I don’t mind Jill! Or well, I did mind a bit when she talked over NPC:s and useful information. So a little tweak for her to fill the time between fights and useful talk when the player is just exploring or even better when lost, would have been great. If she could have commented on what the player was doing, like “Oh so you figured out how to open doors, congratulations to you” when the player did such etc. That would have been even better.

The idea of getting xp for walking about and 1xp for revisiting places I’d been was an interesting concept, but perhaps the 1xp and 10xp walking effects could have been toned down a bit.

I’m not sure I could level up, it sort of looked like I should have been able, but I couldn’t interact with the portraits. I also for a while didn’t understand that I needed to open them up (since I hadn’t needed to look at them before) to do that.

The movement was nice and camera and art and everything.

As for the combat, I’m not sure if I was meant to dance around the enemies but at least with instant movement I didn’t feel like I had much of a chance without being hit first.

I also feel like while moving about in the dungeon that at times I got teleported to other locations though I didn’t notice any teleporter. Perhaps this was as intended, but it was desorientering and about 7 minutes in I ended up where it felt like I had been before. In a small area with no apparent exits. I’m probably missing something, but it also felt like something was broken with the game there. So I gave up, and with no saves I felt like that would have to be it.

Which really is a pity, because the game looks great. Has a lot of cool stuff in it, it seems and it would have been fun to explore it some more.

Playthrough (didn’t get very far): https://youtu.be/6bD9ogJAQUc

I'll start off by saying I hit the teleporting bug so I didn't finish this game, but I mostly enjoyed what I did play.

I agree with others saying Jills constant comments getting annoying, having the banter be more context sensitive like only on certain tiles. Or maybe if the characters take too much damage have Jill comment on boys being useless.

I like the idea of XP being reward for the player stepping on tiles, as it rewards more thorough exploration. But I think post-jam it could stand being toned down to just having the XP granted when stepping on a new tile.

I was told to go speak to a man (I think his name is Cu Chulainn like the mythical hero?), but when I walked up to him and interacted he just introduced himself then nothing happened. Was he supposed to be a trader that was cut? Maybe I missed something due to Jills voice lines.

For the positives, visually the game looks great, as does the UI! The false walls were integrated well, and the mine felt like a mine, which is important imo.

The combat could probably use some more polish, but I say that as someone whose combat also needs more feedback added.

I would suggest adding some tooltips or other information showing what each ability does. To me, Jill's attack looked more like a healing spell from the icon. Also I think allowing the player to open the character/inventory window by clicking on the character portraits would be a nice quality-of-life addition.

There's some great promise here and a fair bit to like, but it has a number of issues that need to be resolved.

Still though, it's clear a lot of work and thought was put into this, and it's unique in being the only entry (of the 43 I've played so far) with inter-party dialogue. Good work!

This game has a lot of good things going for it! First thing I noticed was the excellent and beautiful UI. The game's graphics are also great, it looks excellent. Movement feels good as well.

Most people don't like the banter at all. I kind of like it if it was implemented a bit differently. Right now it seems like random voice lines every few seconds, which gets old quickly :D But if it were oneshot triggered dialogues when you step on certain tiles, that maybe even fit in the situation or tell a story over time, it would be much better and enjoyable, I think.

I didn't get far in the dungeon itself, due to getting stuck in the room others get stuck in as well. I think the XP notification for each tile is a bit too in-your-face. I understand that this mechanic needs to be communicated to the player but seeing animated floating text indicating that you gained some XP every step is a bit too much imo.

I also experienced a bug once, where I wanted to take a step but got flung somewhere else and then couldn't move at all, only rotate. This was in town, I think I was near one of the buildings before it happened.

Combat feels ok, could use more feedback but the mechanics work fine as far as I can tell. Could use some more information about what each stat and attack does. Also not sure how the balance will be since you can explore-grind infinitely. I'm not a fan of grindy games where you have to grind to progress, but since I didn't get very far I can't judge if the difficulty requires grinding time to beat the game. I hope not, though :D

I'll give this game another try if it gets a post-jam version with the critical bugs fixed. I liked what I saw so far, though! Good job :D

I would really have appreciated a way to pause the game.  Subtitles would have been real nice.  It would have made Jill a lot more tolerable if she wasn't voiced.  Her dialogue is way too random and interrupts other characters.  Messages would be easier to parse.  I can't see how voiced dialogue is easier to add than text.  In retro games, voicing doesn't really add to the atmosphere, at least in my view.

