This was a very polished game with a great art direction and cool way of using spinning as a way of deflecting colors. The first boss was straight forward and was really fun to fight, the second one however felt needlessly drawn out, I knocked his head off three times and he still went back inside and started swinging even faster, that didn't feel as great, despite that I think this is game really fun and I would love to see it being expanded upon! Good job.
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Spiral Counter's itch.io pageGame's Take on the Theme
You spin to attack and parry, and all of the bosses attacks' spin and can be parried by spinning in the same direction.
Did your team make the majority of the art and music during the jam?
Art and music yes, some sound effects are from pixabay and others I made myself
Comments
I loved this so much. As soon as I saw that lil guy I knew I had to beat this game to get him to safety. Each boss was completely unique with its own take on spin. Each was a mini puzzle to solve and on easy at least was super approachable. I stayed up later then I should have to make sure that lil dino got to safety. Story was lite but the atmosphere did so much to further it. HOW DARE THEY CHAIN UP THAT LIL GUY! I hope to see you get some more views soon! A perfect game jam game in my opinion!
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Battle TopsI really liked the game, the graphics and animations are awesome, especially the dinosaur and the slime in armor.
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Spin Boss ShootFinally managed to beat it, this first post itself showed my fundamental misunderstanding of your game.
I was never meant to go on the attack, the slime you can fight just by staying still and hitting it when it approaches, the golem is wait and dodge. The wizard I feel is a different game, since it is asking for my multitasking ability of watching for hazards while remembering the colors that flashed a few seconds ago (I don't think this is very fun, to be honest. When there's six of them I felt I was just gambling on a 50/50 rather than properly engaging with the games mechanics. The incoming attack and the portal it came from being purple and the attack being homing really is "you either remember that or you get hit," which is overly favorable to the boss, considering its his only attack. In a way, reminds me of malenia's sword dance)
Other than that, I'd like to ask, the core nature of the game is being passive. Slime and golem alike, you're on the offensive only when they're down (and the golem arguably makes you choose whether to focus on attacking and take a risk on being hit by beyblade head due to a poor timing, or time your attacking with the beyblade to deal a little less damage but taking none too). I think there are few games that make you so passive mechanically, as players mostly want to be active when gaming. Was this dichotomy intentional, you really wanted to make the sit on the passive role since it's a thing you don't do much (teaching patience is a virtuous job), or was it incidental as you designed the core concepts of the game?
It was something I became aware of and leaned into, but it wasn't my intent to make a passive game. I mostly just wanted to come up with a unique and interesting game mechanic, and maybe action games not usually being very passive led me to designing a more passive style of gameplay for better or worse. Some of my inspirations include Skyward Sword and Ocarina of Time, which have some pretty passive fights that require patience and observation, so that was definitely a factor. And while it wasn't as big of an inspiration for this, I'm a big fan of Sekiro, which requires the player to be extremely observant and reactive of the enemies attacks, and often encourages you to wait for the enemy to approach. Idk, maybe I'm just a sucker for more mechanically passive games, and that just happened to bleed into my design philosophy.
Though it was never really my intention for the player to not have to move for so much of the game. The wizard initially didn't have the hazards, and you could beat the entire fight standing still which I found a little underwhelming, so I added the hazards to force the player to think about them and either move around them or try to parry them (though in retrospect I may have overtuned the difficulty of that fight and overestimated a new player's ability to memorize a sequence while avoiding another attack)
Anyways thanks for your feedback, and for returning to beat it. You bring up some really interesting points and got me thinking on the nature of games being more active or passive mechanically.
Ooh, hearing your inspirations a lot of it clicks together. Very interesting to hear all of this, I'm glad I asked.
It is a niche to be explored, and if you like it, it probably is a zone you should venture in your journey. I'll certainly be curious to see how you continue evolving in this philosophy, as it is one difficult to balance, and hard to sell to players used to blowing up 500 things on the screen every second. As opposed to crazy action or stillness, finding what is the balance for a serene action game.
This game is very fun and I loved the art style especially.
