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A jam submission

Akumanor GaidenView game page

Infiltrate the Akumanor and vanquish the evils within!
Submitted by Michirin — 42 minutes, 27 seconds before the deadline
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Akumanor Gaiden's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Gameboy Soul#64.6834.683
Soundtrack/SFX#74.3664.366
Overall#134.2634.263
Gameplay#224.0004.000
Graphics#394.4154.415
Interpretation of the Secondary Theme#1383.8543.854

Ranked from 41 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How does your game meet GBJam's theme?
It's a real Game Boy game (made with GB Studio) inspired by Japanese horror.

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Comments

Viewing comments 28 to 9 of 28 · Next page · Last page
Submitted(+1)

Banger soundtrack alert.

Submitted(+1)

Amazing! The game plays really well and is super fun! The art is absolutely fantastic! The only thing that gave me some trouble was the lags when there were too many enemies on screen, maybe having them spaced out a little bit more would be better.

But overall the game is incredibly impressive for such a short time! It really feels like a full scale gameboy game!

Developer

Glad you liked it!
Working on a colour version rn, btw, and the lag is gone in that version!

Submitted(+1)

Made it through two bosses.
Died to a spring next to a pit.

The jumping Kappa in the first sections of the game seemed to be the biggest contributor to lag spikes in the game. I think the descending spiked platforms also did to a lesser degree, too.

But overall, the game played well, looked fantastic, sounded great. If someone told me it was some long lost GameBoy game, I think I'd be inclined to believe them. Well done.

Developer

Thank you very much!
But also, I'm pretty sure the problem is the enemies being too close to one-another, it's lagging because the GB has to process more than one of them at once. You see how boss scenes don't really lag as much? It's because the boss is the only enemy on-screen.

Submitted(+1)

Pretty good entry, a little  bit too clone of castlevania in my opinion. But the work you can do in a week is awesome. Good job

Submitted(+1)

Other than some odd instances where the game would suddenly lag spike, this was a fantastic game! I kept being floored at how much content you had gotten in here

Developer

Thank you very much!

Submitted

If you'd like to watch my playthrough of it, here's the VOD https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2263555539?t=2h58m12s
Starts at about 2:55:00

Developer(+1)

I must admit, kinda laughing a bit at your guesses as to why it's lagging lol
It lags because it's a real Game Boy game, and GB Studio's platformer engine is a little too much for the good ol' GB CPU to handle...
But the GBC CPU has double the clock speed than the original GB one, and I'm working on a colour version right now and well... Literally just ticking the colour box and doing nothing else has already eliminated the lag!
Frankly, the only reason why I didn't do it to begin with is because this is the GB Jam, not the GBC Jam xD

Submitted(+1)

Not what I would have guessed! That's hilarious what a big difference that made!

Submitted(+1)

This is the second nearly flawless and super authentic GB Studio Castlevania game from this jam I've thus far played. How do you guys even do it?

First off, yes. The gameplay is very, very close to being perfect. Had this been released back then, and it does feel like it could've been, it would've been considered a feature complete, sleeper hit import. Considering that this is a jam game: wow. This is in between Castlevania Adventure and Castlevania Adventure 2 in terms of gameplay content - that's nuts! The main difference between both is regarding the subweapons, which 2 had and 1 didn't.

Which brings us to yes, the shuriken. The shuriken is a very functional throwing knife at specific points in the game, but its overall usefulness is a bit limited. For example, at least in my experience you will want to throw them on them skelly youkai liberally, but not on the final boss, you want to try for a double whip when he lands. Which is just fine, it's just that the game gives you a lot of them and you don't really use them too often. Bit of a shame, I do wish there were more situations that called for them.

Furthermore on the gameplay front, there's just some really, really slight hitbox issues with the umbrella, you can whiff quite a bit against it. Barely worth mentioning, however. Also barely worth mentioning is that there are some slight timing improvements that could be made. Such as the final boss lingering on the floor just slightly longer so you can get the double whip on 'im, the dragons that pop out of the pipes taking some extra frames to fire or you being able to whip their fireballs, that kind of thing. I mention it because this being such an amazing, basically feature complete GB game I do believe that it's very worth continuing, patching, something like that.

