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Forest of Calamity's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Playability | #1 | 5.000 | 5.000 |
| Artistic Style | #109 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Cleverness | #423 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Theme | #935 | 2.000 | 2.000 |
Ranked from 1 rating. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Judge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous.
- Very cool game! I can see what you're going for here, absolutely take some time and flesh this out more, and give it some much needed polish (it could really use some spell checking!!) overall excellent work :)
Did you include your Game Design Document in your downloadable files?
Yes
Tell us about your game!
The big magical forest has been corrupted and the evil is spreading. Your job is to fight the evil and figure what the cause is.
You only need your mouse to click on dialogue and enemies and to move around the map.
I am a solo developer except for the music that I've asked for help and umm_viking came to rescue. The plot was bigger and intended to have more content such as farming and chopping wood to be able to make some money to buy stuff such as potion, better weapon etc. That part I had to be left out from the scope.
Your end goal is to collect Void Essence so you can research the "???" in order to unlock the end boss.
Good luck and hope you enjoy my creation.
Did you remember to include your Game Design Document?
Yes
Is your game set to Public so we can see it?
Yes
Extra Notes
IF you on the intro sequence get that the text is on top of each other so you can't read, reload the page.
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Comments
A short but fun experience. Works well as a prototype and the concept has potential!
Thank you very much. Yeah next step would be content and such!
This was good experience. Wish it was longer, but 2 weeks is 2 weeks :D
Thank you very much, likewise, wish I had more content. :)
Fun! I thought this would be more grindy/sloggy when I first started, but the gameplay briskly pulls you through in an enjoyable way! It felt like a game that was built for the dialogue and quickly pushed you through everything else, and I liked it!
Thank you. I didn't want to prolong things too much. Had ideas about experience and level up so you would be stronger but then I think people would start to grind and then the game would take too long / be more monotone. So since it's a 2 week jam I cutted it short so people would be able to play it to the end.
I am sitting here now thinking about how to change the gameplay and introduce new content and such.
Really good job on this, cant believe I died once. Maybe the text boxes should go away once you start fighting.
Thank you, yeah need to polish the text boxes, good to see other people play it since I always myself closed them and did not leave them open. :)
The starting cutscene was fantastic. Art style is so fun looking, gameplay loop was simple but effective. I would love to see you evolve this project. I wanna play this again with more mechanics and enemy types. Keep up the good work loved it.
Thank you so much. Yeah I keep collecting ideas when I daydream to improve the game, so hopefully I will go through with it. :)
The artstyle is very charming - and the music fits well. Even if the game is simple it is quite enjoyable. Well done!
Thank you. Yeah I've been thinking about different features and gameplay after the jam. See I if implement them and make it bigger.
Awesome little game, I enjoyed playing it. Couple of times when the timer reached zero seemingly nothing happened, until I realized I can scroll the map and the top left was full of void. :D
Yeah I did not had time to implement an arrow indication of some sort. :)
Nice, the prologue was neat and set the atmosphere quite well.
Thank you!
I really like this game, the combat mechanics are simple but they are still enough that there is a bit of a challenge using potions and prioritizing different enemies. The story is funny too and there are a lot of pieces here to lay foundations for a fleshed out full game if you decide to keep working on it.
Thank you very much.
Really fun playthrough, the narrative was charming, the combat was fun, the music was great, the art was good (especially loved the "thumb people"). Also loved the battle perspective, definitely unique haven't seen that in a game before and honestly would be down to see a game utilise that. Only thing I would add in terms of mechanics (I may have missed this but oh well) is letting the void stuff spread even further, and as it spreads further the battles increase in difficulty.
Good submission for sure, good job guys!
Thank you very much, I went back to watch your stream and it was fun to see in action.
Agree, my original idea was that the void would spread and if it hit the castle or something, you would lose, but wasn't sure how the gameplay would be and think it would be very frustrated. But definitely an idea to revisit.
The scrolling map was a nice touch, I enjoyed the rpg but sort of real time combat mix. I think your narrative was well done as well.
Thank you very much!
I really like the perspective that the battles are fought in, its quite unique! I'm also a big fan of scrolling the map to look around the world instead of controlling a character, it definitely helps the game stand out.
Thank you very much! :)
it's such a nice and kind game. the fight system is sort of a potion management game, but the fact you had a nicely told story and created an atmosphere speaks volumes. nice job!
Thank you very much. Original idea was to have more in that menu and not only potions. Next time.
This was an interesting game.
