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Gorgeous graphics. Excellent level of juice and polish. Whoever did the voice lines for the boss character — that was really well done. I thought this game excelled in so many areas, control, movement, everything I pointed out in my opening line, but I thought the level design could use some tinkering.

I fought the first few enemies, but after that, I realized it was easiest to just evade and keep moving right. There was never a reason to stop and fight. Enemies didn't grant me any pickups or bonuses, and the checkpoints instantly refilled my health (I think that's smart for a jam entry so people can get further into the game), but after the first few encounters I just booked it to the boss fight. It sort of screwed me in that I had to kill like 8 bats in addition to fight the boss, but it seemed like the optimal choice.

The boss fight itself was great. The attack patterns and variation in attacks were well thought out and implemented except for two areas. I think the dropping boulders attack (gorgeous visual when he went into the background on that!) didn't leave enough telegraph time for proper reactions. And the pacing seemed a little off. There were only short windows when I was able to attack. The rest of the time I was just evading and waiting for my opening. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that. I think it would have worked great if the boss took more damage each time, but after a few rounds of evade and wait I was ready to take him out.

Overall, a condensed and fun adventure and a super impressive solo dev effort. Great work.

Wow, thank you for taking the time to play my game, and for taking the time to leave such detailed feedback! I really, really appreciate it! :D
I actually also did the voice acting for all the enemies and the boss, so I really appreciate that nod! :)

Yeah, I totally agree with the point about the early level. I wanted everyone to make it to the boss no matter what, so I tried to make it really easy to get through, which I think is good for a jam as well, but it definitely makes the early level feel pretty inconsequential! Also, yeah, I was going to make the bats de-aggro at a certain range, but just completely forgot to implement that feature, haha! With everything to implement, it just totally slipped my mind, lol!

And I totally agree on the dropping boulders attack! I think my game definitely suffered from the "dev got way too good at fighting his own boss during playtesting" syndrome! I think I got a little /too good/ at dodging it during playtesting, which caused me to tune it on the "more difficult" side! I actually reduced the speed of that attack right at the last second just because I had a sudden doubt that maybe it was unfair - and really glad I did at least a little tweaking, haha! With a follow up, I'd definitely make that attack a bit more fair to play against LOL
And yeah, I think some small changes to the decision timing and the openings to hit him are in order! I don't hate the evasion playstyle, and I definitely intended for his "Burn" lantern attack to be the primary opening for getting damage in, but (especially in the third phase) there should be a couple more openings for the player!

Thanks again for the feedback, it means a lot to me! :D