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The Blade Apprentice: Journey to the Necrosword's itch.io pageJudge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous.
- You added a volume control which I appreciate, however, if you chose to mute the music once, you can't unmute until refreshing of the page. The tutorial is a nice touch, however, IMO it shouldn't automatically go to the next page, instead should require input from the player so that everyone can advance at their own pace. As for the game itself, the art and animation are great, the pixel art is very clean and the attack animation are smooth. I also enjoyed the fairly straight forward progression system. However, and this might have just been me, it wasn't very clear to me how much HP does my enemy have. I also found the background music to be a bit too repetitive. Overall, the game's spirit was fantastic and the core mechanics worked well.
Link to your Game Design Doc on Google Drive.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iBIgFLyjSK4nkVtZJpZTlZwlPOR3CVsPDEYM4S3bLI8/edit?usp=sharing
Have you checked that your GDD is publicly accessible ?
Yes!
Is your game set to public on itch.io so we can see it?
Yes!
Summarise your game!
This game test patience and precision - the main mechanics (both the defence and the attack ones) rely on player picking the right moment to strike (by pressing SPACE). The mechanics are more thoroughly described in the game's description if you ever feel lost. The story is this: at some point, an enormous sword has been slammed into the ground, creating a rift between the living and the undead worlds. As the rift grows, so does the power of the sword - the Necrosword. You and your teacher go there to put an end to the spreading corruption. To get to the sword itself, you will have to first get through various minions and enemies.
Controls:
Use WASD during the defense stage to control your defense area, and wait for the right animation to strike. Strike the enemy's attack by pressing SPACE. If you block it with the smaller circle, you get to block more damage and reduce the enemy's number of attacks!
Use SPACE during the attack stage to strike the attack area when your sword is above it. Strike the bigger area - and you execute your basic attack, strike the smaller one - and your attack deals critical damage.
Please explain how your game fits the theme:
The game has been made by only me, and i have realized half way through the project that some mechanics have been designed to be too difficult to implement, so i have changed a large portion of the game. The game runs in browser, but there might be some bugs and problems. I am only starting to make games, and would appreciate all of the comments, thank you!
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Comments
Cool combat system, although I was unsure of how to beat higher health enemies. Even if I blocked I took some damage, and the sword attack bar went fast enough that I found it hard to hit more than 1/3 of my own attacks if that. Funnily enough the "Boss" encounter was the only one I won since he had only 10 hp! But I like the idea of sentient sword combat, and I liked all the sword designs!
Oh damn i guess i messed something in the code, its not supposed to have 10 hp XD. Very glad you like the combat system, thank you for the review, i got to fix that boss right away!
Impressive, complex and good job
I'm not entirely sure what the first phase of the battle is or how to win at it. I'm guessing i press space when i'm close to it. I was expecting to see an enemy health bar as well. I think you should start the game slower to introduce mechanics. Still tho, it looks like a lot of work went into it and you should be proud, good job!!!
Thank you very much for the review! I have just finished adding the in-game tutorial to the game, hopefully that will fix the issue. I realized that i have overcomplicated some mechanics lol. The health bar can only be seen in Fullscreen for some reason , i am unsure on how to fix that(
The pixel artstyle is super cool, I had a hard time understanding the mechanics, at first I thought I had to press space at the same time as the star became bigger but after some testing I realized that I just need the red circle inside the star. It was a bit difficult at first to get used to the attacking phase, but it did become better once I got the hang of it.
Hp bars under the opponent and the player sword character would be very nice, as sometimes I do damage but I have no idea if my critical or normal hit did enough or how many more hits I need to win.
Also player choosing a debuff when they lose a fight is a nice idea, I do not really know what "spirit means" (I recommend adding a tooltip explaining the stat) but every other stat seemed understandable. It would be nice to also see how much the player has of the current stat. For example when I choose critical damage multiplier I can also see my current critical damage.
I really like the map, feels very "slay the spire" inspired, maybe a cross out (or another visual representation) for the fights that I've completed would be nice
Thank you very much for the feedback! I am not sure about the hp bar, since it was added to the game in the very first build and it displays well when i or my friends test it( i have altered some things in the very last update, would love to hear if the problem persists!
When it comes to the explanations of mechanics and characteristics, i will definitely take it into account! Hopefully i will add that before the jam begins lol
ahhh, I noticed the hp bars only happen in full screen, I was playing in windowed mode so I did not notice them >_<