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A jam submission

Grimoire ForestView game page

A child has found a Grimoire in the old cabin, and got trapped in a cursed forest.
Submitted by SomewhatNatural, cthulhist — 2 hours, 55 minutes before the deadline
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Grimoire Forest's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Theme#6683.3603.360
Visuals#7243.3203.320
Enjoyment#8093.0003.000
Overall#8492.9872.987
Gameplay#8542.8002.800
Innovation#9152.8002.800
Audio#10162.6402.640

Ranked from 25 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?
All characters in game try to deceive you into going down their quest line.

What code and assets did you not make from scratch during the jam (if any)?
Music, 2 sound effects, 1 image of in-game tree and 2 images of in-game bushes.

How many people worked on the game?
2

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Comments

Viewing comments 22 to 3 of 22 · Next page · Last page
Submitted

Hey very nice! Good spooky music and artwork!  🐈‍⬛

Not sure who I should trust, but I was initially planning on following instructions from the crow.
I tried a few times but kept getting killed before the end.  I still had fun playing, though.

There were a couple times when there was a flash of dialog and then it disappeared before I could read what it said. I think this mainly happens when I accidentally walk past a character too fast. Something to look into, if you plan to keep working on this game. 

Submitted

Great game please rate my game…

Submitted(+1)

This game feels incredibly polished. All of its different elements come together really well, and the overall experience feels remarkably complete. The environments are especially fun to explore. I did get a little lost at times because there’s no map, but honestly, that was part of the fun.

Moving upward seems to feel slightly off or misaligned, but aside from that, this is an extremely high-quality Game Jam entry.

Developer

Thank you for high praise! I'm glad you enjoyed playing!

Submitted(+1)

Good start to the concept, but it needs quite a bit of refinement. The world is too spacious and without much direction. It wasn't clear what I was supposed to do or where I was supposed to go.

Developer(+1)

Thank you! Yes, we'll have to work more on this game, people had given a lot of feedback!

Submitted(+1)

I really like the atmosphere and the overall idea here. The main character art especially has a bit of a Don’t Starve vibe, which I absolutely love, and the whole forest setup fits the theme really well.

The game was pretty tough for me, though. The owls hit hard, the map is quite large, and it took me a little while to figure out what I was supposed to be doing. I eventually made it to the Hunter fight and apparently killed him, only to get struck by lightning immediately afterwards. I’m still not entirely sure whether that was meant to happen, because the game suddenly started spamming lightning all over the area during the fight.

The different spells are a neat idea too, although I didn’t always understand exactly what some of them were doing. Visually, the individual elements are charming, even if the overall art style feels a little mixed in places. Music and SFX fit well.

Overall, a cool and ambitious jam entry. I just wish I’d been good enough at it to see more of the endings.

Developer(+1)

Thank you for long and detailed answer, and I'm glad you liked the game! I agree that owls are too tough and it's difficult to navigate, and I will fix it after jam. Lightning strikes all over the place means that someone attacked the skeleton and he aggroed, it's his attack pattern, so you were very close to finishing the game! Art style is a little mixed, because we were running out of time, our artist couldn't finish everything alone, and I had to join in and make some quick drawings, and also cut most of animations on enemies. Our art styles are a bit different. Hopefully we can expand the game, because the project was initially very large in comparison to what fit in the jam, and we had the idea quite for some time already.

Submitted(+1)

As others have mentioned, the atmosphere is great! I love the intro cutscene and the music especially. Combat was pretty hard on a trackpad, but I don't think that's the intended way to play. Overall, nice job!

Developer

Thanks! I'm very glad you liked the atmosphere and music!

Submitted(+1)

Good art style, I enjoyed the atmosphere.

Developer

Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Submitted

The intro was really cool. I wasn't sure what to do after getting into the actual game. There was a cat that was trying to talk to me, but a wolf kept attacking me before I could read what it had to say. 
Loved the art!

Submitted(+1)

The intro was really cool. I wasn't sure what to do after getting into the actual game. There was a cat that was trying to talk to me, but a wolf kept attacking me before I could read what it had to say. 
Loved the art!

Developer(+1)

Thanks! You actually need to go into the hut first, the skeleton there will give you a fireball spell, on the house. After that you charge those wolves, guns blazing.

Submitted(+1)

Good take on the top down shoot em up genre. I really like the "full" experience of intro and game setting. I'd prefer an adjustment there for the text speed / overlay and also some options to tune sound effects. Good idea on item implementation and variety. They clearly feel different.

Developer(+1)

Thanks! I agree about text speed and sfx, and will add setting for all this once jam is ended.

