| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Fun | #1 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Sound/Audio | #5 | 3.444 | 3.444 |
| Visuals(Graphics) | #7 | 3.444 | 3.444 |
| Overall | #7 | 3.667 | 3.667 |
| User Interface (UI/UX) | #9 | 2.889 | 2.889 |
Ranked from 9 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
DevLog Link
https://hawkwork.itch.io/feudalkeen/devlog/1133848/feudalkeen-improve-my-game-jam-42
I really enjoyed discovering different types of enemies and items. It is nice that game has a procedural generation of the map. Overall different enemies and the map generation keeps things fresh.
My first time playing, I confused exploding box with one that had items in it. Also a couple of times enemies was appeared right next to me as soon as I opened the room, which got me damaged unexpectedly
Fun pixel art and game mechanics. :)
The strategy on when to use each weapon was great.
Each object's readability was a bit difficult. I exploded myself with the explosion thinking it was a crate and wasted all my bullets on the mushroom thinking it was an enemy.
In my last play through I died as soon as the room was revealed and felt a bit cheated. I would avoid having enemies spawn or more right at the door until the player has passed that point.
Hi MagesticDugong, thanks for taking the game for a spin. Currently the enemy placement is totally random. It's unfair when enemies are right around the doorway and you have no way of seeing them prior. The only way to attack enemies that are lurking around a corner is to use the grenade launcher. Thanks for playing and for your feedback.
I really enjoyed the old-school graphics and I'm a sucker for tactical gameplay like this! I've died on the third level a couple of times, so I'm still getting the hang of things, and I'm not 100% sure what all of the items do yet (the one that looks like a drop of blood?) but this just feels like the kind of game my brother and I would be handing off to each other on our gameboy on a road trip.
If I manage to get through to the last stage, I'll be sure to leave a comment on the game page!
Edit: Forgot to add, the blast radius was very helpful and I probably wouldn't have gotten as far on my first try without it!
Hi Alyssa, thanks for playing! The item like a drop of blood? It might be the ammunition for the grenade launcher or the health pickup. I am not sure which one you mean. The game is meant to be very retro and evocative of that era. It makes me glad that it brings back memories of your brother on a road trip. :) Thanks for being so patient with the game and giving it a chance!
Hi, after I blew me up a few times because i thought it were chest with loot inside... i would strongly suggest to have better readable explosives, maybe like TNT or something idk.
First death was suicide by grenade... because i also couldn`t interpret your weapons.
Please include WASD for movement too.
I searched ages for the Shoot key^^ and it is X wtf is this for a control scheme? :)
I would probably go for Space for shoot and E or Enter idk for weapon change.
Maybe include a button for switching weapons or something like that. and give a name underneith the weapons or make the spirtes more readable what it should be for a weapon.
Some Bats were just sticking around next to the entrance of a room, so I had no chance of engaging them without loosing health. Maybe they shoud move around at random.
Music and vibe is cool, but my biggest issue is with readablilty, or predicatablity what will happen next.
Also some of the UI seems a bit broken? when the death UI is shown?
I don`t try to be mean here, that is just constructive criticism
gameplay is fun, soundtrack really cool,
but i hate the laser turrents and explosives (I always try to loot them and then i die)
Great classic console vibes. I made it to level 7 on my last run, before the unexpected fireball killed me in a doorway. I got several achievements, but only 1 almanac page.
It was fun trying to figure out each new enemy and the best way to deal with them. The one that caused darkness when defeated was quite the surprise. I started by collecting and destroying everything, until I ran low on ammo. Then I was a bit more careful with ammo and skipped blowing up some boxes or activating the Vulcan (in game the killed by message looked to be spelled "Vulvan") Cannon.
Overall this was a nice game, and felt like playing a classic NES era game.
This is generally a neat idea well executed.
I finished one run. I didn't let the egg hatch, or encounter any secrets.
