Play game
Sword and Song's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Presentation | #30 | 2.654 | 4.333 |
| Overall | #32 | 2.449 | 4.000 |
| Use of the Limitation | #34 | 2.245 | 3.667 |
| Concept | #35 | 2.654 | 4.333 |
| Enjoyment | #35 | 2.245 | 3.667 |
Ranked from 3 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Team members
Matthew Marsland, Ellen Kate Malpas
Software used
Godot 3, Procreate
Use of the limitation
All you are given is a Banjo and a Blade. Upgrades apply to either your sword or your songs. There are further dualities throughout - conversation vs. combat, hero vs. villain, etc.
Cookies eaten
5
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
Really great game! You guys should play Divinity Original Sin 2 and Disco Elysium!
Oh yeah this has big Disco Elysium energy for me
Thanks a ton for giving it a try, and for the recommendations! Disco Elysium has been on the list for a long time… Currently I am on a long-overdue very-intermittent Baldur’s Gate 3 playthrough, but someday… The comparison, however, is too kind, thank you!
Wow, this is GREAT! I’m amazed at how you managed to create all this in only 72 hours, it’s incredible!!!
There’s so much love and soul in everything here, from the art style to the soft music and ambience sounds. Not only that, the game is really fun both in its mechanics and writing: I love the simple but profound combat, the addition of “perfect timing” to deal additional damage provides a really nice challenge.
And the story. If this was based off a D&D campaign you played I would have loved to be there with you: not only the premise is incredibly intriguing, but the ending moved something in me that I didn’t think a jam game could. If game design is all about evoking emotions and experiences then you two are incredible designers and storytellers. On that note, great dialogue! I didn’t expect a branching narrative but you really surprised me, and the narration is extremely evocative while keeping concise.
The only criticism I could have has to do with performance, which unfortunately was a little poor when playing in the browser (I use Firefox, that may have something to do with it?), but it’s nothing you couldn’t fix with a few more looks at the code.
Onestly I’m amazed no-one has commented yet, this is really a gem! Keep up the good work, both of you!
Goodness! This is deeply kind - though I must confess, I think maybe ‘finishing it in 72 hours’ was helped by soaring past the deadline and submitting a day late :P
Extremely fair criticism of the performance - there is definitely so much room to tidy that up. A lot of the scenery could probably be baked into textures instead of full sprites, and I need to get the hang of using Godot’s animation system instead of hardcoding light movements… I was actually kind of hoping this would push the boundary of performance as I normally try to keep that aspect pretty tight. Something this resource-intensive gives me a chance to explore how to profile a Godot project. Hopefully it doesn’t crash anyone’s browser in the meantime!
This is exactly the response that it didn’t seem reasonable to hope for! Not joining this jam was under consideration for a while, but once the idea arose to share this world and the feeling of residing within it… that felt like a core that deserved love and soul. I’m glad you like the art - I was immensely lucky that the player in that game had already done excellent character art way back (originally used for 2D paper miniatures during combat!) and gave permission for me to redraw them, otherwise the conversations might have been a lot more empty! And mad props to Ellen, of course, for taking the idea and turning it around into the three lovely melodies you hear in game, let alone actually going out to sample a river - truly heroic to save a game about a bard from being completely silent.
I’m honestly delighted beyond words that the writing and story resonated with you. Thanks again for playing and commenting!