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A jam submission

Die & PortentView game page

Top down strategy roguelike
Submitted by SudoDave — 13 hours, 33 minutes before the deadline
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Die & Portent's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Playability#15.0005.000
Cleverness#15.0005.000
Theme#15.0005.000
Artistic Style#15.0005.000

Ranked from 3 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

  • This is such a unique world and game mechanic system. Even with a short amount of gameplay, I was pulled into a world that was a bit reminiscent of Mork Borg and Warhammer. The turn based combat was challenging and punishing, but enjoyable. I do wish there was some way to replenish your own guys, but that might defeat the purpose of the game. I would love to see more of this game.
  • Great work, the 'transmutation' with the random items at the start of each level was a clever touch to the theme. As with anything X-Com-esque, I'd love more text and explanations of items/abilities, but still the game was generally clear on what things did/were without more.
  • Good job! Loved your GDD - especially your attention to detail on things like the gameplay loops. It's a good idea to think these things through before you begin building the game. The dev diary looks fantastic. I do not have time right now, but after the judging period I want to come back to that and read it through thoroughly. I am bookmarking your game to do exactly that. Suggestion: Add in options the ability to zoom into the world a bit more (or just do that as the default). I felt like I was very far away from the action, and wished the level we were in was about 1.5x or 2x more zoomed in than it was. Good game. Good luck! I hope to see you in the next jam as well!

Did you include your Game Design Document as a Google Drive link?
yes

Seriously... did you include your Game Design Document?
yes

Is your game set to Public so we can see it?
yes

Tell us about your game!
Top down roguelike with similar mechanics to X-com. Designed around serving a shadowy deity with minions that transform as you apply items to them. Semi-random levels, enemies, and items for replay-ability. Right click pan, click to select, move, attack, move items, and select abilities.

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Comments

What a polished game! The contextual tutorials ease the player into the game, and the cutscene at the beginning sets the stage for the player's motivation. The buffs give interesting rewards that force you to balance the level of your minion. I also enjoyed having to balance a variety of levels between my minions. The enemy AI feels good too, which cannot be understated.

I had trouble finding a place for the sovereign play style, although I didn't get too far into the build. Also, I barely used the mid-tier vassal ability. I don't think it's a bad move, but it didn't suit the smaller and winding maps as much, where cover is plenty.

This is awesome! It's easy to envision a more handcrafted experience across encounters that would tie together more of the narrative you alluded to. Kudos to your release! :claps:

(One more thing)

I managed to get to Encounter #19 when the game froze during an enemy's turn. The browser console shows "Uncaught TypeError: WebGL2RenderingContext.bufferData: Argument 2 can't be an ArrayBuffer or an ArrayBufferView larger than 2 GB". It seems like this is a Firefox-exclusive problem, but maybe there is a memory leak. I'm including a screenshot below in case the context helps.

Developer

Thank you!  I had a similar problem when I got to the later levels, I'll have to look into it!

Submitted

Loved the atmosphere and implications of deeper lore. Game itself runs smooth even on mac/chrome - no issues with controls or performance. UI scaled to retina very well, hats off.

My only complaint is about  presentation - I only understood this Vassal/Sovereign business after reading your gdd and devlog.

Developer

Thanks for playing! I'm glad the UI scaling worked well, I spent probably too much time on that.  I definitely needed to better explain those mechanics yeah.

Submitted

Wow, a Xcom like in 2 weeks, that's crazy! 

It works really well, and the leveling system is very interesting too (not sure about losing abilities tho, max level Vassal felt like a downgrade)

I also didn't understand how to raise Favor so I ended up way into the negatives and got  wrecked by debuff dice (got to stage 9)

But I really liked the game, that's a great base concept for a bigger game if you wanna expand it. We don't get enough games in that genre !
I'm gonna try a new run right now :)

Developer

Very nice, I barely got past 9 on some of my runs.  Sacrificing sovereign items in the bowl in the top right will raise your favor.  I regret not explaining that better in-game.

I'm glad you enjoy it!

Submitted

Nice game. The style is awesome. There's an element of world building introduced through simple mechanics and a  few lines. I really like that. It makes it feel deep.  The turn based play is also smooth and makes sense. Really nice

Submitted

Wow, super polished turn-based game that plays very well.  Nice work!

Developer

thank you!

Submitted

Nice art style and music. Game was quite fun to play. I thought I was stuck behind glass walls at the start haha. Maybe later down the track, there would be a clearer indication of when I was in range to attack. 

But overall well done. :D

Developer

yeah there are pits, but they're hard to see.  Range indicators would definately help too!  Thanks for playing!

Submitted

Very polished, I hope you're turning it into a full release. The art is beautiful, and the mechanics feel good to play.

Developer

Thank you!

Submitted

I like the turn based mechanics and they are pretty easy to grasp. Except for the item offering, I would love to see a little bit more what it does (Might be me, and I apologize if i missed something too).  

Great particle effect on the hit/miss thing! Great job man!  #GodotBro

Developer

Thanks!  Yeah, the offering needs a rework.  The paper particle effect is my favorite!

Submitted

Very nice submission! Great usage of the themes and overal it just looks and feels way too polished for a prototype. The controls feel great and are easy to grasp. I noticed that one enemy chose to run away instead of attack, thats a nice detail! Well done, I could really see this turn into a release somewhere down the line :).

My only feedback is that the favor system with the items is not immediately clear. I didn't have a lot of time so I appologise if it was explained but I missed it!

Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing!  I want to re-design the favor system at some point, it is pretty unintuitive currently.