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The Curse of Ct. Downcula's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Narrative | #1195 | 3.360 | 3.360 |
| Artwork | #1373 | 3.900 | 3.900 |
| Audio | #2468 | 3.200 | 3.200 |
| Creativity | #2579 | 3.680 | 3.680 |
| Enjoyment | #2684 | 3.340 | 3.340 |
Ranked from 50 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?
The game gives a twist to the well know roguelike trope, collecting powers to face the final boss, by having the player start will all powers and losing one each turn, basically counting down the abilities towards the final fight. Also it is a pun on taking a Count down.
(Optional) Please credit all assets you've used
See description for full credits.
(Optional) What would you like to be called if GMTK features your game?
TeamDowncula
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Comments
Really awesome, I like how the gimmick is that every round you have to choose an ability to sacrifice. I had to think long and hard about which of the three choices to remove which was often a tough choice. I kind of screwed myself early by removing every high damage health attack except for the blood one, but I like how you can only choose between the three random choices the game gives you, so you can't just pick the same ones every playthrough. It's very fun towards the end having to balance the very few attacks you have left. And I love the final fight! Awesome music and art, plus a cool storyline. The attack animations and sounds were particularly great.
I think other than minor issues like the health bar not visibly increasing when you heal, one change I'd like to see is a way to look at the attacks that an enemy has. It'd be nice to know what attacks are in its arsenal and how much damage they deal so there's a bit more strategy. Also I think I would not have won if not for the health regen ability; it healed 250 hp and had a 1 turn cooldown which was a bit much. Increasing the cooldown to 2 or 3 turns would make me less reliant on spamming it, since I felt like I was in no danger anymore once I learnt how busted it was. Otherwise, really fun game!
another dracula premise game, very great one at that! loved the art style , it creates the perfect atmosphere. music is very fitting. the gameplay feels very smooth and is hella fun. Fantastic game and I hope to see more like this in such style I liked it that much!
A lot of the game seems very fleshed out, but it is very difficult to get into personally. I think the game has an extremely rough learning curve, and especially for a jam, first impressions are really important. A lot of skills are just front loaded onto the player rather than slowly granting them. I struggle a lot with this too, as a lot of my games I've made have struggled with way too much info right off the bat.
I love the art though! Everything has a nice consistent style, and it's easy to see and look at things. Music is also solid too. :)
The gameplay is so complete i like this style of game sooo coool ;) one little suggestion is that maybe i can know well which skill is which at start so i can start the game in a good way (like a illustrated book or some thing) anyway a really cool work!
Feel free to test our game thk!
Simply fantastic. I loved the gameplay, the art style, and even the way the story is introduced. Achieving all of this within a game jam is genuinely impressive.
I also really liked the idea of reversing the usual roguelike progression: the further you get, the fewer abilities you have. It felt like a very original mechanic, and it was executed really well.
The final boss was another highlight. Although the fight was challenging, beating it was incredibly satisfying. If I had to point out one downside, it would be that the game felt too short, but at the same time, I think that’s the best sign that a game is well made.
Without a doubt, this is one of my favorite entries in the jam.
Congratulations!
Well, the art looks nice, i think the text is too much, we also got so many skills right at the start, adding more confusion. Aside of those things, everything is nice
This game looks and feels incredible! If you made this all by yourselves then you should be super proud. It is definitely the highlight of the whole game for me! In terms of the gameplay and concept, that was fun as well!
A couple pieces of feedback: The beginning with all the spells was super overwhelming. I had to take a while to read through all of the different attacks I could do. Another issue was the size of the UI text. I was straining my eyes on my 1440p monitor and I had to get closer to my screen to read the text. Definitely need some sort of scaling and testing on other displays if possible.
Aside from that, great work! Its incredible that you got all this done within the 4 day period! You guys should be super proud :)
Cool and interesting idea RPGs so often take for granted the idea of gaining abilities over the course of the game that its really interesting to see a turn based game where the opposite happens :) Well done!
