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Sands of Time's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Audio | #29 | 4.341 | 4.341 |
| Artwork | #89 | 4.636 | 4.636 |
| Enjoyment | #252 | 4.136 | 4.136 |
| Narrative | #913 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
| Creativity | #1268 | 3.955 | 3.955 |
Ranked from 44 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?
Every 15 seconds, a curse or blessing befalls your character. These range in effect from a movement speed slowdown, all the way to stopping, or speeding up time.
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Comments
Sadly I only knew about this game after the voting period. Otherwise this is an easy 5/5 across the board. Mindbogglingly good
Luckily I found this right before the voting stopped and gave it five stars across the board, i'm glad it did well overall but it deserved even higher!
Agreed!
Please don't feel discouraged by the ratings guys, i think you should turn this into a full game, its so damn good
Thank you! We were prepared for really bad ratings since we had many reviews complaining about the movement and gameplay difficulty. In my head I don't see a game like this being viable for anything longer than the game jam version since the random events gets a little bit tiring. Having more would help with that, but it would make it feel even less in control, and having fewer would get old fast. If this WERE to be a full game, it might be better to have linear levels with combat arenas, like a top down version of DOOM (1993), and the arenas could be designed around one of the curses, or a selection of them.
For me the movement and the difficulty are big reasons why I was engaged (I played until stage 14 and would have continued if i didnt rage quit and lose all my progress...)
During my game time, I haven't felt tired of the curses/blessings and was still trying to play around them to get better, it's a kind of a rare game experience so I loved it.
I think you have something here, and you obviously got more ideas you can play with, im not sure what you mean by the combat arenas but you're already cooking. Anyway whatever you do you guys are talented AF and im glad you're making games
Thank you!! I don't plan on stopping making games, that's for sure. We, as in me and mangoes are working on a game RN separate from any game jam, so keep your eyes peeled for that.
I spent like 5 - 10 minutes on level 6 before giving up lol, I think it's a bit too difficult ight now but I have to say I really really love this game regardless. The art and music are 10/10, and the gameplay is really well made! There's so many little details that make this a gem, like the little door opening jingle, the cool intro cutscene, the ui looking really clean and polished, etc. The idea of getting a curse every 15 seconds is such a cool gimmick and there's also a really fun variety of them.
My main complaint is that it's not clear enough what curse you're about to get. I like how it does tell you in the top left but when when you're focusing in battle, that's not readable enough. Adding a symbol that represents the upcoming curse would be perfect because then you'd be able to observe it in your peripheral and strategise a tiny but before it happens. Seriously, the amount of times a sudden drunken, blizzard or chain bomb has screwed me over because i hadn't noticed it was coming up...
Otherwise I don't think you need to change player's slippery movment / one hp system much at all because yeah it makes it hard but in a way where it's still very much doable. Just make the sudden curses less immediately unfair, oh and also make the flying coffin enemies more obvious when they're about to attack, and it will be peak.
Thank you for the feedback. The icon idea is a really great idea for the upcoming curse. We named them after an "appropriate" egyptian god, with the intent of the player memorizing what each name leads to, but obviously you don't have time to look up and see what will happen next when you are in the midst of hectic combat. We definitely should have added windup animations to the Sarcophagus attack and, you didn't get this far, but the anubis enemy later on has a very similar attack.
The presentation of this game is really great, I'm really surprised this doesn't have that many reviews! I love the theming in this, and the way you incorporated the mechanics such as the curses. The art, music, and animations are fantastic as well! My criticism would be that the game feels a bit too punishing - the slippery movement, the one hit kill, the low ammo, and the need to swing your sword for some enemies means you will die a lot in this game. If at least one of those aspects were changed to compensate, I think the game would feel less frustrating for players. Really nice and fun game to play, great job on it!
great game and great art! it's very polished, fun to play! my only complaints are the fact that the player slips on the ground when you move, like a car haha
super solid entry !!
YAWN. This game is EASE bro. I beat it first try no deaths while watching the minions on a second window.
But it was very fun. The music was incredible, the intro cutscenes added so much style, and the colors and shading made all the enemies so vibrant and full of character. It's also great how you made the curses visually distinct from each other, too. It helps you not get confused during the fast-paced gameplay.
It could be cool to have a little more telegraph for enemy attacks. The skeletons do this very well, but sometimes the sarcophagus shoots a little unpredictably. Normally it would be predictable since they fire at regular intervals, but with speed ups and time freezes, the timing gets thrown off a little, so having the projectile do a small flash right before it shoots off could be nice. I think the one and only time that I a little bit came sorta close to almost losing was when I got jump scared by a big red circle, so yeah it's rigged.
Also, the conserving ammo mechanic was perfectly executed imo. It's not the end of the world to miss shots, but I still found myself making a lot of interesting micro-decisions on who I want to take out quickly and who I should risk getting close to to swipe at. It added a lot of depth.
