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Spiritbane's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Fun | #15 | 3.433 | 3.433 |
| Audio | #21 | 3.367 | 3.367 |
| Controls | #22 | 3.367 | 3.367 |
| Accessibilty | #24 | 2.933 | 2.933 |
| Overall | #27 | 3.252 | 3.252 |
| Graphics | #35 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
| Originality | #42 | 3.233 | 3.233 |
| Theme | #67 | 2.933 | 2.933 |
Ranked from 30 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Godot Version
4.3
Wildcards Used
Repair something
Game Description
Collect souls from spirits using a weapon that harvests power from them in an action arcade game.
How does your game tie into the theme?
You have to eliminate spirits using a soul siphoning weapon with a haunted theme. You are a spirit that harvests other spirits to gain power.
Source(s)
N/A
Discord Username(s)
Sevadusk
Participation Level (GWJ Only)
10
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Comments
This game makes for a very good turn off your brain and enjoy type of game. However, for me, the very low amount of frame in the animation made it feel like the controls are delayed compared to the game's pace. Which was a turn off in the feels department. Anyway, good job!
Cool concept! Was not expecting to play it for 30 minutes but I did, made it to Defiance 26 with ~39000 points, though I got bored around Defiance 20 and stopped trying. Not to say the game is boring though, far from. Just think it gets a bit same-y after a while. More enemy variety and some more upgrades and abilities would help, though!
I loved the action of the hammer swing, so juicy with the sound and the screen shake and the cool little pattern, every swing was a treat.
A couple of mechanical issue I had: I noticed the special move (forgot what it's called) you have to wait like a full second after your last swing to use it, which didn't feel great, led me to using it less that I think was intended. I also feel like having multiple enemies become red in the same tick feels unfair, especially the square guys. They could generate 3 or 4 red tiles at once, often on opposite sides of the screen, so you basically couldn't avoid damage. Maybe that was intentional but I didn't love how that felt. But overall, still loved the game.
I think there is some real potential here for a whack-a-mole roguelike. Not sure what that would entail, but I'm here for it, great job!
This is really cool- and honestly a pretty unique idea I haven't really seen before in one of these jams. Smashing the ghosts feels satisfying, and the music contributes a lot towards getting you in that flow state of smashing ghosts as they pop up.
That being said- it doesn't feel like there's too much of a progression. I played until like defiance 6 or so (I think that number is how many times you've revived)- but stopped there because I always had more than enough money to buy the revive +10 max hp. I can tell that the game gets objectively harder- the ghosts get faster and attack more often, but I didn't really feel like it made that much of a difference since my health was always increasing enough to offset it.
Maybe it's just a case of having the price of that particular upgrade scale harder? Idk, I know it's always hard to balance these games in such a short time- but it always feels bad to quit an arcade game out of attrition over losing.
Regardless though, great job! I definitely enjoyed playing
I’m not a fan of whack-a-mole games, but I find it unique because of its ghost-themed setting. The hammer delay makes everything more chaotic; in some ways, this makes it more fun, though it does lose in precision.
Interesting whack a mole type game. At first I thought that the "moles" were moving towards the bottom and that I was supposed to prevent that (since the special attack moved upward). One improvement I would say is allowing a button in addition to left mouse button to attack, to help prevent carpal tunnel.
Great work! One of my first ideas was a kind of exorcist rhythm game and this feels a lot like what I would have wanted it to be (but may have not achieved lol). I love the use of particle effects and general fast pace of the art.
Unfortunately it doesn't load and I can't try :(
Unfortunately, if you are using a mac, Godot builds have problems loading. I hope they fix that because from windows I can't get a game to work on that platform. There are some extra programs that emulate windows from mac, but that may take a lot of effort.
Neat arcade game here. I struggled to activate the Q and I didn't know what I was doing wrong, I would have preferred that to be more clear. Other than that the game feels very satisfying, I think the audio helps with this!
Does Q just not work? I have it set to have a 2 second cooldown and it costs 5 power after you repair your weapon for the first time. Again, this is an issue I never experienced on my side, so I'm hoping it's not another bug that I couldn't have tested for myself.
So I tried it again, and Q does work but it doesn't work if I'm already attacking. I imagine this is why I struggled to activate Q the first time because it didn't feel very natural for me to stop attacking.
Ah, ok that makes sense. I considered Q as a separate attack, and after a basic attack the hammer resets and gets ready for the next attack. It didn't make sense to have Q work once it already hit the enemy with a basic attack. I see what you mean about it being unnatural, and I'll play around with the controller further to find a fix.