Bugs:
I died out of nowhere to a fanatic when revealing a dark room. I'm aware that the trigger for revealing rooms is 1 step further away (it triggers when you're adjacent to the invisible thing that the weapon detects as a target?) I may have pressed forward one time too many, not sure. Or maybe the fanatic exploded early because they were stuck, and that detonated an explosive barrel or killed me directly somehow????
Sometimes the dark room revealing wave doesn't spread to certain places? Like it's blocked by objects or enemies or something.
Criticism:
The water level is a bit unpleasant to look for loot on. Might be intentional that it's hard, since it's cluttered and similar color to loot. But it wasn't really hard, just unpleasant.
The floaty guy boss seems pretty cheeseable, I easily stayed in the first phase long enough to get a decent amount of ammo.
I didn't really find much use for the syringe.
I think the new buried laser enemy mostly makes the game easier since you can run them out of ammo and you can bait them into shooting each other for loot.
I only encountered like one witch and maybe three flamethrowers. I like the idea of the witch pulling you into difficult situations, could be neat to have an enemy type or object that does something similar in a more predictable way. Like consumable booster arrows that launch you in a direction when you step on them, that are often positioned to launch you into a room. Or a weaker enemy similar to the witch that just has the pull ability and maybe a melee attack that it can't use immediately after pulling. Or an object that causes you to spawn fire behind you when you walk as long as you're within a certain range of it.
I encountered the witch in a room that didn't have very many enemies, and I initially got pulled up against a wall. So it was a tense encounter because I didn't know what to expect, but ultimately it didn't amount to much. I don't think I took damage. They might be cooler usually.
Hello OverBern,
thanks for really getting in to the game and having the patience for completing a run. You are probably one of the few people who have played it and defeated the "floating boss". It really means a lot to me to have someone play in such detail and give detailed feedback.
I must apologize for the fanatic killing you like that. The game should have a certain difficulty, but it should always be fair, never unfair towards the player.
The syringe or stim is currently not useful. It gives you 5 extra HP that deteriorate each turn. If you only get to take it after you have dealt with the enemies in a chamber then the benefit deteriorates on the way to the next door. I will deal with this by making the stim spawn near the entrance of chambers. This way you can take it and then have the benefit of the additional HP during the fight.
The witch has multiple spells. The pulling which you encountered, making a ring of fire around the player with only one escape direction, spawning ghosts of the player that face in the same direction and shoot when the player shoots. The way to deal with a witches is to kill them off quickly prior to pandemonium breaking loose. This is especially true if there are other enemies in the same chamber.
I will partially rework the tilesets for better contrast, variation, and visibility. The difficulty shouldn't stem from things not being clear.
Thanks for the ideas regarding the interactive terrain like boost arrows or flame towers. I am looking for more static obstacles instead of enemies. Currently there are only the spikes and the vulcan-turrets.
The way you beat the vulcan-turrets and the baron boss sounds as though you had a good strategy down. Gaging the difficulty is really getting out of hand. There are many things which can chaotically interact. The main thing is at least being able to predict what will happen do a certain extent.
Once again, thanks for playing and completing so much of the game!
I had a few more thoughts after posting:
I ended up with quite a lot of ammo as I got further in. Like 80ish pistol shots and 60ish laser shots, 12ish grenades before they got reset for the boss. Maybe it could be interesting to have some hazard that's hard to avoid and reduces your ammo based on how much ammo you have. e.g. Tesla coil: if you damage this with a weapon, lose all ammo on that weapon.
Though, that kinda encourages people to leave ammo and pick it up later, which I don't think would be fun. Hm. Maybe it mostly appears on a specific map that has an anti-backtracking feature. E.g. a barricaded map where there's no ammo pickups lying around before the end, and all crates and stuff specifically spawn in 1-wide hallways so you can't walk around their pickups. That might be a bit much to add for just this idea, though.