Why no compass?

I got stuck in the dungeon.  I wasn't able to backtrack either, as I was walled in.  So, I couldn't progress much at all.  I guess that's the bug you mentioned on your game page.

I look forward to replaying your post-jam fixed version.  I'll withhold my rating until then, as it's unfair to rate a game suffering from one bad bug.

The graphics are very nice and there have been put in a lot of effort in the UI. This can be made into a great game, the UI has grimrock potential and looks. Put in a few more weeks into this and it might be a great hit.

I got into a mini area which I could not get out of, it had one enemy and two doors. None of them leading out. So I could not progress.

Having xp for just moving had me spam W-S with instant move for 3k steps... Just to level up twice :)

Nice Work! Keep it up!

There is a lot of potential here!

Things I liked: The movement felt really good!

• Getting XP for every new tile you step one really rewards being thorough in your exploration.
• The combat system felt pretty good
• The visuals are great!
• The bold choice of making a character like Jil :D

As mentioned in your write-up, I got as far as I think I can in this version, which is unfortunate because I was enjoying my time with it.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go break Jil’s door. :)

Great job!

I reached the area with an enemy and two doors, if I understood your comments then I think I played what's accessible in the current version, thrice actually.

I have to say movement feels specially good in this one, that I won't switch to instant movement is telling. It looks great and consistent and you've got quite some functional systems. I really like the transparency of the illusionary wall, it's perfect. Combat which is there is good enough, I like that the enemies don't take too much time to defeat.

I actually really like gaining XP for visiting a new tile. What I think though, as it seems you'll work further on the game, is that you could add an option to disable displaying it, and possibly some other feedback popping-up as well but specially this one. I have no strong opinion either way about it myself but I think some people will enjoy the arcade-ish feel it adds while some other persons will feel it breaks immersion. 

I don't know if you thought about it and maybe it's just me but this kind of real-time combat system shines and feels satisfying to me as soon as enemies can fall into holes, get onto spike traps or on the way of fireball traps (also if I can close doors onto their head but as doors fill a wall and not a tile in your game then it's likely not relevant here).

The game's promising, thanks for sharing, I'm going to play the fixed the version after the jam.

Jil was really annoying.

On the surface this game looks amazing and gives the impression it's very complete with character inventories, level and skill advancement, etc. However, when we played it felt like the graphics were really not part of the game, they were just set pieces outside of a very linear path. The starting town for example. It looked great, but you couldn't interact with anything or even go onto the grass, just follow the brick road. 

Jil was really annoying.

The combat wasn't as exciting as we were hoping it was going to be. We were doing damage but had no idea what the damage numbers meant since we couldn't see an enemy health bar to judge how much health they had in total or remaining. The enemies teleported between tiles in a way that was a bit jarring since the attack animations were so good (Courtesy of Protofactor - good choice!). DamageNumbersPro added a bit to the enjoyment as numbers appeared and disappeared with nice animations. Perhaps use a different font next time though so it isn't so obviously a dropped in asset. 

Movement, turns and camera angles looked good, although the lack of free look felt like a missed opportunity, given how nice the visuals were.

We think we were caught out by the teleporter bug because we ended up in an area underground that we couldn't get out of. This was after 30 minutes of play time.

Jil was really annoying.

It would have been nice to have clicked on doors to interact with them to open them, rather than using the keyboard, although you did mention this on your submission page.

Almost as annoying as Jil, were the constant 1XP messages that appeared every time you moved one tile. It seemed unnecessary, although the Jake and Jil Level Up was nice. Allocating the points after levelling up was above and beyond most jam entries and a nice touch, although we seemed to have to randomly jab around the plus symbol to get them to increase. Were some of them locked? We didn't see a reason if they couldn't be increased beyond that number and there was no visual or audible feedback that you'd hit a limit. On the stats "Interlect" should probably be spelt "Intellect" but if English isn't your first language (or even if it is Dan), spelling is hard.

