itch.io

yeah.. 2 million… When I tried to check the leaderboard when I was in the middle of the run, I couldn’t see my score, and I thought I had the worst score. But after I died beause I went too fast in a battle (most of my battles were just one-shotting the enemies with the “free attack” upgrade, and me just spamming A through it since I did crits for every single attack, making my backslash useless), and checked the leaderboard, I was also amazed on how big of a jump there is from second place to me.

As for the engine question, you have to have used some library in a language, and I asked if you used eg. curses, or a more fletched out TUI library, like rich (with python) or OpenTUI.

I understand the difficulties with balancing the rogue, however I haven’t played the other ones, maybe I should try to “break the scale” on those too >:)

Great game!

First attempt: 6 waves, rank #5 Second attempt: 7 waves, rank #2 (grrr, I’m coming after you Grumpy Demo!) Third attempt: 7 waves, rank #1 shyeas!! I’m the birgachad! 03:41, try and beat me >:)

Jokes aside, this game is really polished, the art is great, I love the sound cues, and that it teaches you each mechanic after the other one! I also love that the upgrade adds new tech, but also introduces an enemy/counter to that mechanic.

The hitboxes are really forgiving, and the deaths always feel like my fault, great job with the balancing of this game too!

Things I picked up from playing:

• The fish are kind of stupid, they target not your current location, but your location from 2-ish seconds ago. This gives them a really easy strategy for avoiding them. Another underused strategy for the fish: Go underwater!
• The wrap-around upgrade is really useful, and in combination with the rocket-invincibility-frames upgrade, it can get you out of stick situations! Just be careful, because the pirates are not signaled very well before they spawn..

And my strategy? The left area of the screen is safest. You should always try to bob-and-weave side to side in intervals (because of the fish thing I said earlier). Don’t be afraid to use the X-ability through clouds, because it’s forgiving in its grant of invincibility-frames. The seagulls give an audio cue that is PANNED! depending on which side they are coming from, so be alert of this too. And, when in doubt of your position: switch sides and press X, it saves you from taking several lives, and minimizing the damage when you get overwhelmed.

I don’t have much else to say else than: Great job on completing this within the 14 day time frame, and best of luck with a high placement!

I like the concept, but I feel like it kind of gets repetitive really fast. The chalice and the scythe (i’ve already forgotten the name of the speed item (: ) are good additions to spice it up, but I never really felt like they mattered to anything. I was also a little annoyed about how long it took to get up from after you’ve fell. I also didn’t understand what the chests was for, or really how the game implemented the theme other than just putting treasure chests around the map?

I do love the graphics of everything though, I think it looks pretty good for just 14 days! However, as a geometry dash player, I believe gameplay should come before art, meaning a really player controller is better than an aesthetically pleasing environment.

Also, a bug I had is that the UI where you type your name in never correctly rendered for me.. I don’t know if this is a Wayland issue, or if this is just affecting the linux build in general.

You hit the nail exactly, WarioWare is the main inspiration for this game! Thanks for playing.

Thanks! I also would have wished we could create more minigames, and I hopefully will after the jam-lock is over! I also noticed that the minigame audio was constantly at a higher volume than the main menu, but thought it was just me, I’ll look into that!

yeah, the midas touch upgrade is really op. I don’t know how much gold I ended up with, but it was in the hundreds of thousands..

Steam Proton is your best friend! I’m not on windows either, I just used Proton Experimental!

Well well well, I think this is a pretty good game overall! It’s a bit unbalanced, but I will get to that later.

So, my feedback for the game:

The music was getting repetitive, so I sadly turned it off. One nitpick about the music slider is that the music resets when you change volume. I’m not sure how you developed this, if this is just plain curses, opentui, or whatever, so I don’t know if this is just a limitation of the engine you used.

I really like the art-style, and how unique the game was! I’ve never seen a TUI RPG that dense before! I haven’t played a ton of RPGs either though, so this was a new-ish experience for me.

