Alain's Sacrifice is a 5 to 10 minutes game that I have made for LudumDare 43, being the theme: "Sacrifices must be made". This is my first LD and I am quite happy with the result.
Years ago, the kingdom of Ralidon was conquered by the Erradi - dark, cruel creatures coming from the underworld. Now you - Alain Grayrock - were years studying wizardry to become a mage and defeat the Erradi. After all these years, you discovered that only one thing can both destroy the Erradi and save Ralidon, the Gems of Life. Hence you went to look for the Gems and found five of them But when you found the gems, something terrible happened. You developed a link with them. If you give them up you will lose your life Nevertheless, you decide to sacrifice yourself, give up your life in order to save the kingdom of Ralidon
Move with W and D, jump with space and use left click to shoot. Enjoy!
The game is well-made even if it is a bit tiring to mash the mouse. There is of course room of improvement but I can't help to be admirative of the result.
Nice game:) The theme integration is quite interesting and, you know, It's really difficult to play without mouse. And It's quite cool that you have even written the story:)
I really liked it! The story is perfect for the theme and the rising difficulty throughout the levels is well-made. Since the spikes disappear when you fall on them, a next level could involve falling on spikes in order to help the villagers to cross to the other side, while protecting them from the enemies. I'm not a big fan with the zoom-in zoom-out when you shoot.
The rising difficulty is neat. Controls are awful! Description says WD, click, no mention of space to jump. So I kept running into spikes before trying space on a whim. Try: W= jump, ad move space shoot, and support arrow keys.
Why should i to use MOUSE to shoot, if there's no aiming. Why should i to shoot, if task is "avoid the enemies". Give me the nice gun, shooting on Z, Shift or Enter, lol.
Cool Game! Fun and challenging. I liked how you introduced the enemy types slowly to keep it fresh in the later levels. I played until the end and enjoyed myself. Thanks for Creating!
Some feedback: - The traps kinda blends with the enviroment, so its hard to see. Try to make it a little more visible. - The enemies hit box looks a little too big - Don't think the music really fits the atmosphere (this is pretty subjective tho)
This was a fun game I liked the story but the combat felt slow, I think that you could improve by adding platform and allowing the player to cast magic the the direction of the mouse. Overall a great game!
+ I loved how the songs fit in the time of the level. + I noticed that the enemies are *moonwalking* when you are on their backs. + The enemies could have more animations and sound effects. + The bullet of the shooter is really hard to see. + I think the landscape could be different for each level.
Good job, I would love to see your next Ludum Dare game. See you there!
Good job publishing for the jam. We said "that's the some music" when the game first booted up. The aesthetic is consistent all the way around with the retro look.
I couldn't tell that the spikes on the floor hurt you at first. And I'm still not sure how to handle the monster with the shield besides jumping over him. But maybe that's what you're supposed to do?
I can tell it's still a work in progress so that's all my comments for now. Again, good work.
The control scheme is a bit funky, and your instructions fail to mention space for jumps. That cost me a few tries :gem:
Gameplay is not varied. Best way to play is to move slowly and spam the "fire" button. :smirk:
The game would communicate better if the enemies had a "being hit" animation. That way, I would've known that I just to hit the shield guy several times. Just like @johnsensei I tried jumping over them until I realised I just had to hit them more often. Is it possible at all to jump over a character without getting hit?
But the character can be moved with precision, the graphics are actually pretty good, and no weird glitches. A proper game with an actual prologue and an epilogue :v:
I like the visuals of the whole games sans the playable character. I also loved the sounds, they reminded me of some of my earlier games. I think it's a great entry considering the restrictions for a compo entry. Good job.
I think I would have liked if simply spamming the fireball button was punished somehow. For example, if your attacks could kill the people you were saving at the end of the level.
Congrats on finishing your first LD! Here is my feedback:
I appreciate the small details such as the particle effects and lighting effects from the fireballs. The concept of sacrificing your health at the end of each level and proceeding with less health is also an interesting idea. Thanks for balancing out the later stages to use less health instead of ramping up the difficulty!
Some improvements could be made as far as making the spikes easier to distinguish from the background. I died a couple of times because I couldn't see them at first. A bolder outline on the spikes could help. Instead of letting the player jump at the end of a level, play the same breaking animation and keep the player stationary. Looked a little goofy when the hero walked up to the villagers and jumped in front of them.
