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Grave News, Sire!'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Audio | #167 | 3.676 | 3.676 |
| Overall | #729 | 3.159 | 3.159 |
| Gameplay | #737 | 3.044 | 3.044 |
| Enjoyment | #763 | 3.206 | 3.206 |
| Visuals | #888 | 3.265 | 3.265 |
| Theme | #911 | 3.029 | 3.029 |
| Innovation | #939 | 2.735 | 2.735 |
Ranked from 68 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does the game fit the theme?
You need to take back control of your castle and rescue your beloved Biscuit. See game page for more details and a tutorial.
What code and assets did you not make from scratch during the jam (if any)?
Everything made by ourselves :)
How many people worked on the game?3
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Comments
Nice game! For me it was a little hard, I think some balancing would be good and the controls felt a little slippery. But the procedural generation and enemy AI is incredible! Love the visual style. Overall good job!
Thanks for playing and for the feedback! Yeah we need to work on the combat both in terms of control / player feedback and the difficulty scale.
Very interesting game, the music is really nice, the voice acting is amazing and the story is perfect. However:
But other than that, this is an amazing work, that ill love to see expanded
The aesthetic is unique I love the lighting work, the music is veryyy vibe, it feels a bit rough but that’s normal for a jam game, generally nice entry!
So, I enter the level without understanding why I’m doing it. I run over enemies, trying to stay alive and grab the money. And I die over and over.
Still, I get some enjoyment from it. Keep going!
Thanks for the feedback!
Regarding the "without understanding why I'm doing it" <- that's explained by James the butler but as mentioned by you, we need subtitles. :)
Incredibly impressed by the voice acting AND delivering useful information through it, really did not expect it. That and the seemingly procedural maps, kept each run fresh. Music and aesthetic is a real vibe, somehow it works for me. Overall I enjoyed your game, great work team!
I do have some feedback from my experience though:
Thanks for playing our game and for the detailed feedback!
You're feedback is immensely helpful, thank you again for taking the time!
This game has a lot of potential. I liked the upgrade system. The game is quite hard, but it is still fun.
Thanks! Still lots to do but it feels like we're on to something with all the feedback we've received. :)
The voice acting was super funny! Great job on that. The game was a bit on the difficult side but that is understandable for a game jam.
While I enjoyed it, I have some feedback:
1- For me it felt more intuitive if the dash went in the direction of where I was currently moving / holding my WASD key rather than towards the cursor.
2- The mages need an indicator to when they will shoot. I know that there is a little animation where they raise their wand, but amidst the chaos, it is a bit difficult to spot.
3- Maybe add a small bar under the character that acts as a cooldown for his dash to know when it is back up again.
Of course I understand that you did not have enough time for all that, it being a game jam and having this amazing voice acting as well, but with some more balancing, I see this game having very good potential, specially with that sense of humor :). Well done!
Thank you so much for the detailed feedback, this is exactly what I'm looking for!
1. thank, I didn't have that on the radar. I've played a lot and I'm pretty sure the dash is in the direction of the mouse but will double check. I do have something planned that makes it clear where the dash will go and when it is ready. Below is a very rough draft of the idea (done in paint cause that's what's closest by and I'm not moving from the couch 😄)
2. Absolutely, agree 100%. The mages are super tough and part of it is the speed of incantation, the speed of the fireballs and the occasional double cast (two fireballs directly after each other). This needs a lot of balance work.
Thank you for your kind words and the honest feedback. 😊
Haha, gotta make that incantation a tad bit longer.
Also, absolutely no need to get off your couch, this rough draft is very successful in delivering your idea 😄. Its a nice little design which I believe will help a lot in balancing the game. Best of luck!
The mages are ruthless! The game is a bit more on the tough side, but I was surprised by the procedural generation and the voice acting too. The character art is great too. The player character reminds me of Apocalypse Bringer Mynoghra (Anime). Took me few tries to finally get the upgrade though. Great game and great effort!
Thanks, I'm not familiar with that anime but I'll check it out. And yes, the mages are a huge part of our balancing issues 😅
The audiovisual side is very good - both atmospheric and funny!
I think making the upgrades cheaper would be the simplest way to make the gameplay more engaging: it would give a sense of progression and reward early in the game :)
Thanks for playing our game, unfortunately we missed that opportunity before uploads were disabled. We have different plans going forward but as a quick fix for the current state of the game that could've been a solution.
Cool game! I like the fun art style and that you gave many great tips to make combat easier (Definitely helped though it is still quite tough). Well done for one week!
Thanks for playing our game ☺️ great to hear that the tips helped make the combat a little less tough.
Voice acting in a game jam game is always a surprise and its rarely good, although the game lacks a certain polish but the game mechanics and the story is quite good, procedural generation in a game jam game is cool too!
