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Team members
1. Tory — @dit-tory / @dit_tory
Software used
Unity
Use of the limitation
The Dead Ronin is chosen by The Amber (a spirit with autumn leaf as a shape) as its medium. During Ronin revival process by The Amber, there are monsters that wants The Amber power. Ronin must perfect parry the enemies to survive and fuel The Amber with friction heat that comes from the parry impact until he fully resurrected.
Cookies eaten
Around 10 to 20 cookies I guesss.... Most were consumed during late night to parry sleep deprivation hehe.
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Comments
The game is a really great example of minimalism done right, something that's taking me a long time to learn.
I've become really interested in technical art also, so there's a lot in here I'd love to pick your brain about. First thing I noticed were the smooth gradients and some kind of noise / film grain, is that for stylized debanding? I recently learned how to use interleaved gradient noise and blue noise for debanding.
Read your comment about the sharp shapes. The silhouettes and highlights are very crisp and readable. I've been learning vector art to help me compose readable silhouettes out of simple shapes, and then some stylized lighting would be really cool to learn next. Curious what your process was here.
Anyway, I got through the first wave without missing any parries! Felt so cool. I couldn't keep up that performance and failed on the next wave, but I'll definitely play again if just to marvel at the art.
My art process is kind of simple really.
Sketch (on Procreate) -> Trace it and turn to Vector (on Figma) -> Add lightmask layer (on Figma) -> Then the unity magic, the tutorial can be seen on link below.
For making sharp shapes, I highly recommend studying Samurai Jack artstyle or just search sharp artstyle on Pinterest, there's a lot of references.
You could use other tools ofc for sketch and vector.
The highlight and gradients from sprites that can change colour was inspired from this (minute 7 to be exact):
The key is lightmask.So for sprite with the same target sorting layer as the light, they will produce that shiny light.
Then finally about stylized debanding.
I just know about debanding right now haha.
The film grain actually is just "let's try it here."
Like literally no other meaning.
I guess the film grain doesn't work, so maybe I'll remove it on future updates if the development continues.
Anyway, thanks for playing!
I'm grateful that the first wave is easy enough for you to not miss any parries.
If you're interested in this (technical) artstyle, try learn about sprite masking and lighting first with extra Post Processing.
Lastly, I'm also still a learner in technical art, so it's cool to find another who interested in it.
I love the art! At first, it's a little tricky to get the timing right, but after that it's really fun. Good job! :D
Thank you!
Great visual and music choice with heat as health for rhythmic action is pretty bloody cool!
I hate the damn purple one though, bro flashed for split second and delayed his action for century
Haha that's the purpose of the purple one, to annoy people with their delay.
Thhanks for playing!!! Appreciate it!
Very beautiful game Tory!
The design is super polished ^^
I do really suck at these typa games but it was fun to try!
Thank you Lily!
No worries, at least you have fun trying :)
Super cool game!!! I love that you made the parry system the whole game, and the soundtrack really fits with the vibe.
I'm always a sucker for parry mechanics because they make me feel cool loll This game absolutely made me feel that!
Really neat and fun! Great work!!!
Thank you for playing!
SURELY RIGHT! PARRY IS JUST SO COOL!
I hope the flashiness helps shine your cool feeling haha...
However, I have to say the parry system is challenging to make especially to make it frame perfect and also made me spent a lot of time debugging it. TT
Beautiful game and satisfying parries! The timing becomes a bit weird when there are so many attacking with the hit-stun so it took a second to get used to!
Thanks for playing!
I noticed the hitstop made the timing a lil bit weird.
Actually I'm aiming to make also useful for player to take a breath a while, but a few player like you said the same thing.
So I updated the game with a patch on the hitstop duration, you could try it again if you want to and give comments about it.
Hi!
I think the visual concept is absolutely stunning! It really makes a strong impression. But honestly, it left me wanting more! There's so much potential here and plenty of room to expand on these ideas!
Best!
Thank you! It's mean a lot to me.
I also looking forward to further develop this game and maybe release it on storefronts, such as Steam or Play Store.
This game was really cool!! the visuals looks amazing. The game is a challenge, but that can sometimes be a really nice thing!!
Thankss!
It was too hard for me to finish :( but I had fun trying to time the parries. The artstyle is beautiful :) I'll try and finish it later
Thanks for playing!
I fr need to balance this game for real for further development, thanks for saying.
