Game looked nice, but was not sure about combat as it was confusing and repetitive. I feel this game needed more work then would been quite good and more fun to play.  It does have nice look to the world so would be good to play and explore more of it.

I think this game has a really neat concept for the battle system, and I like how it ties into a sort of rhythm game. But I also genuinely think it needed a bit more time in the oven.

I know from reading the other comments that the big issues are clear to you now, but to summarize my thoughts briefly:

There's not enough enough spells and far too many runes currently, and the system is not explained all that well in-game. I appreciate that you uploaded a video example on the game page to explain it, and even actually gave the first spell as an example in the game menu. But even with that it took some time to fully understand what was going on.

Beyond that, the performance isn't great, or at least wasn't for me. This seems to be a common theme with Unreal jam games especially, and I can see from the video you posted it's not an issue for yourself. But I bring it up because I think it caused issues with click detection on the runes. I would click the rune while it was highlighted and the game wouldn't detect it as being a valid click.

As for suggestions for improvements, I think the position of the healthbars and their colours should be changed. The players focus during combat is largely on the runes along the bottom-center of the screen, but to check the enemy's health the player has to look to the top-left. Since the rhythm game doesn't have breaks between cycling rounds, there's very little time to look away, especially in the last couple battles.

And with the healthbars transitioning from red to black, on a black background, it can be harder to tell what percentage health an enemy has left as the fight goes. Without focusing on the healthbar at least. And the players healthbar had the same issue, especially because the player healthbar goes from right-to-left, despite being in the top-left corner.

I would recommend moving the health bars to be just above the runes, and changing the colours to be either solid, or simply make them brighter, or make the transition green-yellow-red instead of red-dark red. Just my 2 cents.

Back to the positives, the visuals are nice, overall the game feels quite cozy, and I liked the dungeon inside the chicken coop with all the stereotypical dungeon traps. There's some solid work here, but the combat system needs some fixing.

Good work!

I see what you were going for, and I like the concept a lot. That being said, it's a little repetitive to keep hitting the same rune over and over again to resolve combat.

The concept is great and I really liked the cozy graphics but unfortunately I didn't understand how the combat system work. I did many combinations of runes and a chicken squawked everytime I clicked a blue rune and nothing would happen. I spent about 15 minutes with it and couldn't get past the fox. I was hoping to get into the dungeon behind him!
Gameplay here

Very fun world. I included it in my compilation video series of all of the games from the Dungeon Crawler Jam.

As other game entries, interesting music system with rythm. Also visually interesting, the editor looks good.

Keep up the good work!

I really love the idea of this game! However, I found myself quite confused on how to get the first spell to work. I did eventually figure it out but wish there had been an on screen demo showing what I should do. Perhaps you could add an animated GIF / video to your jam page for future players?

I did eventually get the hang of it and, in the end, I wanted more! I think with a few more days this could be something really cool.

Thanks so much for submitting this :D

If you would like to watch my playthrough, you can find it here: https://youtu.be/hHr9D2aedfs?si=dQR6VjpBj5lDOMIG&t=17010

Hi! Very cute and nice looking game! I wish there was an easy mode though, I had absolutely no chance in the fight! But I suck at rhythm based game so it was perhaps kind of expected. I think one of my main banes where that there wasn’t a beat between each spell and I had no chance getting back to the first rune in time to click it. I discussed that and some ideas for how to improve it in the video.

Again though I really liked the style of the game a lot and if it was a bit easier and more comfortable (not mouse based), I would have liked to play much more of it.

https://youtu.be/0BRoT8o_gMg

That was a funny premise and it made me chuckle :D

Combining the rune casting with a rhythm game worked surprising well. Eventually I was able to kill the fox, literally, with my eyes closed.

Well done, I had a good time with it.

Hi there! This was really fun to play! The fighting system was fun and interesting, especially the spell system! Also, I think I found a bug. If you press W during the fox's death animation you can trigger the fight again but the fox 3D model dissapears. It looks like this:

This was very entertaining after I figured out the combat system. Chicken rhythm! Short and fun experience, encountered no issues except a few deaths to my own folly, hah.

I like the setup and endings.  As soon as the timer ran out, just total zombie apocalypse. XD  And I enjoyed the trap-based navigation, even if dying and reloading took a while and couldn't be skipped.

I had some issues with the combat.
The rhythm was well kept.  8 Runes all on beat.

I was a little thrown at first because I'm used to seeing the player health bar in the top left, not the enemy.  (That could be on me for not reading.)  So I freaked out a little thinking I didn't understand the casting system.  The feathers were in time with the fox flipping, so that also reinforced that I was the one getting hurt.

Anyway, I figured out the Healing Spell, but no others.  When I was fighting the Wraith, I was really hoping that wasn't going to be the spell he teaches me.

The biggest problem for me was that I couldn't get the Final Fear Spell to work for whatever reason.  Meaning the final battle against the farmer was a really long and arduous.

If you try a system like this again (or continue with this one), it might be worth having a little flourish when you discover a now combination so it sticks in the players head.

I love the visuals and sound design, I had a lot of fun tapping my foot in rhythm with the clucks to get the timing right!  Great job on the fighting system, I was smiling all along. At first I thought I just needed to not become the farmer's next lunch, but I realized the stakes were much higher once I lost and then won the game.

Farmer left his wife alone and started to live in peace.

The game was fun, I enjoyed being killed by the traps, the spell system is cool and I tought the room for error was appropriate (both for timing and the life and damage of the protagonists). The super dark death sentence is hilarious.