| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Graphics - Is the game aesthetically pleasing? | #11 | 4.382 | 4.382 |
| Overall | #14 | 3.912 | 3.912 |
| Completeness - Is it an unfinished tech-demo, prototype or a complete game? | #16 | 4.118 | 4.118 |
| Gameplay - How fun is it to play? | #17 | 3.824 | 3.824 |
| Audio - Does the game have nice sfx and music? | #28 | 3.765 | 3.765 |
| Theme - How well does it incorporate the theme? | #44 | 3.471 | 3.471 |
Ranked from 34 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Excellent game!
I loved both the gameplay and design!
The only problem I had was a bug which prevented me to win : the 8 legged demon. I killed it in both plans and the Oracle still act like if it wasn't dead. Thinking it just meant I was able to kill the necromancer, well, I did and killed him... and nothing happened. But well, in my head canon I consider myself victorious anyway haha
Good work!
I am not a fan of dark games. I think it is a little too dark but it is your game design after all. I wish I could see just one more tile away.
Overall, the game is so damn polished and well-made.
This is a fantastic entry! Very classic feel, good graphics, good combat, action/movement is fast-paced and doesn't feel tiring, navigation is easy even without a map, good theme and story. Very well done, impressive!
this game is amazing, really strong entry, great visuals, great audio and very cool story line! the movement feels great, the controls are well thought out and there is a fair bit of content! all this with the added benefit of being extremely polished! well done!
Really neat, and a lot of content! I love the visual style of the enemies. I was unable to defeat the Necromancer though, despite trying many times. The oracle kept mentioning the 8-legged, which I had killed both versions of, but they kept coming back whenever I reloaded the game, so I'm not sure if that was a bug or something I was missing... I also never found any armor, which seems like it might be related to me being unable to beat the presumed big bad ^_^.
Thank you! The Oracle didn't have any further text content written so after killing the 8 Legged Ones the Oracle doesn't say anything different. You're not missing anything there. The Big Bad is very hard to defeat regardless, but I've done it with nothing but Ceremonial Robes, Relic Shield and Relic Sword. Tough fight though, requires careful use of attack moves and momentum.
Really strong entry I'd say. Really liked the fact that it feels really polished and it just packs a crap ton of playtime in it (never completed it actually i need to rate other entries too gonna play it later). The only thing that i found unbalanced on this game was the fact that i could just easily spam through every single enemy by hard-hitting them.
TL:DR: This game was super fun i really enjoyed and gonna finish it later.
This is a great entry. The game feels very polished and professional. The ui, the graphics, it plays very well in that regard. The athmosphere is also really great, the world feels creepy and frightening. Gameplay-wise it plays like an old school crawler and thats really cool. Navigating is a bit disorientating though, got lost several times, haha. Fighting is a bit hard at times, but its a dangerous world(s) I guess. :D
I like that you made effort and put quite a bit of story and dialogue in the game, this always enhances an experience in my opinion. Story is a quite a bit important for me. Overall I really liked this experience. Nice game. :)
Thank you so much! I'm glad you liked it. You're not the only one that gets lost, I had to cut the map sadly. It would be better with one for sure.
The story was very easy to do, I just leveraged the Ink (Inkle Studio's open-source dialog language and system) which gives me loads of flexibility and power.
Really impressed with this: technically sound, atmospheric graphics and audio, starts off like a simple hack-and-slash but quickly opens out into a much deeper game with an engaging story. Particularly like the way the combat system is explained in the menus but can be ignored by those who want a more casual game.
Ran fine in Wine on Linux. Only minor technical problem (possibly Wine's fault) is that the in-game return to main menu button gives a "not implemented" message, so no way to quit gracefully. Happy to say the game starts up again okay and my saved game loads fine, so it's really no problem.
Also I think you are being kind, as once my health got down to 53% the monsters always seemed to miss. I'm definitely not complaining about that! ;-)
I'm glad you liked it, thank you for the kind words! I'm glad to hear it runs on Wine, I didn't test that myself. As for the "Not Implemented" message that was my bad, I forgot to implement the "return to main menu" button. As for the monsters not hitting you when your health was low, that's a coincidence. They don't go easy on you at all. :)
Wow, this was really good.