Thanks for playing our game and for your feedback, I'm glad you enjoyed it. We'll work on the issues and have lots of plans for new features and of course polish. ☺️
Great voice acting and funny story, but the game was way too hard. I couldn't really get past the first room, so unfortunately I couldn't get enough coins to try out the upgrades. The generating dungeons are cool though, a shame I couldn't get to explore them very much!
Yeah we need to work on the difficulty :) Thanks for trying though!
Thanks for the feedback and for playing out game! Yes, we have balance issues and it's currently quite hard to progress. It's not impossible but it takes some patience. A ranged weapon can be unlocked from the store although at a later stage in the game. We are working on balancing but can't upload any updates atm as you know. :) We also want to work on dash and weapon hit feedback to make the combat more satisfying.
LOVED the voice acting! Also, it was not a single phrase read and repeated by the NPC, there were more lines! It shows the love you guys put in the game :D
About the combat: it would be nice to see the attacks' range, sometimes when attacking enemies my sword sprite would sweep through them but I didn't hit them. It could also help to indicate when the enemies were going to attack, specially the ones that uses a fireball!
The upgrades were a little too expensive...? I needed a lot of runs to buy my first upgrade.
But overall this game has a lot of potential! Specially the sense of humor! Great work in this game.
Thanks, yeah the prices are way to high and the attack hint (like raising the staff before a fireball) are too fast / subtle to really be helpful. Same as with you, we were struggling towards the deadline and didn't implement everything we wanted - most importantly, we ran out of time on a boss fight and >>balancing<< 😕
Cool silly intro with funny voice over and characters design! On the other hand, high difficulty level and high price of upgrades, which forces grinding. In any case, there is potential. After balancing the difficulty level, I would play more because I like the characters and the sense of humor, and I wonder how the story would have continued.
Thanks, we are planning to expand the game after the jam so keep an eye on it. And some grind was planned since we had a meta progression and a "gamble on your own run" mechanic planned but the grind currently is way to high.
The voice acting is really nice, it really captures the atmosphere. Especially the dialogue I heard when respawning made me feel like I was playing Hades. Congratulations! If you want a few critiques: I don’t think the game should force fullscreen because when it starts it switches to a fullscreen page and during gameplay I can’t check the controls. Enemies should also play an animation before attacking so I have time to react and dodge, but right now I take damage immediately when I get close to them. And the first dialogue part should be skippable.
Thanks for playing the game and thanks for the honest feedback. The first dialog is skippable, we added that during the bugfix session but haven't had time to add a prompt. You can skip it by pressing return on the keyboard.
In regards to the fullscreen: playing it not in fullscreen gives you a disadvantage in fights as you cannot see everything of the room you're in which makes it even harder to dodge. That's why we decided to go with start as fullscreen. I think the better solution is to add a proper tutorial for the controls which we are unfortunately missing.
The enemies have attack animations, although they are hard to miss. The staff wielders raise the staff before they shoot but currently, even if you see it, it's hard to dodge. We have a LOT to do when it comes to balancing and giving better feedback to players. For example, you can dodge by pressing space but even if you do, it's hard to tell currently where you'll end up so even though I've personally played the game for hours by now, I still don't really use the dash in combat. Only outside to go forward quicker 😅
That being said, I'm very grateful for your feedback as it helps us understand the players better as well as the issues the game still has!
I did not expect to hear voice acting in this game haha, it caught me off guard. It was really great! The only problem I encountered was that the enemies can surround you in a way that leaves you stuck and unable to move until they kill you, with no option to escape or dodge. but other then that its really great! good job
Ah sorry, we lack a tutorial. If the surround you, you should be able to dodge through with the spacebar. Thanks for playing our game! 😊
Woah! I spawn in, I'm a king with the most loyal mate around, everything is great, then l get ambushed by possibly the hardest enemies I've ever dealt with, haha. The game was cool and the effort put in is recognised, but damn you need to chill on the difficulty or l need to get better at games. I saw a comment about the betting idea, sounds cool :D
Thanks, yeah the difficulty is up there 😅we did want to get the idea across that the Sire is rusty since he hasn't had to do anything himself but unfortunately we didn't get the balancing right before the submission deadline so it's too much on the difficult side at the moment. It is beatable but it's more of a souls-like difficulty which is not what we had planned.
Such a charming game. The voice acting and the dialogues are so funny. Would love for it to be a little more easy at the beggining but overall a super fun game. Congrats!
Thanks for playing and for the feedback! :) Yes, unfortunately the balancing is missing and it's quite hard. It's not impossible but it does require quite some time and effort invested to beat the dungeon.
Great job with the voice acting. Love the butler. Great work!
Thanks ☺️ glad you ebjoyed it! Your game is next in my todo list, looking forward to playing it. I'll look at it tomorrow as it's time to hit the hay here :)