One complaint I have about the dialogue in the game is that when you hit the enemy for the final blow, it doesn’t give you any information about that final blow. Was it a crit? Did they try to defend it?

Really quickly I was becoming, powerful, and I snowballed completely. You see, at the start, I just focused everything into damage. Everything damage, treasures to up the damage, etc. But soon enough, I got too powerful. I got the vampire fangs so I never had to think about healing, got midas’ touch for extra damage, and the 50% more gold one. And along with the Rouge treasure upgrades, like “crit = 3x the damage”, the backslash on attack for 10% of damage (or something like that), and always going for the elites and lineups of enemies, I got a ton of gold, which directly translated to damage, and the thing that surprised me was that the enemies never got any stronger damage, only health. At some point, I was fighting a regular monster with 51k HP, but they did like 10 DMG. I three-shot them, and was just breezing through the runs. I didn’t know what the duel thing was until run 2, but when I first try to fight someone (nobody was online at the time of playing 😿), I just did enough damage that they could never even touch me before they were dead. (by touch, I mean damaging for more than like 1% of my health).

I also got all but 3 or 4 achievements, since they required me to switch classes, or just grind the heck out of this game (500 slain monsters, what??? I got a little under 300..)

But other than that, I really liked it!

(second edit: I tried to attach an image, but it didn’t work, and I just added a backslash to my post, so I have to delete that too xd)

Thank you, hu_go_o, our sound guy really knocked it out of the park! I’m also satisfied with the music manager I ended up creating, and (halfway?) incorporating it with the microgames.

Thank you! One of the things I wish we had done differently was managing our time better so we could have more microgames, but also make them different.

Thanks!

wrong, I added functionality :p

Don’t quit just yet!

On the top of the screen, a progress bar is displayed, showing the player how long they have to get to win the game. In the bottom right there is a oxygen-meter, showing how much health you have left. This will deplete faster if you get hit by obstacles, and can be replenished by collecting the bubbles that occasionally spawn (they are blue circular orbs, not the really fast moving ones).

As for your point on a few power-ups/checkpoints making the challenge the same, I disagree. If we had put in checkpoints, the game would be much easier to beat.

I personally dialed the difficulty so it shouldn’t be really hard to beat, but it might take you a few attempts or more (based on your previous experiences on these types of games, eg. Geometry Dash, Jetpack-Joyride, Flappy Bird, etc.)

Thank you for taking the time to play our game.

I understand your viewpoint on the art. We had different artists working on the background and the characters, so I understand there is a gap there.

As for my personal preference on the movement, I understand that you would like it to feel more responsive/snappy, as it would make it more predictable, and in turn, easier. However, since Jetpack Joyride was one of our main inspirations, we followed a floaty space ship kind of vibe with the movement.

But yeah, thanks for playing, and I’m glad you enjoyed the game!

Thank you. I feel bad for not having any sound effects in the game, but oh well, the time was breathing down our necks, and so it wasn’t a priority.

Nice seeing you again too, dzy! I really enjoyed playing this. I love the art style and the story, but I do feel like the opening cutscene is actually higher quality than the gameplay, so there’s some polish needed to bring the two in line.

Here is my feedback:

• Controls & Onboarding: When I first started, I had no idea how to pass the first orange orb-enemy (i’ll just call them orbs). I swung my sword at it for a bit before randomly pressing Right Click and discovering there was a jump button. It wasn’t listed in the controls, so having that documented would have saved me some confusion (and maybe other players too, but I usually have tunnel-vision in this area, so maybe it’s just me). One last heads up on this topic: Not all controls/buttons were listed on the itch page
• Hitboxes & Feedback: The gameplay gets tricky in the later rooms, specifically that sequence where you pogo from an orange enemy -> wizard -> blue diamond -> switch. The hitbox on the blue diamond felt a bit unforgiving, as I misaligned slightly and it didn’t refresh my sword. I got no visual feedback that I “missed,” so I wandered around thinking I had skipped a step rather than just missing a jump.
• Puzzle Clarity: The puzzles felt a bit abstract. I didn’t interact with everything in the levels, which made me wonder if I was missing requirements for an alternate ending. I’m not sure what the coin-like objects were for, but that’s my best guess! Clearer feedback on levers, collectibles, and interactions would help the player know they are on the right track.
• Quality of Life: One major complaint is the lack of a restart button. If I messed up a sequence or used my sword one time too many, I had to intentionally run into an enemy to reset. For a puzzle-heavy game, this is really tedious and breaks the flow.