Good luck for next time.
the game's style is so awesome that at first I even thought a whole team had worked on it. looks very good, gameplay is cool too, but could't get to the end cause of my skill issue xd
Thank you!
Hehe, I specialize in technical art such as Post Processing, VFX, and Lighting then currently learning a bit of "Samurai Jack" simple sharp shapes that even I shocked I it resulted to this kind of art in a very crunch time.
the game is very good , the art beautiful but maybe to difficulte for someone was hasent have a ggod sleep...
Haha thanks bro!
I also find it difficult when playtested it on 2AM stuff.
Get some sleep already haha...
Damn this is good! Brings back so much fond memories from “One finger death punch”. What a good game. The adaptation with parry vibes with the banger music works super well. Congratz!
Yo thanks!
One Finger Death Punch mentioned.
Underrated game. You should win. Heck THIS WILL EASILY BE POPULAR AS A MOBILE GAME( comparable to peak games like shadow fight 2 and prime angry birds) since its more of an arcade type of a game. would like to see it in playstore. I just coudnt criticize anything about this, great game. ALSO, Ive read the other comments on the page, just dont be discourage man
Thank you man, I think I have idea where to put this game on the market in the future from your suggestion with mobile as one of them.
Shadow fight mentioned! I forgot to add this as reference too, played that game a lot in my childhood.
If you know One Finger That Punch, that's the original idea of this game.
No worries about other comments -- I like feedback tbh, even the most spiciest ones, especially those that make sense.
It actually encouraging me if the critics got the right point and giving support.
Thanks for your concern!
Saw Canadian Samurai in the Discord and knew I had to check it out! Full disclaimer, I could not beat the game, after several dozen tries I always died part-way through Wave 3. I might come back and try again, and will update my comment if I do and have anything new to say.
First of all, this is an absolute masterclass in efficient asset use. There are like four images combined between the player and all enemy types combined, and while it could've used a few more, the lighting and effects give it a really striking and cohesive minimalist style even as-is. The size and colour of the leaf makes for a great health bar given the style, and there are enough audiovisual cues to make the core gameplay viscerally satisfying in a way you don't usually see in jam games once I got the parry timing down.
The game is definitely difficult, which isn't a bad thing, but it probably could've afforded to be less punishing. You can die very quickly - mistiming a parry usually means getting hit by every enemy currently about to attack - and I think the game would've benefitted from the option to continue from the wave you died on.
There are a few other minor gripes, like being able to parry two enemies at once which completely throws off the groove, but besides that this is really well-made and I enjoyed it a lot!
Really appreciate this feedback, you validate most of my doubts.
This is like on of the best constructive feedback I receive so far.
Thanks for the compliment, I did learn and practice my tehnical art skills especially in Unity for a while to cover my mediocre organic artistic skills.
That's really nice of your idea to make it less punishing.
I know that my game is challenging and that's the direction I'm aiming for, but I want to balance it to avoid frustration for many players as possible -- the idea of resuming progress haven't thought of me, so really appreciate the idea.
Then about being able to parry multiple enemies at once from the same direction, I had high doubts on this actually after several playtest -- so practically I just let it be in the game and let others be the judge.
I want to confirm, you mean this multiple parry comes from same direction right? (not the simultaneous parry like left > right > left > right even though you get assisted by the hitstop.)
Glad you found it helpful! I'm always a little apprehensive whenever I leave longer comments that are more critical than the norm, but it's always nice to hear back when they're helpful.
Yes, by parrying multiple enemies, I mean in the same direction. As in, if I parry two enemies from the left and one from the right with a specific timing, the first parry takes out both enemies. From the cues I already know I need to do left > left > right, so when the correct sequence is suddenly left > right because the first parry was a double hit, it feels awkward.
No worries, I'm one of the dev that could handle critics -- accurately, I'm craving for feedback.
Especially if the feedback make sense.
Thanks!
Art style is great. Could not figure out the timing however hah!
Haha my friend who playtest it face the same challenge too.
I made a gameplay video where I finish the game, you can watch with the link below if you want to analyze it.
The secret of timing is the enemy attack visual effect.
Thank you for playing!
Love this game, the artstyle is very nice and the parries are very satisfying. Took a bit to figure out the timing but I started to get into the flow of the game after a few minutes. Also a nice use of the theme. Unfortunately I don't have enough time right now to beat the game (but I may come back to this tomorrow). Very nice work!
Thank you!!!
The debugging took a lot of time to make thy parry like this.
Kudos for you too!