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The Shadow Curse's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Cleverness | #1 | 5.000 | 5.000 |
| Playability | #205 | 4.667 | 4.667 |
| Theme | #226 | 4.333 | 4.333 |
| Artistic Style | #386 | 4.333 | 4.333 |
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.
- Only thing I can knit pick is these models are either from an asset pack or only slight modifications of a base asset, beyond that here are my compliments. the element combos to cause elemental reactions is fun, and using your right mouse button to have your shadow cast a element you assign to it by hitting it with that spell is cool, and you took the shadow element of the game in a new direction I like, each level having themed enemies is fun, and I like how you cant just blast shielded enemies away, as they take too long to kill and you will be surrounded, the idea of you having your shadow behind them hit them with a spell and then your spell hits their shield but still triggers the effect is very fun and creative, only thing I wish was the arenas were bigger otherwise add more movement options, double jump upgrade, dash, or teleport would be nice, and using scroll wheel to change your element, the shadow is great, no complaint on that part.
- GDD The pace of the GDD seems good. Good with the images of the game mechanics Good with the development timeline. This show transparency. Game No menu. Just directly into the game. I think ya should included it, but I can guess ya didnt have enough time. The roguelike arenas combat feels good, but I think the second boss's health regain phase need to nerf, so it is not overdone. It took me 7 times to down him to that phase until he actually died and I can moved on to the 3rd arena. I died to the 3rd boss because the boss teleported into a rock and just spamming attacks from there where I cant hit him. I think the powerups need to buff a little or probably go crazy, so ya can actually feel a different. Also during the session, it felt that shadow buddy did nothing, which I know is not true, but all he did was follow me than attack the enemies (I used hit and run strategy) I dont feel much of alchemy part, but I can see the where the shadows comes in.
- Very good GDD, I loved seeing the whole design timeline with such complex details. Very cool! The ideas and foundations link very nicely to the game jam, and the underlying themes are mysterious & magical with an awesome soundtrack!. Thoroughly enjoyed my little play through, one of my favorites so far. Feedback: Add the death screen that you didn't have time to Add more leeway to the combat mechanics hitboxes Add a training course for the first wave that shows the player how the controls work. The rest of the game is nicely laid out and thought out, please keep going with this. I would be very interested to see how you implement new items and upgrades to the movement and the combat :)
Did you include your Game Design Document as a Google Drive link?
Yes
Seriously... did you include your Game Design Document?
Yes, in the description of the game
Is your game set to Public so we can see it?
Yes
Tell us about your game!
The game is a 1st person action roguelike. The player goes through waves of enemies and bosses, and gets increasingly powerful by collecting relics.
The main mechanics is combining elements (fire, ice, thunder) to create unique spells.
During combats, the player controls the Shadow by giving him orders ("follow me", "go there","attack this enemy". In order to create an elemental reaction, both the player and the Shadow must apply an elemental effect.
There is also a story! The Shadow is affected by a curse, the player is trying to break it.
Extra Notes
This is the most ambitious game I've made so far. As I worked alone on this game, I decided to rely on external assets for this game, to focus on programming and game designing. It was still a huge challenge for me, as I'm a hobbyist and I work in a field that has nothing in common with Game Dev!
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Comments
Wow, really impressive game. It looks great and the concept is really cool, I especially love the attack effects. I had a little trouble controlling the mouse (view kept drifting down to my feet) unfortunately, but I'm not sure why. A first person 3d game was so ambitious and it came out great!
Blasting baddies with my helpful shadow sidekick!
Overall, this game feels complete and was a lot of fun to play!
Thank you for the kind words!
was very fun to play, wish i could adjust mouse sensitivity, but awesome items which were fun to equip. boss fight was challenging, died a couple of times, keep up the good work :)
also the spells feel a bit underpowered, not sure if the spells work with each other to do more damage but still nice.
Thanks for playing, there is a mouse sensitivity option (Y)!
10/10 will play again
I love the link thing between me and the shadow
It took me a while to figure stuff out(like 3 minutes), but that's because I didn't read the tutorial not even the controls :D.
Thank you for playing!
This was so much fun, I can't believe all the models you have in this game it's unreal. There's so much polish!
So I loved the spell mixing mechanics and I appreciated the books in the first room explaining it and how it all worked, the spell cheat sheet on a hotkey was a great touch too.
I don't really get the point of moving the shadow around to be honest, it's a cool mechanic but It doesn't really seem to add any value to the game? I just stuck him in the middle of the rooms and spamming right click to whatever I needed him to do.
