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Blood X Thirsty's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Theme | #233 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Playability | #258 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Cleverness | #282 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Artistic Style | #401 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
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.
- I find that the overall style of this game is not only blending well together on all fronts, but even with what feels like a simplistic story, the theme was implemented in a clever way that showcases bartending in a unique manner. I enjoyed that I could choose to or not to listen to the music (definitely kept that on); the art style caught my attention first before checking out the game; I'm personally a tad slow on the uptake of controls for a new game, but once I got the hang of it, they were easy to follow and fun when completing the task of taking care of any and all patrons that entered the bar. Would love to see more of this, great stuff!
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!
Blood X Thirsty is a bartending roguelike themed around halloween-esque monsters. The central mechanics revolve around adding ingredients to your brew which give different effects to different monster types. While you're tending bar, customers will enter and wait for a drink... until they get angry and attack! Try to get through as many nights as possible while buying ingredients using your tips from the previous night!
The gameplay loop is very simple and easy to pick up:
1. Add ingredients to your brew (point and click)
- Hover over ingredient names to see their effects. DoT = Drunkenness over Time, increasing this makes customers finish their drinks faster.
2. Serve customers at the bar:
- Move with WASD
- Pick up drinks from cauldron with UP
- Place drinks at bar with DOWN
- Attack in either direction with LEFT and RIGHT
3. Select a Shadow Perk (point and click)
Extra Notes
The game also has fully integrated gamepad support.
There is a surprise if you can make it to level 12!
We would have liked to add more ingredients and made a few balancing changes, but this prototype reflects the spirit of Blood X Thirsty.
Also this seems to be a common question: the ingredient effects can be seen by hovering over the name of the ingredient with the mouse cursor. DoT = drunkenness over time, customers finish their drinks faster.
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Comments
The art style is really great and consistent (love this goofy ahh dawg in the corner). Very addictive gameplay actually, played it for quite some time. So yeah, nice work!!
Very fun, I got to night 8! I was a bit confused why I needed to get attack speed or health as no one attacked me until the last night. I spent all my upgrades on attack speed but still attacked pretty slow, but I'm not really sure what the normal attack speed is to be fair. Loved the theme and the game style!
Very addicting game. I managed to unlock all the ingredients but I don’t think I ever got to level 12. The only criticism I have is that the monsters’ transition to hostile is not obvious. I wish they would stop and flash before becoming aggressive. Or maybe have their bars’ color change from red to something else. Maybe it’s my imagination but I feel like DoT effects are not doing anything, except possibly making the monsters take longer to drink. Felt like it got horder when I invested a lot in DoT. Might just be in my head though.
Nice game, definitely has that "just one more round!" feel which is a great sign :)
Great art style. and it's pretty fun to be able to both bartend and fight.
Only complain would be that some upgrades or level up perks felt very weak, only giving +1% to a stat.
Fantastic work. This is too addicting, trying to find the right combination to get decent tips and getting people drunk to leave the bar was insane. I had to stop lmao.
Really chill game until customers start attacking, good idea and good execution plus there is a puppy and kittens!
Interesting game. I like how the clients wait and attack us if we don't take them drink in the time. Good gameplay :)
Fun game! Very fun idea of customers attacking server.
Zombies climbed over the counter and took my job!
Fun game though, very nice pixel art style xx
This is a good game idea! But maybe instead of this long counter you could make it so that there are tables to serve if you want to continue developing the game, personally I think that would be more interesting and gives you a chance to allow the player to buy tables and give them more upgrades.
Great job! I'm glad to see someone else's take on this genre! I really enjoyed the variety in monsters, and the upgrades definitely led to a very addicting gameplay experience. On top of that, I really enjoyed the music and sound effects, ESPECIALLY the tip feedback and last call. You and your team really knocked this out of the park!
Really good work! The gameplay loop is very addictive and I had a lot of fun playing it. The theme implementation is very well done and the game felt very polished. Overall great work!
Cool game! Once I got a hang of the controls, things started to make sense. I would suggest to combine both the pick up and place drinks to a single keybind to make the controls more intuitive.
Thanks for the suggestion! If you want to try this, you can always rebind the buttons for Pick Up and Place Down in Settings.
