itch.io

Thank you kind stranger 

 Thanks for playing! Glad you liked it! 

Those aren’t sprites, those are 3D models. 

The scene gets pixelated using a render target and animations are stylized using an engine modification I added where they only update every 4 frames (and with the game locked at 48 it looks like 12fps pixel art animation) 

There is a lose condition! Once final boss spawns any death is permanent death. 

Shouldn’t happen often since player can get as strong as they wish but I did see it happen xD 

Thanks for playing! I am glad you enjoyed it!

There are 2 systems in place that help with the EXP grind.

 Summoners - if you don’t kill them they just keep spawning you more and more mobs to get experience from

Exp Value changes - skeletons give 1exp, goblins 5, humans / dwarf give 10 

I adjusted the exp “function” for the average play time of ~25-30 minutes (if one doesn’t die on purpose), so this game does indeed take longer then most 

When it comes to the “premium selection” upgrade there is a cheeky little thing. If you die on purpose while only basic skeletons are present - you get a goblin for free!!! 

Additional hidden mechanic is that everyone gets a “charge” of premium selection after the first armoured skeleton is spawned to get “the feel of mechanics”

There are many reasons why I don’t do it like Vampire Survivors. 

I don’t spawn as many enemies as vampire survivors, so I have to make them “stick” for a bit longer. 

When the wilder dies you possess character of a nearby enemy, if they were too squishy player would just constantly die. 

Due to the nature of the “loop” if I made the enemies “die on one hit” from the start, when the loop rests player wouldn’t get any sense of progression compared to the previous one + they would likely get bored

Thanks for playing! 

True, if I wanted to make a game that would get “the best reaction from judges” that might be the case. But I rather focus on showing how the finished game would look, as close as possible, and not make a “speed up version” just to score more points.

Could that cost me a potential top 10? Maybe? Other games are plenty good so I am not sure I would get there even with the speed up upgrades xD

Thanks for playing! Earth guy ISN’T the final boss, and only the final boss can “kill” you :p

I see no problem with player doing nothing and afk-farming, if that’s how they want to beat the game, why not, all that matters is they have fun 

Hi! Thanks for playing, I am glad you enjoyed it. 

I knew of this bug but decided to ignore it for the time being as it wouldn't affect the main boss due to the teleport mechanic he has xD

Nice concept, although I must admit, a tad complicated so I got as far as brute force with amplifiers allowed me to xD

Great quality game! My brain to smooth to finish thou xD

Simple yet fun game. I think it's the most humorous game I played during this game jam so far.
Also the quaility of the game is amazing for such a short timeframe.

I love the art direction of the game. The sounds and art give such a nice retro vibe, and the PS1 stylize vertex snapping was just a cherry on top! The feeling of being the badass mech was also great. 

The only problem I have is how easy it was to "cheese" the game. Without the reason to protect the mine I could just deploy the excavator, run away and wait. Same with the extraction from the planet. Maybe adding a health bar to the excavator so player needs to protect it would be a good idea? Also to make player not just run away and hide, changin the spawn points of enemies to be generated around the player?

But without using those "cheese" strategies the game was very enjoyable. Guns go pow pow. orgital strike goes boom, giant drill on melee is a giant drill 

Very fun game.
I noticed you did a small "bug fix" for when player get out of bounds by accident. Very smart, and here I thought I would just win by doing nothing xD

Very interesting concept with a great execution!
The only thing I feel was missing was a level timer. Without it there was no point in not using the slowed down time - all the time. Maybe integrate a star system that also takes into account how many shots you have fired and players will be compeled to replay the game many times over. 

Cool game. Seeing numbers go up makes brain release happy juices. 
One thing I would recomend is to add simple sound effects on "virus upload completion". This would make the brain release more happy juices.

Good job on your first game!
I feel like addition of victory screen would have been nice since there was no real "win state" (or I missed one, after I cleaned all the dirt the progress bar just reset)
Cool idea to twist the jam theme to be more to your liking!

Very nice, very polished.
Not quite used to the ZXC sheme but once I did the game became very enjoyable to play.
Good job!

Very nice art style, the sounds and cutscenes were adorable. 

An amazing easy to learn hard to master game where you get to jump around as a chainsaw wheel. What more could one want?

The only thing I could recomend is adding some pitch variation to the "destruction" sound, but other then that sound design was top notch. 

Thanks a lot for the kind words! I did the best I could and I am really glad you enjoyed the final product (or at least a prototype of it xD)

Hi! Just a quick explanation. 

After adding a devlog to attribute a code asset I used, the update time in information changed. Already notified the judges about that.

As you can see the game files haven't been changed since the initial realease. 

That's all. Thank you for enjoying the game!

Hi! Love this asset! 

I used it to create stylised look for a game during a jam:

https://codeexorcist.itch.io/thesoulstealer

Added attribution as a devlog as I don’t want to change game page during voting period. 

I have one question thou, are we allowed use this project commercially? I assumed so due to the fact that nothing indicated otherwise, but it is one of the requirements for the jam and I just want to make sure I shouldn’t disqualify myself 

Thanks a lot for the kind words! Very happy you liked it ^^

What if I told you there is a fail state, you just didn’t get to it? 

After ~9 minutes from the last death a final boss spawns. 

If you kill him, you win, if you don’t - game over. 

Can’t possess another cursed weapon after all :p

I am really glad you enjoyed the game! Thanks a lot for the kind words ^^

When it comes to more EXP gems the answer is simple, don’t kill the pesky summoners, they are a great source of EXP gems :p

There is a final Boss that spawns after ~9 minutes since last death (the timer gets shorter if you kill every enemy before the next wave would naturally spawn) If you beat him, you win, if you don’t - game over. 

Was thinking about the progress indicators. Initially decided against them cause I thought players might get frustrated seeing them reset with the wielder’s death, which is something I wanted to avoid at all cost. But seems like giving more explanation to the player beforehand would be a good idea

Thanks for playing! Glad you liked it! 

For better dealing with summoners I recommend “Zephyr’s Cut”. It’s designed to go approximately around the area where they move and with correct movement you can kill them in around 12s with lvl 1 upgrade 

Mjornir Jr. is great to quickly get rid of foes summoned by the skeleton mage so if you get it you can just treat the summoner like source of EXP

Movement speed is also great since it allows you to dodge the summoned minions and go straight for the summoner. 

If you get possessed by the armored skeleton and don’t have enough upgrades to deal with the summoner I would just ignore them. Knockback and bigger range should keep you save from the summons for a while 

If you manage to get through that, there are 2 mobs with abilities that are great for dealing with summoners quickly. 

Thanks a lot for playing! Glad to hear you liked it ^^

Thanks a ton for the kind words! Have seen a lot of people really enjoy the game so I may consider making it into something more. 

Can take no credit for the music thou. That one is just from free itch assets (link in game description) xD

Thanks! A lot of things can be faked with couple lines changed in engine code and some shader magic :D

Quite addicting

Thanks for playing and I am glad you enjoyed it!

I initialy thought about wave counter, but decided against it. I wanted the death of the wielder to be something "not stressful", and thought that if player would see the numbers reset with every death, they might get frustrated 

First thing that caught my attention was the gorgeous artstyule. So clean, so simple yet so pretty.

At the start the controls were a bit confusing, but I got a hang of the quickly.

Loved the bow mechanic. It is a clever twist on the "jump king - style" mechanics that gives them a whole new dimension.

Thanks Joshua ^^

Great looking borders, using for my current gamejam project