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Timeless Tower's itch.io pageGame's Take on the Theme
A Timeless Clock Tower, with spin mechanics
Did your team make the majority of the art and music during the jam?
Yes, all the art
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Comments
Amazing art style, loved it. As others already commented, the first boss phase was beatable using the melee weapon's "dash attack", but the second I couldn't finish, yet. Thanks for adding a sensitivity control in the settings xD
In my first playthrough I just couldn't find the character and after realizing where he was, it was too late haha. Maybe a camera zooming out from character to the full scenario would be a nice detail adding to your game. Great job!
The art style is absolutely amazing! It has a strong mechanical and retro feel, and the use of geometric symbols adds a sense of religiosity. I mainly avoided the boss by using the recoil from switching weapons, but unfortunately, I couldn't defeat the second phase of the boss.
Also, it would be even better with music!
Second artist here, thanks for the compliments! It means a lot. The part about the symbols is not there just fordecoration, but we didn't had much time, so we chose to put the lore aside, and the music, we didnt put it on time.
Thanks for the feedback!
I wasn’t able to defeat the second phase, but I still had a lot of fun! 🌻🖤
Neat game, I kept dying a lot because I didn't understand how you could dodge the boss because the jump is to small, then I understood I had to use the melee attack to increase my jump height from one of the comments. I think a tutorial to teach the player these mechanics would have been pretty useful. With that said, the controls are very responsive tbh, I don't have to fight the keyboard to control the character, so nicely done. The SFXs are very good, shame there is no music tho.
Hello, second artist here, we had so many ideas for the game, but we didn't manage the time we had, but i'm glad that you like it overall.
Thank for the feedback, we'll probably improve/add everything pointed, your opnion means a lot for us!
You got some sweet art, and the boss spin mechanics, I didn't have a way to dodge the boss, so I died really fast, but overall great work! Feel free to try our game if you like!
The art is so cool. The main menu art looks like majula from dark souls 2. I like the gameplay. Added feedback when player gets hurt would've been helpful.
The art style it so moody and has style. Controls felt slippery and there is no real way to dodge the boss. Also wish there was music to real drive the art style home. Pretty good! Hope you work on it after the Jam
We'll probably change and add more things, the music mainly, the dodge is attached to the meele weapon, you use the attack to impulse you to the direction pointed.
Thanks for the feedback!
I love the art style and use of limited colour palette. I think the jump doesn't have much use since you can't jump over the enemy, so instead you would have to switch to the melee. I think if you just focused on the melee drill mechanic, you could make a pretty cool game with just that and it would be pretty fun!
I love the art style and boss designs in this game! Switching between both weapon types is really fun as well.
I feel like it's really hard to dodge boss attacks however since the jump height is so small. Eventually I figured out you could use the melee attack upward to jump above attacks and I had more success. It's tough to use the melee attack for damage though since you get hit a lot of the time in melee range, so I was using the melee attack to dodge and just shooting the boss.
Awesome job, I love how juicy this game is!
idk how to dodge the boss but the look of the game was really good. Smack some music on that baby and give me a dodge button and you got me hooked
Fun game, I really liked the minimalist art style. It’s a shame there was no music — it would have added a lot to the atmosphere. Something like a ballerina music box tune could have fit nicely. The weapon-switching mechanic was great! I mostly used melee weapons for big jumps to dodge attacks, so I had to keep that in mind all the time.
we kinda messed up the last commit at the last second and some sfx and music ended up being lost, our first time working as a team, such mistakes are bound to happen, but we are prepared for next time ᕙ( •̀ ᗜ •́ )ᕗ
Very nice artstyle, and the controls felt very snappy
Thanks for the compliment, i made the game design and etc, but our programmer went further and beyond with the original plan, its thanks to him that movement and combat came out as smooth as it is.
Awesome art style.
Thank you! As one of the artists, it was a really fun project. I wish we had more time to finish the art, at least to add the colors, but I'm really glad with how it turned out.
The way the boss moved was quite fun, but i couldn’t figure out how to actually dodge the boss and just kept on dying. Fun game by the way.
sorry about that, we implemented the weapon system with the dash attack first, and since everyone was having fun with that we kinda forgot to put the double jump in time, we actually had in mind that both forms were going to have different kinds of mobility, like the gunner having wall jumps and the melee having double jump. but currently the only way to get out of harms way is meleeing upwards, jumping with it makes you go father, in the future we will be implementing the normal movement system.
thanks for playing our game!
