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A jam submission

See You Tessellate-r, Alligator!View game page

Defeat the Alligators with your spells in this turn-based boss puzzler!
Submitted by Aegis πŸ›‘ (@aegis_sbs), Sunflower 🌻 (@sunflower_sbs), Gambit β™Ÿ (@gambit_sbs) β€” 26 seconds before the deadline
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See You Tessellate-r, Alligator!'s itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Fun#412.8332.833
Overall#542.5422.542
Audio#552.5002.500
Graphics#642.3332.333
Gameplay/Design#642.5002.500

Ranked from 12 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

What would you like feedback on?
We would love your input on ANY of these questions:

Any ideas for FEATURES that you are excited about?

Any ideas to improve the interface LAYOUT? (All art is placeholder)

Do you have any ideas for a TUTORIAL?

Do you feel like there is any STRATEGY to your choices/placement?

Are the instructions and visual cues (like drag-and-drop) intuitive?

Do you feel like this idea has POTENTIAL?

What do you think would make the game BETTER?

Thanks for playing <3

What did you update?
Overhauled combat system
Added 3 tutorial bosses
Changed UI during Battle
Added new spells

Let us know what you think πŸ‘‡

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Comments

Submitted(+2)

Deceptively fun!

Loved the idea of organizing your spell inventory, really helped add to the overall strategy of the game. Personally I feel like it would be better if once you confirmed your spells they all activated to save a bit of time, but other than that I have no issues with this game, all in all a very fun gameplay loop.

Developer

Thanks so much and glad you enjoyed playing :)

We actually have plans for the next release which will make it REALLY important which order you use your spells!

If you're interested in updates we have an email list at https://shadowboltstudios.com

Feel free to sign up and we'll add you to the Discord :)

Hopefully see you there <3

Aegis πŸ›‘

Submitted(+1)

The game is a great concept, not sure if it was my browser or not, but the game did not function properly in combat. I would set the spell, confirm the grid, but not attack. The tree would do no damage back as well.  

I will test on another system at a different point today and update. If this is still faulty I'll let you know.

Developer

Hey, sorry you’re having trouble. This is a good example of our UX that we need to improve.

 You might need to try clicking your spells once you have confirmed your grid.

Trees do 0 damage because they’re trees ;) it’s supposed to allow the player to learn how to use their spells without taking damage.

Thanks for your feedback though and please let us know if this helps!

Aegis πŸ›‘οΈ

Submitted(+1)

Got it working on the work pc.  Probably one thing is, after confirming the grid, it can activate the spells tied to it.

Submitted(+1)

This was a unique game. I really liked how it focused around the Dr. Mario and Resident Evil 4 styled spell inventory. I would’ve liked some symbols on the pieces to get a better sense of what they were for. It would also be cool if the space could change size depending on the level, or perhaps even the opponent changes the shape of the spell area instead of attacking you directly? As for difficulty and tutorial, I think if the early game were more focused around using the elemental pieces in a relatively low stakes environment, kinda like the early parts of Pokemon games, that would really help with learning and progression. Good job overall.

Submitted(+1)

I really enjoyed the game! Awesome mix of Tetris and RPGs, never expected it and it turns out to be very fun. A lot of details to polish but that's one step at a time. Most of the suggestions I had were already commented, and I saw your reply that you will improve the combat system based on the Tetris match so well done! 

Also, regarding the combat system most RPGs introduce the weakness concept. For example maybe the alligators should be weak to lightning and thus the spell cause double damage? Another interesting idea is that when you full completely the grid, you unleash a secret power that deals masssive damage. 

These are just suggestions, your idea itself is unique. Keep it up! 

I'm so disappointed that you don't get extra damage for filling up the grid. The whole point of Tetris is to fill up rows, and here it does nothing.

Also I don't get the reason why you made it so that you have to click on each piece afterwards, there doesn't seem to be any synergies that would require me to click them in order. The "end turn" button should just activate all of the pieces on the grid. This would make the UX a lot better because there would be less buttons to click. There have been multiple times where I pressed the end turn button instead of clicking on the pieces, and I lost a ton of damage potential.

Also I don't really like how you have the exact same pieces every turn, it just makes the battle boring after the first like 3 turns. You could have the shapes be random, and then assign a spell to each color or something instead.

Does it have potential? In this state, absolutely not.
If you were to add combos, randomized pieces and some synergies between pieces + some interesting mechanics to the battles (so it's not just, player attacks -> enemy attacks -> repeat), then maybe it does.
It would need to be some sort of a roguelike or idk, with stuff happening between fights (like in my game Umblight)

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

Kristoff I have some great news for you!

*screenshot from our planning board

We have a line bonus planned as a combat upgrade!