The variety of models and environments is insane and really cool, the world feels so detailed because of this. The art was great and I loved all the monster designs.
The audio was fine, it was just some basic SFX and music. Nothing special but it's better than complete silence.
We gotta talk about the 2nd level boss though is it beatable? I got it down to 0 health twice and it just fully recovered then destroyed me. I wish there was some sort of sprint/dash mechanic cos enemies getting in your face is a death sentence especially if they corner you at the walls of the room.
The chests felt awesome and I loved the choice of upgrades. STORM WIZARD BABYEEEEEH.
Hey it's a really great game, I liked it a lot! From the very beginning I thought already the visuals were very stylish. When I saw the shadow following me around and I thought - oh, this is gonna be fun. :D And indeed it was. Very enjoyable combat and game loop, and you really put a bunch of content in there. Really good job!!!
Thank you for playing!
Damnn a 3D vampire survive like game with multiple worlds and boss fightsss!! Insane how you made this. Very fun and trilling music too. Thanks for the experience!
Great concept, I really liked it. Nice effects. The mouse sense incredibly high, but otherwise I had a good experience.
This is awesome!!! It's really nice how you have a setting for mouse sensitivity. After I tweaked that, it was a ton of fun! I love how you added variety to the enemies and that they have different properties and attack patterns. You really went all out, and it shows!
The first few rounds I wasnt sure what the shadow was supposed to be doing until I right clicked by accident and was like OHHHH! then we got the chain effect going, 100% fire damage, sadly the big golem looking boss took us down but it was a fun play through. great work!~
Thank you for the kind words!
Really fun game! You can definitely continue this project and aim for a full release. I couldn't find much usage for the shadow commands other than just telling it to attack though, it might be worth emphasizing the relevance of its positioning. Nice work!
Thank you, that's the plan!
Great combat mechanics, I enjoyed the fight after reading how the elemental reaction works. Congratulations on your game!
Thank you! :)
-Can I change my shadows element? Mine always shoot fire.
-Flanking shield enemies with shadow is fun.
-Hoping for more varied arenas, always kitin enemies around in a circle gets a bit boring. The enemies with poison mist break this pattern nicely, got to evolve your strategy when theres big poison clouds suddenly blocking and obscuring half the map. Keeps it fresh.
-Lightning link between me and the shadow that I got from the upgrades is cool and gives more meaning to the "move-shadow-here" mechanic. Adding more similar, but different, mechanics that makes you think of the shadow placement would make sense to me. I mostly kept putting him in the middle of arena and then running around. Didn't ever really find a use for him to be following me. I would rather call him some 5 meters behind me if I needed help with shieldy-bois.
I like the direction your little arena survival roguelite took!
You can change the shadows element by firing an elemental missile at him (I agree it's not that clear in game)
Thank you for the feedback! I wanted to implement more interesting ways to play around the shadow but sadly ran out of time.
Impressive game for a two week game jam! The shadow mechanic is a really cool idea. Took me a few tries to get the element attacks working. Overall I think you did a great job. Can't wait to see what you do next.
Thank you !
This game feels like its on its way for release, the low poly and mechanics are very well done. Everything from the UI to the way the game feels has been very well written and made. Great job!
Thank you for the feedback, you're awesome!
I really like the fact that the little antechamber let's the player learn all their controls in a non threatening environment that still offers engagement. I also was weirdly taken in by the one page of story that I saw-- it was super well written/plotted for such a short piece in my opinion. So much polish and functionality for a game jam game, let alone from a hobbyist. You've done a really great job. The only thing that threw me off was I wasn't really sure how to change my elements for the attacks. I kept choosing non elemental items though, so that could easily be the problem. I just wasn't really sure what attacks I had access to.
Thank you for actually reading the lore! I really wanted to expand it, and I had a cool twist for the end of the story, but sadly I lacked the time to implement it
I could put an asterisk on 60% of my GDD with “didn’t have time to implement” lol, if you decide to keep working on this game/add more story elements I’ll def check them out.
Love the idea and the spell combinations. Would have loved some more sound effects to help me parse all the different things going on, but otherwise I really enjoyed this. Nice work!
Very fun rougelike!
This amazing for being done in only two weeks. Once the gameplay settled in, I really enjoyed it! The items were interesting and led to engaging gameplay scenarios! For example, I got the item that made it so there is a thunder link between you and your shadow in the first level. Then, when I encountered the shield enemies, I could position my shadow behind them for an easy kill. I really enjoyed it overall, great job!
There is a lot of work in this entry, this is a prototype you can expand to make a fully-fledged game.
Nice submission !
Thank you, would love to expand it after the jam!