Things done well

• The art style is fantastic.
• The story sets a great mood.
• The music really strengthens the atmosphere, and
• The cutscene is genuinely high quality.

Suggestions for future iterations:

• Introduce mechanics safely: Let the player play around with new mechanics in a controlled space before they are required to pass.
• Visual Feedback: Give clear feedback for everything. A lever pull, a collectible pickup, or even a missed hit.

Overall, this was a solid jam game with great vibes, I’ll give you guys that! Keep it up.

Thank you for playing, and the kind compliments. One of the things I think we could have improved are the projectiles. The fastball blue orbs are an obstacle, while the slow more shiny blue orb is an oxygen pickup.

Thank you for playing, and yeah, it was difficult balancing the projectile speed with actually being able to read them. I understand that most of the focus went into actually avoiding them 😅

Thank you, and nice observation 😉

First playthrough: yep easy questions, multiplication, oh, powers of two? well nothing I can’t handle- *sin and cos has entered the chat* Second playthrough: Oh, you can explore in this game, what is this, a note- *unit circle jumpscare*

This game was really fun. I love the sound effects, the artstyle, and everything. It has a certain charm to it. I love that you can shoot buoys at people who haven’t even jumped yet, and it just messes them up xD

My goal was 20, and when I reached it I just started to shoot people who haven’t even gotten up the ladder yet. Great way to spend my day job watching people (and afterwards get yelled at by the manager).

PS. The manager still notices the “dead bodies” even though you rescue literally everyone (including those who doesn’t want to be rescued), so maybe there is something else fishy going on at this establishment..

It’s literally impossible to dodge the projectiles, at least for me they are going mach 2..

I do love the mechanic that you have to get to the surface, and the art is great. I found the health treasures a little difficult to locate because of the big horizontal area, but I’m really glad that you put checkpoints in the game. One critique I have about some of the chasing enemies is that it is hard to escape their grasp. For example, when I was at the section where you’ve just gone through the wood place with the blue squids, I aggravated the shark, and he quite literally pushed me all the way back down so I had to redo the small squid area. Kind of weak interpretation of phantoms that you just play as a ghost, but I understand that the theme and limitation were difficult to pull off. Good work.

I enjoyed the game. I couldn’t find a way to win though, even after I found the cultist. I had some pretty funny interations with the table and the cultist though. Anyway, enough gits and shiggles.

• I really like the look of this game
• The phantoms actually gave me the creeps when they first appeared, so well done with the sound design and art there!
• I think it’s kind of confusing without having read the introduction text, so maybe that could be put on the main menu instead?
• I couldn’t read what was on the death screen, please help me out here!

I originally made it to level 6 before stepping away, but after writing this, I beat the game. I got 1 death and 1 hit total, so I have a pretty good grasp of the loop.

• Do I think you took the path of least resistance? Yes
• Do I think you should quit game development because of it? No, absolutely not

There is SO much dialogue, and I guarantee that for anyone who plays this game who isn’t scared away by the sheer complexity, they won’t read it. You likely haven’t read it yourself either, because it is entirely AI-generated. Even though it was AI-generated, the story doesn’t make sense in the context of this small little game. The entire game loop is you bringing white potions through portals, then escaping yourself. There is a threat in the levels, a singular ghost, who isn’t a problem at all.

