I definitely wanted to go for a Celeste-like platformer in terms of difficulty, which is why it gets very hard at some point. There are only 3 anvils in the game, with the first upgrading your jump power, the second upgrading your dash power, and the last one upgrading the gingerbread cookies, that boost your stats for a temporary duration.
This game is really fun. I enjoyed it as soon as I heard the banger music which plays immediately, and never gets repetitive. The gameplay loop was really fun, and the mechanic of needing to carry the armoured elves away from the presents and killing them made the game better on a whole new level.
One issue I had was some lack of sound effects. For example I couldn't really tell if an elf had died, and a sound effect could have definitely helped. The art and animations all feel really smooth and match the overall style you were going for.
The game is also really hard, and each round gets more challenging. I got to round 11 and was overwhelmed by three armoured elves targeting my present, and without the ornament bomb, I knew I had lost. Great game overall!
Thanks! I should've have added a restart mechanic, but I was running low on time and completely forgot about these tiny things, but it is something I can do for next time.
I really enjoyed the game, and having no limited ammo and no cooldown made me feel like I was using a machine gun, which was really satisfying and fun. I also really liked the mechanics of the anvils, and how some enemies shoot ice at you, and you have to dodge it, keeping you on the move.
One thing that I would personally change, is to make the game a real time strategy game. By this I mean that the shooting is automatic, but slow, and you can upgrade it as you gain more "resources" (which are dropped by the enemies). You can also upgrade other things like the anvil strength / speed. I think that by slightly changing the game it can be more fun and challenging.
Obviously this is a Game Jam with limited time and this project is still really good, but I'm just throwing out ideas.
Thanks! I definitely realised after that the game might have been confusing, but it was my intention as I wanted to create a metroidvania. I could have probably hinted more at the exploration aspect in the diary entry, but that is my bad.
I really enjoyed the art and the mechanic of how you have to dodge Satan, and that made me change paths multiple time. I only encountered a few issues with the movement feeling laggy, but overall the game was fun, especially since it is your first game.
I really enjoyed the art and attention to detail (camera movement, sounds and other small things). Other things like animations and UI feel really satisfying and good. One issue I had was that the gameplay got very quickly repetitive and I was easily staying at range from the anvils, so I wasn't getting hit. The hardest challenge was jumping over Santa, as every time he got bigger, and at around level 5 I was finding it hard to get to the other side.
Overall great and satisfying game, with really good Art, animations and UI.
