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GDTV 2022- Vanquished Blood Moon's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Aesthetics | #169 | 3.800 | 3.800 |
| Story | #197 | 2.900 | 2.900 |
| Theme | #206 | 3.533 | 3.533 |
| Music | #227 | 3.333 | 3.333 |
| Sound | #276 | 2.933 | 2.933 |
| Mechanics | #473 | 2.633 | 2.633 |
| Fun | #495 | 2.600 | 2.600 |
Ranked from 30 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How many people worked on this game total?
1
Did you use any existing assets? If so, list them below.
https://opengameart.org/content/gothicvania-cemetery-pack
Link to your source?
https://github.com/deeraghoogames/GameDevTV2022
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Comments
Congrats on submitting your game.
There is some STYLE here. The presentation reminds me of classic PS1 games with pulsating wild text everywhere. The sprite art is also very nice. Unfortunately, I couldn't quite get the hang of this game. I kept being forced to restart but I couldn't get to anything to kill easily and things kept disappearing before I could kill them.
If your goal is for the player to get stronger over time, the "weak" or starter version of the game still has to be fun to convince players to get to the better stuff. As it is, the current version just feels a bit slow and unintuitive. The attack key is a little unusual for WASD, especially if you have to be switching between mouse and keyboard to navigate the menu and start another round.
I could tell you were doing some cool stuff, but I think it just needs a bit more polish at the starting experience to get there. Nice job though!
Keep making games and keep learning :)
Thanks for playing and your kind words of encouragement ,
I must admit the instructions for the game are not very clear, when you kill the undead you get vanquish points but if you are hit by a crow there is a minus of vanquish points , and after some more play testing i found a bug that the vanquish points actually go into minus values if too many crows hit, I fixed that now and also I am taking your suggestion on having a more stream line approach for the key config ,
I am new to keyboard controls , What is a good key for attack with WASD controls ?
For this game, I think mapping attack to left click would be totally fine.
When making keyboard controls, think about where a player's hands might normally rest. Most games have players hands at WASD and mouse. Depending on how frequently a player is expected to use an input, or how complex that input is, should influence which keys you use. High use, high complexity (meaning used at the same time as other keys) should be WASD or as close as possible (Q, E, R, 1, 2, 3, 4, etc).
When in doubt, playtest with others! :)
thanks again for your feed back . I really appreciate it .
watched you web blog to get more of an idea of how the game plays, which helped me out :).
Stil a little tough for me at the start, possibly could do with letting me upgrade a bit before the crows come out to play :P.
But lots of great stuff in this, all being brought together in a short amount of time.
Well done! Great job
The game is such great work from a single dev, well done ! The UI and menu set the tone.
One point I felt was missing, was feeling the damage on character and knowing when I die. Anyway, congratulations !
thanks for playing and your kind remarks
I added more feedback to the player damage so that it is more obvious that the player was damaged, for the post jam release .
I hope that you give it a try again ! I you like you could check out my dev log video on youtube to see how I made it.
Wow I can confuse it with a commercial game. Really nice. Only thing is the platform mechanic which was a bit difficult to me. Also, hate the birds D:
thanks for playing and your comments ,
Oh I hate the birds too !!!
I can't jump more than a foot off the ground, what am I doing wrong?
thanks for playing ,
Not sure what is happening . maybe you are under one of the lower platforms, you are not able to jump directly on to a platform form beneath it .
I thought that too so I tried jumping all across the area I could but I basically can't reach the first platform on either side and am trapped haha. Could it be a high framerate issue? Like if jumping is based on frames but not multiplied by time.deltatime? That's all I can think of it being
not sure why that is happening , but this is very interesting what are the specs of the pc you are running on ? or could it be your internet connection ?
Nothing amazing by today's standards but still decent: i7-7700K, GTX 1080, 16gb RAM, internet is Australian but still fine since I'm pretty sure the whole game is downloaded before the start of play. On reflection, surely it can't be framerate because others would have to have better systems than mine too and I seem to be the only one with this issue lol
I've also tried playing in Edge (I usually use Chrome) but no difference there either
this is really a unique situation, I tried it on an old laptop that has a celeron 1.5 GHz , 4GB of ram ,running on windows 8 and the game runs frame rate is bad but the jump height is normal. strange it was fun turning on this old laptop brings back so many memories,. lol
very awesome art.The music was so nice it really fits the game
same goes to the sounds.But the issues i encountered was the player controller was little messy
and i dont know what im doing
Thanks for playing and your comments,
the player controller does need some work , and the round times were a little to short at the start, working on that for the post game jam release.
