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Game's Take on the Theme
Our hero is in a tailspin as the Fates themselves have spun the thread of his life into a right mess. Use your spin attack to daze enemies and turn them from friend to foe as you look to fight your way out of this downward spiral.
Did your team make the majority of the art and music during the jam?
Yes, all music we made, and the majority of art
If not, please link to any asset packs or resources used here.
[The following assets were used as plug-ins, or templates for re-drawing assets in my own style]...............(Circle Healthbar Plug-In) https://marketplace.gamemaker.io/assets/5369/circular-bars-for-gms2 ..........(Fullscreen HTML Switching) Plug-In https://github.com/plufmot/GMS2-HTML-FULLSCREEN ..........(Deer Sprite) https://lapizwcg.itch.io/the-minifolks-forest-animals-deer-doe-free-32x32-mod-by-lapizwcg ..........(Wolf Sprite) https://finalbossblues.itch.io/wolf-pack ..........(Spinning Star Gif) https://opengameart.org/content/spinning-stars-iso ..........(Color Palatte) https://lospec.com/palette-list/ancientheritage30 ..........(Ship Sprite) https://helianthus-games.itch.io/pixel-art-viking-ship-16-directions ..........(Parrot Sprite) https://sr-studios-kerala.itch.io/parrot-2d-demo-animated-spritesheet ..........(Ancient Greek Font) https://www.dafont.com/font-comment.php?file=ancient_geek ..........(Tornado Animation) Cartoon Coffee free vfx pack
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Comments
really fun and challenging game. it took me a second to figure out, also I really liked the art style and animations!
(If you're willing to I'd love it If you give me some feedback on my game! I'd love to see where I can improve for the future! :D )
I like the art style, its simple and effective, also tutorial helps a lot to understand how to play, well made all, the game mechanics are cool, I would advice just add a frame to walking animation but is good as is. I rate graphics, control and fun on top, but all is cool, also, if you have some time, please, rate my game too, thanks!!!
I love how you incorporated mythology into this jam! The boss designs were really neat. As what others have mentioned, the first boss did get pretty chaotic but overall, I enjoyed what you had here. Nice work!
that game was interesting. I liked it though, if you want, you can rate me back!
Game has some interesting vibes, which art style and music are creating and I kinda liked it.
I managed to beat the game and here is some feedback:
- It felt like character was moving too fast, so it was a bit hard to control it precisely, but maybe it is just me;
- First boss becomes a bit too extreme in the end in terms of spawning stuff;
- Second boss has cool new mechanics, but instead of increasing difficulty along the fight, like the first boss; they decreasing it. I mean like medusa heads are not parriable at the beginning, but in the end they are and you basically can just parry everything and boss quickly dies. Perhaps it should've been vice versa?
Thank you for playing our game, and I really appreciate the detailed feedback!! The first boss does get a bit too chaotic at the end lol, I struggled to find a good balance, and at one point nerfed it to the point of boredom, so probably had the final difficulty a bit too high. And the second boss didn't get nearly as much love as the first due to time constraints. I didn't spend any time balancing the attacks really, just wanted to get something playable for Medusa, but I think you're dead on about the difficulty curve for that one. Allowing the player to parry the snake heads in the beginning but not the end is a great idea and one I would implement if putting more time/energy into the game. Thanks again!
Hey what a cute game you got there with unique spin mechanics! I felt like i was fighting nature! Congrats on submission, and good luck!
I rated and submitted to return the favor of your rate submission of my game below!
- If others read this, RATE/REVIEW my game to get me to try yours as well! Thanks!
Thanks for playing!
I really like the concept of a boss fight from a defensive perspective—the balance you worked on feels great. I was pleasantly surprised by how you incorporated mythology into the background narrative and atmosphere, it's very original! Overall, it's a very enjoyable gaming experience. Great job!
Thank you for playing and the kind words, I very much appreciate it!! Glad you liked the mythology stuff! It offered a great framework for a boss rush; take a deity to represent a circle of hell and then build a fight out from there with attacks based on the already existing lore. Thanks again!
Did the kid came from the wool?
Fun and quick control.
I think you will also like my duck game. Come and check it out when you have time.
Yes the player is supposed to be "spun" from the thread of the Fates in the intro cutscene. Thank you for playing my game! I'll give yours a look now.
i like animal games so you ve hit a spot here, would be cool to see more of your own art though xD the jump kinda didnt feel very satisfying. besides that performance was good in browser. i loved the amounts of mechanics for the boss fights. thx for sharing!
Thanks for playing and the feedback! The vast majority of the art I made by hand during the jam. The backgrounds, player, bosses, menus, fates animations, boss intros are all completely my own drawings. The harpy enemy I hand made using a free parrot animation for a template. The only assets I didn't create were the wolf and deer enemy sprites (which I altered quite a bit), the spinning stars, and the anger symbol in the player opening cutscene (edit: and the tornado from Cartoon Coffee's pack which I also changed a fair bit). Not sure what gave you that impression.
