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Arcane Overload's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Graphics | #1 | 4.708 | 4.708 |
| Overall | #5 | 3.714 | 3.714 |
| Controls | #7 | 3.667 | 3.667 |
| Fun | #14 | 3.625 | 3.625 |
| Theme | #16 | 3.917 | 3.917 |
| Accessibility | #20 | 3.167 | 3.167 |
| Originality | #29 | 3.792 | 3.792 |
| Audio | #54 | 3.125 | 3.125 |
Ranked from 24 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Godot Version
3.5.3
Wildcards Used
N/A
Game Description
A game about carefully managing the mana levels of your spells!
How does your game tie into the theme?
Each spell in the game has 2 effects: A always benefitial one when safely charged, and a risky but powerful one when overloaded.
Source(s)
N/A
Discord Username(s)
geminimax
Participation Level (GWJ Only)
4
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Comments
What an amazing game, I love the balance between the jam theme and the tactical aspect of using the powers by following their charge meters, clever mechanic. The art style, graphics and transitions, are great, it's a little lacking on the audio department, the powers would benefit greatly by having some sound effects, also when the character gets hurt a sound effect would make the player aware of what's happening. I think it just need a little more polish on the audio side, but it's a cute and well designed game. Very nicely done.
I can only agree with the others, this is an amazing game! It is a great take on the theme with good game design and nice graphics. There were just some minor things that bothered me.
Not sure if it's intentional, but the game overall feels a bit slow. With the music, missing sfx and I feel like sometimes the particles are playing slower. I expected more of a faster gameplay from the screenshots and the genre itself.
Another thing that was confusing was the death. At the beginning I didn't even noticed that I died so often from the tornado. I somehow didn't notice the health until pretty late into the game. The feedback of that is not very clear and the death transition is the same when you clear the level.
But overall still a great game that can be improved even more with some minor polish.
Thanks for playing and for the feedback! Yup, I agree about the missing sfx and a lack of a better death screen. They were on the list, but I didn't have the time to do them, hopefully I'll fix that on the post-jam update.
About the "slowness" of it, I'm not sure if I understand it. The game was designed around paying attention to multiple elements: the spawn points, their timers, the charge on each spell, and all of the enemies/hazards on the screen. Since I didn't want the player to be overwhelmed and for them to make decisions consciously, I can't make stuff happen too quickly, so that may explain the "slow paced" feeling you had. But I'm open to any suggestions that could improve on the game feel.
I can totally understand if the slowness is intentional. Maybe it's just me expecting a faster gameplay since I like challenging games and that was my first impression of it through the screenshots. The game is still great and has a lot of potential.
WOW. Just WOW. The art on this is just incredible. Everything looks like you could just grab them off the screen at any moment, and every animation is so fluid and juicy.
Superbly done!
I also love how the gameplay is a balancing act of choosing whether to allow a spell to get to tis riskier form or not. This was such a brilliant idea. Really enjoyed the gameplay.
Amazing game! You did a great job with character design, all of them really stand out and look adorable. Animation is well done, too. Almost everything is animated and there are transitions between scenes. The game looks fantastic!
There is a great variety of spells to learn. Also, introduction of new enemies and level layouts keep the game fresh. The final level is quite challenging and requires you to kill enemies quickly, just waiting for them to come won't work.
I think you did an incredible job with the game and I could definitely see this as a full game with a story and more content.
crazy nice game, so addicted
The art and animation are fantastic, and the music is surprisingly nice. The only thing this game is really missing is some sound effects. Other than that, it's a pretty fun and challenging game. Probably the best interpretation of the "overload" theme I've seen so far. Just wish there was more content, but alas :^). I could see this being very fun with more enemies, and different and more powerful spells.
Very fun game, very good-looking. This is a game that screams quality, in terms of animation and graphics, audio and everything works together. Everything looks so smooth. Looks like full scale professional project
I was waiting for this one, so smooooooooooooooooooth. Great job!
As almost everyone said, but I need to say, the graphics were superb on this!
I really enjoyed my time with this and I think the overload mechanic on the spells is a super cool idea. Forces me to keep using my spells if I don't wanna use the risky versions!
Overall, great work!!!
Super nice graphics!
And the core mechanic of overloaded spells is very fun, the management of which spell I am using for overloaded attack was always keeping me engaged! One small improvement would be to bind spells to 4 buttons rather than switching between them with Q/E so I could pick the spell I want faster, but that's a small nitpick.
All in all, well done and I enjoyed it!
Thanks for playing! You can also choose the spells by pressing the corresponding number(1-4).
Awesome! Then I have nothing but good words about this haha
Nice graphics, enjoyable gameplay. I was often killed by a whirlwind :)
Thank you! The Whirlwind is indeed very challenging to use without hurting yourself, maybe I was too evil in making it last so long hahaha.
Beautiful game, your animations are stunning! I love the concept and gameplay. The tornado always got me, and I somehow was always too slow with wind and rarely ever got it safe. It was a very pleasant amount of difficulty with having to manage your spells with the enemies.
Thanks for playing! The wind overload is quite strong, but also very risky. The safe casting range is maybe too small, so I think I'll change that after the jam is over.
Beautiful sprites and animations! Gorgeous.
Just wish there were some audio cues on the spells and attacks.
Thank you! I'm sad I didn't have thte time to put SFX in, but I finished the game with 10 minutes left on the jam.
In this game, you defend your newly acquired power with mana that becomes dangerous in great concentration. There's Unusable, Usable, and unsafe versions of each spell.
There's a learning curve to the rhythm of the spells, but merely hitting them in their time slot is not a good strategy. You need to figure out what spells you want to overload and what spells you want to be safe with. For me, Wind and Ice were my Overload options while Fire and Earth were things I wanted to use the safe version of.
Ultimately, I could not go very far into the game. Brain is still recovering from a previous mind bending game in the jam, and that makes for an unfair evaluation. Make no mistake, your game is rather engaging, just that it's also taxing.
Overall, I see this one as a contender. Usually, I have more to say, but my headache isn't going away, but I think you'll be high up there!
Yup, the game was designed to be mentally "overloading" hahahaha. I'm surprised you preferred the safe version of earth as I believe it's charging time is a bit overtuned. Thanks for playing and for the feedback!
Pros:
Cons:
Thanks for playing! The circles represent your crystal's HP, you need to protect it from monsters. Unfortunately I didn't have the time to make a tutorial, but I've updated the game page to explain some of the game concepts.
Ah, thanks - makes sense now that I think about it 😅