Very fun game with beautiful art. The upgrades, especially the double jump, are quite significant, which is good. Well done!
To make this game even better, I think the clarity of the game should be improved. The timer bar should also be re-positioned somewhere more eye-catching. The placement of the platforms can use some adjustment as well. Some platforms are quite awkward to jump on and can get quite frustrating.
Overall, very good game. The fact that you managed to do all this on your own is even more impressive. Nice job!
thanks for playing and your comments and suggestions.
I agree that the timer should be more noticeable and i am working on that for the post jam release.
I like the overall direction this is heading, especially the art style. However, I feel it really needs to be tuned to make it a bit less frustrating. I don't feel that I have much control over whether or not my character takes damage and dies. I think this might partially be because of a lack of mobility. The ghosts seem to one-hit kill each time too, and it's nearly impossible to dodge them. I found myself simply killing the first skeleton on the left and maybe one more before dying and restarting. Letting the player jump higher, move faster, and have some way of killing the ghosts too would make this much more enjoyable.
Keep up the great work and congrats on the submission!
thanks for playing and your suggestions,
you are right about not feeling like you have much control over whether the player takes damage and dies at the beginning, because the round time is to short as suggested by Arswyd in the comments, and the player does not have health, his life is on a timer, later in the game there is a collectable that adds more time to the timer , The way you played is the way that this has to be played at the moment and I agree that a more fun approach would be to have a longer round time and more feedback ,when the crows hit the player, at the moment the crows cannot be destroyed, I tried to have the player be able to kill the crows but when i did that the player was just able to stay on one platform and just spam the attack and just get points, with out moving around the stage. I am working on a more balanced approach for the post jam release.
I didn't have the same issues with jumping, actually...
Maybe streaming the game on Discord had made the game perform so badly?
Hey~ found your game in the discord looking for feedback. I tried to play, but unfortunately, I wasn't able to see a whole lot of the content because I got stuck very early on, unable to jump onto any platform where the enemies are in order to attack them to increase my stats.
From the little bit of the game I was able to see, my feedback for improvement would be:
- increase the jump height. I know that you can do this after you die with upgrades, but as it currently stands, it's difficult for new players to make even the lowest platforms. I think increasing the jump height a bit would help make the game more accessible without making the player overpowered, and you could just increase the jump even more when the player buys upgrades, to make it very easy to land on platforms. In general, I think it doesn't feel good in games when the jump height is just barely enough to make the necessary jumps.
- make sure the crows are rendered in front of everything else in the scene. Right now, they are a very dangerous enemy that can take away your hard-earned points (if I had any) but they can be hard to see when they are hiding behind the columns and background.
I would like to try again if I could figure out how to kill even one enemy to get upgrades (when I played now, I was just stuck on the bottom of the screen, unable to reach any enemies to kill) so please let me know what I missed in order to take down the enemies.
Anyway, congrats on submitting and it looks like a cool game if I could figure out how to play!
thanks for playing, sorry you had such a bad experience on your first play trough,
I can suggest that you ignore the first platform with the Undead General (blue Zombie ) and go to the other platform with the red zombies, kill them and them, and avoid the crow that will appear you will only get 2 or 3 vanquish points and then first upgrade speed this will allow you to out run the crows easier and also be able to jump on platforms easier ( if you don't manage to do it the first time repeat this until you can upgrade speed. next save vanquish points until you can upgrade strength. you will then be able to kill the Gndead General easier. then getting vanquish points will be easier. Pro Tip move the player just below the ledge and push forward as you jump and you will be able to make the jump on the platform.
I have been implementing the previous suggestions for a post Jam game release and will also consider your suggestion as well
thanks again.
Maybe the jumping issue was cause by streaming to Discord?
Played and rated.
I like the visual style, it has quite a unique feel combined with the shaking text. The gameplay was interesting and it links well with the theme. Good job :)
Would appreciate if you check out and rate our game as well: https://hadilepanda.itch.io/rise-of-necromancy
thanks for playing and your comments,
will play and rate yours too !
