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Dullahan Under the Keyboard's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Use of Theme | #24 | 3.346 | 3.407 |
| Visuals | #29 | 3.491 | 3.556 |
| Audio | #30 | 2.946 | 3.000 |
| Concept | #33 | 3.601 | 3.667 |
| Gameplay | #35 | 2.982 | 3.037 |
| Challenge | #39 | 2.837 | 2.889 |
| Overall | #42 | 2.873 | 2.926 |
| Story/Writing | #44 | 1.637 | 1.667 |
Ranked from 27 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Team Members
Dapper Cranium
External Asset Credits
Music MIDI transcribed by Joshua Bamford
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Comments
Pretty solid even if it gets quite overwhelming at 100+ combos.
I think I may be a dumdum for not figuring out how to use Shift correctly for a good while, so my first tries were filled with dread lol. Even when I figured out how to laser, I really couldn't get above 110+ combos because I've got poor multitasking skills, and this side-dodge trick the heads do at 100+ combos is nasty (for me).
I think the biggest negative is that the moment you lose one of the heads, the game becomes immediately a bit more too easy. And when you're with only 2 or one head left, well the game becomes boring, it's more like the flow of the game grinds to a halt rather than feeling like all the stakes are on that lone head. (Maaaybe, you could counter-act this by having the dark heads still go down all lanes, and if there are heads to shoot in an unattended lane, the nearest friendly head moves to the lane to shoot? I don't know)
What else... Hmmm, good graphics, good sountrack. I featured it in my video about the Game Jam!
https://youtu.be/bFHWSZ1BOBw?t=1345
I totally agree about it getting boring after you lose heads. The gameplay shift was meant to make it more intense for the remaining lanes, but it ends up being a laser spam fest until the rate of evil head spawns becomes overwhelming (which it technically does, because they'll spawn too fast for the laser recharge time to deal with). Being able to move remaining heads between lanes is an interesting idea! Could make the game feel more like a an actual bullet hell at that point (a somewhat more railroaded, onto 4 tracks, kinda bullet hell).
I likely spent more time on those graphics and remixing the backing track than I did on refining core gameplay D: thanks though! And thanks for playing and the feature in your video! :D
Fun, until you realize you can just push all the buttons at once and still had the same effect xD.
Nothing to worry about tho, it still was enjoyable, have you tried to make this for two hands?, you know, with keys DF and JK, it could be easier for users.
Simple but entertaining.
Yeeee there was no drawback to just slamming all keys at once, except the slight cooldown before you can press it again, but its still mostly irrelevant.
In my earlier plans for the game I was actually thinking of making it a psuedo typing simulator (the name Dullahan Under the Keyboard began as a reference to keyboards and typing, until it fully embraced the keyboard as a musical instrument interpretation). Never enough time to spend on adapting/optimizing the gameplay - I locked it in too early and spent all my time on other refinements. Classic game jam things xD
Thanks for playing! :D
I really love all the feedback and animations you’ve got going on here! The way the hit zone explodes when you press a button, the way the cured heads bounce around the bottom of the screen, the lasers.
I share the sentiment of previous commenters that by virtue of having a pulsing circle for a hitzone and music in your game, as a DDR junkie and rhythm game guy, I am let down that your game, isn’t in fact, a rhythm game.
I do have to criticize that the game gets progressively less fun the more mistakes you make, specifically in that with less heads to account for, there’s less lanes to watch out for. The moment I became the least engaged was when I had only one lane to concentrate on (which I was able to laser down without thinking until the ever-increasing head spawn rate put me under). Perhaps a lives system would be a better alternative?
All in all though, great job cranking this out as a solo-dev, couldn’t have been easy!
Yoo thanks for adding to the feedback! :D
I'm also dissappointed that I couldn't get the actual rhythm side of the game working. Having never programmed rhythm-based spawning systems, I was looking at manually timing individual spawn sequences in time with the music I'd remixed... so, all in all, I cut lots of corners to end up with less stress, but ultimately a less fun game. And yeah, the loss of heads ended up being anti-fun - losing because the game decides to get too fast is kinda lame. With more playtesting and reworking time I'd certainly have adjusted that out.
