itch.io

I actually liked the way combat was handled in this game, where you actually have to move in the direction you want to attack. It adds a risk to the attacks and prevents a lot of the usual strafe-combat.

Enemy spawning feeled a bit wonky with them jsut waiting at a specific area until you get close enough?

I think I found a bug where I could reach the next level without having to pick up the key first.

Also, does the skull item do anything other than damaging you? After picking it up once it kinda lost its effect as a "gotcha" trap.

Had a lot of fun with this one, and the graphics are gorgeous!

There were a lot of small QoL features that I found would be nice to have, but I'm assuming most of the dev time went into making the art.

Game Maker Studio 1.4. It being falsely flagged as a virus has a been an ongoing issue, and YoYo games is very much aware of it https://help.gamemaker.io/hc/en-us/articles/360031016592-What-to-do-if-your-game...

You get upgrades starting with the second level, but it's nothing that stays between runs.

If you want to focus on platforming, the small drones leave the level once the boss appears.

If you have the itch.io app you can try to run it through there. Besides that, there's not much I can do except finally learn Godot.

Yeah, it's definitely one good reason why I should switch game engines. Best I can do is give suggestions on how to fix the problem. Definitely going to remember that the itch.io app doesn't have any issues with it.

A lot of the critique I got have alredy been mentioned by others, but I found this game very dark. That, coupled with keeping the camera close to the player made it hard to see a lot of the enemies before it was too late.

I kept forgetting that I could teleport, which made me die to being swarmed by enemies way too many times. Maybe if it was tied to one of the item slots instead of a separate key that I would have to remember. Or maybe I'm just bad at video games :P

I totally agree on the game speed. I already scaled text down to make sure I wouldn't get bored reading things, but movement speed has been the consistent criticism about this, even by myself.

Definitely planned on doing more with the goblins, but it was that part of the jam where I wanted more content to fill out the adventure, so I had to throw together their AI pretty quick.

All of this will of course be addressed/fixed for the potential full version, don't you worry ^^

And it's possible to adjust the difficulty by making the circle you have to follow smaller and faster, too!

Managed to survive just above 3 minutes in all my attempts, I assume that's good.

I really enjoyed how the circle encouraged you to follow it, but maybe the darkness could be even more debilitating, as I could still parse things just fine in the darkness (but that's an opinion).

Perhaps being able to see what powerup you can get might make things even more interesting as well, like intentionally saving the shield powerups for late game?

Overall though, it's very enjoyable ^^

Sure, thanks!

Anything in particular you liked about it? Or something that stood out?

Thank you thank you ^^

And especially thank you for fidning a workaround through Game Maker's stupid issues ^^

Sometimes disabling windows defender (or whatever antivirus you have) works, sometimes running it as an admin. If you get a popup that it doesn't want to run, it's possible to hit "advanced view" and then "run anyway". But there doesn't seem to be one single, consistent thing that can make it work, which is very bothersome D:

It's always fun to see a 3D game made for jams, but I think this game suffers from lack of interesting decisions to make. Even something as simple as "here's three powerups you can pick from, choose one" would help a lot.

Discounting various bugs (such as being able to continue even when dead) since I don't know if it's on my end or not, there are two things I feel that can be improved on.

Firstly, zoom a bit more to show the entire room. It's not that distracting, but for those room-baesd shooters, it's a nice little QoL thing.

Secondly, there was a few moments when I entered a room and immediately got blown up by those exploding turtle things without being able to do anything about it. Something I've done in the past is having enemies have a short cooldown period of you entering the room so you have time to take things in. It could work for this too.

It's a pleasant little game, but I feel the controls could be streamlined a bit. Like, attacking, entering/exiting the ship, and picking up/dropping items could all potentially be assigned to the same button and be context sensitive. Also making it possible to pick a reward using keys and not the mouse.

It would also make somewhat more sense if the camera was zoomed out while in space, and closer when on a planet, instead of the other way around.