The game looks great and is super atmospheric, it's big with plenty of content including story bits and such, I love that you chose instant movement, having to choose between a shield and a torch up to the last sequence was pretty cool.
I guess there could have been a bit more of a twist to the dark world (that was still better than not tackling on the theme at all and besides 8 arms one and 8 legged one were pretty cool anyway), also as a super fan of real turn-based games which play as fast as you click I did not like that mashing the button prevents the enemies from attacking, but the game plays super fast anyway so it's just a grip minor. Don't get me wrong, I only mentioned these two things because the game is really good otherwise.
Very strong entry, thanks for sharing.
Thank you for the kind words! Yeah I agree the Dark World was too similar to the light one. It could use a bit more work. As for the mashing the attack button to prevent enemies from attacking that's 100% a bug that I didn't notice until the game shipped. Too bad, it's a 1 minute fix.
I appreciate a fellow turn-based game lover! I've always preferred turn-based, lets me be strategic and think about what my next attack will be.
This game gave me a very old-school feel. Graphics looked to easily be something I’d see on the back of a classic Goldbox game of the early to mid 90s! I felt the description of the mechanics were organically folded into the UI of the game… very nice! The story (for what little I probably got through) was solid and well done!
I think the Dark World needed something a little more to make it pop as a different place than the regular world. The monsters help, to be sure, but the environment textures should have been a little different, or maybe everything should have been in a slightly different hue! Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t confused about being in the Dark World per say, but it didn’t totally pop as a unique place versus were I had been.
Additionally, I think the monsters in the Dark World seems way stronger then maybe they should be? Not entirely sure, though. It may simply have been I missed better armor or weapons I should have had before entering the Dark World… or perhaps I missing some healing items I should have picked up, but it did feel like I was under powered while in the Dark World, though.
Beyond that, there’s not much negative I could really say about this game! Very solid game and entry! Excellent work!!
Here’s a link to me playing your game on my stream if you’re interested :D
I think I finished the game; beat the two cave spiders, got the Relic items and beat the Necromancer, but none of the dialogue changed. Not sure if it glitched out on me or just wasn't implemented.
Anyways, great fun for the most part. I especially love the custom sprite work you did for the cave entrance and monsters. Very atmospheric. And the sound effect when you slashed something down was very satisfying.
Only annoying thing was the checkpoints in the save rooms making me dash down long hallways every time I died.
Combat-wise, I liked the way groups could gang up on you sequentially if you weren't careful. I almost exclusively used Cautious and Heavy depending on the enemy; never quite got the utility of Defending.
And resting whenever to regain health was a cool concept. Maybe it was a little easy to find a safe spot, but it's an interesting idea to play with.
Thank you for the detailed review! I also really like the kill sound effect, it was a big hit.
The dialog doesn't change when you kill the spiders or the Necromancer, that's just content that wasn't written. It would be better if the game had a game over screen but honestly I didn't realize I forgot to create it until the jam was over. The changing of the Oracle text after killing the spider was the same deal. Oh well.
Combat-wise the combats weren't hard enough to really need to defend but the utility is that if your momentum is very negative this is a good way to get it back up. As for Cautious and Heavy, those are what I use most of the time unless I'm really on a the back foot and I usually die when that happens anyway.
Resting is a mechanic I'm surprised I didn't see more often. It's a staple of the old-school crawlers but much less common these days.
Looked nice, had fun. Got a little lost but that's my own fault because I don't like to read :P
Really cool and dark atmosphere. Battle system with momentum is quite interesting, but it only started to make sense to use different attacks by the time you reach the necromancer, but they were essential in that fight.
Unfortunately I've encountered a bug by the end, that after killing the necromancer nothing happens, nobody reacts to it. Or maybe I'm missing something?
Thank you for the review! You're not missing anything. The play balance needed more time, the game was too easy until the Necromancer, and the "Gameover: You Win!" screen didn't make it in. Honestly I didn't actually cut it, I just failed to write it down on my final "TODO" list and kind of forgot. Like, I checked off the "Game over" screen and failed to realize there are 2 forms of it and I actually only implemented one of them. Oh well!
So yeah, you killed the Necromancer, you won!