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

I finished both the Hunter and the Crow endings. I actually really liked how the game handled the theme.  As far as i see there are essentially 4 entities and even if we fulfill the requests of the one we choose, they still trick us in the end. The Crow ending was way too obvious but I really enjoyed the storyboards & narrative in The Hunter ending. My suggestions: on the gameplay side, there could be more visual feedback showing that we dealt damage to the entities. Some of the sfx levels (especially the lightning sound) were way too high. I would also love to have different tiles on the floor to avoid getting lost. Other than that, i see potential, loved the vibes of art & narrative!

Developer(+1)

Thank you very much for suggestions and for playing! We'll add more tiles plus some flash when enemy is damaged, and also settings with volume. As of 4 entities and their tasks, you are absolutely right, and each one of them will trick you, but it is still possible to return home with secret 5th ending.

Submitted(+1)

Cool game! I am too bad to achieve a proper ending (the first time I got killed by a wolf, the second time I had 10 health when I went to kill the crow & died instantly, the third time I got killed by the crow again), & I got lost a lot (the map might be a bit large, or maybe you intended for that to happen!), but the setup is nice, the artstyle is pleasing, & it stuck to the theme really well.❤️

Developer(+1)

I'm glad you liked it, thank you! I didn't intend to make a map that difficult to navigate, so I'll definitely have to work on fix for that

Submitted(+1)

Very nice game! The owls are indeed a bit overtuned as others said, i struggled too much because of them. Good atmosphere and overall good stuff all around, nicely done

Developer

Thanks! Don't worry, the owls are getting nerfed or what they did

Submitted(+1)

I really enjoyed the art for this game! Super cute. Some of the enemies were wild like the owls LOL I was not expecting to get brutally murdered abruptly by an extremely angry owl xD the spells are really neat and I found myself bouncing from task to task quickly, those NPCs had me on lock lol. 

Developer(+1)

Thank you! I'm very glad you liked it, and owls really do seem to be a bit op, sorry for that. I'll nerf them after jam.

Submitted(+1)

Very neat game and I liked talking to npcs to get new spells and hints about what to do next. It was easy to get lost in this game but maybe that's part of this games challenge. That wouldn't be so bad if the footstep sounds weren't so repetitive. At first those sounds were unnerving but the longer it went on, it just become a little annoying. I do like the effort to make your own sounds though, much respect. My favorite part of this game is the enemies you have to fight. I like how each creature in the woods behaves differently. That was the coolest part for me. Good job.

Developer

Thanks! I'm glad you liked enemies' behaviour, although I have to admit some of them behave not exactly as planned. I'll work more on step sounds; even though there are 19 samples, they do sound pretty similar. Maybe I'll try to make them some different way.

Submitted (3 edits) (+1)

No problem. You can also add code to randomize the sound's pitch slightly to increase variation as well. It's a neat trick to make the sound design less repetitive when it plays often in a game.

(+1)

Hee-Ho. Cool vibe, very nice atmosphere. Very good art and music. Owls are kill me every time, I think, I will see them in nightmares

Submitted(+1)

Cool little entry. Despite how corny they sound, I like that you've made most of your SFX yourselves. The visuals are also extremely charming. 

I've managed to get all 4 endings and hoped that I could find a secret one. I've tried killing every characters with only the fireball and fighting the skeleton in the shack, but nope. I'm not sure the second one is even possible.

I love games where the player can fight bosses in any order so I'm partial to this, but I really liked your take on the theme. Every character was challenging in its own right. I feel like the cat's heal spell is by far the most useful one apart from the fireball however. I rarely, if ever, used the poison cloud and the lighting strike.

My biggest gripe with the game is the size of your map and how empty it is. I kept getting lost even after four playthrough and it became tedious pretty quickly. I feel like a smaller, more condensed map (or 4 tiny rooms) would be a better fit for what you're going for.

Still, really nice job. 

Developer

Thank you for playing! Yes, I should've added more things on the map to make it easier to navigate, sorry about that. I originally planed to make some sort of arena for every boss, but was running out of time, and just placed bushes in petal-like formations around bosses. As of secret ending, I can actually give you a spoiler:

You need to kill the skeleton. Since he can't move, I've left only door as an entrance to fireballs, but your lightning strikes at the cursor, and you can use it while circling the shack.

Submitted(+1)

Really now ! Thanks a lot for the tips, Let's see that ending

Submitted(+1)

I get the idea, and I really like how you acquire new spells. Lightning is so satisfying to use! The casting felt a little slow, though, and the audio was a bit too loud. Overall, it was really smooth. Amazing job!

Developer

Thank you! Lightning really is useful for some bosses

Submitted(+1)

I really liked the core concept! And I loved the different speels! My only wish is that i could scroll between them with the mouse wheel. Good game!

Developer

Thanks, I appreciate it! I should've thought about the wheel, that's a great idea, I'll definitely add it after the jam

Submitted(+1)

Very much reminds me of hungry knight! Excellent work ! Full 5s here <3

Developer

Aw, thank you so much! I'm glad you liked it!

Viewing comments 22 to 3 of 22 · Next page · Last page