Creating occasional situations where the player has to engage enemies from multiple directions rather than baiting from a hallway
A very simple idea is just. Hallways are sometimes 2 spaces wide. Might be hard to program for the generation, though.
Level with an anti-backtracking enemy??? An enemy that spawns in the same room as you, can't be killed, but is stunned for several turns when you shoot it. Might work together with tesla coil.
Mimic explosive creates? Look like explosive crates, but when the player goes to the next room after them, they grow legs and start following after a few turns. They still function like explosive crates, before and after they start moving.
Animations
The pistol feels feels much less snappy than everything else, particularly when you use it from a distance. I got used to it, but it stood out at the beginning.
Revealing a room animation is slightly delayed, if feels like players are supposed to walk 1 step further than they have to, then eventually figure out they don't need to. If it's intentional, that's fine.
Player damage animation is maybe a little too easy to miss.
Played one more run to be sure of these feelings.
I experienced another off-screen explosion, but this one didn't kill me and happened when I was a few steps away from the hallway to that room.
Bug: I got a water level where the key is unavailable. There's just a closed door. Not sure if I actually moved up to the door or not. But yeah I didn't notice any key even though I killed everything. And the mushroom exit was really close to the entrance.
Bug: if you're standing in the area a spike can move into, and you shoot, you hit something in your own position?? Which is probably the spike's hitbox which doesn't retract with its hurtbox?
Bug: floaty boss was shown behind an explosive crate he'd dropped. (during phase 1)
Triggered a few eggs and let them hatch. Didn't let the spawned enemy get close to me, though. I like that they can trigger both from damage and walking close.
Didn't encounter any witches or flamers.
Ended up dying to second phase of the boss because I was playing too fast and lost count of how long it was since the last attack. But it was looking easy up until then, that's why I was playing fast.
Potential bug: I feel like I saw the boss spawning 2 troopers in the same corner and they ended up inside each other. May have been part of why it felt easy, they never really came near me.
Maybe the boss would be more interesting with a smaller room, so the troopers spawn closer to the player.
Nice game, first time playing and had fun. I like this retro vibe games, that's amazing for gamedev industry that "graphical" advantage is no more that important (maybe we grow up as gamers :D)
I love how you made generated dungeons, that's really nice foundation for rouge-like game. Mechanic of revile next room is brilliant idea of dopamine loop.
Idea of different weapons is really cool, each of them is different that's not only number changes.
What was my thought (do not treat as something to change, just my perspective):
Game has really nice potential for good narrative to cover rouge-like mechanics just like Hades did.
Congratulations on your submission!
Hi pavelee,
thanks for playing and giving detailed feedback! It's really great when someone gives one of your games a chance and plays it intensely.
What do you mean to say? That my graphics aren't fantastic??!!? :)
Thanks for your comments regarding better sound options. I will look into that. Same goes for a tutorial. I want a learning by doing approach. As you said, there are the controls on the game page and the PDF manual booklet. But players expect a certain quality of life these days. Ok enough old man talk.
Enemy movement is largely deterministic, except for when it isn't. The bandersnatch desert rats always look in the direction that they are going to move in the next turn. The bats move towards the player either horizontally or vertically. If you shoot them they stay stunned for a couple of turns. The enemy troopers walk towards the player, they take a turn to change direction e.g. aim at the player, and then shoot the next turn. Trout move away from the player as soon as they have taken damage... That's the experience that the actual player gains when doing a couple of runs in contrast to the character not actually leveling up.
Regarding ammo: I would just go ahead and use it. It's no good being killed and having a bunch of rocket launcher shots left over. That being said, ammo is scarce. Don't shoot enemies if you don't have to. Stun bats or chase away the trout and xeno monsters instead of killing them. Try and kill multiple enemies in one blast or with one laser shot.
Thanks for playing and providing such detailed comments. Cheers
I like the mystery-dungeon-like gameplay. Maybe a defense option would have helped in combat.
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.