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Blood Empire's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Narrative | #4 | 3.588 | 3.714 |
| Overall | #7 | 3.151 | 3.262 |
| Theme | #7 | 3.726 | 3.857 |
| Creativity | #7 | 3.312 | 3.429 |
| Visuals | #10 | 3.174 | 3.286 |
| Audio | #10 | 2.760 | 2.857 |
| Gameplay | #10 | 2.346 | 2.429 |
Ranked from 7 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How did you choose to implement the Theme: Vampire in your game?
I created a 2D game, where you play the role of a detective who is tasked with investigating a murder, which turns out to be from vampires who are part of an organisation called The Blood Empire
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Comments
Neat start to a game and I appreciated your specific take on the vampire theme where you're investigating a murder. I liked the music but the game was strangely devoid of most other sound effects. Some points to note:
- In the bathroom hallway you don't have colliders on the edges of the map so you can fall off and die. When you die, there's no way to exit out of that screen short of Alt + F4.
- I don't know if jump plans to be used as you expand on it, but right now it doesn't serve any purpose.
- The file size was shockingly large at 500 mb for a short pixel based game. I don't know if this is just Unreal engine distribution, but I was surprised.
Hi Kronikle thanks for playing the game! Yeah that's fair criticism, it definitely needs some sound effects, especially when interacting, there are sound effects for the combat, but as mentioned that got cut for being buggy and running out of time to make good.
Good spot! Damn didn't notice that, not enough testing on my part! I'll get that updated in the next release. I'll also be adding a pause button that was sorely missing, so you can load last checkpoint. And it probably makes sense to add a reset of sorts if you glitch out of the map area.
Jumps were mainly for the combat and possibly future platform sections to gather clues. But combat was cut.
Yeah agreed. I was surprised as well. I have found a couple of ways since to reduce it slightly, which basically clears up some unused assets in it, but yeah don't know if this an underlying Unreal Engine problem or if it's me missing a trick.
Thanks again for playing and I'll be continuing to update with more content, fix bugs and applying as much of the feedback I have received from yourself and others where possible. Aim is to have a full first polished level by Christmas and there will be minor releases in between now and then for bug fixes and minor gameplay improvements.
The gameplay is low, but is normal in this kind of detectiv/policiac games. Visual is good, I like this pixel art, the main character walks so funny, but the environment (like other characters) need more animation to look lived. The audio is good, but repetitive. The narrative is the best part here, at end I dont understand good the vampire nature... looks like an serial killer with vampire delire? or a real vampire?
Hi Omwekiatl,
Thanks for playing my game. Hope you enjoyed it.
Yeah gameplay was a bit empty. Certainly will be more interaction in future, to enhance the story and improve the experience. One thing that nearly made it to this release, but wasn't quite ready and that was combat. The final part of this version of the game would have had you fighting the vampire at the end and seeing their abilities in action. But it was buggy and I wanted to release a stable (I think lol) game in time. So that was cut and handled in dialogue choices instead.
Yeah the pixel art is my first. I am not much an artist, but wanted to create all my own assets so it could truly be my vision, but yeah that walk was a bit funny, but I thought it gave him swagger lols! Yeah the music is by Karl at White Bat Audio. I am not affiliated with him, but I think he does lots of great royalty free tunes and I plan to include a lot more of his work in this in future and maybe have different themes for different rooms, especially the basement and the murder scene. if you want to hear more of his songs, check out his youtube channel here https://www.youtube.com/c/WhiteBatAudio/videos I personally find his compilations as great programming music.
Glad you liked the narrative, but this short prototype has barely scratched the surface, I was hoping to scratch more of the surface in this release, but I ran out of time unfortunately, due to work and personal commitments, but I still wanted to submit an entry for this and show the potential. Story-wise we haven't even encountered an experience vampire at this point. This is just a newly blooded vampire, who is part way through his transformation after tasting his first kill. The backstory of this Blood Empire and how these vampires work will be explored as more clues are found and more interactions with other vampires inside and outside of the Blood Empire. I've got the basics of how my vampires work and their society. Similar to most pop culture, but with their own spins, especially with regards to becoming one.
I hope the story has at least intrigued you. I had loads of fun making this and if you are interested in seeing where the story goes, my plan is to finish off the missing features and then complete this first level for around a Christmas release and then a 6 month plan to build a full 3 to 5 hour game.
