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TOLKENTAUS's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Authenticity (use of resolution restriction) | #17 | 4.833 | 4.833 |
| Audio | #50 | 3.833 | 3.833 |
| Overall | #54 | 4.028 | 4.028 |
| Gameplay | #82 | 3.611 | 3.611 |
| Visuals | #100 | 3.833 | 3.833 |
Ranked from 18 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Did you work in a team?
Solo dev. Very fun experience!
Was the resolution a challenge?
Fitting things in while trying to create interesting and evocative animations for each element was a challenge. I feel like understanding my tileset and building simple, readable UI elements helped me overcome that challenge.
What did you learn?
The low resolution element of the jam jives well with my style. I wanted to come up with something fun and challenge myself to work in the smaller scale, while putting to use some of the skills I've gathered through other jams and projects. I think I've learned a bit about solving game problems, and seeing through a design to only the most critical functions.
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Comments
Very cool game mechanic! Really solid game, great work!
I like the concept of utilizing a coinflip for battles. Though I think a few of them had some two headed / two tailed coins.
I was just getting irritated that I couldn't read signs when.
Halfway through playing, I realized that this game doesn't function like normal JRPG battles. Optimizing attacks? Nah. It's about gambling to survive. Even though it's short, I was often conscious that I was trying to stretch out my life, and that the stakes were escalating.
I think layering mechanics on the coin flip could be interesting. It had me thinking of games like Bravely Default, where the calculus of battles isn't driven by typing or understanding the interaction of stats, effects, etc. It's about making critical decisions to stay alive.
Nice visuals and the audio has that fun 8-bit chiptune style.
The main battle mechanic presents an essentially meaningless choice. Since the odds of any coin flip are 50/50, it doesn't matter if you pick heads or tails. You could just pick heads each time, and over a large enough sample of coin flips you would get the same success ratio from a statistical perspective.
I think the game would be better if the battles had more meaningful choices.
Nice concept with the “flipping a coin” battle mechanics. It’s a good POC for the mechanic but I’d say a bigger/longer game would need something else to flesh it up a bit. Anyway a good entry for a jam, particularly for a solo developer! Well done.
One of the one I wanted to play when I saw it on twitter. I thought the battles were going to be annoying with it being based on a coin toss, however that was not the case. First Having the enemies die in one hit was a simple and brilliant solution as it avoids going back and forth with one enemy. When was this decision made, early on of after playtesting? Finally the potions also helped fight against the randomness.
I think this concept can be carried further for a full game. Like buying different coins, loaded(higher chance of one side), coins with status bonus(landing on one side recharges 1 hp). and the theme of the world based around coins.
Well done.
Cool game, really consistent and pleasing style. I did enjoy exploring the world, as simple as it was, would have loved to have seen an extended "fight" system, maybe different enemies having different heads/tails patterns? Still a really cool little game!
I was trying to interact with all the signs and the mimic sign made my day xD.
Nice game!
I really liked this game.
After the first few fights, I was a little confused about the design of this game. At first glance, a turn-based game whose outcome is decided entirely by 50/50 chance makes me feel like the outcome of the game is basically decided for me.
But the mere presence of potions makes the game into an exploration game where you mitigate bad outcomes by exploring more (giving the player more power through their exploration). The more potions you find, the better prepared you are for the contingency of an unlucky series of flips (so a game that originally looked like turn-based RPG turns into a game about preparation).
This is a long winded way of saying: when I saw the red enemy, I immediately knew that I'd need a ton of potions in case I got unlucky, which was a cool moment because it made me realize what this game was really about (as an aside, I bet on heads 5 times in a row and got tails 5 times in a row and died after chugging all of my potions haha).
Thanks for making this. I also really like the little effects for the coin toss and the 'enemy alert'. The map was also impressively intricate and big, it was really rewarding to find potions in hidden corners. I know most games look 'retro' in 64x64 resolution, but I think your game in particular nailed the retro aesthetic in a special way.
Awesome work!
edit: my comment was way too long so I cut it down a little
Your comment has made my day, and you have understood the game exactly as I intended it to be played. The inspiration for this comes a lot from playing Final Fantasy 1 on NES, in that so much of the game is about that preparation, and the risk and reward between exploration and over extension. Thanks so much for the kind words, glad you enjoyed it!
A very cute little RPG. It reminds me of something from an old 80s computer. I really like the simplistic art and sound. Really good job!
I hath succeeded! I had a really nice time exploring this little world. I liked the visual style it was very appropriate for the resolution and readable. The sign mimic was a funny moment. ALWAYS BET ON HEADS!
The premise is great, and it is well executed. I personally rage quit (you REALLY need to get lucky in the red dungeon), but I don't hold that against you, as it is well-advertised what I was signing up for :)
Loved the retro style, you really nailed it! The music was simple, but also kind of a vibe and I found myself dancing with the bouncing characters at one point.
At first I found it super confusing, until I found the game page and read the description. I think adding some in game elements to help explain the mechanic/key motivator would've been really nice I feel!
Once I understood everything the coin combat felt surprisingly fun, and I managed to make it through the whole thing deathless :)
Were the various signs around readable? If so I couldn't find a way to read them, and I didnt quite understand what the red things were (but I think they're fire checkpoints right?). Some more feedback on one or both of those things would've improved clarity.
But overall the concept was fun and super solid, and the theme was pulled off excellently!
Thanks so much! On some of your questions: The signs were initially going to be readable, but I couldn't find a nice way to fit the text in the way I wanted. Readable signs would have made the signpost enemy a bit more surprising for sure.
You're right that they're fires, but they have no purpose. They're masked as walls and just play a 2 frame animation. As someone who hasn't played any Souls games, it didn't register to me that they might be seen as checkpoints. In a bigger world I think turning them into checkpoints would be a cool feature, but in its current form the game is a one-shot sorta thing.
Hi! I had fun playing, and really dig the old school music, SFX, and pixel art.
Loved the old-timey visuals on this!