The presentation is really damn good. I really appreciate the eye for detail. The boss health bar charging up, the varieties of youkai, the very retro artstyle. Musically, it's really damn good as well - I especially like the half-step progression (?) in a section of the stage 1 theme, it rocks! The entire package has such a Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon vibe to it, I was smiling the entire way because I love that game.

Just beautifully done.

Developer(+1)

2nd Castlevania clone you played this Jam? There's another one?!?! I should check it out!!
And yeah, I've actually already started working on a colour version of this with some improvements, just activating colour mode alone already eliminated the lag lol (Blessed GBC doubled clock speed)
I'm thinking perhaps a difficulty setting, maybe rework some boss patterns a bit, it's a bit difficult to get melee attacks working on GB Studio cuz projectiles are finicky, and they're the only good way of doing hitboxes of any kind... But I'll see if there's anything I can do to improve that too.
Thank you very much!

Submitted

Yeah, it's kinda like Kid Dracula. Really enjoyed it https://cobaltaoi.itch.io/the-boy-and-the-mysterious-amulets

A GBC version sounds really interesting, looking forward to it. Regarding difficulty I think you could perhaps do what Bloodstained did, and have a sort of classicvania mode difficulty. If you fall into a pit or spikes you now lose a life, there's knockback, etc.

As for the hitboxes they're pretty fine anyway, you'd only want some minor QoL adjustments here and there.

Also, no problem and good luck with the post-jam version!

Submitted(+1)

One of the best games here so far

Developer

Thank you very much!

Submitted

Definitely, it is one of the games made. Congratulations.

Submitted

liked: graphics, music, gameplay, simple yet well made

disliked: some severe slowdowns :(, also, it ends! haha

Submitted(+1)

Really impressive that this was made in a week, it feels very complete and smooth to play too. Great work!

Developer

Thank you very much!

Submitted(+1)

Congratulations to a very polished game. I reached the skeleton boss, but that was too hard. I liked the graphics and the details. well done.

Developer

Thank you very much!
There's still a whole level and boss after that though ;3

Submitted(+1)

Wow, you're certainly pushing the limits of GB Studio, this is really solid. Love the yokai, love the music, gameplay is smooth. Very cool game, congrats!

Developer(+1)

Thank you very much!

Submitted(+1)

What an amazing game! I love the art style. The parallax effect is very well implemented. However I think that 3 layers of parallax lower the performance a bit too much for my taste. 

The jump pads where my worst enemy I struggled a lot to time my jumps right. So, I ended up just spamming the jump button, hoping that one of the pushes would be timed correctly.

Also the final boss was very well designed 👍

If you don't mind me asking, how did you do the whip-enemy contact detection? Did you use a static invisible projectile? I was struggeling to get sword hits right in a similar game.

Also, how did you get the turtles jumping out of the water so smooth? I mean they look like they are properly affected by gravity.

Amazing job with the game. It really feels as if it could have been on the DMG 🧡

Developer

Thank you very much!
I'm pretty sure it's not the parallax causing lag, but the enemies being too close together so the DMG has to process two of them at once...
As for the jump pads, just hold the jump button, you're not supposed to time it lol

And yes, the whip is a static invisible projectile, but to make it feel better, the whip hitbox is 4 pixels larger than the actual whip in every direction, and the hitbox only lasts 0.1 second, so it doesn't have enough time to drift too much from the whip while you're mid-jump, oh and, setting the walk and run speeds while on the ground to 0 for the duration of the attack also helps, but don't forget to reset it to the normal movement speed when the attack is done!

And as for the kappas (turtles) jumping out, it's actually pretty simple! I adjust their speed mid-movement to simulate gravity! 8 pixels below the peak I half the movement speed, then I hold them in mid-air for half a second, then move them back down 8 pixels still at halved speed, then I set the speed back to normal and move the rest of the way down! Oh, and the splashes are a static projectile with no collisions!

Submitted(+1)

Holding the jump button makes using the jump pads so much easier 😮

Thanks a lot for sharing your knowledge. Very clever game design. I need to try those things myself once I revisit my platformer 😊

Submitted(+1)

Oh my gosh this is amazing! All of the art of the yokai-- the kappa, the kasa-obake, the yurei, etc.-- are so detailed and beautiful! The soundtrack is so good too! And the gameplay... I myself am not very good at metroidvanias but I powered through this one! It was tough but it was fun!