Solo devving a game jam definitely has it's ups and downs, but I'm pleased with the end result. Always good to look for what can be done better next time though!
Thanks for playing! :D
A neat idea.
The visuals are fun and well laid out. The lasers and speed lines looked pretty cool! Overall, even though there's not much going on, the gameplay is presented well and works smoothly.
As the game progressed the enemies started only appearing in the first two columns, then eventually only in the first column, which I suspect is a bug.
If any of your seki heads get defeated (touched by an evil head) then the evil heads will only spawn in the remaining columns. Buuuut if all four heads are still alive and the enemies stop spawning in certain columns then that certainly is a bug :/ can you remember what 'combo value' (the number at the top left) the enemies stopped spawning at?
Thanks for the feedback! :D
Oh, it's possible that my other heads were defeated then. I'm not sure.
The death animation of one of your heads is pretty underwhelming in the current build, so maybe you just didn't notice that was what happened? I was pretty confident in the coding around that, so I'm glad to know there isn't still bugs there (spent a lot of time troubleshooting spawn locations, especially when you lose heads - game got really boring when enemies were spawning in lanes you didn't have heads in)
I do wish I didn't have to install it. Is there any way to make it just be a standalone so I don't have to install something?
EDIT: Thanks for reactivating the executable! I've played it now, and it's fun! Not the type of game I'm terribly good at, but fun to see made
I've reactivated the download link for just the standalone executable file. A number of folks were having issues with virus protectors flagging the executable as a high risk file, so I replaced it with that installer file.
Hopefully that works better for you :)
Awesome thanks
my 4k stepmania skills are challenged due to the appearance of vaguely looking like ddr but actually being pretty unique (impressive because part of my submission is just ddr clone lol)
i like the laser mechanic and the fact that inputs have a cooldown, just kinda hard to tell when you're getting hit
high score: 6430
I wanted to try make a ddr/rhythm game clone for this, but I'm still a bit of newbie with the genre. Thanks for the feedback!
I'm gonna have to swing by and try yours out soon! :D
Have updated the .exe file to seem like less of a virus (to Windows10, at least). It's no longer a simple click and play .exe though, and you'll have to install it. Sorry for the issues!
After wrestling it free from that false trojan flag, I had fun with this! Aside from the rhythm game inexperience issues, I liked the visuals and effects for things like getting hits/combos. Difficulty felt like it ambled around for awhile before suddenly becoming much more difficult, so maybe making it a more linear curve would have been better? I got a score of 7320, just for the sake of posting.
Was a struggle to balance the difficulty curve with making the game less boring/one dimensional. I ended up leaning on that crutch of "if the game's harder, it'll be more fun, right?", which was ultimately the downfall of it all. Plenty learnt for next time, for sure!
Thanks for playing! :D
damn....this game is frustrating, it almost hit some incredibly fun spots, but fails by a little margin, I couldn't use the shift power anytime, and I think the converted enemies could be used as replacement for the lost heads...and the input is too spammable, if the timing was a little more important it could help when you lose your other inputs to keep the game interesting, and not a button-mashing competition against the beatmap...something I think you can try from the start, since you don't seem to lose nothing by missing your timing....but it was certainly a worthwhile experience, nice job!!
yeeee i definitely neglected the concept and failed to make any significant gameplay refinements. If I ever went back to this I'd likely rebuild it from the ground up. I'm pleased with all the art for it, so I'll likely reuse those somewhere.
Thanks for playing! :D
This game has a strong sense of rhythm, just a little boring
Thanks for the feedback! I was originally aiming to make it a rhythm game, but I don't know enough about the game engine I used (gamemaker Studio 1.4) to hit all the right notes on that genre (pun somewhat intended). Also never made a rhythm game, but as with the territory, I wanted to challenge myself :D always learning more and more!