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A jam submission

Fools to the SlaughterView game page

Adventurers dare to enter your dungeon? Punish their insolence.
Submitted by ha1fBit (@ha1fBit), Duckblade — 42 minutes, 5 seconds before the deadline
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Fools to the Slaughter's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Enjoyment#4733.7563.756
Overall#10093.6263.626
Presentation#11323.7323.732
Creativity#20623.3903.390

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 fit the theme?
Instead of fighting a boss, you ARE the boss. Play the role of killing those goody-two-shoed adventurers trying to stop your evil reign.

Did your team create the vast majority of the art during the 48 hours?

No

We used pre-existing art

Did your team create the vast majority of the music during the 48 hours?

No

We used pre-existing audio

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Comments

Viewing comments 30 to 11 of 30 · Next page · Last page
Submitted(+1)

Pretty fun game! I had some difficulties remembering the keys, but since there isn't many option it's still manageable. I like that each level is its own puzzle, they all present interesting situations and solutions. The game is quite hard, but the challenge here is rewarding. Well done!

Submitted(+2)

Nice concept and I loved the visual style. Was fun watching my mana, choosing the most appropriate spells and deciding the best moments to overspend on my HP. Great job!

The only thing that took a bit of getting used to was that spells were cast to the position of your mouse cursor only after they finished casting, so it would be cool to see an option of a target being placed as soon as you press the spell button instead.

Developer(+2)

Thank you for the kind feedback! I think we will indeed have to take a look at when the spell target locks in, if we do a post-jam update. The biggest reason it finalizes after the charge-up was to be sort of mobile compatible, so you can tap the button then tap where on the screen you want to place it. That could probably be a separate mode, though I wonder if it would make it more or less difficult to lead shots with that extra second or so of charge time.

Submitted(+1)

Nice D&D feel to it. Great art style. GG!

Submitted(+1)

Really good pacing in terms of layout. Having each spell being introduced in a level of its own under preset guidelines was a fantastic way of getting across how they all work and their proposed situational usefulness. It almost game across like a puzzle game trying to properly space things so I could leverage the most out of my mana. Graphics are great, really give off that retro vibe of playing on an old tv. Great work here, impressive amount of depth squeezed into the short time frame.

Developer

Thank you so much! We've had some submissions to previous jams with pretty rough difficulty curves, so I'm glad to hear we're getting that sorted out now-a-days. Same deal with the level feel; I personally love puzzles, and @Duckblade loves arena shooters, so I'm glad the game reflects that mix.

Submitted(+1)

I really liked how the levels were laid out! It made it seem almost like a puzzle for each one! I saw that the assets were not made, however, you did a fantastic job picking assets that fit the game's aesthetic. Overall, I really loved the game, great job :)

Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing our game and leaving the kind response!

We were hoping to do the art ourselves as well, but we had an unexpected power outage that set us back a fair bit. The 1-bit style was really just the fastest thing we could throw in, but I am very happy with how it ended up looking. Post-processing is magic. Looking forward to next year!

Submitted(+2)

This was really fun to play; I'm surprised that it doesn't have a lot more ratings! A few thoughts:

  • I really liked how the game had micro-tutorials for each spell; it was really helpful and surprisingly polished for a 48-hour jam!
  • A point of confusion was having the spells change keybinds — think it would have been clearer to have the keybind for each spell be consistent, even if they weren't always available. Another very minor point of confusion is that wasn't clear to me until I accidentally did it that you could shoot through walls, which then changed my strategy on some of the levels.
  • The UI felt a little blown up, but I really liked how clear the spell countdown was.

All of that said, this was hands-down one of my favorite "you play as the bad guy" games; the spells were fun and thoughtfully-designed, and despite there being a lot of depth, it didn't feel overwhelming or unclear — something that's really hard to achieve in 48 hours. Great work, team! :)

Developer(+1)

Thank you for the kind comment!

  • I'm glad you think so. We had tried the micro-tutorials in previous jams, and they seemed to go over well. I know I prefer that to a wall of text at the beginning.
  • We've had a number of people mention that the spell key-binds were confusing, so we'll definitely have to look into that. I was hesitant to give them individual keys during development because I didn't want some worst-case scenario where the only active keys for a level were Q and P or something crazy. Maybe if we kept it to Q, W, E and then A, S, D it would be manageable. And the shooting through walls was just a result of time constraints, haha.
  • Definitely agree on the UI. We didn't try full-screen until we were uploading to itch, and then spent the last hour or so making sure everything was at least visible on different aspect ratios. We'll have to think about UI sizing earlier next time.

Thanks again for the feedback, we really appreciate it!

Submitted(+2)

Nice introduction by showing us all of the spells! It was a fun game and a good twist on the theme.

Submitted(+1)

Great spin on the "be the boss monster" ... Nice one!

