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Castle 51's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Gameplay | #58 | 3.542 | 3.542 |
| Innovation | #58 | 3.542 | 3.542 |
| Audio | #65 | 3.583 | 3.583 |
| Overall | #92 | 3.583 | 3.583 |
| Theme interpretation | #144 | 3.292 | 3.292 |
| Graphics | #160 | 3.417 | 3.417 |
Ranked from 24 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
GitHub repository URL
https://github.com/Two119/Castle_51
Game description
An intense, fast-paced bullet hell about finding a SECRET key and escaping a wizard's castle.
Theme interpretation
Firstly, the whole game centres around the mechanic of finding a secret hidden key.
Secondly, the game name is inspired by a secret US Military base Area 51.
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Comments
Each individual mechanic has a lot of potential, but 'bullet hell' seems a very strange choice for most of these, not really working well with them. Perhaps if it started off slow and you gave people 10 levels to learn and master it, and it got gradually faster over time?
Great graphics, but I thikn it's too fast-paced for most of the mechanics to be worth using. With the enemies moving so fast, and the air dropping down, there's no time to care about potions or powerups or anything really - it's hard enough discovering "can I move to another crate or will it not allow me?" -- only way to find out is to keyboard hunt to remember the shift key while walking, then frantically press updownrightleftright trying to move while you're YOU DIED ... net effect: give up on crates, just run away from the wizards.
Thanks for the game, I enjoyed it. Hiding in boxes intuitively pressed the spacebar. But this is the pause menu. A good idea to avoid sitting in boxes for a long time. In our game there is something similar under the pillow)
Nice work on this entry! The art and sounds were great and the menu/instructions are well done too. Cheers!
This was a really fun game! The background music is fantastic and adds a lot to the overall atmosphere. The game was quite challenging, but I managed to beat all the levels!
I did find that the first level started a bit suddenly. I would have liked a moment to get familiar with the controls and move around before the wizard started attacking. Maybe you could add a trigger in a specific area to activate the wizard’s movement. However, this was just a minor issue, especially since restarting was so quick and easy.
I loved the idea of hiding in the boxes, it’s a fantastic feature! Unfortunately, the fast-paced gameplay didn’t leave many opportunities to make use of it.
Overall, a really well-made and enjoyable game. Great work!
The energy of this game is so fantastically manic 😂 when I booted the game I literally screamed out loud while running away from the wizard.
No notes. Short and sweet. Loved it.
Nice and funny game!!
Simple and effective video game but difficult to master
Quite a fun game! It was short and sweet, and the main mechanic of tricking enemies into breaking boxes was really cool and unique! Overall, a great little game that had the feel of an intense bullet-hell!
The game looked polished and reminded me of the flash games I used to play. It was a bit fast for me but hope I can get better. Great game!
I really liked the game, it was super fun! The art and mechanics are absolutely splendid.
This was fun and very challenging. I really like the crate search/suffocation mechanic. That’s very clever. I liked that it’s fast paced too. I found running from the wizards was enough of a challenge that I couldn’t really find the time to even look at my inventory bar to see if I had potions, but I was able to get through a couple rooms okay. Good job on this and great creative use of the theme.
Thanks for playing! Yes, many people complained that there wasn't enough time to check the inventory. Due to that, I added boosts which are instant buffs. Did you find the boosts helpful? Just a request for some feedback.
I actually went back and played it a bit more and made it a bit farther. The trick for me was playing in full screen. Everything being bigger made it easier and I was able to use the potions. I think if you mapped the button to get into boxes to more than one button maybe something like space bar or “j” “k” then it would feel more natural to use two hands while playing. I think part of my issue was I’m frantically running away from these guys shooting at me - and pressing shift with the same hand made it a bit more difficult. I would propose: WASD movement, J to get into boxes, K to use left-most potion…or something like that. The boosts being applied instantly is perfect. I can’t imagine also having to manage applying the boosts myself.
Thank you for the suggestions! I will try mapping features to more convenient keys, shift is a little bit awkward. But it was originally meant to be ctrl, and i just changed it at the last second due to the Ctrl+W shortcut lol.
Very intense and challenging game. I like it a lot. Great job!
for the whole game i was like “waaaaaaaaaaa~~h!!” in a good way. so fun!
Intense! It's fun and challenging, my only feedback is that I found that I had to replay some levels so that the key spawned in an easier location haha
Really challanging and fun.
it's a fun jam game, but agree with the previous comment, it'd be a better experience if drinking the potions wouldn't require extra step. also because of this I found the hiding mechanism more of an additional stress factor than help, as I couldn't stay there to chill and many times the enemies would just pop most of the boxes, revealing the key so had no motive to get inside the boxes anymore. i think it's a great stepping stone and with some polish would be an amazing game, good job!
I tried adding potions instantly but that just wastes a lot of them since you generally collect potions only at the start. For instance why would you automatically add a health potion when a player is at full health? Or a breathing potion when player is at full air bar? I decided to leave the choice of using it to the player. It's just two keypresses, after all, one to select the inventory slot and then the E key.
Thank you for rating the game.
I fixed your concerns by adding a separate class of potions called boosts. Potions are still stored the old way, but boosts are applied automatically. Thank you for the constructive feedback!
Nicely done! Hiding from the wizards was stressful, but I got through all of the levels after a few tries each!
I wish the items I found were used automatically. The game was too fast-paced to understand what items I had in stock, and click on the correct one. Instead, I was frantically running away from bullets, while trying to click randomly on items to get some sort of boost.
you should press e to drink potions
thanks for rating the game!
I fixed your concerns by adding a separate class of potions called boosts. Potions are still stored the old way, but boosts are applied automatically. Thank you for the constructive feedback!
Nice! I'll give it another shot =)