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Growth Circles's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Fun | #39 | 4.074 | 4.074 |
| Mechanics | #72 | 3.790 | 3.790 |
| Story | #77 | 3.506 | 3.506 |
| Music | #83 | 3.765 | 3.765 |
| Aesthetics | #136 | 3.926 | 3.926 |
| Theme | #156 | 3.654 | 3.654 |
| Sound | #208 | 3.123 | 3.123 |
Ranked from 81 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.
Yes! Music: https://opengameart.org/content/long-away-home-8bit https://opengameart.org/content/boss-battle-3-8-bit-re-upload https://opengameart.org/content/8-bit-battle-theme-famitracker https://opengameart.org/content/victory https://opengameart.org/content/game-over-bad-chest-sfx Sounds: https://freesound.org/people/qubodup/sounds/59992/ EnvironmentArt: https://szadiart.itch.io/rogue-fantasy-catacombs
Link to your source?
https://github.com/LammerD/DeathIsOnlyTheBeginning/tree/main
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Comments
Sick submission! Had such a blast, well done!
Pros
Cons
Overall a great submission that only lacks sound effects, well done! :)
Hey! Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for playing! Yes the sound and the horible font are the two sore thumbs I would have loved to iron out but the time just ran away from me °^^
an epic loop lol , the boss battle is a lot of fun .
an epic loop lol , the boss battle is a lot of fun .
Thank you for playing :D Glad you liked it!
Very cool and a good interpretation of the theme! Congrats!
Thank you!
I enjoyed the Circle Mechanic A LOT. The Boss Fight was very well done and the cool little easter egg after the boss was quirky lol. Some things I would say to improve on are the pickup radius for the hearts and also the range and speed of the swords swings. Overall, Very Fun and Engaging!
Thank you very much for playing! Nice someone got the easter egg I was scared everyone would just skip over it after winning the fight :D Yeah pickup radius needs to be bigger especially when you have high speed it becomes hard to pick them up! Did you get weapon and attack speed upgrades during your run or how would you further improve on them?
I did get all the upgrades on my run, which was awesome! I would further improve them by having them drastically speed up or improve the player, then create levels where there are tons of enemies or the boss fight would have more health. Pretty much creating more chaos and increasing the loot pool drops for the circles.
Good game all around. Lots of fun. Excellent job.
Thank you for playing it! It was a blast seeing someone actually enjoy my work!
Nice game
Thank you!
Nice game, I did also find, as others have mentioned that hit detection needs some extra feedback to the player as it was a bit unresponsive and I couldn't always tell whether I was hitting them or not. The growing circles are a nice mechanic though, good work overall, keep it up!
Yes for sure something that needs more polishing! Thanks for playing :)
Good mechanic using the sword as the mouse position, made it tricky to hit the bad guys. Great to be able to get upgrades too. Great Job!
Thank you for trying the game out!
I love the art, the sound design, level design and weapon level up mechanics!
The reward system is also great. I love the idea of the bigger your growth circle the higher your reward! I had a lot of fun ^w^.
Thank you very much for giving it a try! May you stay safe from evil mushrooms and shadow creatures :D
I was feeling sleepy at work, so I replay your game, and I finally beat the it! Man i wish there were more levels ^w^.
More bosses! But again great job!
Gave it another replay and i just noticed that it's a cycle!
Mind is officially blown :)
Now the duality of the game icon makes a lot sense
I really liked the mechanic of the circles, though there were too many of the heal circles as I didn't see myself really get into that much trouble. The definitely can be expanded upon one thing that comes to mind is some enemies that gain buffs if they are in some circles so you have to pick and choose what to eliminate first and I'm sure you can expand this game much more. Also great boss fight. Hits on enemies lacked response. Other than that amazing idea, keep it up :)
Thank you! Yeah I opted to make the game too easy rather than too hard especially what hp is concerned! I originally had it so that if only one enemy died (ie. you did not kill additional enemies in a spawed circle) that it would give nothing and then if you killed one in it you got hp back. Basically shift everything up by one. But balancing is hella hard... When I update the game I will make it so that if you play for a second round with the blue mushroom that the enemies hit harder and have more hp.
Yes more enemies are definetly something I want to add!