I really enjoyed this one! Fantastic work!

Developer(+1)

Thank you very much! Glad you appreciate the youkai art ^^
Just sayin' btw, it's just a regular action platformer, not a metroidvania lol

Submitted(+1)

My bad ^-^" (that's how you know I'm not good at ordinary platformers either hehe)

Submitted(+1)

This game is incredible! The fact that this was made in such a short amount of time is insane. I could see this being an official Castlevania spin-off. Great Work!

Developer

Thank you very much! It's actually a sequel/spin-off to my GBJAM 7 submission, which got compared to Castlevania A LOT back then, so I figured, hey! The theme is 'spooky', so why not go all-the-way and just make my own  "Castlevania"? lol

Submitted(+1)

This is a very well-made Castlevania-like game. And I was surprised by how long it was, three full levels with a boss included at the end of each one! The aesthetic is superb, and the music sounds lovely. This feels really like a japanese-themed Castlevania-like that could have been released for the Game Boy. I was surprised by the variety of enemies and how you reinvented classic Castlevania enemies as yokai. And I want to highlight the epic feel of the third level. In fact, the level-by-level progression is very cool, starting at the outskirts of the manor, then exploring inside and finally jumping and slashing enemies on the rooftops!

Unfortunatly,  I experienced some lag while playing, but it was not a big deterrent to the overall experience. I also thought the platforms in the first boss fight were a little harder to see for me, I initially thought they were part of the background, and the third boss I found it a bit too long and easier than the second. Personally, I am not a big fan of bosses where you have to wait for them to repeat an attack pattern in order to have a window for attacking yourself

But overall I had a blast playing this. Amazing work here!

Developer(+1)

Thank you very much! And yeah, GB Studio's platformer engine is a bit much for the original GB hardware, hence the lag, and I'll keep those criticisms in mind when desinging future bosses!

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Wait, this masterpiece was made by a solo dev in 10 days..! What?
This is incredible! Great music, perfect artwork, excellent gameplay! And all that playing in an original gameboy... I am losing my words...
Top entry for me here!

Developer

Glad you liked it that much! Thank you!

Submitted(+1)

I love the Asian mythological creatures as enemies in this game! It adds a layer of interest beyond the generic "spooky" theme. The game is great! I think with extra dev time this could turn out to be a fantastic game.

Developer(+1)

I normally already do the usual Skeletons, Bats, Spiders and Ghosts and so on whenever I do a 'spooky' theme, so I figured I'd try something I haven't really done for a change for this one, glad it's being appreciated!
And yes, I Would quite like to give it some extra dev time, but frankly I need a good break after 10 days of nonstop work >w>';
Thank you very much!

Submitted(+1)

Understandable! I'm sure after making something this nice by yourself it must have been a lot of work. When you do recover, I'm looking forward to what you make in the future! :3

Submitted(+1)

This is a pro level gameboy game I would have been astounded by in the 90s buying it at KB toys! Every perfectly rendered rooftile and tree and indoor decoration was matched by the epic soundtrack. As a Yo-kai Watch fanatic I loved seeing Kappa and them again!

Developer

Thank you very much! And yeah, like, I usually go for the usual skeletons, bats, spiders and stuff, but this time I decided to try something different that I hadn't really done before ^^

Submitted(+1)

this is absolutely mindblowing!!! Its hard to believe this was only made in 10 days, that's really incredible. I love the art, the choice of enemies is awesome, and I really love the bosses, especially the giant skeleton. I did play on the browser version and got some slowdown and also a bug where my hitbox got disabled, but I'm definitely gonna try out the ROM version later

Developer

Hopefully the ROM works! I think I know what might be causing the issue, and I'll fix once the Jam period is over...
Thank you very much!

Submitted(+1)

do you have plans to keep developing the game further? I'd love to see more

Developer

I want to, but I need a break, this project broke me >w>';

Submitted(+1)

I can imagine, there's a crazy amount of content for only 10 days! I think it would make a really great game with some more time to fully flesh everything out

Viewing comments 28 to 9 of 28 · Next page · Last page