Nice concept and awesome intro! :D However, a bit too repetitive because of the fast timer. I think it would be better if timer could be upgraded with less vanquished and strength/jumping needed more. Also, with too much upgrade into speed and jump, makes controlling your character hard. Anyway, good work, congratulations! :)
thanks for playing and your comments and suggestions ,
I tested your suggestions and I agree, it is more fun and gets the player more involved in a meaning full way, I will definitely implement this
Good base game concept but you could tweak the stats a little bit. The game restarts too quickly and killing the stronger enemy drops the same number of souls. This will refrain the player from fighting stronger enemy and take the easy route, rewarding the player for fighting stronger enemy with more soul could be an improvement. Overall, good job!!
thanks for playing and your comments,
I taught so too but feature creep set in and I missed it, I should have made a to do list , I was going to give the undead general a higher vanquish point drop.
I like the idea. Cool art. jumping mechanics is rough though. Great work overall.
Cool game, nice art, nice gameplay loop. I would like a better movement system, it's a little unprecise. But nice job!
thanks for playing , I totally agree , I am still working on the movement system , it certainly has improved over the course of my development journey Check out my source code if you get a chance I am using the new input system and I coded in gravity, I am not using unity physics system for everything.
Very nice looking game!
I was stuck a bit at first because I killed enemies and got 0 vanquished points. But I read the comments and saw that the birds take away points - and then it made sense. Got some progression after, strong work!
thanks for Playing and your comments,
I think that there should be more player feed back to let players know that the crows take away vanquish points, that is something that I have noted for the future, another thing is that the Zombie kill FX and the spawn FX is the same to there is confusion to weather the player killed the the zombie or not.
What I Like
What would be great to have
Overall, i say good job on putting it together. It just requires some tweeking on configs and it will improve significantly
Thanks for playing and such detailed feedback
I really need help creating key board controls, I was mostly a console gamer before i stared making games.
here is how I play
the birds (crows) can't be killed by design and they remove one vanquish point if they hit you .
also the player has no health points his life is on a timer.
At first you need to stay at the bottom avoid the Undead General ( blue Zombie ) and kill the 2 Undead (red zombies) you must avoid the crows , you will get 2 vanquish points , that is all you get first round then upgrade Speed ,then you will be able to kill 3 the next time, It is a bit of a grind at first. next upgrade strength by 1 and you will be able to defeat the Undead general. then getting the vanquish points become really easy, when you get the double jump you can get to the top platforms where Antoinette's statue adds time to your timer. then grind until you get 50 vanquish points and the HELL CAT will appear, defeat the hell cat and you beat the game.
my fastest play trough is about 12 minutes (but I must have played it at least 100 times looking for bugs )
hope this helps and you give it another go!
I need to add coyote time and a jump buffer to the player controller, have a look at the source if you get a chance.
Soo i saw the undead general became a red zombie. and when i kill that, it didnt award me anything.
i really couldn't reach the platform for the other 2 red zombie on the right.
And i realize... when im on edges of platform, and i hit jump. it doesnt really allow me. But i guess I would be nitpicking at this point. I think my other points are probably more of a priority.
this happens at times , there are still some bugs , I used player prefs for the upgrade system, and this was one of the reason why that was not the recommended choice for storing important data like scores but, I am new to coding, all part of the learning process , thanks for trying again.
I am currently working on a devlog and play through video at the moment to document my process I will post it in discord on my game page and community. You can check it out when I am done if you are interested
thanks again for your feedback
It is a beautifully crafted game, I had a lot of troubles with the mechanics however which took some of the fun out. I can only applaud you however for making something this elaborate in such a short time. Very nicely done!
thanks for playing and your comments, I was really trying to create a good story to make the player and his world seem real , I agree that the mechanics takes a bit getting use to I am working on having a good reusable player controller. with the new unity Input system. and that was my first time trying to make a upgrade system , sadly I used player prefs take a look at the source if you get a chance !
I definitely will, because I am still a n00b, had my first game jam and it really went all wrong because of bad communications etc. I want to learn though and will do another jam in june.
Very nice game. A feedback maybe to display health bar for the player? Overall it was nice!
thanks for playing and i appreciate your feed back
that was one of the things I was struggling with , In the end to fit the theme I decided not to give the player health but put his health as the timer, every time he gets hit the timer gets - 1 second, he is going to die when time runs out later in the game Antoinette's Statue gives him extra time.
Just realized there's timer at the top right lol
If that's the case then I believe you don't need health bar :D