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Secrets Of the Cursed Mountain - WIP's itch.io pageResults
Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
Enjoyment | #7 | 3.381 | 3.381 |
Overall | #14 | 3.417 | 3.417 |
Presentation | #16 | 3.619 | 3.619 |
Design | #20 | 3.143 | 3.143 |
Metroidvania | #20 | 3.524 | 3.524 |
Ranked from 21 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Engine
Godot
Team/Developer
diguifi, chris, mateus, thiago
Comments on the jam
Please leave any feedback, we intend to keep developing the game!
Reference info
xulhal#7932
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Comments
I have mixed feelings about my experience with this. I absolutely love the graphical style, it has a strong late 90s pc indie and/or ps1 vibe i enjoy a lot!
The combat does not feel great though. I very much disliked having to collect the double jump again after dieing to the boss so after trying a few times i gave up. It felt very difficult to fight the boss because its choice of attack was random and if it did the grab at the wrong times and place it felt impossible to avoid. If the grab box was more fair I wouldn't have minded as much, but i felt like it would successfully grab me when the actual graphic of it's arm was nowhere near me. By the end I just had to hope that it would do its ground slam attack enough times, but it didn't happen for me.
The graphical vibe of the game alone is enough to have a solid jumping off point, but the gameplay needs work. Great job submitting something though and I had a fun time trying it. I look forward to seeing how this game grows post jam!
Thanks for the feeback!!
I'm so glad you liked the looks and feels, but I'm sorry about your rough experience with the boss. I messed up by not creating a checkpoint, which makes it much difficult to do it all over again.
About the grab and punch, if you're near him after about 6 steps, he'll try grabbing, if you're far, he'll hit the floor (not random). But the grabbing does need a little tweaking to have less range of impact, and I completely understand the struggle!
Thanks again for the feedback! We'll keep working on the game forward and I hope to see you playing future versions!
Love the 2.5D, love the scenary and art style, the background is paralax layer? or are them also at 3D? nice character movement and combat, keep it going! nice game
hey, thank you for the nice review, about the background, its a parallax with 3d elements XD
Thank you very much for the kind words! We sure will keep working on it!
In response to your comments on my submission, this does NOT lack personality!
the movement mechanics are nice, the game play is fun, a save point would make getting killed by the boss a bit less annoying, (as would me being any good), but the boss catching you and throwing you is a lovely touch.
Given it's a very melee heavy game maybe you could add a dodge or roll or something, that is if you are going to continue working on it?
Thank you so much for rating and commenting! I really appreciate the kind words (even tho I think yours has much much more personality, I really look forward to know more about Dr Kimmy's adventures rather than some random cave explorer who fights rocks xD).
About the boss, it means a lot that you and some other folks commented about the "grabbing", because it took a lot of effort to get the boss in this state! I appreciate it very much!!
About movement, powerups and checkpoints, I completely agree and we are very aware of it all, thanks for commenting on it tho, because it reinforces the need to take action on those matters. Next version sure will improve if those tips.
Thanks again for playing and submiting a feedback!!
Great art! it feels nice but not fun of the jump dificulty, it breacks a little the action but very nice work, well done!
Thanks for the feedback!
Sorry, I didn't quite understand what you meant by "not fun of the jump difficulty", could you reformulate?
This game is really up my alley.
The attacking feels nice and in control but that doesn't make the game easy which is impressive to accomplish, especially in such a short timeframe.
The one issue I had is the difficulty of the boss which is not necessarily easy to get back to. This made it a bit discouraging for me to continue. Something I was thinking of for my own submission (for further development) was creating some form of upgrade that allows for fast travel in some capacity. I feel like this might be something cool to add to Secrets of the Cursed Mountain as well.
Hi! Thanks for replying! I'm happy to get your Wiser feedback xD
I love how much goof feedback we got regarding movement and combat, thanks very much for sharing your thoughts on it!
About the boss, yes, its hard and yes it's frustrating to go back all the way, I completely agree. I like your powerup approach, but another solution that has been talked about is checkpoints, which we will definitely put in future versions!
Again, thanks very much for your feedback and for playing!
Reminds me of those old-timey puppet movies in a good way. Nice use of the 3D to create some space as well. The effect for the attack could perhaps be aligned more to the direction of the model's swing to look like the blade itself is creating the slash.
Looking forward to where you all take this.
Thank you very much for the kind words!!
I really hope you stick arround for future updates, we definitely intend to move forward and all the comments and reviews are an amazing help. We plan to start updating it as soon as the game jam voting ends, so we can gather all comments and plan where to move from here.
So your comment is very important. Thank you very much for playing and reviewing!
