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Thank you for the great review, Sustrato.

We'll consider these ideas as we build on the prototype. It's always great to get a fresh perspective and help catch things we missed.

Did it run smoothly on your computer? We're thinking of converting the game to pixel art to enhance the performance.

Thanks again for the great tips and let us know if you can think up any other changes you'd like to see!

*Things we're working on for the next version include: 

-a block/parry system

-improved and added animations

-checkpoints/saving system

-items merchants and a purpose for the soul gems

-extra functions and improved dialogue system  for NPCs to help guide the player

-improved performance/smaller file size

Thank you so much for the review! We're really glad you enjoyed it, and super happy that you noticed the little details like the crossbow animation (You're the first one to mention this). It really made us happy that the platforming has been working smoothly and that people are happier with the overall balance. Thanks so much for taking the time to review our project and for giving us so many nice compliments. We'll keep trying to polish and improve our projects and push the standard of quality and detail as high as we can with our little team :)

Thank you very much. We really tried to make a more polished experience this time and we'll keep trying to improve for the next one!

Thanks for giving it another try. I'm relieved to hear you didn't find any bugs too! Yes, during the previous jam people had some difficulty with the controls and what to do, so we thought the tutorial scene would be very useful. A bit of both, tbh, painting characters takes a long time, and having silhouettes with highlights seemed to work well as a style and as a time saver. Also, the contrast helps identify friend vs foe/trap. I'm really glad you like the visuals. Maybe in a later version, we'll add some daytime scenes and paint the characters in more detail :)

Very cool and interesting game. I especially liked wiping the blood from the sword as part of the healing process. Knocking the lantern into the dry grass was also a cool touch! A lot was accomplished here in the short time frame, awesome work! Very cute art style too!

Definitely  give it a try if you can. The visuals look much better in a bigger screen. I'll see if I can change the web version to accommodate a bigger screen too. Thank you for the compliments and for trying our game!

Thank you very much. Had to make up for the last 2 jams, haha

A very interesting idea, and a lot of progress within the small timeframe we were allowed.  You have a good voice for narration, and I think you would do well with a YouTube channel dedicated to similar themes. The editing and layout of the map was pretty good. In the next competition I bet you could produce a very polished game if you focused on one section of this story.  There is a lot of ambition behind this, but 2 weeks is such a short time for anyone to work. I think there were some spots  it would have been nice to fit in a fight scene, even if everyone lives and the story doesn't really change, a little action can shake up the pace. Bringing an educational aspect to the game was very creative and something I really enjoyed. Keep up the awesome work! 

Thank you very much for the kind review and we're really glad you like it! We'll keep building this game and work to add new environments and visuals that complement the base style :)

Thank you very much for trying it and giving us the great feedback! The checkpoint idea is good. I think the Tori gates will become checkpoints in the next version. The big guy definitely needs some tweaking too. The big guy can be double jumped or spammed with attacks also, so needs some balancing. I'll check out the clipping issue you mentioned as well. Thanks for the kind words about the art style! Most things were hand painted, including the VFX, the characters were modeled in Blender, animated with Mixamo, then turned into 2d sprite sheets with Blender. It seems to help keep the game lightweight and responsive, yet allow complex animations in a short timeframe.

No problem, I totally agree. Having people with no inside knowledge of the game give  it a try is a huge benefit. The last one I made was way too difficult, but we learn and progress with every attempt :)

I liked the visual design and the character mechanics were quite interesting once I found the control info on the game's page. Did someone on your team build the character models? They look really good for such a short time frame :)

Very nice style. the art assets and SFX paired very nicely. This feels like a game world I want to see more of and continue exploring, especially if you keep polishing the movement and fight mechanics. Godot can be a bit tricky to make the ground less slippery, unless you wanted the friction a little loose for the dramatic slashes of course. 

*bug report- After clicking "retry" I tried to rush through the dialogue and the character froze in place.  I notice sometimes this happens in my own code too, key spamming issues can be tricky.

Interesting idea, I like the duel theme. Beautiful pixel art, where did you get the assets from? Particularly the pagoda/castle scene is awesome! Not bad considering you switched from 3d to 2d halfway through. Great idea with the parry system, I really like weapons games that consider the blocking and parrying and it is a particularly good choice here.

That sounds really cool. I gave all the abilities upfront... but adding some new ones and making t more progressive like a metroidvania is really fun too. Thanks for sharing the link, I'm really curious to see how yours turned out too. and see what cool ideas you came up with!

ps: I uploaded a downloadable windows version so you can try in fullscreen if you like. As for the big dudes, you can double jump over them and escape... just a little tricky have to reach maximum height on the double jump and get the timing right :) No need to kill all the oni to get the level keys

The windows version is available now :) Had to make some minor tweaks to the code as the scene change stopped working for this export. * a little Godot issue. Let me know if you find any bugs. There is a grey screen that pops up during the initial load, but not sure if it's my hardware causing the issue.

Thank you for asking, sure I'll upload a downloadable version for full screen too! 

And thank you for the compliments, basically everything was hand-painted and animated in Krita.

I can understand that too. The temptation is always strong to keep adding features. This time I just wanted to make something simple that plays well and I'm pretty happy with it. I think I'll keep polishing it after the jam. Is yours close to finished?

https://pitpodstudios.itch.io/shadow-of-the-moon

Thank you very much! I sent a message from my discord (let me know if I sent to the wrong account, etc.). I'd be happy to submit if possible!