To fix this, in the final level, there is a blue ghost that instantly kills you. Why are we introducing this enemy in the last level without explaining it? (It probably got explained in the story, but again, nobody will read that).

I’ll give you some feedback on the game:

• The Bottle Mechanic: The main gist of the game is to put soul bottles into portals, so I’d preferred if this mechanic was good and polished. However, the bottles follow you in a weird way. They smoothly follow you by lerping (linearly interpolating) after you. The problem is that they can get stuck on walls. I’d much more preferred it if they were either placed in my inventory, or followed me much closer.
• Unused Items: I never used any of the other items in the game. I was sprinting the whole time. That has to say something. If the other items are useless, or explained in a way the player “gets and forgets,” they won’t be used.
• Narrative Scope: The story is WAY too complicated for a small jam game like this. I have no idea what rescuing the souls did, what the portal was there for, where I was, or what was chasing me.

Things done well

• I love the main menu, it looks really clean.
• Scene transitions
• I think the art style was decent, but it feels a little like an asset-flip, as it’s kind of all over the place.

The main takeaway from this is this:

Alright, you got assisted in making the game (with the use of AI). Maybe it was your first game, your second, whatever. Instead of telling a chatbox what game you want, try to pick up a game engine (eg. Unity or Godot), and watch some tutorials. It will be way more satisfying knowing what you do, planning and coding your idea up (either entirely yourself, or assisted by AI, not “taken off your shoulders” by AI).

Good luck with your next projects, hopefully also game development projects. I believe that you are able to make beautiful games if you put in the effort.

When I played I often found myself (literally) in a skeleton when I switched in/out of phantom mode, and I feel like it’s kind of unfair to the player to have to keep track of both layers at the same time, especially when they don’t know when the skeletons in the opposite layer of the player have moved, and where. Adding buffering for the controls would also have made a better user experience instead of having to press WASD repeatedly. I didn’t get to the end personally because I lost all three lives to skeletons on another plane of existence, but well done making this in the time frame given.

My best score was 102m. I enjoyed playing this game, but I feel like the stats were kind of complicated, and I had no idea what they meant. Maybe simplifying it to “Oxygen: Good, Coal: Needed, Energy: Meh” or something like that with symbols would enhance it. Because when I played the game, I was only focusing on my tetris, and less on my current statistics. It’s also kind of difficult building up good stats because the blocks are random. But all in all it’s a good game.

Thank you for playing. The so called “snowballs” are meant to be oxygen pickups, to fill your oxygen bar. I’m glad you found the game straight forward, as I was worried the game might be confusing without some extra story put into the game.

Hey!

I am also a game designer/developer, and I’d like to team up with you! I am a programmer, and I know both Unity and Godot. I am also capable of making music, and a little art if we need it.

Sent you a friend request on discord, I’m sabifiedsab!

Hi, we’re currently 4 people, if you’d like to join and/or haven’t found a team yet, add me on discord: sabifiedsab

Hi, I'm looking for an artist, sound designer, and/or a music composer. I'm currently in a team with one other, and we'll be using the Godot game engine. Everyone is welcome to team up, and I hope we'll be able to create something fantastic! 

Feel free to reach out on discord if you're interested: SabifiedSab

Thank you so much! Love that we stood out to you :)

I'm really happy you enjoyed the good mix of gameplay, visuals and audio. I went for a relaxing, almost children-y soundtrack, and I think it worked out well. Thanks for playing!

I'm glad you liked the background music, I put some effort into the atmosphere of it ^^ I get your point on that the player is able to spam to find the differences, but how are we going to moderate how the player wants to play the game? If they want to cheat and just spam the canvas without finding them, that's on them! Thanks for playing!

Thanks! I hope it wasn't too challenging to find the differences. Glad you enjoyed it

Thanks for playing! The tutorial was next on our list ;)

Yep, some bugs did slip through the cracks. And the project didn't get finished to the point we wanted to, but I think we are expanding it to a fuller project