This was cute. I know they're not really alike, but the underground feel and the torches gave me a mincraft sort of vibe. I really liked the simplicity of the background art as well. Lots of really nice animations here as well, I was particularly impressed with the boss grabbing and throwing me. I also like the damage numbers, they're viscerally satisfying.
The two things that bothered me was how fast the fall speed was and that I couldn't seem to damage the boss? Maybe I was missing something, I fought him twice and died both times without seeing a single damage number pop-up.
Otherwise, very solid entry!
Thank you so much for your feedback! We really appreciate it.
About the falling speed and bad camera work, we are fully aware that it sucks in the current state. Maybe I should've sitck with a simpler approach like a fixed camera and no smooth following (since this smoothness is the main cause of it not properly following when the player is falling)
And the boss needs a visual output to tell people you can't hit it unless its vulnerable (show that you're dealing 0 damage instead of not showing anything). Because it has a vulnerable state, after hitting the ground.
Anyways, thanks again for the input and for playing!!
Any chance this could be playable in the browser?
We tried it, but it's too laggy on the browser, we didn't have time to implement optimizations properly, so we stuck with desktop versions only, to avoid people trying on the browser and giving up as soon as they got lag.
That makes sense. There was another entry that did have a browser version but it was running so slow on my old laptop that I couldn't play it
This is an excellent submission. I love the game feel, I love the way the upgrades show a short title of the upgrade when you get them, the melee attacking feels nice and works really well, the platforming design is challenging enough but intuitive, the boss fight killed me (because I sucked at it) and I think it's really impressive (really nice animations and design), and great polish in the UI and design. Great submission!
Thank you very much! Yes the boss is a little unforgiving without a checkpoint before it.
We really appreciate the kind words, and intend to work further on this project
Great game! Awesome boss!! Really nice choice on music too . The lighting effects are really cool and the action feels smooth.
A checkpoint before the boss would have been a very welcome addition, and the sword attack feels like it could use a bit of tweaking in the direction of the swing. A combo system would be really cool. But wow, Good job!
Thanks for the feedback!
Yess, this game needs checkpoints asap, I totally agree. Combos are a great idea we didn't think of, this would bring more value to different items with different combos!
Well, thanks for playing and commenting!!
I REALLY LIKE THIS ONE! Tha platforming is really fun and the boss was really cool! I wasn't sure how to damage him though and died instantly. The one respawn point sending me back to the beginning of the game made me not want to get to the point to fight him again, despite how cool he was. The one respawn point made late game platforming less fun too
Thanks for playing and reviewing! I'm so glad you liked it!!
We have had many complaints about the lack of checkpoint, and I'm so sorry to hear this made your experience frustrating... I'm very sorry and future versions, post jam, will sure have checkpoints!
Pro gamer tip: the boss has states, like chasing, grabbing, hitting and stuck. I gess you can imagine when he's vulnerable to attacks 😉.
ART
Nice style, felt almost like it was out of a fairytale book, liked the stones too. animations were nice.
SOUND
Loop was ok and the other effects were fine.
GAMEPLAY
Think I managed to get the attack to ignore the cooldown, was weird if I jump I could attack like I had rapid fire or something.
Platforming was good, new controls were good. Camera needs to let me see below. Enemies tracking felt a little rough as they would block where I wanted to go so I had to take damage. Couldn't figure the boss out, but it chucking me was great! No checkpoint was a little rough and having to do everything again was annoying after 3 deaths, I ended up giving up which is sad.
OVERALL
Good entry, really liked the style - Great job on submitting!
Such a complete review! Thank you very much for commenting and rating!
We absolutely need checkpoints, and better camera work, we'll sure be looking into it and try to improve the game in general after the jam is over.
Thanks again for taking the time to play and write such great feedback!
Had a great time playing this! Thank you for sharing. Defeating enemies was satisfying and I felt like the sword carried weight. If I were to offer some constructive feedback, it'd be that when the character is falling, you can't see what's underneath them. Especially considering the rock golems seem to track you, it makes platforming very difficult when moving in a downward trajectory.
Great work!
Thank you so much for the kind review! This feedback means a lot, given that I spent a lot of time tuning the movement and combat for it to feel something close to satisfying.
About the camera work, I completely agree, I went for a pretty smooth movement, but it just doesn't work quite yet on ledges or when you fall, maybe I should've stick with a fixed camera following the player, at least for the jam. But we are aware of the issue and we intend to keep working on the game, improving such things.
Thanks again, I really appreciate the feedback!
Lovely Design and well made.
the hitbox of the Character is to Huge in my opinion. Feels weird that the small sword make a huge wave like that.
I think the Boss bugged at me the first time, i couldn't get over him and he pushed me inside the gate and couldn't do something.