I liked how it seemed like you had to catch the void when it was smaller for an easier fight? The larger ones seemed to have more enemies. That’s a nice touch.
Not sure if there’s an ending in this version, but I died so many times anyway… glad for the unlimited respawns :P
Unfortunately that was not a feature but mere random 1-3, but my original idea was something similar to that, that the void would even grew even bigger than what it's today, but had hard time implement and would increase stress and higher chance to lose.
There is a final boss and after that you get credit. You need to research "???" to unlock the boss and fight him 3 times.
Hmm I researched that and the screen shook but didn’t see the boss. I’ll try again later!
This is great! Its fairly coherent and a nice little fantasy game! I think I broke it the first time I played it, however, because I got the '? (you never know what could happen)' from the research before getting the 'strength' and some epic music started playing but no more voids would spawn? So you may want to take a look at that. haha. Other than that there are quite a few grammatical errors, but nothing that can't be easily fixed. :)
Overall a fantastic entry! I really enjoyed the art, music, and story very much! :D Great job and keep it up!!
Thank you for playing. You should be able to get the "???" upgrade but you need to look around for the boss void (the other voids will disappear to only focus on the boss void). Yeah English is my second language and the code-editor doesn't have spelling checks. :D
First of all, thank you for playing Shade Strider and leaving such kind compliments.
I can see your vision for how you want this to unfold, and I think you should absolutely pursue this further. If you are interested in finding a game artist, I would love to help you out in some capacity! But you don't owe me anything, and I hope that isn't an unwelcome thing to say. I just see so much personality in this game and it piqued my interest!I really enjoyed my time playing Forest of Calamity. I got heavy Paper Mario vibes from this, especially with the turn-based combat and the combat scene that reminded me of a theater stage.
Much of the artwork really made me warm and fuzzy. The castle was well designed, and you fit details onto it that made it feel truly alive -- a few animated details (flags waving, people bustling about) would be another nice touch if you continue working on the game.
Also, thanks to your art style, I felt the humor of the characters pretty intensely. They have so much personality and it's really endearing! The king is so goofy looking (which lends to his "incompetent" nature), the fox seems like a character I should probably be skeptical of, and I felt so bad for the poor goblin I slayed without the slightest hesitation -- was there an option for me to spare them? Another thing to tally in your win column is how well the forest background of the game blends seamlessly with the webpage's background. I don't want to take that for granted -- I really appreciate your attention to detail.
Boy, oh boy, that music was incredible! The boss soundtrack came out of nowhere and had no right to be so pumped. It absolutely slaps. There was so much tension there. Impending doom! Big bad boy! That, coupled with the screen shaking, made the game feel alive.
More to that point, I would have loved to see your world-building in action with that opening cutscene. The text was interesting, and I think some background images or animations would have done that even more justice. I understand, again, that there is a time limit to this and I absolutely do not fault you for it. (It turns out that it was only displaying a black screen on Firefox, so I tried Chrome and it worked properly. I love the intro cutscene, great job!!!) Your team is creative and I want to see more of what you have to offer.I want more. Jan and Annabelle, you have done a fantastic job and I am really charmed by this little game. Please keep up the great work, and remember that you're now officially game developers!
~Enteal
Oh my, I don't know where to begin, so much kind words and that you took your time to write this much for my little game.
I really appreciate that you saw and looked at the details.
We might see each other in the future fellow game developer! <3
I died 3 times....that was a fun lil game.
A lot of potential here i feel, very playable mini mmo kinda vibe.....this idea saves a lot of walking across endless maps...which can be fun too , but you get to the good bits quick like this......
Be good with a bigger story.......Loved it...
Thank you very much. My idea was to have some kind of character that you would walk to different places and would get random encounters along the path. But I think the time was too small and wasn't sure how the voids would spawn and how all would fit together. So laziness did a good one here. :D
I really enjoy your game, i like the art style and music, and is a good concept for the theme good job. while playing I found this bug, when 2 void are almost in the same place if you click on a place where one is on top of the other, you will face enemies from both encounters and the player sprite would duplicate as well.
very good game!
Thank you very much for playing. Yeah unfortunately I knew this and crossed my fingers and hoped that no one would get this. :D
Game was so much fun! Loved the art, the mechanics were easy to pick up and play, and the music really sets the tone. Great job!
Super thanks! <3
Wow! What a game! Loved the ambiance (both art and sound) and I really felt immersed in the game. I can see there is plenty of room for expanding if you feel like it. Awesome job!
Thank you so much for the kind words!