Usually the militia is more than a match for the occasional orkish raid. As the towns blood mage your contribution tends to be limited to patching up any wounded (at a heavy discount, of course). This time is different. Everyone who can wield a pitchfork is being urged to fight. A gigantic army headed by a fearsome (and massive) leader is approaching. There is no way the militia is up to the task, and, alas, your spells and effects are too weak to tip the balance.
Unless... you were to crack open your book of Forbidden Magic. Powered by more than pricked fingers and vials of sheep's blood, these spells may just be the tool required to save us. Well, most of us. The townsfolk will understand as, if any of us are to see the dawn...
How many sacrifices must be made?
Technical details
Built with SpringRTS. A modern desktop PC supporting OpenGL 3.x+ is required to run the game. Linux users should install libsdl2.
Cast spells by draining life from nearby allies. - Hold Left Mouse: move - Hold Right Mouse: attack - 1 Transfusion: Heal yourself - 2 Heartburn: Cast a fireball - 3 Adrenaline: Increase the speed of yourself and nearby allies - 4 Migraine: Disable enemies - 5 Dialysis: Throw away your enemies
All spells require nearby allies to be used as source.
Cool game! It took me a while to figure out what all the skills did (and why they were named after diseases XD), but I got the hang of it! Couldn't beat the ork leader though, haha
Was very overwhelmed at the start and didn't really grasp what was going on or that the spells were based on sacrificing those near you. At the same time I wasn't sure of some of their utility. Healing was never a problem and I feel like killing was better than confusion or pushing away. Not sure what regular attacking is for. I'm not too good at the game though, I die around after 600 kills. Not really sure how to get better. Might have been better to narrow it down to fewer spells to just make the concept clearer and focused.
The production values were neat though, I like the scope of the town and the number of things going on, it's pretty impressive. The vision of the game is kind of there, kill masses of orks while you sacrifice masses nearby to do. It hits the theme pretty well.
Very well made. And made with Spring! I wish I could do anything with this engine, I do really like it. Never thought that anything like this could be done with it.
Really great experience and I'm now aware of Spring's existence, makes me want to try it out in a side project. Easily one of the most on theme games I've played yet. I thought you did a good job balancing out the spells and making the player think quickly about which one to use. I LOVE how the fireball killed your own units, so that spell had a built in sacrifice mechanic where you had to carefully choose the position of the fb to kill the least allies.
In addition to that, the map itself was designed in a way where you had to make decisions on which side you want to hold off at any given time. Since you used a single avatar to control rather than traditional RTS controls, you could only really save 1 side at a time so logistics and positioning became another factor to consider.
My general strategy was to (2) big groups of isolated enemies, (3) them if I had to run somewhere else, (4) if it was a super mixed group or the boss itself. (4) was a total boss killer so maybe that one should've had a lower duration effect on it. I tended to not do personal combat since the payout didn't see worth it so I didn't use (1) much, and I couldn't tell if (5)'s poison mechanic was in the game or not. I know it blew away orks but (4) took care of that scenario for me. Those ragdoll physics are excellently satisfying though...
In general if I had to summarize my thoughts, the game contains some real, organic sacrifice gameplay and the addition of the spell cost ups the ante on the formula. The game made me make a lot of quick decisions on the fly about how to spend my towns resources and it just felt great in general. Awesome work!
Nice game, a little bit chaotic from the beginning, trying to understand how to use in the right way our spell (maybe some target click to throw spell in this mess ^^). I love running around spaming attacks and spells, packing orks to burn them all. A bit unbalance but maybe if I try to save maximum of townfolk it will be harder :)
Sadly the performance is really lacking on my PC. But the concept is really cool and works quite well. You created a well made dreadful atmosphere! So I liked spending my time with your game, even if it lagged horribly. The UI could use some polishing, but it's functional, so that's all we could ever want for a Ludum Dare. Nice job!
Comments16
The production values were neat though, I like the scope of the town and the number of things going on, it's pretty impressive. The vision of the game is kind of there, kill masses of orks while you sacrifice masses nearby to do. It hits the theme pretty well.
I have rated your game, but all of my feedback was captured in the stream.
You can hear my comments in the archive at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/344422214
@ everyone: Thank you for all the feedback and constructive criticism. Means a lot!
In addition to that, the map itself was designed in a way where you had to make decisions on which side you want to hold off at any given time. Since you used a single avatar to control rather than traditional RTS controls, you could only really save 1 side at a time so logistics and positioning became another factor to consider.
My general strategy was to (2) big groups of isolated enemies, (3) them if I had to run somewhere else, (4) if it was a super mixed group or the boss itself. (4) was a total boss killer so maybe that one should've had a lower duration effect on it. I tended to not do personal combat since the payout didn't see worth it so I didn't use (1) much, and I couldn't tell if (5)'s poison mechanic was in the game or not. I know it blew away orks but (4) took care of that scenario for me. Those ragdoll physics are excellently satisfying though...
In general if I had to summarize my thoughts, the game contains some real, organic sacrifice gameplay and the addition of the spell cost ups the ante on the formula. The game made me make a lot of quick decisions on the fly about how to spend my towns resources and it just felt great in general. Awesome work!
Nice job!