All in all, not bad for a first Ludum Dare! Take a break, you earned it.
The intro music conducts feeling of a strange unfamiliar world but also gets annoying very fast maybe if it was more subtle it wouldn't be so annoying. The story is the best part nice that sacrifice plays some game mechanic role making game more difficult with each sacrifice. Bad parts fighting mechanic feels stiff on the first level I didn't even notice there are some land obstacles that take my life. Few words about graphics "inconsistent pixel size are annoying me" end quote. That graphic could be bearable if it was consistent.
The game is very simple with the design of increasing difficulty through decreasing health and more enemies. The control scheme is somewhat questionable and so were the confusing/missing instructions. Quotes were a nice touch to the whole story of the game but so were those custom sound effects.
I really enjoyed this game. It was nice and simple, and I loved how it gets harder because your sacrifice is helping others. You lose lives to help them, and I just think that's really nice.
nice game! The only thing I didn't like was the background being so similar in color to the foreground. My first exposure to the game, i thought the fire was bad and was jumping over them! Lol
A simple game, but difficulty scales nicely and there's a good fit to the theme, although as a game mechanic, I'd rather be able to choose when to make the sacrifices (which could be achievable by scaling up enemies strength).
Nice! Wasn't clear from the beginning which key actually made you jump, or that you can shoot with the mouse, or that you had to clear out the enemies in the stage to be able to sacrifice a gem at the end, but reading some comments on the itch page cleared it up. Enemy types were okay, seemed balanced enough, though the strategy for defeating all of them was basically the same (go outside the range where they can hit you, shoot until they're dead). Nice work overall!
Great first entry! Initially I found it very hard to distinguish which parts of the level were traps -- the (very impressive) fire graphics look dangerous, which threw me off. Changing the opening text to say "spike traps" instead of "traps" might help.
Beat it! Nice game, I like the art style, and the effect of zoom in when shooting although sometimes can be a little bit annoying. It was a fun play, congrats on the entry!
A fun little game with some nice audio and graphics! Great that you added story elements to it too! Well done! Controls are a little tricky with using the mouse, keys and spacebar at the same time.
Nice game with charming art. I beat the game by spamming the fire button, so maybe limited ammo would help discourage that behaviour. Controls were good, I only wished that I could shoot backwards while running away. I like how you've incorporated the theme into the game. Good work!
That was a really nice game you made. Big up for the visual presentation. The fire looked good, the particles were done to perfection and the designs of the enemies were pretty solid. I would say that working on your animations skill could really up your game (mainly the walk-cycle), the music was fitting, maybe a bit too simple but it definitely added to the general mood. The concept of the life-gems is fit really nicely around the game and I liked the wholesome conclusion. Otherwise I would say more work on some of the gameplay mechanic would have gone a long way and maybe adding a bit of environmental variety to the game (some ditches or little hills maybe). I quite liked this one, thanks for making it :)
Good game I liked it. Only one stuff to says, since enemies don't come from behind. you should place the player at 1/3 of the screen and not the center to have more time to see enemies. Or perhaps you made it intentionally to increase the tension of what is coming next (for the first time you play the level) ?
Great game, well thought. I like atmosphere. There was one glitch at end of first level - i was unable to "sacrifice" my life, was jumping on space... After a while it worked...
Music is kinda strange, but it does not get in the way so it's fine.
PS. Guy with sword, guy with shield and... guy with machinegun? Looks little bit off but doesn't bother me too much :)
Well done on the theme, great graphics. The music is not exactly fitting and the gameplay is a bit repetetive, but its always great to see a game with different levels and a story! Good job!
Interesting game, overall worked out great, the only bugg-ish thing I cna find is that the characters have no backward walking animation, which is kinda hilirous to see walking actually.
Great job! The levels were fairly repetitive but I enjoyed the increase in difficulty as the life gems were slowly sacrificed. There was plenty of graphics which is great to see for such a short time frame! I've found keeping things simpler (limited colour palette and smaller image resolution) really go a long way in speeding up the creation and keeps everything a bit more consistent. The style of the flames is fantastic, more of that.