I'll give you my coveted five stars this time, but next time, you better make a harder game bub.
EZ PZ tbh ggs (thanks man)
For a game about exploring a hidden temple, this game is a hidden gem.
Thank you!
My goats
I went through the entire game, needless to say i loved it, it was fun ! The events were varied and there was alot of them, i kept discovering new ones throughout the entire game which was pretty unexpected considering how little time the jam gave us, as a JoJo fan i have to love a good ol time stop ;)
However i think there some things that could be improved, for instance the controls: they felt way too slippery for a game that is quite precise nonetheless considering you have to do every level with a single health point and the blizzard event was already covering that part lol. I also think that there could be some audio feedback, or something a bit more eye catching when the event is about to change, i often felt betrayed when my immortality would go off a millisecond too early, might be a skill issue but the game should be more forgiving on that. I would have loved a parry system too, like cmon we have katana !
Overall the game was very good and polished, i had a blast playing it, thank you for reading, keep up the good work ! <3
Thank you for the actual helpful feedback. I actually agree with all of your feedback! (I still personally think that the player is not slippery, but he does accelerate fast, which is what I think is causing the issues) Definitely a parry, or even powering up the sword during a curse, or certain curses would have been really cool. Obviously there is nothing stating this ingame, but the sword was also called the "Sword of Anubis" by us while developing lol, and we called the character Khan
Cool game. I'm using a track pad so right mouse was hard to do regularly. But otherwise a fun time. I made it through a few levels. Nice balance of shooting vs slashing.
I imagine a trackpad would make this game very hard, yeah.
Great job as always guys! Art and music were extremely good, and a fun mechanic! My only criticisms are that the theme implementation was maybe not as important to the game as it could've been, and the way the camera moves was a bit extreme and kinda made me nauseous. Other than that it was presented very well and the levels/enemies were well designed, nice work
Thank you!
The overall gamefeel felt really smooth. The random good/bad effects felt like gambling simulator which was fun.
Amazing game! Great game feel!
The countdown is so good, I was expectating to see what power or hinderance was coming.
Player controls feel wacky , to the point that's not controllable in most scenarios.
I don't know what you mean about the controls, they are the same as every other top down shooter. Thanks for the feedback!
The slide, the pushback from shooting, the hit boxes of the enemies, those make a combo that makes it harder than usually thos top down shooters are.
I love it!
Only 27 reviews is criminal its miraculous how this was made in four days!
Thank you!
This game is super fun, stressful too :D I liked the idea of random curses and well executed!
Name buddies :)
My god this game slaps HARD, too bad i'm bad at it haha
Slashing and shooting is real satisfying. I'm back and forth on the blessings and curses---on the one hand, they could make or break a run (locust swarm and drunk were way worse than the others for me), but on the other, it's kinda funny sometimes to be doing well and then getting a wacky effect or getting infinite ammo right when your back is to a corner. Lots of fun!
Definitely drunk and locusts are the two hardest to deal with, but honestly, blizzard is up there too! I'm always next to a pit when it happens.
Not to brag, but I *did* beat the final level with only the sword lol. Take that, locusts!
Alright, first of all, i gave you 5 stars in every category, you guys are way too cracked at gamedev, seriously what the hell
Now for feedback:
- The art, music, movement, effects are awesome. The game is already very strong without the curses, those just make the game original and more fun. I'm impressed with enemy variety and number of curses.
- The game is hard. Big difficulty spike on level 6 due to absence of walls. I don't mind hard games, i like them, but this may scare jammers away, but i think you know this
- The recoil on the gun is very strong. Maybe making it so that only the first shot recoils you if you shoot in quick succession would be nice (idk if this would work)
- Making me able to hold RMB to swing on a cooldown with the sword instead of spam clicking all the time would be good. Same thing for the gun with LMB.
- Very minor y sorting issues with the tiles. I have the exact same problem with my game, y sorting is such a pain in godot
- nerf bats please i hate them
I can see this game going viral on those coolmathgames-like sites. Great job guys. You cooked.
Does he know that bats used to be 25% faster ;)
I was glad i got the y sorting to be as clean as it was because it was so janky for 90% of development lol!
Thank you very much for your feedback!
The audio and artwork are TOP TIER. Only criticism is the lag spikes that occur when new enemies spawn in.
Thank you so much! The windows build fixes that lag, of course.
Great to see great scratch creators attempt this challenge!
I am biased towards loving this game cause this was the same idea i did for a different jam, you guys executed extremely well in a shorter timeframe too!
music was top notch for me, i couldn't help but shoot my gun to the rhythm!
my only small nitpick was i wish your bullets had a bigger hitbox, either that or you turn the cursor into a reticle! default cursor doesn't match well the great art this game has!
Haha I knew it! I told poke we should make a crosshair and he didn't think we needed it lol. >:D
Thank you, we thought about a cursor, but only on the last day and we barely finished as is. That would have been a great addition though.