We picked up a key from a chest but never saw where it went or whether it was in our inventory. Or maybe it got used and we didn't realize? 

The was a graphical glitch when the double doors slid open and the door was partially visible in the wall.

Very well presented game that looked like it could be really fun to play, but at the end of the day seemed to lack content in terms of puzzles and things to explore and find. Maybe we hit the bug too soon. We'd like to see a full play through video of this so we can experience what the whole game was like. Great job. The toolkit looks very promising, best of luck with it.

We found Jil slightly annoying, in case you couldn't tell.

Impressive work for just nine days, UI and graphical style are so polished I really like it! I got stuck in the dungeon after a while in an area without an exit but I enjoyed playing - good work!

Great looking game with perfect controls and movement. The perrspective is spot on too. Very nice UI. Nice illusionary wall.

The constant bickering of Jil was super annoying but I guess that's what you went for - and succeeded :D

I got trapped in an area that couldn't get out from.

It needs some more polish on the combat. The enemies sometimes instant moves from tile to tile.

I want to play more, so I hope you finish it post-jam :)

Movement is nice and fast, I like that. A lot of content in this game and it certainly looks like full commercial game sort of content, which is great! Reminded me of TES series a bit with all those dungeons.

I found it strangely restricting that you cannot walk on grass in the village, and you cannot really interact with characters in the village, they just deliver their lines while you can actually just walk away from them.

Really nice illusionary wall, good balance of easy to spot and hidden for a jam game.

RPG system definitely works, but as game is so short (due to a bug) it’s hard to tell if it’ll really make a difference in the end. Interesting approach of awarding XP for exploration, make you actually walk strangely and step on each tile, which can be an interesting way to make player careless and step on some traps in the future I guess? :)

Overall would like to play a version without a game breaking bug to explore more of the content, it seems really promising!

Nice game, it just kinda surprised me when the battle just happens without any change in music or UI, I got attacked first because of that lol. I love the movement, it feels fast but not too fast. The graphics are good too

Bad thing about the game is that Jill just keeps talking, I know this is how the game is intended to be played but I wish there's a way to make her shut up XD

This is a very nice game indeed. There's so much to like. Engaging graphics and a clean movement system, which I'm not getting on many games in this jam.

If I could change a few things:

• The UI is very small.
• I guess this was deliberate, but damn it's annoying you can't enter those buildings at the start!
• Jill keeps talking over other dialogue.

All things that can be cleaned up later though imo. This is a cracking entry for just a weeks work. Well done!

Excellent entry - did you make all the assets?

Everything worked 'generally well, although It would have been nicer to have things just that bit bigger in the UI.

The one thing I intensely disliked were the voices - particularly the annoying woman. Nothing she said was worth anything, and the other voice didn't add much beyond - 'ah ai voices cool', buy they get annoying quickly.

But the annoying woman is a complete deal breaker. for me personally I didn't get much further that the mine as I had to find some was to stop her speaking. :(

But the movement and completeness was done very well.

I really didn't like the voices; I would've much preferred text dialogs over these creepy text reader voices. My main con out of the way, I really liked everything else. Good graphics, a combat system I enjoyed, bravo!

Shut up Jil! Though I see she is part of the theme... Graphics are good and the overall atmosphere works well. Combat could have done with at least some more sounds. I think I got stuck in the same place others have.

Loved the graphics and atmosphere. UI was super nice and crisp, although it was very very hard to click to level up some stats like strength (only played the WebGL version). My favorite idea was the XP on entering tiles with a bonus for entering unexplored ones. That really has got me thinking about incorporating it in other games (maybe not feeding into direct XP, but into a sort of exploration XP).

Everyone already echoed their thoughts on Jill, which I agree with, heh. As said before, combat could use some sound and feedback.

Would love to see the game through the end though, so I'll look for an update after the jam.

First off, great job with creating such an immersive atmosphere! The graphics and design are good. And all the Jil comments can add a nice touch to the game although they are so repetitive at the end. The combat system needs some work though, as there is not much feedback during battles. But it is also good overall

Thanks for this interesting game!