Polished, graphics were good for what they were, music was good (If it was a bit longer game the music would get a bit more annoying, but for how short the game is it wasnt annoying.) gameplay wasnt that unique but it was fun and simple
I got bugged at first level when I died and character couldn't stop as he was just walking constantly so I had to restart game. After that it worked perfectly. Nice idea, cute music!
I enjoyed the quotes you placed between levels, I think they really helped to set the mood! The music did get a little repetitive but I appreciate that you had a second track for the final level!
The levels could use a little more variation but overall I enjoyed your interpretation of the theme.
Cute game, nice fire graphics :D I also liked the erratic music, although it gets repetitive after a while. Feedback: the mechanics encourage the player to shoot as much as possible, all the time. Combined with the fact that you use a mouse click for this rather than a key makes this quite cumbersome.
Here are my two cents: good theme and story, but the combat system is a bit slow (sometimes I had to mash the LMB a few times to shoot a fireball), traps blend in with the environment (tbh, at first I thought they were pickups, lol). Didn't like the audio, the sfx are muffled and the background music is a bit annoying after a while. If the combat system was a bit smoother, I would have liked it more
I liked the particles and sound effects, and the shake effect when you shoot. It was quite a short game so I managed to beat it :). I think the music needs some work and perhaps there could be other ways of dealing with the enemies than just smashing the mouse button. Good job!
Very cool game, the story is pretty interesting and I had fun playing. One thing that really bugged me though is that I can't shoot towards my mouse position and instead he shoots depending on direction facing by keyboard. It was a little hard to get used to but that's just me :smile: Good Luck!
Your game was played on my stream ( https://www.twitch.tv/ursagames/videos ) on the third day of Ludum Dare streams. Thank you for sharing your game with us! You can find the timestamp of when your game was played here: https://goo.gl/N2rkr8
Wow, these flames in background looks so cool! Moreover, I love your effect during shooting (sharp camera move?, I think). And of course concept of decreasing number of lives with levels is brilliant! Good job! :)
Great submission for your first LD. I liked the sound effects and the retro vibe in your game. Shooting fireballs is fun and I liked that I had to backtrack sometimes to avoid taking dmg. Controls were unintuitive, W for jump and S & D for movement + something like space/ctrl for shooting would be better. Keep up the good work! :)
I lovely small game. I liked how you increased the difficulty by removing health from the player per level. It took me some time to understand you can destroy projectiles and you don't have to jump over them. And the the traps are not the fire in the background and using magic doesn't cost life.
Firing with the mouse is not my playstyle. Maybe add an alternative key like ctrl or w to fire.
And story question: Do you just have to beat this strange metal creatures? Or do you have to beat them and restore the fertile land. By using the life crystals to let tree and plants grow? If so, why not first beat the metal creatures and then give the crystals to the farmer families? Or do they need them ASAP to produce food and the levels are several months apart? Maybe I am overthinking this.
One Concept I liked: * I liked the professionality of the UI screens in the game, the stories the text told, and the font of the text.
One Concept I disliked: * I disliked how the game had pretty basic gameplay which did not really challenge the player that much except for the unreasonable sensitivity of the controls and the camouflaged, almost hidden, spikes.
I liked the feedback when you shoot the enemies sound and explosion effects very satisfying. I didnt have any issues with the spikes, I basically just edged my way to progress the screen and then shoot the enemies, not much else, the problem there is no depth to the gameplay. The sounds were good but that music track at the end its a cacophony. Good take on the theme.
I just finished the game, and while the concept is straightforward, it is thematically adequate. I found that the balance was good too, as you made a game that was possible to complete while remaining challenging.
Pros : - Straightforward concept and control scheme allows for immediate fun - Nice way to blend the theme in with action platformer mechanic - Great mood, brought by good graphics and audio, especially during the introduction
Cons : - Firing with mouse mashing get a little tiring - It would have been nice to be able to shoot forward while moving backwards.
Made it till the end. All in all about 5 minutes. There was something wrong with the keys. Game said it was supposed to be A and W for walking, when it was A and D for me. Enemies wouldn't turn around if you jump them over. Glad that you made it until the end. Making games all alone is just a pure magic to me. Good luck!