Submitted(+2)

Very well done! It was fun, and I'm glad I got to play it! Never have I been happier for all of the adventurers to die -- lol.

It was a little confusing when the button assigned to each attack changed between levels, although that didn't take away from the experience.  It was a good game. Good job getting it done in just 48 hours!

Developer

A few others have voiced similar thoughts on the key-binds, so I think we'll be looking into a solution for a post-jam update. There are a total of six spells, so we initially didn't want to give each its own key-bind in a row as in a worst case scenario we might only have the Q and Y spells available, and surely that'd be too uncomfortable. We'll have to do some thinking, maybe use Q, W, E, then A, S, D.

Thank you for playing!

Submitted(+2)

Great Game and art style! I had fun to play it and you are right we used the same asset pack. 

Submitted(+1)

Like the choice of spells and the small pixel style.

Submitted(+2)

Out of all the "you are the big bad evil guy" games I've played, this was the most enjoyable (I fell in love with the music, it fits perfecty). It was well paced and each ability unique. The only criticism is the lack of something that would show if an abilities cost exceeds your stored mana (maybe make that state yellow, and gray while recharging?), it sucked exhausting mana because you used an ability before looking at your mana number

Submitted(+2)

That was super fun, and I haven't seen anything like it gameplay wise, while fitting the theme nicely playing as the boss.

You introduced the mechanics fast enough to keep me focused, but it never felt overwhelming and each ability felt unique. Art, music also both fab of course. I really liked the tactical aspects of managing your resources, and the cast times of spells, mixed with the real-time movement of the enemies. Especially once you could teleport.

The game was nicely polished, and I have no complaints especially within the game jam regarding the rating, but in case you continue development and want feedback:

- I found I used the ice blast very little (couldn't say if that's just me or whether it needs a buff though as I still liked the ability).

- The endgame could use some balance tweaking - I think it was the perfect difficulty and tested the player's skills in a fair way, but I felt the levels were too long. Especially level 11, which, by the time I beat it, I knew the music inside out aha.

Developer(+1)

Thanks for the kind comment and compliments!

About the ice blast, we actually buffed it twice because my co-developer/designer is too good at playing games, and I couldn't beat his tutorial levels. Probably still needs another buff haha, though I think the permanent slow it gives adventurers is underrated.

I agree about the level length, but there's a trick to level 11 that lets you beat it within about 30 seconds. It's really more of a gimmick level based on a bug we thought was too funny to fix for the jam. As a hint, pay attention to the sound effects and focus on targeting the archer that feels different from the rest.

Thanks again for taking the time to play our game and leave feedback!

Submitted(+2)

I love that image of one of you being especially skilled aha

Ahhh that has me curious. I'm definitely gonna return to test that out

Submitted(+2)

Fun game, nice variety with the attacks too. Levels were fun and had a good sense of progression. Nice work!

Submitted(+2)

Excellent game, fun and challenging. I didn't like that the spells activate at the mouse position after the delay, not where you pressed the button. Level 10 was also very hard, but I did get it eventually. Nice choice of art and music. Great work!

Developer(+1)

Thank you for the comment! I went back and forth a bit on where the spells should target and decided on after the delay just so players could play the game using only the mouse (just clicking the Magic Missile button will automatically shoot it at the nearest enemy, and clicking the Lump of Lava will spawn it at the cursor after giving you time to aim). If we end up updating the game after the voting period, we'll probably add a specific mouse-only mode and change up some of the controls. Thanks again for the kind feedback!

Submitted(+2)

Nice idea and execution, I really enjoyed your game! 
I think that some information could probably be made clearer though. For instance, in the last level, I did not understand why I was hit by many arrows but it was only 1/5 of them that did damage, and sometimes I just got killed instantly out of nowhere.

Developer

Thanks for the comment! I noticed that about the arrows in the last level as well, and I think it's actually a bug throughout the entire game that just isn't noticeable until you have like 50 archers shooting at you. I set the arrows to despawn after they've travelled a certain distance, and it seems the archers sometimes stop walking forward just a smidge out of range. As for the instantly killed out of nowhere, yeah, definitely should've included a damage taken cooldown. That last level actually has several archers stacked up to appear as one until they collide with a wall, and they shoot simultaneously so that all their arrows hit you in the exact same frame. Not great design 😅 Thanks again for the great feedback!

Submitted(+1)

I loved the game!! Really fun to play. Well done!!

Submitted(+2)

I love the game ! I had a lot of fun playing it ! Probably one of the best games of the jam, very polished.

Well done !

Submitted(+2)

Really fun game, love design and possibilities to harm yourself if you don't have enough mana

Submitted(+2)

Really polished and fun game! Would be nice to see the radius of your AOE attacks like lava beforehand, although it was very fun to see that I missed myself by a couple of pixels with Death box xD

Viewing comments 30 to 11 of 30 · Next page · Last page