Pretty awful fight for many reasons, but what I want to say is actually great is your drill system. Do you know Final Fantasy? I felt like a dragoon being able to take myself to incredible heights then land on the enemy and bounce to strike again for massive damage. Sadly 80% of the times you hit her you're hit too so it doesn't last long, but as a dragoon simulator it was a great thing to play with.
Oh heck yea, dragoons are fun, do most of my experience "playing" with or against them was in Kingdom Hearts against Xaldin and his nobodies, the reaction command against them felt so good to use, do I never got to play one of the ff games where I could do stuff like that, which ff game you would say has the definitive dragoon experience?
to decrease the number of instances where you get damaged without reason was thinking of implementing some I-frames on melee hit to safely get away from high-speed collisions, sadly we didn't have enough time to test and implement it.
It would be helpful if you could elaborate on what parts of the fight were awful so we can try to find and improve them, some bullet points or anything will be helpful if you have some time to spare.
thanks for playing our game!
My FF life stopped at the turn-based ones, so I really only admired the fighting style of characters that go on a jump and land on the enemy dealing a lot of damage, and their whole looks and characters were often great. If you want to experience the basic, not the action, you should try FFIV, which introduced the Dragoon through Kain, one of the main characters. FFIX also has a furry dragoon which I love. Those two are the ones that define the dragoon to me, but I could never be more than someone giving the input for it, while here I could finally truly play as that. In a way, a dream come true.
The things that frustrated me and I can list are
1) There doesn't seem to be a distance or timing to her jump, I just opened it again and let her jump a few times without doing anything, and each jump she moved a different distance at a different time. Sometimes she even double jumps, at either the last minute of her jump, or right at the start, and travels through the entire top of the screen. With it being so random, there's no reading the pattern or learning it, you just hope this time it doesn't hit you.
2) The way she never stops going from side to side is a bit too much, she could have more moves at the edges and center of the screen to give a bit of a rest and an opening to attack. If your dash is supposed to be the drill, and you use it while she's mobile, there needs a downtime move that lets you use the gun. Since the second phase has those saws, you could prepare for it by having her throw one on the first phase while she remains still.
I'd love to comment on the second phase, but only got to it twice, and only lasted for 4ms so I don't know what it does to comment on it.
I see, thank you so much for the additional feedback!!! its so very helpful!
I will try to lean a bit more on the dragoon side of things too if possible on the melee side since it has a lot of potential to develop
also thanks for the ff recommendations, I shall check them when possible!
I am a true geometry connoisseur, you have some understable value of alchemy and celtic symbols, congratz I like to see that kind of thing
Symbolism is always fun to see in games, and while I do enjoy it and try to learn whenever possible to implement and play around with it, most of it came from our artist who wanted to give a deeper meaning to our bosses, he will be able to tell you more about what he was planning!
Hi! One of the artists here. Thank you so much for your comment! The other artist and I were planning a lore for this game, but we had to cut it off due to time constraints. :(
Second artist here, sorry about the 5 days delay! I'll try to explain the lore and why every symbol was used.
The history circle around a family, the Dad was famous in the music world, and later at the war, he lost his beloved one and fell into despair, his child forgotten by his madness. He wanted to get back to the old days.
The Clock, the tower where time was more then a concept, break through the defense was nothing for him. He started to search for a way to control it, to maintain his sanity, he put his memory, THE TIME he spent with his family into real things, to help him and support his warped mind, even though he knows what he is doing is wrong.
The Clock was distorting everything because of the tests and poor management, someone had to do something about it, but no one had the power to challenge that tower. Maybe his son? (Who lost his memories because of the distortions, he don't remember that the Maestro is his father, or why he's there)
Well, about the symbols the one in the pendullum represents the Triskele symbol, who represents the soul-mind-body
Body-The Ballarina, pendullum part
Soul-The Musician (the 3rd boss not added), gears part
Mind-The Maestro, hours part
Every part was a essencial part for the clock to work.
And the other symbol is the Tree of Life (Caballa), that you can see at the background clock wich means maestro road to perfection, to be able to rewind the time
I wanted to add a lot more of meaning to the symbols and the history but we're focused into finished the game at time. If we continue this game, i'll add it with no doubt!
I couldn't figure out how not to get hit but fun anyways ! Nice boss moves
Thank you!
the player should have been able to dodge the boss in both forms but due to lack of foresight we didn't implement it on time, currently, the only way to dodge the boss is by using the momentum from the melee attack, if you time correctly with your jump you get launched like a grasshopper, its quite fun to play around with it!
I'm a huge fan of the aesthetics of this game! And the idea of the two weapons is interesting, but I might have liked a little more feedback when I do damage or when I take damage.