You are giving me so many ideas for improvements. Enemies in growth circles are stronger so you have to trade of if you want to fight them there for better rewards or kill them more easily outside of it. And also it needs an enemy that runs around and basically slowly sucks up the growth circles so that is an enemy that does not attack the player directly but his opportunities at rewards.
Thank you very much for your comment it was really inspiring! °^^
Interestingly I found the complete opposite. I couldn't get past the 3rd room (unless I skipped it and just ran straight north to the 4th and died there instead). I found if I killed the 2 in the first room together I always got the sword upgrade, then if I killed the 2 little ones in the next room on top of the big stationary ones I got some kind of upgrade (walk speed, attack speed, damage) but in the 3rd room, no matter where or how I killed things, I didn't get any drops and then I died.
I also found that given the unique mechanic, too many of the enemies were stationary so you couldn't control where you killed them
Did you ever run east when you get the forking room? There might be some help there :D My idea was that with the stationary enemies you have to think about maneuvering the small ones to them to get the best reward! The sword in the first room is a guaranteed drop in the first room as it gives the most visual feedback instead of random stat increase! Weird it should work if you kill them close enough to each other :think:
My first playthrough I didn't get the sword, I didn't kill them on top of each other and got 2 hearts, which I didn't need at the time. I played 4 times and couldn't get past that 3rd room. I tried again and went to the east side of the room but all I found was locked door. Nothing I killed in that room dropped anything any time I played
Did you kill all the enemies in the room? The rewards only spawn on room completion. That way you can grow the circles for better upgrades!
I always died before I could kill everything
This was super entertaining from start to finish! I love that you clearly telegraph the enemy attacks especially the boss and it's smooth af to play. The art is great, you go lil mushroom fellow!
I'm really glad you liked it! I definetly want to make more bosses they are just a blast to make but a pain to balance :D
nice game mechanics. congrats!
Thank you!
Nice game. The music is not on a loop. Still was interesting and the right amount of challenge!!!
Thanks! Yeah the music bug was resolved... I put a > instead of >= on my music player script. :facepalm:
Hey first thing i wanna say is, great job ! you've manage to put things together and made a dungeon like experience. Even the narrative at the start adds value to the game
Things that would be nice
Hey! Thanks for playing!
I think i did? the larger sword right ? it feels like all the sword swings at a 35 degree angle only haha.
Great submission. I think my only feedback was the combat felt a little clunky and the movement speed seemed a bit too fast but overall I love the Aesthetics and the music. Great job!
Thank you! Yeah the diagonal attack is a little weird and would definetly be something I would improve on! And the speed was definetly overtuned especially with all the speed upgrades :D
I love the artwork and music. The design is great and I dig the idea of the enemies dying ontop of each other's "zones" to build up a better boost (is that right?) was neat.
The way the sword and swinging worked felt awkward and challenging to use. Is it supposed to stick to the diagonals? Or rotate freeform around the player.
Thank you! Yep that is right. I would have loved to make better visuals for the growth circles but maybe I will get to that after the jam. My idea was that something akin to vines grow from the corpses and then blossom into the upgrade but my art skills are no where near good enough for that :D
Yeah the sword swinging was my bane the first 3-4 days... I wanted it to be more freeform but hat trouble with my pixel art so now it is a feature that you can only attack diagonally I gues :facepalm:
Hey, for what you did that is awesome. And Oh man! That would look soo cool having the vines grow. I love that idea. Great job though and yeah, the rotation I can see being stressful. Basically when it comes to rotations in many game engine software can be a nightmare. Good work and feel proud of what you did!
Lol, it was fun! I died, but had a blast going through it :)
Glad you liked it! I'm really unsure about the balancing! I definetly need to see how people feel about it as I think I have become quite blind to it °^^
The game is simple, but the player moves too quickly. Aside from that, the game was a blast to play.
Thanks for giving it a shot! Yeah especially with speed boosts being rather common he can get quite quick quite fast. I will tune it done for sure! I was initially scared that my dungeon was to big and people would hate walking around for too long so I might have overshot his base speed :D
this was SUPER fun! i actually shouted out "NOOOOO" when i died. loved it great job
Thank you for giving it a go! I'm very glad you liked it! Muscario is a cute little fella isn't he :D
lol sure is XD