The intro moved way too fast, and I couldn't really read it. I would have appreciated the option to move to the next text option at my own will. There was also quite a few polish problems, things as simple as the sound effect for destroying projectiles sounding similar to your own damage sound. This was a bit confusing, as I often wasn't sure whether I had been damaged or the projectile had been destroyed. I also initially thought that something was going on with the shield dudes, since the projectiles directly hit the shield, so I assumed that they were invulnerable from the front. My guess was that I would need to go behind them to kill them. I think that 'they have more health' would have been better demonstrated by armour, because the projectile directly hitting the shield indicates to me that the attack was completely ineffective.
The graphics were a bit basic, but as a compo game, it is acceptable. The gameplay was a bit too easy, and didn't really provide much challenge. I think the game would have been more fun if you did need to attack the shield dude from behind, since this would add the challenge of needing to navigate over them and attack from behind. The general strategies required to complete the game weren't very complex, and were rather just spamming shoot. Otherwise though, this is a good game. Keep developing! :thumbsup:
Quite standard side scrolling game. I kept trying to jump over the enemies like in so many similar games. Hitboxes kind of prevent this and I got damaged almost every time. Enemies won't flip their sprite when moving right, which is little bit weird. You could just multiply by minus one (*-1) the sprites x-scale to achieve flip.
SFX is ok quality. I also like to use mouth as it's fast and versatile. Music is, well.. There is music, which is better than no music at all. :D
I found shooting the fireball satisfying.
Theme is utilized somewhat loosely. The player loses one heart when moving to the next level, making things harder.
Game is an okay entry, but needs some fixing and polishing. Keep it up!
A nice simple side-scrolling shooter - although the gameplay was a bit on the easier side. I basically just shot constantly and moved forward and never really had much trouble with any enemies once I figured out the main premise.
For a compo entry, this is nice. You actually created something with an ending, and even though the graphics are somewhat simple, they are at least coherent within the context of the game.
Just a tip - you can still shoot things and move around once you've hit the farmer people/kingdom citizens as the screen blackens. I'm not sure if that's problematic, but you should probably disable that :)
the gameplay and the graphics make me think of old atari ST2600 games. The background of your entry seems very philosophical. In any case your game works.
When I jumped over the attacker and landed between fires, I felt skillful. If you continue to develop this, when I continued to be pursued by the attackers, and kept landing on fires and restarting, I felt discouraged. Maybe I missed an action other than left, right, and jump.
Decent game. I liked it but it's too short. You could make the levels longer, add more enemies, unlockable skills and increase difficulty with each level. :)
Comments113
There is of course room of improvement but I can't help to be admirative of the result.
Since the spikes disappear when you fall on them, a next level could involve falling on spikes in order to help the villagers to cross to the other side, while protecting them from the enemies.
I'm not a big fan with the zoom-in zoom-out when you shoot.
Try: W= jump, ad move space shoot, and support arrow keys.
Why should i to shoot, if task is "avoid the enemies".
Give me the nice gun, shooting on Z, Shift or Enter, lol.
Some feedback:
- The traps kinda blends with the enviroment, so its hard to see. Try to make it a little more visible.
- The enemies hit box looks a little too big
- Don't think the music really fits the atmosphere (this is pretty subjective tho)
Good job!
+ I noticed that the enemies are *moonwalking* when you are on their backs.
+ The enemies could have more animations and sound effects.
+ The bullet of the shooter is really hard to see.
+ I think the landscape could be different for each level.
Good job, I would love to see your next Ludum Dare game. See you there!
I couldn't tell that the spikes on the floor hurt you at first. And I'm still not sure how to handle the monster with the shield besides jumping over him. But maybe that's what you're supposed to do?
I can tell it's still a work in progress so that's all my comments for now. Again, good work.
Gameplay is not varied. Best way to play is to move slowly and spam the "fire" button. :smirk:
The game would communicate better if the enemies had a "being hit" animation. That way, I would've known that I just to hit the shield guy several times. Just like @johnsensei I tried jumping over them until I realised I just had to hit them more often. Is it possible at all to jump over a character without getting hit?
But the character can be moved with precision, the graphics are actually pretty good, and no weird glitches. A proper game with an actual prologue and an epilogue :v:
I think I would have liked if simply spamming the fireball button was punished somehow. For example, if your attacks could kill the people you were saving at the end of the level.
I appreciate the small details such as the particle effects and lighting effects from the fireballs. The concept of sacrificing your health at the end of each level and proceeding with less health is also an interesting idea. Thanks for balancing out the later stages to use less health instead of ramping up the difficulty!