The little dinosaur character was very cute and the bosses were very charming. The mechanic of swapping between the left and right click depending on color was also very fun. I did experience a couple of hiccups every time a projectile fired for the first time, even on the windows build, but otherwise no other performance issues.
I loved the first boss especially, partially because there was a frantic energy as they kept getting faster as I hit them.
I wish there was more to do in the second boss boss a little bit. Even before I figured out the unscrewing of the head of the boss, I was just sitting in the middle of map waiting for his next attack for most of the time.
And just to round it off the third boss was fun too. I liked the simon says-esque mechanic while simultaniously dodging the tornados/ parrying the tornados.
Art was very cute. Music and sound was similarly good.
Great game!
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S.P.I.N BotThe game is really fun and the attacks are realllyyy satisfying. A really good game, everyone should try.
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Clean DeckI like your implementation of spinning and how you design bosses around it, especially the unscrewing the golem's head mechanic. The art direction is nice as well.
Its probably because of the browser build, but I often encounter freeze frames awhn get hit. I also encountered a bug when I returned to the first boss after dying, the previous fight was not reset.
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Roll BotThanks! :)
And yeah the browser build is not the most stable. If you don't mind me asking, when you say the previous fight was not reset, do you mean that you had to fight the slime again when you respawned, that the golem was still active when you took the elevator back up, or that you expected you'd need to fight the slime again?
Fantastic graphics! I was a little frustrated that I had to wait for the golem to swing, but it had super interesting mechanics - and the little change in the animation fooled me more times than I'd like to admit. Very polished game.
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Vic's Body ShopI absolutely loved your game! very cute and engaging! Its super fun and intuitive. Congratulations!!
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Cosmic RogueGreat game concept I love it! My favorite boss was the second one, it really uses the concept of spinning in both directions!
My favorite game so far!
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Spinning GearsWow, this one is really great!
I will start by saying that I am writing this as I didn't beat any bosses, because of a few glicthes (I think it may be a browser issue), for example the little slimes being still alive in their last phase before dying, and softlocking you in a nonexistent boss animation, and the boss glitching into the ground after splitting and going outside the map.
The gameplay loop is really fun, and the mechanic of the rotation very well implemented. The color/rotation matching mechanics almost evolves into a rythm game sometimes, and this I enjoy very much. The controls are smooth and responsive, and each swing feels impactful and satisfying. The art is great and very cute!
I could see this game evolving further in the future! Its mechanics are simple and easy to learn, but to use it fully it needs timing and skill!
Will probably play it again to see if I can beat all bosses on the desktop version!
Edit: reached the second boss, parrying the sword slashes is really cool! Tho I think this becomes as simple as standing near the boss, waiting for it to attack, and attacking with the correct color. I also noticed something the second time I fought him, it seemed immortal (I hit him for 5 minutes but it didn't go into phase 2).
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Revolverse CCG - The Core FightersThanks! I'm glad you liked it despite the issues you ran into. If you don't mind me asking about the second boss being unkillable, was his head not unscrewing when you parried him? If you could get him to the damage phase, were your hits registering but he just wouldn't die or were your hits just not registering at all? By phase 2 do you mean when his head unscrews and he falls down or when he starts dropping bombs? It's not a bug I've ever run into so any details help
No problem!
When I first fought him it worked fine, his head unscrewed after some hits (as for phase 2 I mean when his head unscrews), then it killed me as soon as it started spinning around (skill issue on my part lol). When I got to fight him again, his head appeared like it was unscrewing, but then after some hits it would reset and the cycle would repeat. Additional context: I was still playing the browser build.
Hope this can be useful information!
Fun game. I really liked the art direction and how impactful everything feels. Main issue I'm having is probably because of playing on browser, but it feels like the hit boxes are not really generous. Like it feels better to run from the first boss or stand still instead of moving towards it because of the hit boxes. The second boss is fun. I liked the parry mechanic.
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FoxSouls 2Its pretty fun!! the mechanics are really good and i love how impactful my attacks are, the only problem i got is the first boss bugging, he keep going out of bound, but overall its really good!
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SOULBOUND HARBINGER
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