Still, music and graphics are nice, and the ship controls are beautiful!

It took me a few tries to understand the game (including how to get to the next level).

I love the movement in this game, and I like that you can see how long before enemies act.

I managed to die to negative regeneration twice, which I feel might be a bit too broken, especially if you choose to stack cursed items.

After a few runs, I got the good ending, which I assume I got for avoiding to kill any of the villagers. It did change the game from a hack and slash to a position puzzler, which was interesting, but it felt like it needed a bit more to make it more interesting. Especially since half the items you could gain on a "holy" run was for damage and range, which I'm guessing would reduce your holiness. If there are no ways of recovering holiness, I didn't see much point in attacking any villagers.

OVerall though, it's a neat game :)

I definitely agree on the movement speed, but at least with the text, it won't progress until you allow it to. I should be able to add a text speed option in the future :)

Thanks ^^

Any suggestions for if I ever get around to making a full game out of the thing?

Yep. It can be found towards the bottom of the jam's overiew page.

It's nice to see how much stuff there is to unlock, even if I didn't even reach the second row of unlockables.

It'd be nice if the coins had different symbols for heads/tails rather than slightly darker. It took a while to realise what was what.

Speaking of the coins, although coin flips are supposed to be 50/50, I'm not sure that's the best idea. There were a few rounds where all of my guys AND the enemies coins all landed on tails, even when they flipped, like, four at a time. There's been numerous studies on randomness in games. Maybe put in a little bias towards what players are expecting to get?

Overall, not a bad game, if a bit basic.

I'm wondering if it's needed to actually press the mouse button to fire. Since there's always something to fire at and no reason to not fire, maybe have the robot buddy automatically attack the closest enemy?

It's nice that upgrades lets you decide on a build (got killed because of -30 health regen, oops), but I'd like it to be possible to choose not to keep skills picked up from chests, especially if they don't mesh well with what I'm going for.

I also found it easy to cheese non-missile enemies by simply standing on the platforms. Making it so enemies can aim vertically would easily fix that.

I think I used up the two coins I got at the start and never got any more back D:

It's an interesting take on Battle Network-type combat, but it suffers from lack of things such as health bars and even which of of the four cards are currently being played. I mostly understood the attack range of each card, but it could have been better to put that at the top of the card, as it was almost hidden by the edge of the screen. With cards, it's preferred to be able to see important things from a glance (in this case damage and range).

It could turn out to be a very interesting title if it had more time in the ovenm which isn't always a possibility with game jams, but an idea if you want to continue development afterwards.

I also really enjoyed that each villager had a different info text ^^

This plays very much like a puzzle-game, which is nice, but there were a lot of times the random generation got me stuck in unwinable positions. I did manage to reach and get killed by the boss, though.

Overall, it's nicely polished. Art may be simple, but it's easy to see what's what and where things are.

I managed to get myself two iron knives, but I don't think it did more damage than if I only had the one.

The death mechanic is very interesting, but at its current state it feels very non-punishing, since you always can easily collect all your coins again and enemies can't harm you. Perhaps some coins are permanently lost when you die, or the ghost form also has health (with perma-death if the ghost dies)?

Past that, I enjoy that each weapon feels very distinct, and this game is definitely on the right track.

The game seems to reset every time I complete level 2 (or maybe it just skips the upgrade screen?).

Other than that, having to select one good an one bad effect to add is an excellent mechanic!

This game's definitely on the more difficult side. I like that you can flip to the other side to dodge enemies and get into a better position.

Navigation is tricky. It took me no time to get all turned around and forget where I came from and where I should go, but I assume all the things I would like to see fixed is stuff you've thought about doing had you not run out of time.

Thanks!

I had a hard time coming up with stuff like that, but had some ideas, such as a special trap in the trap rooms, but I agree there really isn't much of a point changing realities (unless you want a specific weapon in the loot rooms). Maybe it could be used as a dodge mechanic, having it so enemy projectiles doesn't exist in the reality they are not from?

