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Isfet's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall | #1 | 4.520 | 4.520 |
| NES Feel | #2 | 4.632 | 4.632 |
| Audio | #2 | 4.526 | 4.526 |
| Graphics | #2 | 4.711 | 4.711 |
| Gameplay | #4 | 4.211 | 4.211 |
Ranked from 38 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
Stellar entry.
* BEAUTIFUL art, fantastic presentation all around. Character/monster art is incredible. The hud and minimap look really good, even. Just a gorgeous gorgeous game. Heck even my nitpicks are basically about it being too cool looking:
* I'm not sure how I felt about rolling, it just felt like it slowed down movement for no real reason, especially since you sit through a message that says 'out of steps' and then an entire bar before it finishes rolling, and then another message and the step number filling up, and THEN you can move again. I'm just tryna make it to the end of a hallway... It's a really neat idea and it looks very clean, but given movement is the thing you do most often I'd opt for a way to fast forward through this sort of thing.
* I feel similarly about the combat, waiting for your HP number to stop moving before you can make inputs, I think it makes the game feel slower than other RPGs I've played (which isn't many tbf) since you sort of just wait there to be able to make an input again. As fun as yu-gi-oh duel number drops a
* I reeeeally like the music, well composed, lots of variety. EXCELLENT battle theme especially.
* The shuffled items was interesting, if nothing else I felt like I had to think a little more and yet process less than other RPG games I've tried, which is a good thing for sure.
* Strange the game over screen just kind of kept playing the battle theme and didn't boot you out... but you had the insight to put quit to menu in the pause menu so no big deal. Given how polished the entirety of the game is, it might be the only part that sticks out
Fantastic game!
Loved this! Great intro and fun gameplay; amazing graphics and audio. The only thing I would change is the speed of the dice rolls being revealed. But perhaps the intent is to only roll a few dice at a time? Is there ever a scenario where the player would want to roll more than, say, three dice? Maybe the mechanic of choosing how many dice to roll could be removed.
Hello! Thanks for the feedback and for playing our game!
You can press A to skip watching the dice roll animations if they are too slow.
The scenario where you'd want to roll lots of dice is if you are running low on time (the clock on the left side of the dungeon crawling UI) or if you are feeling confident and have plenty of dice to use. If you rolled low amounts of dice the whole time then you might run out of the 30 turns on your timer. Rolling small amounts of dice allows you to be more careful and strategic with movement/how many steps you'd like to use to rest with. If you roll many dice every time, you'll save turns on the timer by getting to explore much more of the dungeon however you'll have multiple encounters (more loot) that will damage you a lot making it important to heal. If you used all of your dice, then resting will make you lose. So it's a bit more risky this way.
TL;DR Using fewer dice to roll can be safer at times and rolling many can be more risky depending on circumstances. Try to adapt your rolling to what situations you find yourself in.
Hard to know how to play the combat.
Rolling dice slowed things, in what was otherwise a beautiful atmospheric game. I didn’t see the point in choosing dice, maybe mechanic developed later. Dug the fallout vibe of sci-fi mixed with fantasy.
At 1:24 the toad had mugged me for all my weapons and I died, first combat.
Hey there! Thanks for the feedback. I watched your stream. I think we could have made it more clear that you can throw multiple dice at once. Use the arrow keys to select how many dice you want to throw during your turn. You can sometimes move up to 40+ steps per turn if you throw all dice at once.
Perfect, I should have been more curious.
I tried again and figured a way to “reshuffle” my inventory, at least when I have no more weapons left. I think that should be more obvious, because I was just mashing keys in the hope of reactivating weapons.
It’s a good game.
As for the combat, there are 2 types of items in this version. Items that can be used once and items that get discarded then reshuffled back into your deck. Combat Knives and the Pistols are the items that can be reused over and over (discard items). Sometimes you are forced to use consumable © items to play your turn in battle. In your stream, if you would have thrown a flash grenade (decreases enemy defense) or a smoke grenade (decreases enemy attack), the next item you would have drawn would have been an attack item. Ending your turn prematurely didn't allow you go through your deck.
Some extra tips.
Leaving Med Kit or Morphine in your 4 slots will decrease your attack power. You either have to keep fighting with them or decide to use them if they appear during battle.
Also, don't leave a Peseshkef or a Canopic Jar in your slots, their passive ability deals damage to the player. I saw you had one in your stream and it kept hurting you during the first battle.
I know it's a lot, but I promise it'll make more sense if you try again! I hope you'll give it another shot.
I ran out of dice on my second run. Plenty of knives and guns though.
The graphics are too nice not to return. That, and the strategies from the other comments thread make it appear deeper. I like turn-based more than action, but running out of dice reinforces how hard it is to balance original stochastic systems.
This game is great. It was compelling. Kept me curious and wanting to see what was around the corner.
The one thing I wish it had though was a cool gameover scene to explain the gameover somehow.
The art and audio in this are ridiculously professional. I'm trying to make a dungeon crawler as a more long-time project myself, so I like to look at other peoples approaches to the genre. Gotta admit I'm not a big fan of dice roll mechanics, though, especially for something crucial as how many steps/healing you get the randomness is too high, imo. The random loot also makes a huge impact on how much of a chance you're gonna have. The battle mechanics were interesting though, holding on to items for buffs or having to deal with negative effects if you can't use them in a turn I think has a lot of potential for cool strategies, if the items are a bit more balanced.
man insane. Really enjoyed it
Well, you guys easily earn 5s for graphics, audio, and nes feel. The game from what I played felt way too RNG heavy though in my opinion. Might just be from my lack of understanding but it seems really polished for what it's worth. I'm not really sure what the point is of the dice and the time limit both being there at the same time. I might come back to this one and try it again later and see if there's something I'm missing. Definitely hit the dungeon crawler vibe very well regardless of my issues with it.
Thanks for the feedback!
If you get low on HP, instead of running right into the next battle you can roll dice and rest to recover your HP, which takes up your turns (the time you have before humanity is cursed). This has saved me quite a bit on runs where I didn't get an overpowered riot shield.
On this build, the dice can be found in chests, and as yellow envelopes after battle. 3 star envelopes are risky as they have +0, +1, and +6 dice. 2 star yellow envelopes have +3, +4, and +5, so you'll want to aim for these. There are also senet sticks that are items you can use that guarantee all envelopes after a battle will be dice. There are also sistrum that you can use that show you what is inside the envelopes before you choose them. This can help you pick up the +6 dice. We've been discussing ways of making dice more available to players that relies less on RNG. Once the review period is over, we are thinking of balancing the gameplay and fixing some bugs. I'd love to see what you think about it.
This game is sick. you did a great job.
Easily my personal favorite for this jam. I neither have nor deserve to have any other comments.
Very good game !
It use different mechanic together but most remains intuitive.
They were games like that in 1985 but not as nicely done.
It was a compliment, I was not meaning that it was not possible, UX design evolved since back then.
You're okay! I took it as a compliment! After I pasted the photo I didn't know how to add text to it. I just wanted to show you that we based the game off of Megami Tensei II is all since you shared a screenshot of the first Megami Tensei. I referenced this dungeon's walls. For our game though, I'm not so sure it would be possible to have 3 enemies on the screen at the same time while battling. In Megami Tensei II they would shift the dungeon's palette slightly or get rid of it entirely for some battles. And they only had one enemy on screen at a time with symbols representing multiple enemies.