and with a better gameflow it would be a nice little game. but the slow attack makes it a bit hard to enjoy. still good entry!
It's a good game, just would have prefered in-game tutorial and melee attack felt slow. At the end I would prefer to throw my weapons run, pick them and repeat. Still I really like the cutscenes and the boss design.
Nice souls-like game. I really liked the main menu, specially the control screen with both keyboard and controller. I enjoyed the bosses, they were really ditinct from each other and entertaining. Overall, the character did feel a bit slow, mostly because you how animations completely lock you in position and direction. Still, nice game with a pretty cool, sort of creepy atmosphere, great job!
Game was really fun, got Clevius down but couldn't get past our fried-egg-casting friend. For a souls-like I think is important that you can change the direction of the attacks every each hit. It felt a bit monster-hunter where once you start the combo you cannot face any other direcitons. It works for MH because the bosses are very, very slow and gigantic. Not the case here. Overall I had a pretty fun fight against Clevius but Margara was too tough because she is faster than I could ever be. But there is so much potential in this game. I liked throwing the swords and how it changes your moveset. Pretty fun stuff and nice addition. Artwise it looks cool and I loved the music.
Making a soulslike for a gamejam is crazy ambitious, I’m impressed!
It felt like the basic attack’s windup was a little too long. The most common frustration I had while fighting bosses 2 and 3 were that I’d wind up for an attack, and as it came out the boss would sort of effortlessly step backwards away from it. I think if the basic attack came out a little bit faster it could improve the gamefeel a ton. Either that, or some more forward momentum/range for the attack to make it harder to whiff enemies.
I really liked the way the theme was incorporated. Getting an extra dodge in exchange for throwing a sword was really cool. I kind of wish the basic attack was similarly sped up when only holding 1 sword, but it still felt a little slow and low-range despite the damage loss of missing a sword.
I liked the second boss’s attack pattern a lot. I liked the variety between dodging through projectiles, sidestepping the fissure, and spacing the jump attack.
The art is fantastic. I love this art style. The textures match the soulslike vibe perfectly and the models for the bosses and player are really great. Same with the music. Nice job!
This game is really well made. The overall atmosphere of the game is really well though out. The animations are fabulous and the sound effects are great. This game is really fun. Good Job.
Really fantastic character animations and great sound design! I do like the Dark Souls-esque combat, but I found the dodge/roll to be not as responsive as I would like, especially if I tried to execute it right after an attack. But if you can iterate on the character feel a bit more, this will be a top-tier piece of work!
Cool game! Lots of good chunky sounds and I really feel the hits. Combat pacing was interesting, I started trying to play by spamming attacks and got punished hard for it, realized I needed to play much slower and wait for my moment to attack. Well done on that, my only issue was the minions seemed to then spawn faster than I could deal with them. Cool game though! Thanks for making this.
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