Amazing pixel-work! I wonder if the walls/floors should have been a slightly higher resolution to match the sprites, but that's a tiny quibble. Combat is satisfying due partly to the lovely sound when you win :D The outside area reminded me of Captive to a degree, which is always nice. A very, very strong entry to the jam!
Very nice entry, loved it. Movement is fast and smooth, combat system is solid.
This was a pretty amazing entry. The art is top-notch, and the game looks and plays how the old-style dungeon crawlers did… through the eyes of nostalgia. What I mean is it looks and plays better than the old games, but this is what I remember the games looking and playing like, if that makes any sense. In other words, you nailed it.
I couldn’t figure out the momentum system, and before I found the Protector sword, I never dared to use a shield because it was too dark otherwise. I understand you can’t have a sword, a torch, and a shield simultaneously :D
For the combat, I think I encountered an exploit. Spamming Careful Strike as fast as possible kills enemies with 1000 paper cuts, and never landed a blow on me. The necromancer didn’t stand a chance.
I never managed to find the spider in the normal world, just the one in the dark world. I figured it would have been in the same cave, but I only found the Protector Sword there. Perhaps I was looking in the wrong place?
I figured that as an old-school experience, we’re expected to bust out the graph paper, but it was pretty easy to get lost; a few more landmarks would have made it a little easier. Actually, the purple glow from nega-town’s fake door worked really well to help me navigate the area :)
Anyway, this was a great entry!
Thank you so much! I really appreciate the lengthly review. Right now I'm playing an actual old-school game "Yendorian Tales 3" and the UX is horrifying! So I'm glad I captured the feel of and old-school dungeon crawler without capturing the weaker parts.
The momentum system wasn't well explained. Basically if you hit the enemy and they miss you, you gain 1 momentum. If the enemy hits and you miss, you lose 1 momentum. If you both miss the momentum moves 1 point towards 0. The higher the number the bigger the attack bonuses you have. I couldn't figure out where to put this explanation so it didn't get communicated very clearly.
You are 100% correct about the exploit, spamming attack wasn't intentional. The Necromancer is very easy to kill this way! :) It's a really tough fight otherwise.
The Relic Sword and Relic Shield both glow as much as a torch so that helps. The game does a terrible job telling you this of course!
As for the caves there is a hidden object in each cave, Relic Sword and Relic Shield. The caves are massive though so it's easy to miss.
Was this really made in 7 days? This is actually pretty incredible...
I would probably buy this on steam if it were longer and a bit more polished honestly.
The graphics are beautifully done, and feels very consistent and well put together. The other Dark World feels very immersive, and I love the design of the monsters over there. It really does feel like a CRPG adventure, I'm impressed at how many plot events there were (even if most of them are just dialogue, it's very impressive for a jam time frame.)
Admittedly I don't understand the momentum in the combat system very much, but I like the strategic element of picking between different types of attacks.
The music and sound effect fit the atmosphere perfectly and it was very immersive to play through.
There are a few flaws but they're really minor and I'm sure you would've fixed them with probably even a day.
- Most of the overworld is really dark, it's basically pitch-black without a torch so I didn't find a point to using any of the shields.
- The world is a bit disorienting because the world is still visually simple (that's still good though), would've probably liked a minimap.
- There is a bug in the combat system, it seems that a "turn" is finished when the animation is finished. It was really easy to cheese everything by just spamming the attack buttons to force a never-ending turn. Victory at any cost, even RSI I suppose.
I would very much love to see if you would ever expand on this!
Thank you for the kind words! I'm pretty happy with it. As for the flaws you are 100% correct. The light side of the world is near pitch black which makes no sense, it should be lighter to further differentiate between the light and dark side. Also there is glowing gear, a sword and a shield each glows as much as a torch. The game does a terrible job telling you about it. As for spamming the attack button, that's a very unfortunate bug. Took 1 minute to fix after I learned about it. Oh well.
For the text I highly recommend learning Ink by Inkle Studios (open-source interactive dialog system). It's absolutely amazing and makes large complex changing dialog trivially simple. Really a great time-saver.
As for the map, my next crawler will either have one or I'll put a lot more effort into making sure it doesn't need one. I still get lost in the forest and the Beasts Who Walk lands all the time!
That was fun! I loved the sound effect when you defeat an enemy. The monster art was great too!
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