Glad to hear you liked some parts of the boss fight and thanks again for playing!
It's always intriguing to see a boss rush game with an entirely defensive playstyle. It's a real rarity and really helps your game stand out. There's a lot of hidden depth and decision making here, from timing the spins just right without holding to conserve your energy, choosing which obstacles to avoid and which to hit back, it's pretty interesting and when the screen gets proper cluttered and overwhelming the game gets pretty tense
damn thank you so much for the comments, I really appreciate you noticing some of the depth of gameplay. I tried pretty hard to consider the risk/reward balance of the gameplay mechanics and its awesome to see you list them out. Thank you for playing!!!
I like the opening animation that you use. Very artistic and interesting. I wanted to see more of that style used in your game!
Thank you!! Very nice to hear that, I worked quite a bit on it. There is a similar style animation for the death sequence and victory screen if you get there. Thank you for playing!
My ass walking in thinking I'm a genius knowing the first boss was going to a panther, only for cernunnos to come out.
Pretty hard to win, as someone with little coordination I couldn't make it. But at least it's quite snappy to start over, so I tried about five more times after giving up, due to it just being that easy to restart.
Loved the songs, for how easy it is to restart, I really want to stay forever in the game over screen, and the second phase of cernunnos also sounds really good (only heard it for a few seconds though, might not even have hit the best part). Releasing these tracks on the side is a must, be it on streaming or just a pack along with the game.
Thanks for giving the game a chance and your thoughtful feedback!! Lol @ the panther thing, maybe he has the spirit of one inside him. And I hear you on the difficulty, its tough to find a balance after playing it so often. I made the fight quite a bit easier at one point but felt as though the game lost all it's magic and that it would be better to increase the difficulty back up. Very happy to hear you liked the music, the composer I worked with kicked ass and I will pass your kind words on to him. If you press 2 while in a battle you can skip to the second boss Medusa and listen to her track as well if you're interested. Thanks again for playing, appreciate you :)
edit: and glad to hear you liked the death animation I spent wayyy too long on it hahaha
Nice take on the Divine Comedy! I had far more difficulty on the first boss than the second because when he was close to dying there was too much attacks going at me in different intervals, it was hard to dodge. The Medusa was easier because there was only two attacks to worry about. For her I would add a laser attack as well, like she is trying to petrify you or maybe be her last attack after depleting her health bar and you have to spin to reflect the laser and petrify her, it would be a nice touch. Like others said, a different animation with the fates after defeating her would indicate that was a victory instead of defeat. Nice job!
Thank you for the kind words and valuable feedback, much appreciated! The first boss I spent 3 weeks on and the last boss was less than a week so that is why Medusa has so few attack patterns lol. The first boss gets super chaotic at the end and is probably a bit too punishing, it was tricky to find the right balance of difficulty, especially after replaying it some many times during development. The petrifying laser idea is a great one, would have been a nice bit of lore to add to her character and spinning her signature petrifying gaze back onto her to finish the fight would have been pretty neat. And yeah, I wanted the victory animation to show the character saving themselves from the death animation but I clearly did not present that well haha, disabling the restart for that scene would have fixed the issue I think. Thanks again!!
The theme didn't really stick for me, but I enjoyed playing it, and all the animations with the fates looked really cool. If you don't mind me giving some recommendations, some of the hitboxes for medusa felt a bit large, and I'd recommend having a sort of you win quote for her as well, or at least disable restarting once she's dead, because I beat her a couple times without even realizing it because I restarted as soon as I saw the fates assuming I had died.
Thanks for playing and the feedback!! Nice to hear you liked the fate animations, I spent wayyy too long on them lol. You're absolutely right about Medusa, that whole fight is super scuffed, I didn't really spend anytime balancing that fight and just wanted to get it in the game before the deadline xD. And you're the second person with the end cutscene issue, I definitely should have disabled restarting there.
As far as the theme, it is definitely a bit of an abstract interpretation. I used the definition of spin as "to draw out and twist fiber into yarn or thread" in the fate cutscenes with the main character, and the definition of "to plunge helplessly and out of control" as the lore of Dante falling through the circles of hell. But I can see that being a bit of a reach hahah. The main character's spin attack and the confused star animation on enemies were the more concrete theme applications.
Good showing, my dude(s)! The graphics are messy, but in an honestly pretty charming way, lol. Bouncing back color-coded enemies is a good gameplay catch. First boss gets SUPER hectic, could maybe have toned down a little bit of the sheer amount of stuff happening, hahaha. Also, I was getting annoyed to "dying for no reason" on Medusa, but... it was actually the ending screen, I just wasn't watching far enough to notice, hahaha.
Thank you!! Glad you found some charm in my un-artistic art :) Yeah, the first boss gets a bit chaotic lmao, and the Medusa boss didn't get enough love with balancing. The ending screen seems to be an issue for others too, that's my bad, I wanted to have the victory animation start as the death one and then switch halfway through, but I really should have disabled restarting during that time. Appreciate you playing and the feedback!