Loved both the music and the graphics! Combat system is quite challenging tho. Anyway, good job! :)

Nice game! The music was thrilling and I really enjoyed playing the game. It was very difficult, but that's probebly my own fault and I liked the graphics very much. Great work  ^_^

Ok, so I played this game a lot but I don't think it was becasue of the reasons you wanted me to..I played it as it was dark souls and I wanted to beat it.

It was super hard. took me over 20 tries to get over the first stage, and I got wiped in the second 1 immediatly. Maybe I suck, but I think there are ways to make the combat more fair.

A. The animation for the enemy's attack should have some visual cue  that it's coming. It's immediate and as frequent as the player's attack. This make it super tough.

B. The animation for blocking should be quicker, maybe instant. This, with the previous comment combined made it hard to block something if you didn't already had your shield up.

C. Sometimes when I was blocking, it didn't. That was frustrating you can imagine. (I think it was due to calculation and the enemy was technically attacking to my left, but he was below me and I had my shield to the south.)

D. Fighting 2 enemies at once was the tough part. Since you can't move while blocking/attacking you can't reposition for the other enemy, or dodge the attack after you attack. I think adding movement while attacking/blocking will make it more fun and fair. You can also add some more depth with parry, or roll etc but that's for later stages.

Other than that, I love hard games with rogue-like-like progression system. And the fact I played it for as long as I did means I had fun trying and wanting to progress.

Well done!

This was really challenging for me, but overall the game felt very polished. Loved the art, music and narrative. Nice job!

It was very hard to get past the first level.

Love the concept and the presentation is simply great! The gameplay feels very tight, but I do agree it is quite difficult and the pushback on shield hits made it really hard to counter enemies, so I had to back into a wall to avoid it hehe. Overall, great work! :D

Really nice. Incredible levels of polish for a jam game. Found it a little too frustratingly hard at times. Excellent art style, and overall, great submission!

The game itself is really good and incredibly polished ! I find it a bit needlessly hard for a jam (I got combo'd to death multiple times, and you really need to play defensively to avoid trading hits, which is a bit less fun) but the concept is enjoyable, and I love the idea of giving the upgrade to the opponent !

The music and sounds are really nice and really convey the "gladiator feeling". Really good job !

However... I really don't see the relationship with the theme. I have read the "How does your game fit the theme?" part, but it really didn't convice me. Nothing is "joined together". In fact, if you talk about the upgrades, it's even the exact opposite, since the enemies get the upgrade we don't. If they got the same upgrade, I could maybe understand the "joined progression", but here... Sorry, but I really don't see ^^'.

Don't get me wrong, it's a really, really good game, and I would LOVE to play a post-jam version and see it becoming a bigger thing, but as a "GTMK entry", it's off-topic ^^'.

I love it, I love this this idea.  I really enjoy these types of battle/gladiator games.  I hope your team keeps developing this.  I would really enjoy seeing some type of parry-bonus so that blocking becomes even more strategic.  Overall, great game!

Strangely I was only ever able to hit the enemies if I hit upwards, not when I hit to the sides. But very nice idea and nice graphics! I enjoyed this game, good work!

Great game, i loved the idea.

Although i think it is a little bit too hard if you are just melee and a little too easy if you have the projectile

Really cool art style! It was a little bit hard for me and I couldn't see any upgrade progression. But good work :)

Interesting concept that was well presented :D

I do think that maybe it’s a bit hard. It did take me about 5 goes to even see the upgrade screen :$, which is a shame because I think your upgrade mechanic is what makes it really interesting :)

If you come back to it, I would be tempted to a) give you an ‘initial’ upgrade at the very start, so players can be introduced to what makes this unique immediately, and b) give the player more health (maybe behind an ‘easy’ mode option, if you think the game is balanced and I’m just too bad at it :D ), or a heal mechanic (blocking slowly increases health?)

Well, I am well and truly terrible at timing ripostes, but it was a well-made game with a good look to it.

I had to grab my mouse instead of a touchpad to give this a proper try. It took me so many tries, but I did eventually get past the second wave with 2 guys to get an upgrade! Unfortunately the enemies got so much stronger after that, I died quickly xD

Right now it seems like you have either a veery short window to hit enemies while they approach you before they attack, or you need to be against a wall and use your shield to hit between their attacks. Fighting two at a time is super hard because either they flank you or their knockback moves you to somewhere they can.

The aesthetic is great though! The chickens in the arena are funny,  and the music is nice. I'd agree with others that the difficulty needs to go down, but you might have to play with the enemies getting your upgrades mechanic to make that happen.

The game looks very good. I think the game doesn't fit a theme, but nice work.

It's a fun game, I like the difficulty and how the game looks. If you don't mind me saying, I think the theme doesn't fit at all, it "fits" only by how you worded it. Nevertheless, it's a cool concept, would love to see it further developed :D

I did not get past the first level because i did not enjoy the feel and it was hard

This is like the Dark Souls of GMTK 2021

Nice! It's very hard, but I really like it. The music fits well!