Wow thanks Emilly for the generous compliments and the feedback!! I appreciate you giving my game so much thought! I'll go down some of the main points:
I use Game Maker Studio and I believe my edition does have an export to at least Mac/Linux... not sure if it's extra work but I'll check that out and try to include it next time or update this version later on after the jam. And glad you like the voice lines!! I had no idea how they would go over but it seems they had a positive impact on the game. Though one thing you mention about the shield guy was a fear of mine! The knight guy (and the boss) does actually have invincibility for a few seconds at a time but the only thing that I did to show that was to have him show up light blue and he doesn't show any impact damage. I knew that was a stretch though for people to understand and probably should of included some sort of tip or icon or something to better represent that. The voices were the very last thing I did and the knight guy was a last ditch effort to give one more plausible tip about invincibility and to provide a little bit of character to him.
I am super happy you found the game juicy though. My primary goal was to have a fun game that felt really solid and great while playing. I especially tried to make that happen with the deaths since I wanted it to be very impactful. So far reactions seem very positive about that so I'm pretty satisfied. Though there definitely ways I can make it even juicier for the future.
1. I may consider that at least for big enemies.
2. Ya I probably should have added a few more sounds but due to time I just did the ones I thought most important. Also one thing I wanted to avoid was having too many sounds, especially with things like the water shots going off at like 20 rounds a second or something. But I agree a few more sounds like a knife swoosh could have been good.
3. Fair point about the text. It was pretty much just quickly written to give some basic context to the game and provide a little bit of character. Maybe it would have been better told during game (or even voicing it in game???) but it's also one of those things where I could get that out in a few minutes versus some other options.
4. I agree, and it's one of those things I didn't really notice till doing final playthroughs of my game once it was all put together. 4 out of the 6 attacks are just aim in general direction of enemy and the other 2 (lightning and frost) are just 360 degree damage. If I ever come back to this or make a sequel I'll try to make each item fill a more specific niche somehow.
5. Completely agree with that! Honestly I wasn't expecting players to stick around till 1000!! That was more of stretch goal for the dedicated to then see the ability that 4 level spells can do (since the chance of getting one normally is so low) but I thought most would lose interest or die before then. But now even playing it back through I know 200 - 400 is a little long, and that 400 - 1000 is very long. I should have balanced it to probably be cut by at least a third. But I am flattered that so many people are sticking around to 1000!
6. I didn't really think of a tutorial but in hindsight ya probably should have thrown something up as a basic gameplay how to as eating food to advance may not be that intuitive. Also I probably should have included a bit of a description on what each spell did... though maybe that doesn't matter much since most did the same thing in the end! Also probably shoulda explained the knight guy...
Anyways thanks again for your nice writeup and feedback! Definitely gives me some things to thank about. I'm almost thinking of making a sequel since this was so fun to make, and I'll be sure to include what you said in my development. Also thank you so much that at the time this was your favorite game!!! Quite possible that's changed by now since there are many great games in this jam, but even just being an early contender for that honor is awesome!
Thanks again and good luck!
-SwornCoyote