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Don't Croak's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Gameplay | #57 | 3.791 | 3.791 |
| Visuals | #62 | 4.116 | 4.116 |
| Overall | #71 | 3.919 | 3.919 |
| Audio | #110 | 3.419 | 3.419 |
| Authenticity (use of resolution restriction) | #139 | 4.349 | 4.349 |
Ranked from 43 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Did you work in a team?
I worked alone, and did all the art and coding myself. Sounds were from freesounds.com, and edited by me!
Was the resolution a challenge?
My biggest hurdle was text, and sprite clarity. I carefully revised my sprites to make sure they were readable, and used a creative method to show text
What did you learn?
I learned a lot about godot through this, and its UI and rendering features.
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Comments
I fell in love with the GUI!
The way you put everything on one screen is awesome. The space for borders and other UI elements, and the game, are very well-managed. It gave me lots of ideas for my future projects!
Considering the visuals, everything looks in shape. The color palette is well-selected and perfectly reflects the "croakiness." The audio is also great, the sound effects especially. The resolution restriction also seems to be perfectly handled!
Well-done!
Thank you so much! I've already gotten a ton of inspiration from other games in this jam, so I'm happy to pass that along :)
I think the aesthetics and the concept are great, the main way of interacting by clicking the action then the directional arrow took a while to understand. I played up until the slime looking enemy but kept dying, I did attack as it started by still got injured, Unfortunately, the tutorial itself was quite confusing, I think including more explanation about how to interact with the UI, fight tutorial and the end goal would be great.
I did notice the sprites seems to rotate out the 64x64 format when it gets interacted with.
I think there's great potential here, it feels like an old school dungeon crawler, with more explanation this could be a great game.
Sweet! Thank you for playing.
I definitely already have ideas to improve the tutorial
And the animations aren't pixel perfect (I later found out how to do this by setting it to viewport in the settings) but figured a lower accuracy score was worth the clarity and better visuals!
It's amazing how much you've managed to fit in such a small frame! The game is fun to play, the graphics look nice (I wasn't always quite sure what I was looking at, but I knew danger when I saw it!) and the audio is great. The frog sounds cute, but it still makes me feel bad for being hit. At first glance I wasn't quite sure how the game worked, but it's quite self-explanatory, so I picked it up pretty fast. Well done!
Very fun! I think the sound effects really add atmosphere and feeling to the game (for example, I wanted to avoid getting hit at all costs so I wouldn't have to hear the frog cry! :D). Great work~
Awww! Also that kind of works out to my intended gameplay, where combat becomes about avoiding damage entirely. Thank you so much for playing :))
There are so many elements in the UI, yet everything looks great and as clear as it gets, impressive! The art style / palette is also very nice on the eyes. There learning curve can be a bit intimidating at first mostly due to the resolution restriction, but I actually found it appealing as an exploration aspect of the game. Also props on how well you receive feedback!
Thank you so much!! And I appreciate the play!
The reception has been really great so far, and surprisingly enough the steep learning curve that I was scared of has actually appealed to a lot of people :). I think my goal for the final version will be to keep the height of the curve, but stretch it out a little longer so players feel less overwhelmed.
:)! Thanks for playing!
I loved it! impressive how you was able to make it with this resolution
Very unique, I like that you are very committed to this frame/UI, even if it kind of confusing when you first jump in. Incredible that your actual viewport is so small, but it works very well, you did a really good job rendering those scenes in such a tiny space and with such a limited palette. The whole thing has a very charming look.
Clarity DEFINITELY became a little difficult toward the end there, I 100% plan to upscale it in the future so I can add more details to rooms!
Thank you for playing!
Wow, very nicely done and filled with content! I struggled a bit with the interface at first, but after I realized how to pick up stuff everything fell into place.
The only thing that is still difficult is the mouse-based double enemy combat. And with health rapidly declining after a few deaths it felt like too much of a stumbling block.
Still, amazing how much you did with the little space. Congrats on a great game!
Thank you so much and thank you for playing!
Thats the second comment I've gotten on the life loss, and in hindsight it was definitely a little much, but hindsight is 20/20!
Thank you for the feedback :)
I really liked the aesthetic. Very good use of a restricted color palette.
Though, one or two more colors could help in conveying additional information. At times it was hard to tell what an item was until you used it. Some more distinct colors in the same tone could help communicate differences in items, and lead to other gameplay benefits (like item prioritization and remembering locations) without changing the overall aesthetic too dramatically.
All the sounds are cute and great. xD
My health didn't fully recover after death, which I felt was a little strange. I kept getting destroyed in combat, especially when I'm attempting to cancel the enemy's attack. xD
Either way, it was a lot of fun. I would love to see more to this!
Great job!
Thank you! And I made the player health = the remaining lives upon death, but I was never sure if that was a good idea or not.
Do you think I should remove it in the final product? As it does punish players who are already struggling!
I would say remove it because it seems a little arbitrary.
But if the intention is to punish the player, it could be better to set the health to a fixed amount on death, but have more health recovery sources in the dungeon. Those sources could also be limited, so the same original amount of punishment can be dished out, but distributed over a play session. In theory, that could lead to a player optimizing their play as they learn and progress... in theory. xD
(the idea of health recovery flies also popped into my head while writing that, since you are a frog xD)
Hope that was helpful!
A whole dungeon crawler in a 64x64 resolution is pretty crazy, but this works out really nicely. Some of the elements are hard to read, but the "learn by doing" process of a dungeon crawler or roguelike is working in overtime here, and I felt I picked it up really quickly and had a lot of fun.