Feedback on actions really elevates the experience right!?
When developing the game the lack of feedback was certainly noticed, sadly we got a bit messed up with the implementation of things and to add sounds and other actions we had to backtrack.
Aside from the obvious hit sounds, I had some plans for feedback:
For player->boss
Melee attack having a small hit-stop on melee hit,
I was also thinking of having the boss receive a small amount of iframes on melee hits (like charged buster shots on a Megaman boss) but since we didn't have time to implement and test it I dunno if it would fit in this game.
when it comes to ranged hits not much came to mind, but I guess something like making the boss lightly flash would be good enough
For boss -> player
what is missing most aside the cues is an animation for the player getting hurt
In this version the player receives knockback and flashes during iframes, in your opinion having sound cues and the animation added is enough, or something like a red tint on the screen or an effect on the player needs to be added?
thanks for your attention!
I don't have an absolute answer ^^.
I think feedback is part of the game experience and player interactivity. The more feedback you provide, whether visual or audio, the more the player understands and feels that they've done something in the game.
Then it's a matter of figuring out how all these visual and audio cues can fit in with your aesthetic and what you want the player to feel when playing your game.
Moreover, games that demand a lot of our concentration also require good communication with players. They need to know what's going on, without being overloaded with superficial information.
In short, animations, sound or visual signals, red tints on the screen or an effect on the player - all these are valid. Maybe each of these things needs to be added, maybe just a little.
Example: for my game, when my character is wounded, there's a sound that tells us so, the screen turns red for a short moment and of course a heart is removed from the life gauge. I didn't do any animation for the character, as he's far too small on the screen and the game is already moving fast. On the other hand, for your game, the characters are large and contribute enormously to the aesthetics of your game, so we'd like to see a nice animation when we're injured, or even just a single frame. The same applies to sound. The lack of sound when someone is wounded or injured detracts a little from the beauty of your aesthetic and hinders immersion in your world.
In short, my advice: try things out and keep testing your game :D
I wish you all the best for the future in this jam and in game creation ^^
thank you so much for the follow up! we will be rooting for you and your project!
The art looks really good! I love that style!
Also this is one of the cleanest and nicest looking main menus I've seen in games from this jam, well done.
I think the switching between abilities should really be done in a different way, so that you can do both at the same time. This would make the game way more dynamic and you could also learn to combine attacks this way, instead of them being separate by design.
thanks for taking your time to review our game!
indeed the weapon system is in need of improvement.
The idea of combining attacks is a nice one, some cool things come to mind
I can't comment much about the art style itself since I was doing the planning of the game, but I told them to leave things unpainted to not waste much time on all assets, the result was better than expected and we made painting assets our last priority, our main programmer suggested implementing light and shadow as well. In the end, I think it married well with the style.
Hey, one of the artists here. Thanks so much for your comment! We are really trying to get out of our comfort zone. We usually make pixel art for games, but this was a really fun experience. I wish we had more time to finish the art, at least to add some color, but I really like how it turned out. At least we had time to add the lighting and shadows! :D
You did a great job trying something new!
Maybe a suggestion: I really do believe it doesn't need more color. The more toned down style is really cool. What would however step it up a lot would be shading via normal maps and actual lighting. I don't know what engine you are using (if any) and I don't remember if there was a splash screen of one. But most mainstream engines should support nice 2d lighting with actual shadows and all.
This would look really cool!
Interesting control. It was hard to beat even first boss without much of mechanics. You have to learn how to swap between gun and dash attacks to always jump over boss and then hit it. Would be actually nice to have dash attack just on right click instead of swap. Becomes too hard after you defeat first phase.
Thanks for the feedback!!!
the actual control scheme was a leftover of the original system when we were planning the game, both forms would have more than just a weapon to differentiate them, such as the melee form having a double jump and the gun form having the ability to wall jump and being able to be controlled a bit like cave history`s quote when he has curly machine gun, since we got a bit tangled during development, a lot of stuff had to be cut off, funnily enough after we released the game 2 of my friends told me the same thing about the controls, I feel a bit silly for not having the foresight to change the controls before launching.
The main mechanic of the game was a "revolution system" where the bosses would start very weak, after you defeat the final boss, they would improve and get more moves and mechanics, since we didn't have the time to implement the boss progression the fight got too cluttered with mechanics and attacks. most people I had shown the game didn't even notice that when the pendulum behind the boss reached its amplitude, the boss would get a momentary speed boost, the fact that we didnt manage to ship the pendulum with an sfx helped to this problem as well.
Regarding the second phase, which mechanic would you say created most frustration while not adding much to the fight?