Sorry I haven't had a chance to play your game yet, but I am getting to most peoples games tomorrow. But I like the look of your hand drawn graphics! Certainly gives it a USP!
wow, you look really ready to program more and more. I like the try to make your own art, it is great, in its way we feel that the games are our games! and interesting that you have the main idea of how your vampires work in depth!
Thanks! Yeah I enjoy programming and this is a fun little project. Yeah I agree, you want the game to have your art so it can be what you intended. Cheers I'll be updating it on here!
Cool pixel art 2D vampire game
Pros:
- visuals look great 2D pixel art.
- Interesting Storyline but interesting to see it developed further
- Theme is relatable to the Game Jam October 2021
- Some funny narrative to the game. Dialogue is funny.
Cons:
- it not properly clear on where to go or what to do - takes some thinking of what to do next.
- Audio is fine, but it's just music playing maybe some dialogue noise for the characters.
- Dialogue needs revising.
- Needs more added to the game.
What Could Be Added?
- Dialogue Noises
-simplistic directions (Maybe which rooms you need to go to, nothing that completely tells you how to play the game)
- some Dialogue doesn't make sense so needs to be revised. And also adding more choices to the Dialogue. Giving more detective questions or some funny Dialogue choices.
- Highlight Dialogue choices, sometimes not clear what is the choices and what is Dialogue.
- Add more rooms to explore
- Add more items to look for/interact with e.g. keys, personal belongings, etc...
- maybe tone down the brightness of the bathroom it is very bright when you enter.
Overall - this is a cool fun game to play can't wait to see how it develops!
Hi Pressa.
Thank you for playing my game, I hope you liked it! Thank you, the pixel art is my first, so I am glad you liked it. Thanks the dialogue will be extended further in this and they'll certainly be some light comical moments where possible.
Yeah direction is something that was missing. One feature I will extend is guidance in the dialogue, like how PO Daniel directs you to the bathroom as the first objective. but I think a quest log of sorts could be added to help keep track of things to do.
Thanks for all the good ideas. I will look to add a lot of those features in the next release :)
This game was pretty fun :)
I liked the narrative and especially Dawn's phone, mostly because it gave everyone some character and made me more invested.
I felt like the game ended before I could find out more about the cult and I would love some more information and to be able to explore more.
I think it would add a lot if I could talk to the people in the bar about what's happening even if it's optional conversations.
The graphics, animations and audio were all good.
I still have the background song stuck in my head :)
I felt like the gameplay was lacking a bit since it was a lot of movement back and forth. But I didn't encounter any bugs and everything worked well, I think with the addition of combat the game can feel much better.
Overall I enjoyed this and am looking forward to playing future versions!
Hi Nitsan! Thanks for playing the game. Glad you had fun with it!
Yeah the first level is meant to be longer. I ran out of time and had to cut it short and focus on ensuring the gameplay worked smoothly. The investigation at the The Nile Bar is not over and this was just the beginning of Jason's discovery of the Blood Empire. A lot of the gameplay aspects like Dawn's phone will be extended in the next version. They'll be other clues like the victims phone, laptops, murder weapons where you can detect whose blood it is and conversations will certainly be more in depth and guide the player to the correct areas, as bar PO Daniels initial guidance there isn't much. Also choices will play a bigger part and lead to others dying around you if you make the wrong choice.
Glad you liked the graphics and animations. They are my first lols. Never done any graphics or animations before, bar some terrible blender models. So I am glad they we well recieved! Yeah the music is banging and there are more songs I want to add in, but the main one was one of my favourites. But I can't take credit. That goes to White Bat Audio. Check out his channel on youtube https://www.youtube.com/c/WhiteBatAudio/videos He does some great tunes royalty free and also compiles them into hour long videos, which I find are great for coding sessions.
Yeah just for the sake of not wanting to add useless items I took stuff out. There were meant to be keys, crowbars, murder weapons and more. But there use in the game hadn't been realised, so I took them out for now. Also combat was so close to being finished, but was too buggy and I wouldn't have been able to submit this on time. Another day or two and I think it would be ready.
Glad you enjoyed this! I enjoyed making this. I'll keep updating it on here and possibly put some demos and devlogs on youtube. Depending on time.
Also, your game looks really good. Very polished and very fun. Love the shapeshifting mechanic, mixed with sun chasing. Allows you to pull of some really sick combos to escape the sun. Haven't had a chance to finish the game fully yet, as I'm not very good lol, but looking to get to yours and a few others tomorrow, so I can review it properly :)