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A jam submission

Rise of the SoulmancerView game page

Command your army of souls to fight the Chaos!
Submitted by 1StepCloser — 18 hours, 16 minutes before the deadline
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Rise of the Soulmancer's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Visuals(Graphics)#14.4004.400
Fun#14.4004.400
User Interface (UI/UX)#14.4004.400
Overall#24.2004.200
Sound/Audio#34.2004.200

Ranked from 5 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

DevLog Link
https://1stepcloser.itch.io/tbd/devlog/554000/00081-000839

Developer Feedback Questions
Any and all feedback is appreciated.

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

Two cups of coffee to this gospodin! 

Definitely the best game I ever seen on any Jam! Just curious: how the Expedition timers are handled? For example, I have mining for 21 hours, what is I quit the game for a day. I guess the timer progresses on a server and will countdown offline.

Developer(+1)

Thank you so much for playing Animamundi!

I appreciate the compliment ^^.

"how the Expedition timers are handled? For example, I have mining for 21 hours, what is I quit the game for a day. I guess the timer progresses on a server and will countdown offline."

All timers should work even while you're offline.

If you start an expedition that lasts 21 hours, and you don't open the game for 21 hours, when you return, the expedition should still be finished.

Thanks again for playing, Animamundi.

Submitted

Amazing how You managed adding new features and relative tutorials gradually during gameplay. As soon as I mastered how to use a new mechanic, next one comes to play. 

Reached Lv46 (Chaos Road) and perished to a wall of fire, which has 50% chance to be affected by Burn.

Looks like a fully finished Game. Probably it is. Going to try beat it next time.

===

Yay! Please try my Game too. Even through it is no match for Yours, surely you can give a decent feedback and advice too. 

Submitted(+1)

I really enjoyed this game!  I only had time to play it very briefly, but I got a feel for what it was going for.  It was a very charming game and I am most likely going to pick up from my save sometime later.

The voice over was well done all around and a great inclusion.  I really liked the overall look of the game.  It seems from my brief play time that it is an easy to learn game, but a lot of complexities to master as time does on. 

The only thing I encountered in my brief play time is that I thought it was odd that the only time there wasn't any voice over to explain stuff was the first time I got to the map screen.  I figured it out fairly quickly though.  I like the concept of creating your own pathway through, but I didn't know what the difference between 'normal' and 'encounter' was until I tried both out really.

Developer

Hey CV33👋!

Thank you for the feedback.

"I really enjoyed this game. I only had time to play it very briefly, but I got a feel for what it was going for...most likely going to pick up from my save sometime later."

I'm glad you've enjoyed the experience so far. ^^

"The voice over was well done all around and a great inclusion.  I really liked the overall look of the game.  It seems from my brief play time that it is an easy to learn game, but a lot of complexities to master as time does on."

Thank you, I appreciate your acknowledgement of the voice overs. 

The game does indeed have quite a few mechanics / paths of progression that continually open up as you play; building on the depth / complexity of the game as time goes on, I'm glad you were able to understand the gameplay so far.

"The only thing I encountered in my brief play time is that I thought it was odd that the only time there wasn't any voice over to explain stuff was the first time I got to the map screen."

This is a good point, although there is a brief introduction into the Outerworld when you get there (if this didn't happen for you let me know), there is no explicit explanation of how the map works itself. I was hoping it would be visually clear enough to not need an explanation, but I can see how it would be beneficial to explain:

1. You can select 1 option per row
2. You progress forward each time you select an option
3. Beating options can progress world level increasing difficulty / enemy level over time and opening up new options.

"I like the concept of creating your own pathway through, but I didn't know what the difference between 'normal' and 'encounter' was until I tried both out really."

Good point! I'll add a description to each option, so players get a better idea of what they are, before experiencing them.



Awesome feedback CV33, thank you!

Submitted(+1)

I remember that the game said to click on the Outerworld portal when I was ready.  I don't remember any VO on the Outerworld map screen itself when I first got there

Developer (1 edit)

Ahh, thanks for letting me know, there is dialogue for it, but perhaps some changes have prevented it from occurring in new builds, I'll take a look.