It's a weird thing that happens to Game Maker games sometimes. There's no fix for it, even if it's entirely virus free.

Normally I write down stuff that isn't working for me and suggestions on how I'd fix it, but there's not a lot of that here. Instead, here's some QoL features that could potentially be neat:
*Impact sound and/or effects when hitting enemies.
*Maybe an icon at the top of the HUD that shows you what the "coin flip" landed at.

Solid game, well done!

Pretty fun, but it was a bit hard to see what's an interactable and what's the background.

I also like that the guy signed his resumé with XOXO. No wonder he got the promotion :P

A very good looking game!

There are a few gripes I have with the game, but nothing that can't be fixed with not too much effort.
*The control scheme is a bit wonky. There is no way I have time to let go of WASD to try hit G or V.
*Hitting R to reload, while classic, has similar issues. I do like it when you run out of bullets and the gun starts clicking, which adds to the zombie survival theme. Maybe when out of bullets you automatically reload as soon as you stop pressing the fire button?
*There were no time to read what the dropped upgrades did, let alone the part where it says it costs 100 points to buy them.
*At one point the Uzi ran out of bullets and didn't want to reload? I assume there is a durability system of some sorts, but there were no indication of it.
*Just a tad too difficult for me. I couldn't make it past the first 30 seconds of the wave before I got swarmed. I guess the strategy is to switch to the crowbar and molotovs, but that would require being able to switch to them easily, as per the first point.

Despite those, this game has potential and is very well done!

Yeah, I discovered (and fixed) this bug after the deadline was over. Can't do much about it right now until the voting period is over, unfortunately, but will have an update ready as soon as it's over, fixing bugs and adding some extra content, like at least one new enemy (and its associated abilities)

A pretty decent run-and-gunner. I kept automatically unlock new characters with each new game start, but other than the ninja's machine gun and the pirate's revolver, I think the differences in characters are entirely cosmetic?

The only time I took damage in the game is right as a room starts and the camera is catching up to it. Enemies either have time to shoot at me or swarm me before I have any time to react, which is unfortunate.

The mini-map felt too large for the information it provided (although I do appreciate that you can open the full map). There is no need to show the character's position in the room on the mini-map when the camera shows the entire room. Simply show the room's connections and which room you are in (Metroidvanians tend to do this).

The presentation is amazing, but sadly the game itself could be better. Combat, though automatic, was confusing as there was no clear indication what monster was you (I defaulted to the one with more heads, as it made me think of hydras).
Checking resources with space is a good idea, but there are simply too many icons, plusses, and minuses to keep track of. Maybe each space should only carry 3 or so?
Having a description of the skills you can purchase would be nice too. "Nothing to lose" sounds like a cool skill, but I have no idea what it does. Sure, the effect is on the game's description page, but it'd be preferred to have that information in game.

Full points for visuals, though!

RNG will always be a factor for roguelike games, but that doesn't mean chance can't be tweaked. What numbers in particular did you feel were off? What kinds of enemies or traps that spawn? The chances they score crits? With the exception of the spike and blizzard traps, the traps have ways of being used to your advantage. All numbers are as they appear in game (e.g. something with a 33% crit chance will indeed have a 1 in 3 chance of landing a crit.)
And I'm curious to hear how you cheesed the boss. My go-to build is usually Draining Bite, Claw Storm, and Crit+

Thanks for checking it out!

I don't know why the browser is acting up. It's supposed to open in your default browser, but two other people that have tried it got trouble due to them also using Chrome. Luckily it's more of a bonus thing than anything.

As for Mushroom Samba, I made that page in Swedish. I just wanted as many crazy effects on that page as possible, and I thought Swedish would be funny.

One thing I personally don't like about the links is that it's hard to tell when a link takes you to a new random event or is a cotninuation to the current event. I did make a sublte indication to it with the page taking longer to load if it's a new event, but it's something that could have somehow been made clearer.