Here's the current link: https://pitpodstudios.itch.io/shadow-of-the-moon

I don't know how I mixed things up, but I was sure There was one more day. Did anyone else goof this up? I put a lot of hours into the project and am pretty proud of it, so I'll post a link here later today anyway. Good luck to everyone with better time management skills! The submission page looks full of great entries :)

:'D  Yes, didn't know about that character. Maybe we'll rename him for the next version

No need for apologies, game jams are like crash-testing half-built cars :) If we keep doing what we did great and keep adjusting what needs improvement, we'll all make great games one day. I'll look forward to your next entry!

:'D That's awesome! You're the only one I know of who found that! Awesome job exploring! I'm glad you enjoyed the art and the level. We'll pay extra attention to the enemy interactions for the next jam and focus on that side of things, as well as more dialogue and a better tutorial system to improve the puzzles and gameplay. Happy holidays and thanks so much for the review :

I think I understand. Sometimes we get so used to testing our own games that we don't even notice simple things that could cause difficulty to others. At least the test audience is free and unbiased here :) Plus, every broken game gets us a little closer to making our dream games. I'll be excited to see what you make next! 

Okay, I'll keep an eye out for it in the next round of testing. Thank you again for the feedback and advice! 

During my first playthrough, it seemed to be working. I tried many times in many different ways and just couldn't reach the platform, however I gave it a second try tonight after rebooting my computer and it seems to be working fine—so it may have been something on my end, especially if no one else had this happen.  

Oh good. That's part of why I didn't have the enemies or gates reset after a ko. I'll try and recreate the invulnerability bug on my side. (Were you using Windows 10?) 

Thanks for the great feedback. I will extend the melee range and add some VFX to make it more obvious where the attack range is. The animations aren't perfectly synced to the hitboxes, unfortunately. Slowing down the enemy melee and adding a stun/dodge/counter system is part of the plan for the next edition. There are a few bugs like the paused enemy  that need to be ironed out for sure. Getting stuck in the invulnerable mode is not something I have come across before, so thank you for warning me! Did you make it to the end despite the glitch? 

I like Unreal Engine a lot, but it runs so slow on my computer I can make half a game on Godot before UE would even load :'D  What did you use to make the visuals?

Thank you for sharing, Medibang is a nice program :) Is it the ledge you drop down from? I couldn't get back up, even with the upward dash unlocked. I may have missed something, or am just a bad gamer, haha.  Sure, we can all make some great improvements after all the feedback here.   

I think if lore can be shown, it is often better than direct telling. Too much exposition can be boring and it is good to have a little mystery and uncover more of the lore as you play. Trying to give just enough story to entice a player makes it all the more rewarding when they discover something new. At least that's how I feel as a game fan.

Fair enough, I've had too many issues with exporting to the web in the past, and can relate. Wow, first attempt at hand-drawn? That's extra impressive! Thanks for sharing the tools too! 

So... was I the only one who submitted a project?

Cool story and nice art design! Definitely has some bugs right now, but those can always be cleared out with time and patience. Definitely have a progress/skip button for the dialogue so the player can control the speed of the intro. This way impatient people can blast through and more patient people don't have to worry about reading too slow. Really like the sci-fi/medieval mash-up, great idea!

Beautiful minimalist art style! Which program did you use? I love the black and whit, and the koala idea was a very nice touch. Other than that I tend to agree with the others, some music and SFX would add some juice to those beautiful attack animations! Nothing wrong with grabbing some royalty free assets to fill in the gaps when you're short-handed. Our SFX guy ghosted, so we grabbed some stuff from zapslat.com Keep up the awesome work and I'll look forward to your next project!

PS: it was nice to see a top-down game, I usually think platformer Metroidvania, but this style is really good for exploring!

Very cute character design. It made me super happy when the run animation was on all-4s :D I wish there was more slides in the attack animation as the single frame made the attack timing more difficult. It was mostly easy to navigate, though I did get stuck on walls and in areas I should have been able to fall through. I've had some strange bugs appear out of nowhere in other game jams too, and it was usually related to the Web version. Submitting a downloadable version next time is a good idea. Last jam my web version had transparent meshes on the enemies, even though the download worked fine. Hope the advice is helpful, and thanks for sharing!

Thank you for sharing! :)

You're very welcome. I didn't finish 100% But I'll take another crack at it if I have time. Since there are so many entries, I'm trying to base my ratings off a 10-15min impression and try to rate as many as possible. I'll see if I can find the secrets on my own. There are a couple hidden in mine too

An interesting game with potential. More time could be spent on smoothing out the animations, but the character design was interesting and cool. I encountered a bug where the dash would occasionally stop me from using the jump (If anyone else had this problem, there may be an issue with the "on-floor detection" when transitioning between states or animations). I hope you keep improving and building on this prototype, I think it has good potential! 

One of the coolest bosses I've seen this jam. nice original artwork. A little gaussian blur and variation of saturation between the play area and background would help. Multi-directional casting is a great idea, though it would be more useful with one-way collision set up so it could pass through the platforms. Wasn't sure where to go after the first boss fight, but the fight itself was very fun and satisfying! Nice hand-drawn style too, what program(s) were used for the art?