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Spectral Crusade: Joan's Legacy's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Sensory | #10 | 2.742 | 3.167 |
| Enjoyment | #11 | 2.309 | 2.667 |
| Overall | #11 | 2.309 | 2.667 |
| Execution | #13 | 2.165 | 2.500 |
| Metroidvania | #15 | 2.021 | 2.333 |
Ranked from 6 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Team/Developer
Christian Jesus Pereda Rives, Jonathan Rodriguez Tames, Enrique Arsenio Rodriguez Rodriguez
Engine
Unity
External assets
Joan’s of Arc Assets https://itch.io/s/98900/adventurers-pack, Goblin Assets https://otsoga.itch.io/rogue-goblin Smoke Assets https://pimen.itch.io/smoke-effect-02 ,Portal Assets ,https://nyknck.itch.io/portal TileMap Assets, Moon Background and Candelabrum. https://brullov.itch.io/2d-platformer-asset-pack-castle-of-despair Axe Traps assets https://oleekconder.itch.io/hand-painted-platformer-dungeon Wizard assets https://lionheart963.itch.io/wizard Skeleton assets https://astrobob.itch.io/animated-pixel-art-skeleton Final Boss https://clembod.itch.io/bringer-of-death-free
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Comments
I love the artwork. Not a fan of switching from keyboard to mouse. This threw me off. But I think it is a good start.
Absolute Cinema
Hahahaha, it actually is cinema
This game is gorgeous. The pixel art and animations are incredible. I especially liked the potion-drinking animation. It was all very professional looking and top-tier.
I do think the controls were a bit tough to get used to and the overall difficulty of the game was pretty high. I definitely struggled in a few spots, but that made me reaching the next checkpoint feel all the better.
For the player character, her movements could have been a bit snappier, both in walking/running and attacking. I also felt the camera could show a bit more of where/what I was going toward, such as spikes at the bottoms of some pits I was wall-sliding down in.
I did like the skill-trees, but I think I ran into a bug where clicking on them wouldn't unlock the skill, but use my points, anyway.
For the menu itself, if you have a dark souls-like, non-pausing inventory screen, I would either make it keyboard controlled OR use the mouse to click through the menus/items, but remap the attack input away from LMB so that you don't take a swing every time you click a button.
Great job, overall, though!
thanks a lot for the reply!!! I will like to know a bit more about this section "For the player character, her movements could have been a bit snappier, both in walking/running and attacking." could you expand a little there? i will like all the feedback possible to fix it in new iterations!
Sure. I had a hard time getting close to enemies to attack and struggled getting far from enemies when trying to dodge. I think the player character was just a bit too slow (when compared to the speed of the enemies). When she attacks, she only moves a little bit forward, and some enemies would just walk away without me being able to actually hit them.
Maybe allowing the player to walk/run while attacking is the way to go, but I'm not sure. The locked attack animation has a dark souls feel to it, like other elements I mentioned earlier, which could be what you're going for. I'm just not sure it works for the enemies that you have (i.e. enemies that turn their back on you and walk away).
A speed increase could benefit the player character (though I understand she's wearing armor), and might compliment the amazing combat animations you have and could help make the combat a bit easier.
Hopefully I'm making sense, haha. Let me know if I'm not.
I'll start off with saying this game is very ambitious with skill trees, crafting, and even more souls-like 2d combat. I respect it for everything the team has tried to fit in, its just a tad bit ambitious for a 1 month long jam.
Whilst the core movement and combat feels fluid at first, the animation locks on attacking ends up doing it a disservice. When you have animation locks in combat like this you need to slow enemy windups and down-time enough that the player can actually get an attack in. Now the game does have a parry amongst other skills, only you need to unlock it first.
I will say, with parry unlocked the combat felt more complete and far less punishing and honestly should just be unlocked from the start. Without it, damage is extremely hard to avoid especially from ranged enemies. In addition I came across and pit in which an archer would spam arrows across and was impossible to progress. By the time I'd dashed to the other wall then 'climbed' up, I was already near dead due to stray arrows.
Finally the menu doesn't pause the game or even prevent the game controls so you end up attacking and even walking off pits whilst in it.
But not all is bad. I have to praise the amazing pixel artwork and overall fitting audio work. In addition the core gameplay and combat loop itself is a really solid basis, just needed a little more finetuning to get it feeling really good.
So overall, when considering the length of this jam and the ambitious nature of the project; well done. You now have a solid prototype that could potentially be used as a basis for something good.
thanks for the insight, for the first point, the animation locks on attacking , what do you mean? could you elaborate better, for fixing it?
When you attack you can't move. This is an animation lock; aka. you are hard-locked into completing the animation before regaining control.
This is not bad by itself and many good games such as monster hunter and dark souls utilise such animation locks. It creates 'weightiness' and makes you consider when to attack more than normal combat. The problem comes about when enemies have short windups letting them attack very quickly.
It means that by the time you can move again, you barely have time to get away. Yes you can dash, which solves part of the issue but by the time you recover from your dash and go to attack the enemy they just attack again with little to no down time. Even then the timing to dash just as your attack animation ends and before you get hit is very tight.
I'd say the timings are nearly there. Just by giving enemies a little bit more of a delay between attacks and/or a longer windup animation before attacking would go a long way. Also many games that do have animation locks often let you 'animation cancel' via dashing mid attack, aka. you dash mid attack animation immediately ending the animation and going straight into a dash.
Overall its a common mistake especially when testing your own game as you become adapted to the faster attack timings of your enemies; they may even feel slow to you. But, new players don't have those hours worth of playtesting and need that extra reaction time, especially on early game enemies. I too have been guilty of this in prior projects.