Good Work and deserves more Content.
Thank you very much for taking the time to give us a feedback
About the sword hit area, we intend to make several different swords available, with different damage, speed and sizes, or reaches, but we only had time for a single sword and a fixed hit size for now...
Did the boss throw you after locking you against the gate? Or did he just kept walking towards you? Or did he throw you inside the wall?
Again, thank you a lot for the feedback and yes, I agree it deserves further improvements and we're absolutely going to keep working on it even after the jam!
He throw me inside the Wall one Time and at the other i just was stuck between him and the door
Cute style, nice to see a 3D metroidvania. I thought that the balancing animation was awesome! The boss throwing you was cool too. My main bugbear was in the control scheme... If you had added controller support for this it would have been a really easy win tbh... space to jump would have been better in my opinion, and maybe COMMA to attack (to be fair, that's how I have my game set up so I might be biased!)
I'm so glad you liked it!
I'm uploading a version with space for jump since it was highly requested, but comma for attack is a little rare, I notice yours has it and if you pay attention its the only one with this attack choice, so we're going with Z or mouse click for this one.
Anyway, thanks for playing and giving this valious feedback!
Yeah I grant you it's a little weird, but the keys just fell nicely under my fingers 😂
Cute style. I like how the boss throws you.
Biggest issue for me at least was not having space to jump, I feel like that's more of the standard then "w".
Thanks for playing and sharing your thoughts!
Maybe you're right about jumping with arrow up/w, do you think "z" or "x" would be good (like hollow knight), or space?
Personally, I prefer space for jumping (I feel strongly about that) but for attacking I also like left mouse button as that's what I'm used to from FPS games and what not, but I can see the appeal of having all the inputs on the keyboard so I don't feel as strongly about the left mouse button.
Really cool graphics style! The controls feel nice too, although the camera handling could use some more attention. Often you don't know where you'll end up if you fall. I couldn't get passed the boss, because there was no save before it... That's sad, because I did damage it the second time, but didn't feel like running through all the map again to have another shot.
Keep it up, and make it a little more forgiving! Great job!
Awesome feedback, thank you very much for all the info!
We are aware of the clunky camera work, but letting you save the position before the boss is definitely a must we didnt take into account for the demo, and you're absolutely right about it.
We do intend to keep improving the game even after the jam, so thank you again for the feedback! And thanks for rating and commenting!
I love the aesthetic! The boss is really annoying. Great job!
I'm glad you liked it!!
Yes the boss is merciless, we should've added checkpoint!
I really dig the visuals and the 2.5D aspect. The atmospheric music ties in perfectly with the aesthetic as well. Jumping and double jumping felt a little off, but that is probably me, since I'm used to spacebar being the jump button. I also liked the damage indicators. From the entries I've played so far, that hasn't appeared much. I don't even have em :S. Overall, I enjoyed this game!
Me too, I love 2.5D!
Yes, the damage indicators took some time to make, but I really liked the final result too! I also implemented health bars for enemies, but it seemed too polluted in the end, do you think we should keep it this way, or add health bars for all enemies (like the player's)?
Thank you so much for commenting and rating.
No problem! As for the healthbars for enemies, that's a tough call to make. I ran into that issue on my last personal project and decided to scrap enemy health bars because it looked cluttered. I would say either stick with damage numbers only or replace them with health bars. I definitely think having both would be cluttered.
Really like the presentation and the atmosphere both the music and lighting provide ^^
Gameplay wise the character feels nice and responsive, and the melee range is clearly defined with that big slash effect, i also like the fact that you made the damage numbers pop up for every attack.
The only small issue i encountered was with the double jump that seemed a bit inconsistent with the second jump's height, there was one jump in particular where i had to try multiple times to climb up and only managed to reach the upper platform by luck, i feel that some of the double jump platform heights should be just a tad bit lower to fix this.
Despite that it's a cool game and i had fun playing it, i didn't go all that far cause i lost a bit of health trying to damage boost up that difficult jump, so when i reached the boss he destroyed me almost instantly haha :p
Anyway, solid entry, and keep up the good work if you intend to keep working on it :)
Thank you so much man!
It means a lot that you cared about responsiveness and the combat details, because it all took a lot of effort and without this kind of feedback we have no idea if it was worth it. I'm glad to know it was and that you enjoyed it!
About the double jump in that specific area (I know exactly which one, and we're fixing it rn), I completely agree, it's too difficult, we have to pull off a max first jump and then hit the double jump (if you let go first jump before it reaches maximum height you miss the ledge). But don't worry, this will be fixed!
Thank you very much for the feedback!!
No problem :)
i can only imagine how much effort it takes cause i have yet to try anything 3D with Godot yet :p