Submitted(+1)

Wow! This game had so much replay value associated with it. The quick movement into the zones with key upgrades made the game really easy to get into.

I probably need a couple of playthroughs to understand all of the powers and compatibility.

I think something to add (and maybe it is there and I just didn't get far enough) would be combos off of different powers in certain order.

Overall, this was a great game!

Developer

Hey spiritcorgi 👋,

Thank you so much for the feedback.

"This game had so much replay value associated with it. The quick movement into the zones with key upgrades made the game really easy to get into."

I'm glad you enjoyed this aspect of it. Replay value and quicker gameplay (compared to traditional turn-based games) are some of the factors I'd like to maintain and improve upon.

"I probably need a couple of playthroughs to understand all of the powers and compatibility."

No worries, it can take a while to discover and understand the various mechanics / paths of progression.

"I think something to add (and maybe it is there and I just didn't get far enough) would be combos off of different powers in certain order."

Thank you for the suggestion. Can you expand on this more just to make sure I understand what you are referring to? I actually just added a combo system yesterday, but by the sounds of it, it works slightly different but here is a quick example of it:





Thanks again for your feedback, spiritcorgi!

Submitted(+1)

I pushed a little further in the game and found the combos! I think they were the first thing I noticed after making the comment! Great game!

Submitted (2 edits) (+1)

This is amazing. One of the best games I've seen in my short Jams Journey.

It might be a little complicated, regarding the various skills and spells, but so are most of these games, so not really a negative point.

I really enjoyed the pixel graphics, the sounds and dialogues are awesome (it's you, or someone in your team, talking everywhere right?!), and I really like the character configuration. It is something I want to do for some of my future ideas. Good job!

Oh, a question. Once my first party got defeated, the creator had new members for me. Where do I find the old ones?

Developer(+1)

Hello lorporlem 👋!

Thank you so much for taking the time to try it out, and I appreciate your feedback.

"It might be a little complicated, regarding the various skills and spells, but so are most of these games, so not really a negative point."

This has been one of the more difficult tasks I've encountered: Providing depth / complexity, without overwhelming players. 

I'll look to see if I can simplify it more, perhaps this is just a matter of slowing down the introduction of characters with more unique effects / skills.

"I really enjoyed the pixel graphics, the sounds and dialogues are awesome (it's you, or someone in your team, talking everywhere right?!)"

Thank you ^^, for now it's only me, but I think I might team-up with more professional voice actors down the road.

The main benefit of doing it yourself though, is that you can go in and tweak the voicing in a shorter time frame.

"Once my first party got defeated, the creator had new members for me. Where do I find the old ones?"

The Soul creator has a chance to create those members again, and they will maintain the progress you've made with them.

 Each time the Soul Creator summons souls, any of your unlocked souls have a chance show up in the soul slots you have.

Thanks again for the feedback.

Submitted(+1)

This is another very solid entry, I don't have much to critique here.  If I were going to be picky the voice over was a little hard to understand at times, but I hesitate to bring it up because the rumbly dark voice fits the theme of the game so well and with the subtitles (and the skip back through dialogue option) the confusion was always short lived.  I got drawn into this one, I was starting to feel good about my strategies and gameplay but I still felt like I was only scratching the surface.  It seems like you have a plan and are executing well on it, so for sure keep up the good work!  I'll be interested to hear what the final title is as well, and I'm sure I'll keep playing to see what other cute/cool creature sprites I can unlock.

Developer (1 edit)

Hello AsE_CG,

I'm very grateful for your feedback!  

"If I were going to be picky the voice over was a little hard to understand at times..."

Thank you for letting me know, I did these myself, so they are in no way professional. I might look into getting them done by a professional when closer to release, and if not, I'll at least try to go through and update those that feel lesser in quality.

"I was starting to feel good about my strategies and gameplay but I still felt like I was only scratching the surface."

That's great to hear ^^. I'm hoping to get to the point where diversifying one's strategies vs. different enemy comps becomes the norm, rather than sticking to a one size fits all approach, as I think this will lead to variable gameplay.

"I'll be interested to hear what the final title is..."

Yeah , I'm a bit stuck on this, I might just call it Soulmancer for the time being ^^.


Thanks again.