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(+1)

I liked the custom art, icons, and menus, but the art style kind of clashed with the RTP in my opinion. Not sure if there would have been a way to address that without a significant scope increase in either sourcing or drawing new tiles, but it's something to consider.

Tonally the bust/character art also clashed with the very dramatic music and dark-fantasy-inspired gear and skill names. As well as the story, come to think of it, but I'm less sure on that because I got a somewhat goofy vibe from the writing at times (not sure if it was intended). David seemed one-dimensionally arrogant, and Davina was almost exclusively a foil for that personality. I did get more "character" from the HTML crew, mostly along the familiar tropey lines we normally see them as.

A pretty basic "you're the bad guys" scenario which isn't bad per se, but it wasn't executed in such a manner that made me excited to see what happened next. I didn't get to the very end, because the enemies were very spongy and combat got repetitive quickly, with a slow trickle of new skills and occasional side-grade Equipment not being enough to keep me invested. A lot of things felt "off" in terms of battle balance, and many of the skills dealt exaggerated numbers of hits, so it was tough to parse how much damage was actually being done at any given time.

I actually liked being required to use Dispel Strike on the first boss, unlike some of the reviews I read after my playthrough. To me that was one of the better aspects of the battle system, and I wish there were more interactions like that instead of pure big-number spam.

Playing as a demon with an innate weakness to fire felt bad, and the fire mages liked to dogpile that character with their strongest skill. It wasn't unmanageable, just sort of a chore, as was learning that the Glass of Water item didn't provide any protection against being re-burned immediately, so it was almost pointless to use. Having to then Dispel Strike each fire mage in turn felt like just a more tedious version of the preceding boss fight, unfortunately. I think a new gimmick for that battle would've been advisable.

Overall I think this game might have benefited from being reformatted into a boss rush. There were a lot of encounters and most of them semi-trivial, which felt somewhat padded, but I could see it being quite fun given some streamlining and re-focusing.

(+1)

Thank you for playing my game! Wow, that's a long review. 

This is not the first time I being told that my art clashes with the RTP. I actually planned to draw my own tileset for this jam but when I start drawing it, it doesn't feel worth the hassle. I also have drawn a few battle backs for this game, but I didn't use them because they looks ugly. I guess I still need a lot of practice drawing backgrounds.

I'm glad you like the Dispel Strike mechanics. I also try a couple of skills that can synergize with each other. For example, David's third skill, Revenge Blade which deals more damage at low HP, synergize well with Necessary Sacrifice, David's sixth skill that make him immune to all incoming damage while decreasing his HP until 1.  This skill can be enhance further by Davina's third skill, Void Thrust, that double physical damage taken by the target for a few turn. When the immune effect of  Necessary Sacrifice is gone, David can use his fifth skill, Draining Strike, to bring him back to 50% HP. In case of the three mages battle, their barrier would decrease 99% of incoming damage but only one time. Therefore you can remove all the barrier just by using a weak AOE skill like Demon Lord Roar. I should have present all the mechanics better. Making the game intuitive always has been my weakness for ages. 

For the boss rush reformatting, I kinda agree. I actually enjoy making boss battles a lot more than the filler encounters. Still, this game is already finished and I do not have any plan to change it (except for balancing, bug fixes, and typos). But I will consider a boss rush format  when making a new game. Thanks for the suggestion!

Totally fair! I definitely have similar regrets when it comes to the format of my entry for this jam but also don't plan to make any revisions - those will be lessons learned for a future project.

I did see that the mages had a different barrier skill name than the first boss, but without a State pop-up or tooltip advising how it was different, I didn't connect those dots.

I'll look forward to seeing a boss rush style game one of these days, perhaps?