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A jam submission

Dubious HeroView game page

The Dubious Hero
Submitted by Mr. Pineoak (@MrPineoak), Heyse, dioaug, Peter4444, ralf99, guilherme severo, Globosos — 2 hours, 52 minutes before the deadline

Play game

Dubious Hero's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Presentation#6624.0004.000
Overall#20393.2463.246
Enjoyment#28842.7372.737
Creativity#31943.0003.000

Ranked from 19 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?
A wizard guides you through the forest by killing monsters. But they are peaceful monsters and the wizard is killing just for fun.

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

Yes

We created the vast majority of the art during the game jam

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

Yes

We created the vast majority of the music during the game jam

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Comments

Submitted

I liked the idea, but there are a lot of design decisions that hold the game back. The timer on the shooting does not mix well with the puzzle aspect of the game. In the time you get, you first have to notice which ways the lasers shoot (which is made unintuitive, since the wizard is not the origin, but the tile in front of it); then you have to puzzle out how you can hit every target; and then you have to position yourself to the right spot. If you could retry a level immediately, then this difficulty could have been manageable (still not good, as you are almost required to fail before you can succeed.) But now you get booted back to the very start, which is needlessly punishing. This made me not get past the fourth puzzle, since I failed it three times, and then gave up.

On the good site the art is quite nice and the music is good. The lack of sound effects is quite noticeable, and would improve the feeling quite a lot. Also one time I passed a level while one enemy was still alive, but I couldn't reproduce it.

Still, keep up the good work!

Submitted

The concept is cool and I liked how the game tests your reaction times! I wish there were other, more interesting enemy types (maybe there are later, I didn’t get all the way to the end) to spice things up - maybe they move or something? I also thought the screenshake was a bit too much. But I liked the combination of quick reactions and puzzling, and the graphics were top notch. Good job!

Submitted(+1)

Took me a while to understand what I was supposed to do, checkpoints and a tutorial would be nice. The game concept is really cool and I was able to do several levels, music and art are great. I'm not sure on the solution myself but potentially something to do with the UI where it shows the arrows on the left could be changed to make things clearer, when I first started playing it looked like rhythm game prompts and I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. Great game overall! 

Submitted(+1)

The core mechanic felt good, I felt like I was move a large swath of land with the shaking.  The woodland creatures were beautiful too. 

At first I thought I would prefer to see the moves in advance, but not knowing those moves caused me to plan ahead, which was interesting.  "If I get diagonals, which creatures should I hit?.. oh what if it's a straight and a diagonal".  That planning would reward a first-time victory, but (assuming there were checkpoints) it could also be more relaxing by just having trial and error and a small memory game. 

There were a couple times where I totally missed a single creature by the end, but it was a success anyway, which was relieving haha. Anyways great game!!

Submitted(+1)

I enjoyed the art! The music is really nice. What did you use to make it?

Developer
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We're pleased!! DioAug and Peter used Aseprite for art, UI and sprites and I used FL Studio for music! 

Submitted

That's super impressive. I am so bad at FL. These days I just use Audacity haha.

Developer
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There's a nice course at Udemy which teachs how to make some songs using FL Studio. You will improve, I'm sure of that!

Submitted(+1)

Loved the art! like others said level checkpoints would be nice to have, starting from the beginning is tough. A sound effect when you attack would have gone a long way!

Developer
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We thank you! DioAug and Peter4444 were the greatest artists behind that! Checkpoints would be a way to go if we had a bit more time. The attack sound was in the files but unfortunately not implemented.

Submitted(+1)

Cute game. Wish there were checkpoints though. And it wasn't clear what the win condition is, since I could win with leaving 1 monster alive but I didn't know many I would need to kill to not lose the level. Art was very nice. Good job!

Developer
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Thanks, Ethan! We wanted to make a level selector/checkpoints but we couldn't... About the win condition... it's not a bug, but a feature (for sure. they don't need to know)! Props to DioAug and Peter4444 for the very detailed art! They're insane!

Submitted(+2)

This game was great! the puzzles were fun to figure out but it was a bit frustrating having to restart after every loss. I do wish either the timer was longer or the player could see the arrows before their turn, since it was incredibly difficult to think on the spot and I was only able to do some of them after memorizing the directions and planning ahead. Overall, great job!

Developer
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Thank you for the rich feedback! We really appreciate it!

This wasn't intended. We had planned the level selector but unfortunately we couldn't make it happen in time. About the timer to think, not to act literally was a good catch. We tought the same just after we uploaded it! Thank you very much for playing!

Submitted(+1)

Really good art and presentation. A bit confusing at first but is a good idea!! Good work

Developer
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Thank you very much for playing it! Props to DioAug and Peter4444 for the cherry on the top of the cake!

Submitted(+2)

I think players with small brains like me need more time lol
but nice idea, nice artwork! I like it

Submitted(+1)

Was a bit difficult to understand at first but that be the nature of game jams! I wish the timer wasn't so grueling, feels a bit difficult to know what you're going to do next and ends up being very on your toes (which has it's merits and demerits!). Was a bit punishing to lose after a few levels and be sent all the way back to level 1!

Oh and how the heck have I gone this far without mentioning the art or dialogue??? WTF??? ITS SO GOOD?? I LOVE IT?!?!

Developer
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We appreciate your feedback Dioag and Pedro were the gods of art direction behind it! 

We surely wished there were more time to implement the other enemies we've made and fix some mechanics stuff you mentioned (the punishing would be served later)! The jam was indeed a challenge and we appreciate very much your feedback. Thank you, Smoresies!

Submitted(+1)

It wasn’t very clear what you’re supposed to do at the very beginning but it is a promising concept!

Developer
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Thank you!! We wanted to make a level 0 that allowed to understand more but the time has eaten us up!  

Submitted(+1)

Looks are phenomenal, gameplay is decent. Good work

Developer
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That was indeed a challenge to us and comments like your make it feel that it worth it! Thank you! 

Submitted(+1)

love the music!!  the art is super cute too.  the colors are fantastic and the screenshake effect makes every attack feel very satisfying.  the only gripe I have is that the arrows on the left side of the screen were hard to understand at first.   They telegraph what your next lightning pattern will be, but I think it could be clearer

Developer(+1)

Talking in name of our team ~ thank you a lot for your compliments! we really tried to put out everything together the smoothest way possible.

Talking as the game designer and programmer ~ my biggest failure I couldn't solve was display of the arrow patterns, my bad 😅. But the ideia was to make it like a carousel, keeping always the next patterns less visible than the current.