In fact, we actually have a WHOLE GRID BUFF bonus planned, if you manage to fill every single square!

We designed this as an MVP for the GMTK game jam so I hope you can excuse some of the features are missing.

Now that we have everything working (mostly), we can start implementing all the features that will make using spells more fun.

Grid bonuses, buffs & debuffs, piece synergy (2 fire spells next to each other = buff), the list is endless. We're really excited by the possibilities.

Good suggestion about the things between fights, I enjoyed Umblight a lot!

Thanks for the feedback <3

Hope you will come and try v4 when it's out!

Aegis πŸ›‘

Submitted(+2)

The idea was interesting, but for now the grid placement doesn't really add much, as of now you can rotate the pieces and use the same solution again and again. Maybe make the pieces be actually random each turn or take away the ability to rotate then, I don't know. Also the UI and graphics needs a lot of work, I agree with the other users saying it wasn't very intuitive. But overall the game looks promising, good luck!

Submitted(+2)

A very interesting idea! I especially like the tetris-style of the game, it attracts attention :)

Couple of points that I;d like to comment on:

  • I didn't immediately catch that you can rotate the spells only as you are holding them — after reading the instructions it seemed that I could do it after placing the spells on the board;
  • There is a possibility to end your turn without attacking — I am not sure that you would ever need that, or did I understand something wrong? Maybe the "End Turn" button should be inactive until you've used all your spells :) 
  • It is also not immediately clear that you should click your spells after confirming the grid, though it is written in caps :D Maybe I was not very attentive, or maybe it is because the "End Turn" button attracts much more attention than the text, so yo get that urge to click it as soon as you confirmed everything.
  • I really enjoyed the tetris grid and the idea looks promising! But I am not sure that it gave me any additional challenge. I just placed everything I could there and clicked without following any certain strategy and everything went well for me :D It would be great if the grid made me think harder and choose which spells I am going to use, leaving some possibility for failure if I did a wrong move, for example :)
  • Regarding the UI — the "Next spell" field is located under the picture of your opponent and intuitively it feels like it is their spell, but not yours. It would probably a bit more convenient to have this information closer to your portrait, somewhere on the left,

I wish you luck with the game! Pretty sure that with more spells and just a bit more order on the "battle field" it will feel awesome :) 

Developer(+1)

Thanks sooo much for the amazing feedback littoralie!

There is so much we want to do with this game and we are so excited to jazz up the graphics, clean up the UI, make the game feel more intuitive for players, and to work on more creative ways to keep choices engaging and really restrict and pose some fun placement challenges to players when they are building their grid!

i'm really glad you took the time out to play our game! excited to play yours too!

- Gambit β™Ÿ

Submitted(+3)

HELP CHAT IDK WHICH ONE TO CHOOSE

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

Tom502: Hmm, these don't seem to be different... which one should I choose, fireball or fireball?

Devs: Yes.

Will be trying Claw and Awe later, looking forward to reviewing <3

Submitted(+2)

The idea is interesting. And the cute tree is the best)

Here are a couple of suggestions:

There aren't many options for each turn (but I'm not sure if I found all the mechanics:)) For me it was like: you have, e.g., 2-4 spells, and you just use all that fits in the frame every turn. So it would be cool to have more spells to make the player choose, and more health to make battles longer.

Also I didn't get the idea why do you need to click on spells after confirming the grid.. Does the order of spells matter? If it doesn't, probably it would be nice to have some dependencies to have even more options to choose from.

I think it's really promising! Would like to see the updates)

Developer

Thanks so much for the suggestions <3

If you're serious about seeing updates we have an email list at https://shadowboltstudios.com, it would be an honour for you to join.

Our plan is to have some grid slots that are better than others and also buffs/debuffs depending on order of spells.

Both of those things will make it matter where you place your spells and in which order :)

Interested to hear what you mean about more health, for the player or the bosses? The trees are just for practice/tutorial really. Currently Sir Timothy (boss 4) has 1500 health and Lil Timmy (boss 5) has 2200!!

Looking forward to trying Callisia later!

Aegis πŸ›‘

(+2)

I really like the new system update with the new types of upgrades and powers and how the armor block gets smaller by the use. Two quality of lifes would be if the last grid that was used was saved and if the user wants to reset they can instead of having to drag the blocks each time but maybe thats just me. All the user interface feels a bit cluttered but I imagine you will clean it up soon good progress so far πŸ’ͺ

Developer(+1)

I really wanted to take reset out for you haha... but we didn't manage to get it in for v3 :(

I'll DM you separately on discord about the UI, definitely needs work.

Thanks as ever for your contributions, couldn't do it without you <3

Aegis πŸ›‘