Only i wanted to say how easy boss figh was.... and this badass giving me second phase :D
But i did it!!!
Its awesome art, good music and really awesome gameplay - its interesting to look how abilities work.
It has something to polish like do button more stylish similar to art, music in boss fight was a little bit short, so i heard its ending and repeating.
You did a great job, good luck with this project!
I will be glad if u play my game too <3
Hello there, fellow Downcula folks! This was a fun game to play through. Good choice of music too. I don’t see any VFX assets credited, so assuming you made them yourselves, well done! I have a soft spot for turn-based combat, but I’ve also had some pain points here. I think it’s generally a bad idea to start a new player out with 17 abilities. I suppose your “countdown” interpretation sort of requires this and it’s a bit of a cursed problem. I also noticed that I never had to use different approaches to defeat different enemies, and I didn’t have much reason to care about their attacks. I was very much making meaningful decisions throughout on which ability to use next though (and which ones to give up each turn) thanks to the cooldown and shield/armor/health system. Overall, a worthy contender and a cool double-interpretation of the jam’s theme!
You are spot on! The game end up indeed overwhelming at the very start. We tried adding some feedback on to the user by highlighting the ones that can be used on that turn and showing their effects on the enemy health bar, but it was far from being enough. This is something that definitely needs some improvement. About the different approaches, this is a side effect of tuning the damage and the health of the enemies. Our idea was that different combinations of hp/armor, hp/shield or all three would favor one skill group over another, but the gameplay was too slow and quite boring. We end up sacrificing that strategic side for better combat pacing, however that is definitely something we would like to bring back with more time to tune the numbers.
Thanks for the feedback and for giving our game a try! :)
Really creative twist, wasn't sure I was gonna like the losing powers as you advance mechanic. But I ended up enjoying it quite a bit. Needs some work balancing though, the game felt a bit too easy. Great job on the art and audio.
Thank you for playing our game. We tuned the difficulty down because most people were unable to finish the game and we would like the broader audience to have the full experience. Still, you would surprised to see how many playtesters were unable to finish on their first run even with the current version. But you are totally right about the difficulty. As roguelike enjoyers ourselves, we also prefer a more challenging experience.
I love the art style and enjoy the whole gameplay :) Nice job on this!
Thanks for playing! :)
Saying "i loved this" is truly an understatement. this was actually such an immersive experience, i loved the art and the mechanics, and, spoilers ahead the final boss was the biggest "THERE'S A PHASE 2?????" moment ive had in a long while, i flinched at the peakness of the music. this is definitely one of my top picks for gmtk 2026!
Truly, your comment made our day! This is so rewarding to hear! :)
the game was really fun! Loved the downgrading mechanic
Thanks for giving our game a try! :)
The art is SO good! Gameplay was fun, I really like the inverted take on the "pick one of three power-ups" mechanic and forcing you to sacrifice one, it's a fun way to weaken the player as the time ticks.
It took us a couple iterations to figure out how to best tackle the "getting weaker" mechanic. Initially you could choose out of your entire pool of skills, but that created a "best order to forget" problem, where every run was exactly the same. We eventually landed on the "pick between those random 3 options" and the overall feeling improved a lot. Thanks for giving our game a try! :)
Nice work! I beat the final boss on my first try. I was already pretty low on health when the dragon showed up, so it still felt quite challenging.
Glad you liked it! :)
Nice work! I do think a challenge with this design is that starting with all possible abilties means the player could be a little overwhelmed by the number of them, since you forego any normal onboarding due to the premise. Great job on pulling it together!
Super cool game! I love the art, like the pixelart is SOOO GOOD!! Overall a pretty fun game, 5 Stars! ^^
Thanks for playing! :)
Oh no, the boss has a second phase! :P
I really liked this idea - very creative and fun battle system!
The second phase was a must, or else it would be just another fight! :D
Thanks for playing.
Oh no, the boss has a second phase! :P
I really liked this idea - very creative and fun battle system!