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I'm mixed on this game.

First, some positives:

  • Terrific art, as always!
  • Enemies telegraph blows so you know what's coming
    • Additionally, there's (usually) a pretty generous timing window for perfect blocks
      • Hawk's timings feel unfair. Even after I figured out he was messing with the count, I started getting double-attacked.
  • Spot-on music and sound effects.
  • It's not too long and doesn't have much in the way of filler content.

Now for some criticisms:

  • Nothing was noticeably different between the "attack" and "defend" phases to me
  • I'm not sure how I feel about the story. Dark themes (parents & friends getting eaten) followed by light themes (namely jokes) gave me mood whiplash. Plus, Hawk somehow ending up friends with Red was...a choice, I guess.
  • The pacing of the battles is wonky. To me, it seems we start with a medium-difficulty battle (that Hawk was a real damage sponge), then we get an easy battle against a group, followed by a monster-hard final battle.
    • The thing that made the final battle extra-hard was the changes in Hawk's patterns - we went from even-paced countdowns to uneven counts and double attacks. I died SO MANY TIMES here!
    • Not a criticism, but I appreciated that we only have to see the "bad end" "cutscene" once, then it loops back to the final battle until you win.

I normally advocate for shorter, more polished jam entries, but I think this is a case in which drawing out the content more would have made for a better presentation. I can see the potential in what was being conveyed here, but it just didn't have enough time to get fully developed from the player's perspective.

Criticisms aside, I respect you working to break the mold and enjoyed the experience overall. The game has  long-term project potential, with the side benefit of the length probably addressing the biggest criticisms.

Try jumping or doing any attack (especially the upwards special move) in the defend phase, and you should see the difference instantly.

The story isn't meant to be taken seriously, it's comedically melodramatic on purpose haha

The small size of the game is due to the fact that almost half the stuff I made for it had to be cut last second. All the battles and cutscenes after the intro were made in one day at the end of the jam, since this is the only way I could have included a final boss Hawk death in time.

On the difficulty curve... different players had trouble with different parts; some people struggled on the birds battle and then two-rounded Hawk. That sorta stuff just happens with video game difficulty!

Thanks for playing and for the feedback!