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Poisoned Daggers's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Audio - Does the game have nice sfx and music? | #30 | 3.726 | 3.857 |
| Graphics - Is the game aesthetically pleasing? | #38 | 4.002 | 4.143 |
| Overall | #72 | 3.299 | 3.414 |
| Gameplay - How fun is it to play? | #90 | 3.105 | 3.214 |
| Completeness - Is it an unfinished tech-demo, prototype or a complete game? | #91 | 3.243 | 3.357 |
| Theme - How well does it incorporate the theme? | #124 | 2.415 | 2.500 |
Ranked from 14 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
I have never played a dungeon crawler myself but I do enjoy the combat after trying to figure out how it works for some time. It would be nice if there are explanations for each action. Like defy, and endure; how are they different? Bless, what is bless? (I found it myself that it is healing). The enemies steamrolled the team with ease at the moment so I did not get very far.
I really love the retro look and sound of this game.
I personally found the combat a bit confusing; didn't really get the flow or like the way the Action Log HUD kept popping on and off.
But even then I still enjoyed playing it a lot.
So many things to like about this game! When I play it I get transported back to Amiga days.
The engine seems solid and has several classic staples implemented. As you may have picked up I have a soft spot for 2D dungeon crawlers and instant step. It's a nice touch with the automapper but I feel a fullscreen map would be more useful.
I like the combat system and thought it worked well. Perhaps automatic end turn would be nice after all SP were spent.
The log window popped up all the time and that was very annoying. It would be better to find a space in the UI to show the latest line(s) in the log and if you click that (or use a key) it would open up the log window.
I hope you will develop this further post-jam :)
Well done!
Yeah, the message log was a bit of a UI afterthought, as was the combat action list. We’re definitely going to add more content to this game, so stay tuned for a full release.
The box contains Holy Dew.
Yep, I was drinking that all jam.
I really like the mechanics around combat - both the "push your luck" of how many enemies to queue up to fight before running back to the arena (that went horribly for me the first time ^_^), as well as the positional stuff, it works really well!
This game was really hard though! This is the first one I've played in the jam that I've been unable to beat even after a number of tries. I might have to come back and try again though... Things were going well on my second run until in one round 3 sneed crawlers ganged up on a fully healed Belsome and killed him, and everything went downhill from there.
Only thing that was really annoying was that, after some party members were dead, I needed to both rotate my view, and rotate my party members in order to read any plaques on the wall.
I like the aesthetics, really nice use of a limited palette.
Glad you enjoyed it! Our plan was to give out more rewards for pushing your luck, but we didn’t get to it in time. Soon :)
Until I finally found a second arena, the reward was avoiding the _long_ walk back to the first one =).
Visually this game looks fantastic, great sprite work, the dungeon looks suitably foreboding and dark, an the UI is really dingy and stylish looking, the music is also just fantastic with lots of weighty ambiance.
It's just a bit confusing (Though I did pick up a hair shirt, so that's a big win in my book). I did figure out the combat system I think, the addition of a positioning system is really cool, but I didn't quite figure out how to attack the enemies that sneak away to attack me en-mass, do I need to use the environment actions? Or am I just to slow?
I think there is a really great game here that is just being hampered by my own ignorance.
Still what I did understand of the systems, as well as the audio and visual components, are strong. Great job!
When we revisit this to add more content, we will definitely make the link between fleeing enemies and arena combat stronger, and maybe have some ways to prevent them from joining.
Definitely hard to understand, though that can be okay if it's deliberate? I think it would have benefited from a little more feedback on what was going on, though, both in large scale things like "what is interacting with these enemies doing" and the small scale things like "should I be able to walk through this boulder"?
The animated spritework and detailed (though large) interface were nice, and the music was a neat bop that didn't get repetitive, so overall a solid entry, well done!
"The night of the poisoned daggers will continue ..." I sure hope it will.
I love everything about the game. Every part feels handcrafted and probably is, the gfx and music are great, the view and movement are perfect, there's party creation (and you'd probably better take Tam and Chiteri, although I can't remember if I tried the ones I left over) and each character can even interact with the environment their own way, I love that. The combat system is pretty good, and original on top of that.
I drew my map and the game might be hard without that, which is part of its charm. Yet it's pretty cool that you double-hinted the levers so that people should not miss one if they're exploring properly and that people just roamming around might potentially complete the game anyway, it is some extra level of polish that you don't necessarily expect for a jam and it's valubale. Therefore leaving the item system behind and focusing on polishing what was already there was probably the good choice.
I did not take a any risk, fought every enemy one by one (well sometimes they're two).
Not sure about the theme integration, I see "...Or maybe there's a different way?" in the description so maybe there's something hidden which would make it clear, at that point that could be my only minor complaint.
Superb entry, I'm very glad I played this.
Very kind words. We have a lot of work to do to balance the game out and make more of the characters interesting choices. As for the theme, there are only minor hints toward it right now.
I really enjoyed the art style and music, the automap is a great feature also.
The combat was really confusing to me, Initially.
It wasn't clear who was doing what, when, and what positions indicated who was active?
I died to the first combat encounter a few times untill I figured out that the party doesn't rotate when the view does.
I did find the sneed closet (formerly chucks?)
A lot of the enemies I encountered simply ran away?
I got up to the second encounter room a few times, but there was so many enemies I just couldn't get past it.
I feel as the the game log should have been incorporated into the display.
Overall, I enjoyed this game, I enjoyed the theme of it the most. I am sorry that I was not able to complete it.
Fair comments! We set out to make an intentionally confusing game, so we knew we’d get some feedback like this. There is a strong link between “enemies running away” and “so many enemies I couldn’t get past”. :)