Some improvements could be made as far as making the spikes easier to distinguish from the background. I died a couple of times because I couldn't see them at first. A bolder outline on the spikes could help. Instead of letting the player jump at the end of a level, play the same breaking animation and keep the player stationary. Looked a little goofy when the hero walked up to the villagers and jumped in front of them.
All in all, not bad for a first Ludum Dare! Take a break, you earned it.
Bad parts fighting mechanic feels stiff on the first level I didn't even notice there are some land obstacles that take my life. Few words about graphics "inconsistent pixel size are annoying me" end quote. That graphic could be bearable if it was consistent.
The control scheme is somewhat questionable and so were the confusing/missing instructions.
Quotes were a nice touch to the whole story of the game but so were those custom sound effects.
The only thing I didn't like was the background being so similar in color to the foreground.
My first exposure to the game, i thought the fire was bad and was jumping over them! Lol
It was a fun play, congrats on the entry!
Only one stuff to says, since enemies don't come from behind. you should place the player at 1/3 of the screen and not the center to have more time to see enemies.
Or perhaps you made it intentionally to increase the tension of what is coming next (for the first time you play the level) ?
There was one glitch at end of first level - i was unable to "sacrifice" my life, was jumping on space... After a while it worked...
Music is kinda strange, but it does not get in the way so it's fine.
PS. Guy with sword, guy with shield and... guy with machinegun? Looks little bit off but doesn't bother me too much :)
PS2. Awesome flames animation!
Good job!
I love all the Juicy effects haha
Good job !
Love the art though :D
I'm using azerty keyboard and I have to press A and D to move (not W) ;)
@dragonator Thanks for your feedback
The levels could use a little more variation but overall I enjoyed your interpretation of the theme.
Good job!
Feedback: the mechanics encourage the player to shoot as much as possible, all the time. Combined with the fact that you use a mouse click for this rather than a key makes this quite cumbersome.
I liked it!
Keep it on, congrats on your first ludum and see you in the next one! ;)
Firing with the mouse is not my playstyle. Maybe add an alternative key like ctrl or w to fire.
And story question: Do you just have to beat this strange metal creatures? Or do you have to beat them and restore the fertile land. By using the life crystals to let tree and plants grow? If so, why not first beat the metal creatures and then give the crystals to the farmer families? Or do they need them ASAP to produce food and the levels are several months apart? Maybe I am overthinking this.
* I liked the professionality of the UI screens in the game, the stories the text told, and the font of the text.
One Concept I disliked:
* I disliked how the game had pretty basic gameplay which did not really challenge the player that much except for the unreasonable sensitivity of the controls and the camouflaged, almost hidden, spikes.
Pros :
- Straightforward concept and control scheme allows for immediate fun
- Nice way to blend the theme in with action platformer mechanic
- Great mood, brought by good graphics and audio, especially during the introduction
Cons :
- Firing with mouse mashing get a little tiring
- It would have been nice to be able to shoot forward while moving backwards.
All in all, great job !
There was something wrong with the keys. Game said it was supposed to be A and W for walking, when it was A and D for me.
Enemies wouldn't turn around if you jump them over.
Glad that you made it until the end. Making games all alone is just a pure magic to me.
Good luck!
The graphics were a bit basic, but as a compo game, it is acceptable. The gameplay was a bit too easy, and didn't really provide much challenge. I think the game would have been more fun if you did need to attack the shield dude from behind, since this would add the challenge of needing to navigate over them and attack from behind. The general strategies required to complete the game weren't very complex, and were rather just spamming shoot. Otherwise though, this is a good game. Keep developing! :thumbsup:
SFX is ok quality. I also like to use mouth as it's fast and versatile. Music is, well.. There is music, which is better than no music at all. :D
I found shooting the fireball satisfying.
Theme is utilized somewhat loosely. The player loses one heart when moving to the next level, making things harder.
Game is an okay entry, but needs some fixing and polishing. Keep it up!
For a compo entry, this is nice. You actually created something with an ending, and even though the graphics are somewhat simple, they are at least coherent within the context of the game.
Just a tip - you can still shoot things and move around once you've hit the farmer people/kingdom citizens as the screen blackens. I'm not sure if that's problematic, but you should probably disable that :)