Something about how the hammer only moves vertically while actively in the process of smashing really threw me off, but that kind of solved itself once there was no time except hammer time. Probably could have used a little variation in the sound of the smash, too? I definitely did have fun though, which is what really counts.
Damn, unlike irl, just discovered I suck at virtual whack-the-mole :')
Had fun, liked the over all look and feel of the game, I also felt that sometimes it would hammer like twice in a row, maybe like it register my previous hit command late? :s
Still really fun entry, congrats! :)
It's an input buffer bug that only happens on some devices, unfortunately didn't happen to me when I was testing. Thanks for playing!
I like the design of the hammer and the whack-a-mole style gameplay. Hitting things with a hammer is purest form of entertainment! The game felt bit fast paced for what I'm used to but I'm also not used to fast paced games. I did have a strange "double-hit" bug that might have been preventing the true experience.
Good game, Enjoyed.
This is a cool concept and the hammer has a lot of impact. But it does feel a bi strange, maybe the delay?
Overall, good job!
I added a .05 second delay from the time you click to the time the attack is launched. I'll look into this further, thanks for the feedback!
That was fun. Good audio and great work. Would have never thought of it myself.
Would be fun on mobile too!
Original idea with a satisfying feel. Agree with Boblobbyslob; there's a certain satisfaction that comes from the SFX when the hammer goes down. However, I cannot exactly say the same for how it moves and controls. It feels jerky and disconnected. I got the impression that the mouse clicks always registered at the location of the mouse, but the hammer was not following 1:1. Not a bad thing, just an odd feeling perhaps? It overall lended to a feeling of jerkiness; I'm not sure how you'd fix it or if it's just a personal taste thing. I want to make it clear, that's my singular gripe with the gameplay. Strictly a little 'feeling' thing. It's got that "one more round" feel that is dangerous.
At the end of the day though, it was fun and it felt different! This was a special and unique game, a combination of puzzle and whack-a-mole that worked really well. As a solo entry, it's all the more impressive!
Great job!
btw, all that time in Aimlabs finally paid off?
Thanks for the very detailed feedback and compliments!
Aimlabs FTW!!! lol, I tried using aimlabs a few years ago, but I didn't use it much since
The attack is coded to be placed at the mouse position, while the hammer rotates based on distance from its starting location. This could be what is causing that disconnect, and it might be something I look into further. I felt it was more convenient for the attack to land at mouse location, and I didn't notice any issues at the time so thank you for pointing this out.
The sounds and screen shake when you slam down the hammer are so satisfying. The mechanics are very interesting and I love that you can learn the enemy movements. Very fun game.
I sometimes couldn't tell why I couldn't use the Q skill - I assume either it has a cooldown or maybe I couldn't use it while in the hammer animation. The difficulty curve was probably a bit too easy, I always had 500 spirits leftover after the upgrade so it didn't feel like I was ever going to lose. Really enjoyed playing it though.
I'm really glad you enjoyed it. I noticed the easy difficulty curve as well after releasing, and was quite sad it wasn't challenging enough near the end. It was for the best as changing any of the variables I had for difficulty/scoring, without testing, would probably make the game unplayable. The Q has a short cooldown (2 seconds) and you can't use it in animation, to avoid being spammed, as it was even easier then. The game's balance lives on the edge, and it felt either way too easy or way too hard. With some more time, I could have added a better end game.
Thanks for the feedback!
Hammertime!! Love the energy. Didn’t really find a use for the Q skill, but smashing stuff was fun.
this game can get quite chaotic and messy, but I can't deny how fun it is
Only issue i found is that it's a little hard to keep track of whats going on
It was cool how the enemies would merge to form a bigger red enemy!
It is impressive considering the short time you had left for it. Simple graphics but overall, it has all the features of a finished game.
The visuals were a bit too chaotic for me, I had a hard time figuring out what's happening on the screen, even after several tried. Also, the hammer seems to hit twice every time I click, but it might be intentional, I wasn't sure.
Maybe introducing new spirit types slowly would have made it look less chaotic. The hammer's attack animates and looks like it hits twice, but it's the same attack. Some tutorial elements would have been nice, but I was very short on time.
Thank you for playing!
I wish there could have been some control to turn down the camera shake. I had to stop playing because it became too much. I did feel like I was in a chaotic arcade, but also a little confusing if me dying is what brought up the upgrades? Or was that on a timed event? I enjoyed the spirit art!
Yes, when you have 0 power you enter the spirit shop to try and revive yourself with an upgrade. I tried to make the camera shake minimal, but still feel impactful. Adding an option to remove camera shake would have made more sense if I had a settings / pause menu, but I didn't have time for that. I'll keep this in mind for next time and try to lower the base camera shake.
Thanks for the feedback!