It's a really cute idea. I love that the zombies get up an attack you if you don't serve them in time. I also love the Pug.
Very satisfying game play once you start to feel the rhythm of it. I was a moment away from making it to night 10. The thing that is greatest about this game, though, are the kitties and the puppy chilling in the tavern with you.
Hell yeah! Glad you enjoyed our pet simulator disguised as a really fun bartending game!
Otis the dog is owned by Builderman
Luci(fer) the cat is the black/grey one behind the bar owned by Swaan
and Jynx the ragdoll on the shelf is mine!
<3
They are adorable babies! I think you should add a mechanic where you have to find a moment to bring them treats or water each night! That might make it too hard though lol.
This is an awesome concept, there were some times it feels a little repetitive but in the end it is a really fun package ^^ though I did have to look multiple times at the keyboard keybinds because it felt very off to me >.<
Thanks for playing! If the keybinds feel off for you, you can always rebind them in Settings.
I did not know what the ingredients did until night 6..... oh well.
I like the art style, it is really well done and consistent all the way through, good job.
The controls are a bit to get used to, as i pressed "left" so many times to grab the drinks. If you want to use up for grabbing drinks, why not place the cauldron upwards from the player, this way "up" is visibly up to grab drinks and "down" is visibly down to serve drinks (though this is just my opinion).
Audio is nicely done, even though it repeats, it does not become annoying.
Bit more of a Halloween theme than shadow/alchemy but a nice take on the theme none the less.
I like the design of having the physically defend yourself from the bar goers, as usually in games they'd just leave angry not giving you money or cause a game over, now you can defend yourself from a game over, nice.
Well executed, good job! :D
Thanks for the feedback, I'm glad you're enjoying the game!
If you're not comfortable with the default control scheme, you can always change the bindings in Settings :)
oh, i did not know that was an option, very good to have that
Nice game! Had fun and liked the concept of brewing your own drink. Though at some points later in the game I felt the combat was a bit unfair and found myself losing a bunch of health. But still great job with the game! :)
Really good game!
It's an interesting take on Alchemy, but I dig it. The gameplay loop is simple, but the whole brewing a custom drink between stages idea adds a lot! I really enjoyed my fairly limited time with this game!
My take on bugs/game design errors is that the options menu does not allow to rebind movement. Not a problem, but at first glance I thought attacking, and using the drinks are my only options, so I rebound them to WASD 😅
I'll definitely come back to this title, and see what else is there. Judging by Yzaya's review, I missed a few things
Thanks for playing, I'm glad you enjoyed the game!
If you're interested in seeing a full version of the game, feel free to check out the Blood X Thirsty Discord. We're currently talking about what a finished version should look like, and seeing support and hearing from people who played it would be awesome!
- SwAAn
I have been playing this game for hours now. First time around I only managed to get to level 8, since I was taking random powerups, but once I started reading everything the game had to offer and look into the details of the game, I simply couldn't stop. My second way around I got to the surprise, and I keep losing at it.
Best I got was last call during level 12, but a guy chased me down and I lost.
I like how the time of the shift can adjust your playstyle in order to get the hidden bonus, so you're more careful with the placement of the drinks.
If I were to offer some criticism... Well, you can easily go through levels 1 to 11 using only the first two ingredients. Once you learn to get the special bonus, it's very easy to go through the levels if you got some movement speed.
Not sure if this is intended, but every now and then during Last Call, a random customer would walk in and come damage me, albeit I couldn't see any bar above their heads. I even lost on level 10 because moth-man started assaulting me randomly.
Regarding the bars above their heads... they are kinda hard to notice, as stated on Discord maybe add an outline to them.
As for the combat... sometimes you can be facing an enemy and... don't land the hits? Particularly because the enemies are right on top of you, so when i was trying to back off and hit them, they usually killed me.
Still, love the game and I believe with a tad of polishing, it can be put on the market easily.
Thanks for commenting! I'm really glad you're enjoying the game so far!
The feedback you gave is super valuable, so I can't thank you enough for that. We would have loved to add more ingredients and create some balancing changes to make the game more dynamic and make each run feel different before the jam ended, but we're very happy with what we put together.
Who knows, maybe this thing will get some upgrades in the future!