Instructions unclear - my banshee took place of an elder god after stabbing the previous one and its cult to death
Really, really enjoyed your game! Melee abilities in bullet hells, or otherwise powerful short-range abilities, is something I enjoy a lot. The dagger is designed quite well - it's far enough from your hitbox, and its length feels just right. It's a lot of fun to plan an attack vector and take down several enemies at once while avoiding their shots.
I also enjoyed the enemy variety. The patterns are quite simple but work well together, making you think of a good plan if you want to take down the next wave, but also without too much randomness to screw you over. 99% of hits taken were skill issue, except a few times when I got stuck in collisions, more on that soon. And the level restart feature + 3 hitpoints makes the game feel challenging, but not too punishing, I think you've balanced the difficulty and challenge really well ^^
Only a few nitpicks:
- There was no main menu and settings, and no config file. I would have liked to be able to change the music volume as it felt too loud at times
- Collisions are a bit wonky, which is understandable, being a custom C engine and all. Sometimes though colliding with an object prevented me from moving, and had me take a hit as a result.
- A focus button that slows you down by half or so would have been nice. While fighting the final boss, there were a few instances where it could have been useful as the base player speed is a little too high to dodge some of its patterns properly
- It wasn't immediately clear what I had to do on the final boss. Only noticed the left/right glyphs when I was just about to beat it, perhaps a little more visual feedback, or some visual/sound effects when a glyph goes out, would have made it clearer when you get close to beating it
Overall - Not much to say, the game is really well done all around! Would love to see more bullet hells which utilize melee attacks, or otherwise make the player get in the enemies' faces. Congrats on finishing the jam with such a fun entry ^^
P.S. if you have time, I'd appreciate if you could check out and/or rate my entry, which is a similarly dark, eerie bullet-hell horror game. It might be up your alley. Cheers!
Viewing post in I'll Cut You Down jam comments
Thanks for the great feedback! That damn collision, hey? I'm happy to say that I did find the cause of those evil ghost-grabbing trees, and it's fixed now in the current build - but too late, sadly, for the jam.
A config file would have been a really good solution for the missing menu and settings...I wish I'd thought of it. The tragic thing is that there *are* settings, customisable difficulty settings even, but they're locked away in the game because we cut the menu system in order to complete the (already-rushed) final boss. An editable config file would have fixed that. Fortunately the menu has made its way into the current build too, so the post-jam version will feel much more polished.
Speaking of the final boss, the lack of clearer feedback from the glyphs is a real issue. Our artist brought it up with me several times, but at that point I was busy stressing over the Windows port. Visual/auditory feedback is a good idea. By the way, equally unclear in the final fight is that the ruined circle is meant to highlight a "safe zone" just outside the reach of the tentacles, where projectiles won't ever initiate on top of you. This is why the attacks feel so sudden and unfair unless you orient yourself entirely to the middle of the arena, but that's not any fault of the player... just last-minute design errors.
Thanks also for linking to your game - you're right, I do really appreciate the ambience, and I've had fun playing it today (but you can see more about that over on your page!)