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Ari and the Hourglass of Doom's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Narrative | #1490 | 3.010 | 3.273 |
| Creativity | #5305 | 2.927 | 3.182 |
| Enjoyment | #6199 | 2.341 | 2.545 |
| Audio | #6522 | 2.091 | 2.273 |
| Artwork | #6537 | 2.341 | 2.545 |
Ranked from 11 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the theme?
This game features a time loop that resets every 5 minutes, or when the party is fully KOed.
(Optional) Please credit all assets you've used
Everything has been made by me. I used FamiStudio for sound effects.
(Optional) What would you like to be called if GMTK features your game?
Programming Protogen ("Protogen" is pronounced "Pro-Toe-Jen")
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Comments
cute just needs alot of polish, really creative!
The dialogue in this game is really charming ! I like how there's an element of strategy to when you choose to use healing items, with it sometimes being better to use them when you still have a lot of HP left so that the cooldown will be over by the time it's really needed. :)
Thank you! I figured that a simple healing system would be a good way to add a bit more strategy and make the player feel more in control, and it seems to work quite well! :)
On the surface, this really doesn't seem like it should work as well as it does. An RPG where all you can do is watch your characters battle? No skills or magic? No equipment or treasure chests? Sounds boring AF.
But I found it was very cute and a lot of fun. Just the basic action of "number go up" is really satisfying, and it doesn't demand too much from the player, just a little bit of concentration. The bright pixely graphics are appealing to look at, and the characters are cute and fun. I encountered a weird bug/feature where the amount of time remaining would increase by 15 seconds or so (even above 5 minutes) when the character remembers a level, but it only seemed to happen after reaching level 13.
A winnar is me!
Thank you so much! I’m glad you enjoyed it! I was worried that it wouldn’t work too well, but I decided to try it anyway and found that it was better than I expected. Oh, I never explained it in-game or even on the main page, but yeah, you are supposed to get a slight extension every time you level up. This is to help counter-act the time lost grinding to regain levels. I’ll probably add a note to the game page explaining that. I also assume you managed to fully complete the game and beat the Demon Lord? As silly as this is, I actually wasn’t sure if it was reasonable to beat him since he was pretty much a last-moment addition, haha! And if you did beat him, around what level was everybody at?
Everyone was level 13, and the fight was over in seconds. I probably could've defeated him much sooner.
Awesome, thank you very much for the info! Edit: after playing it through start to finish myself, you’re definitely right that he can be beaten earlier than level 13, I was able to beat him at level 9 with the help of healing items.
cool game but the time loop seems to not effect when you inside a resting area but i like the art work and the fighting but i didnt like the enemy spawn too much like i could not take 5 steps and not get in fight . and please consider to give my game a shot
By the time loop not working, do you mean when the time loop reset happens, you’re still in the town menu until you move? I’ll have to look into that, I’m pretty sure I know what’s causing that. And I’ll also balance out the encounter rates if I can :) Thank you for the feedback, I’ll be sure to check out your game later!
I love Dragon Quest so this really captures that! I would have liked to have an option to do battles a bit more slower so I can see what's going on. But it was a great experience!
Thank you! The original Dragon Quest was definitely one of my biggest inspirations for the style and feel :) I’ll look into adding an options menu that includes the option of tweaking the battle speed. I’ll probably also add in something that slows down the timer while in battle to reflect your changes to battle speed, e.g. in a half speed battle, the timer takes twice as long to tick down, that way there’s no disadvantage to any players who slow down the battle.
Love it! I've always wanted to make a DQ-like and this hits the spot!
I like the game actually, but there are somethings that might be a bit too much. After every step i barely managed to get somewhere until i got attacked again, maybe give us more time to walk around. Also i did not know at first that i could go trough the trees, but then i can't go trough the cactus? This was a bit confusing. I like the little walk animaiton. There might be too much plain text. The overall idea is good, a story based rpg where you have 5 min to save the world before ending right back where you started! A never ending hero journey! Also very good job doing all this in only 4 days and then completley alone! *gives you a cookie* I am proud of you! Good job!
Ah, yeah, the encounter rate can be a bit much (or too little) at times; if I continue to work on this, I’ll definitely add something to balance it out and make it feel fair and well-paced. Ah, that’s a good point about the cacti. I should probably just make them walkable tiles, and maybe see if I can make it clearer that trees can be walked through. Thank you so much!
An idea on how to make it noticable to walk trough would be place something of interest in the middle of the trees, visible to ppl when they come near the first part of the forest. Make sure it is being circled by the trees, so the player has no other choise and try going inside. But rly interested what you come up with next! Keep going! Good work!
That’s a great idea, I’ll have to try that! Perhaps the first town could be placed in the forest. And thanks for the support!
Wonderful!! Good luck!