Thank you for playing! I'm really happy it worked out so well, but I do feel the learning curve is a little too steep at first, which serves at a barrier to entry. Thank you for the feedback :)
This is so cute and creative!
Thank you! I was going for a bleak and dark almost horror theme throughout development, but my hand betrayed me and I made the frog too cute
The poor frog's screams! His sad little face! Oh, it hurts me. Not as much as my poor decision-making hurt him, but, still. I only wish the map was a little clearer and indicated doors you hadn't yet opened (not hidden rooms, to be clear, just the "it's a door" doors), but aside from that... well, I'll be coming back to this one for sure. I gotta get this little frog outta the dungeon!
Oh! I almost forgot the best part: the little *platplatplat* movement sound! A+!
I hadn't thought about that! I tossed the map together last minute 2 hours before submission haha, so I'll add that to the top of my to-do list :)
I like the idea that it encourages exploration
thanks for playing!
This was really well done! I’ve played similar games but I think this has my favorite combat. I really like that you can interrupt enemies which allows taking hits to feel more dangerous and punishing without being frustrating, I also like the spear being useful for dealing with double enemy rooms and the meat helping out with tough fights. The sound design suited perfectly as well. I wasn’t able to find the secret ending so I’ll be back to figure it out! The art is really really nice. I love 4 colour palettes which I’ve made a few games in now and these colours work really well together. Definitely going to use this as inspiration in the future. Overall, it’s really well done!
Thank you so much!! I'm really glad you enjoyed it, and especially that the combat clicked for you. Also to be honest, I hadn't even THOUGHT of the spear being better suited for two monster rooms, and the blades being better for one monster rooms... Don't know why, but that's a concept I like a lot and WILL keep expanding upon going forward :)
A bit hard to read some of the art, but overall it was pretty straightforward, well done!
Thank you for playing! And I agree haha, I think the first thing I'm doing moving forward is upscaling the game to 128x128!
Loved it, it took a little bit for me to figure out what everything did but I got the hang of it pretty quick after my first attempt. Well done and really well made!
Thank you for playing :))
That sense of being lost and discovering things as you go along is exactly what I think I'm going for!
Interesting gameplay and very good art.
great game.
LOVE the artwork! That palette looks great! :D
I've never played a game like this before! This is very very cool. (apologies in advance for the wall of text)
(SPOILERS, if you haven't played this game read with caution)
I genuinely love how cryptic this game starts out. I died quite a few times to the tutorial, not really knowing what to do with the monsters or the basic enemies. I finally realized I should be reading the green scrolls and we were in business. I really loved exploring and finding new scrolls to guide me.
I am in love with the audio of this game too. Just clicking buttons feels really good.
I realized far too late that there were weapons in this game. If anyone else sees this, scroll to the right of your inventory! I got through quite a bit of the game without using the sword or the spear!
I don't have a ton of feedback other than I loved every second of this game. Is this an established genre of game? Where can I find more of this type of game? I loved exploring the area, and I can't tell you how amazing it was to read scrolls and learn about where to go next. For example, when I read "I locked the spearman in the east", I immediately knew where to use my key to get what was hopefully a spear. It's so different than modern games where they mark something on your map. Instead, I, the player, learned something that I could actually use in the game! (I did the same for the 'candle treasure' past the pickaxe).
Finding the light was also a cool moment. When I entered the first dark room, I thought the game had crashed, but then remembered "he stole my light" and knew I had to find a light. In general, I'm really surprised at how memorable you made this map. Usually games with a grid-style map have you constantly checking the map to see where you are because of how similar all the rooms look, but in this game there were key features (like stairs, broken objects, and things on the floor) that helped me remember where I was without needing to constantly check the map.
I found what I think is a bug: When I drop a weapon and pick it up, I get 1 point added to my score. Also, I picked up what looked like a larger axe at some point near "The candle treasure" and it didn't appear in my inventory (perhaps my inventory was full?). I ended up dying to the two skull soldiers past that area, and decided to finish the game with 1 life remaining.
Thanks for making this, I dumped a decent amount of time tonight exploring! My final score was 50! (although 3 of those points came from me dropping and picking up my weapons by accident)
Great job!
Thank you so much for the kind comment! Genuinely made me smile, and one of the nicest comments I've ever been given. This game was inspired a lot by the original Legend of Zelda, classic DnD, and then especially the game "Zork". If you're looking for similar gameplay, I think the Zork games would be right up your alley!! (Be warned though, they're text only.)
I'm really really happy this game struck a chord with you, and that it really clicked! I'm super shocked as well that you managed to make it so far without a weapon. Not making the weapon screen more apparent is one of the things I really regret not doing, so I'm glad you still had a blast :)
I have a total of three floors planned for this, but I set it up so level making is really easy once you have an idea. I want to add more content, and there a few items and weapons that didn't get seen in this release. As long as I have one person who's looking forward to it, I'll work on pushing out a new update!
Thank you for pointing out both of those bugs, the first one I hadn't thought of, and the second one is my fault haha.
Thank you so much for playing my game!
P.s. - Beyond the two armor guys was the secret ending, but I did design them to be a little overly difficult and only beatable with the hammer (The item that got deleted for you, sadly!!)
This is one of my favorite genres of game, adventure and mouse games and stuff like that. It looks well polished and the mechanics are all there. If anything I would say screen space could be used better, I kinda wished I had more of the screen to use for seeing more of the world.