Epidemic. There are not enough meds for people. Young Doctor tired to lose his patients and he decided to seek for Black Magic to raise them from the dead. It’s not that simple. Now the Undeads live in a Limbo and they are bend to its will. That’s why it’s really hard to bring Undeads on the surface. Young Doctor need a huge source of energy. Luckily the energy could be found in Limbo…!
Help: Lead your Undead from a Limbo to the Portal, till you run out of Mana!
Unless you control your Undead quickly, it starts to act insane, doing what it wants. Such actions don’t cost Mana, but they are unpredictable. Think quick and control your Undead with Mana points! Each order costs 2 Mana points. Move by mouse double click to your goal. Build the whole path (not for one cell only) to save enough mana. E = Loot
There are enemies. DESTROY them with the WARRIOR Undead. = SPACE button
There are fake traps. There are fake chests. FIND them with the MAGE Undead. = SPACE button
If your Mana is over, you lose.
In this game switching between classes is provided and necessary for successful walkthrough. Please try both mage and warrior. MAGE can’t fight, while defeating enemies is the only way to reach next level.
Found it a bit confusing too, but I think I kinda got the hang of it after a while. I like the idea of having to use different characters and swapping between them.
The idea behind this game is interesting, with all the lore and backstory. The sound design is cool. But this game can seem very confusing, especially the movement mechanic. So i think the main game loop could use a bit of polish. Keep it up :smile: :thumbsup:
It took a couple tries to pick up but I got it in the end. One thing that was a bit frustrating was that when I moved onto an energy it didn't count immediately and I'd die. Nice idea for mechanics and story :)
Thanks for comments! We had a difficult idea for concept and spent a lot of time to cut mechanics for ludum. Then try to count balance correctly. That's why in different places it's confusing :D
Geaphics are good, except from the circles and stars (movement), they are a little blurry/pixellated. I quite like puzzle games. So just keep programming and get faster!
Graphics are pretty, but I couldn't understand the rules and mecanics. I found that I can move my zombie, but the cost is too high, and the random movement are quite frustrating. I stoped at the second level I confess..
@karreg Thanks for playing! You need to build the whole path and do not move just one cell than cost will be okay. Maybe its confusing a bit. We will update the rules!
First of all, great job. The sprites are adorable. However,I felt that the movement system is a bit confusing to be honest and could probably use some explanation. And I guess it is feature that the characters move on their own if you wait to long? I felt that it added to my confusion, especially since movement required mana as well. But I think the game shows some potential and would look stunning with a few more animations added to e.g. the character movements.
The game could've used a tutorial, was a bit confusing to start with and I didn't really manage to figure out how it worked. I would've loved to have completed the game since I love all kinds of magical/medieval thingies, and even the mage only lit my interest. So if you want to, you can do some explaining and I would gladly complete the whole game, since it seems really interesting.
The character sprites were funky and good looking, and so were the enemies. The background tile texture could've possibly used some upgrading, but it's obviously fine, as in the end of the days its a game jam :) But anyways it's a nice entry, hope to see you guys continue the game-making!
@raffe Hello! Thank you so much for such a detailed feedback! In this game switching between classes is provided and necessary for successful walkthrough. Our team has already affirmed the mistake: we will add a “switch class” button. Please try both mage and warrior. MAGE can’t fight, while defeating enemies is the only way to reach next level. Now an imbalance takes place: it’s possible to reach finish by WARRIOR, but impossible by MAGE. We keep working on that! If you have any other questions, please ask
After a few rounds of dying, I figured out ways in each level to minimize orders to make sure I didnt waste mana. Liked the art and ambient music. I liked the puzzliness of it. Mechanics need a little refinement. Overall, it was still entertaining! Good job!
Exotic gameplay, I see red buttons and click them all before understand what I was doing. I replayed and had some smiles playing it. Just need an intro to learn how to play. :monkey: :robot:
I loved the mechanics, I think it is really good, but I was a bit confused the first time, seems like mana consumes itself really fast. I really loved the art too. Good job!
The art style is really good, it has this polished feel to it.
The controls are a little bit confusing, and might have needed a bit of explanation for players to be able to follow along, maybe a tutorial with very little failure chance so that players can also get the small kick that they are doing it correctly before continuing. I do understand that there's little time in game jams and we usually leave tutorials out of it (I include myself in that group), so maybe tweaking difficulty curve could've made up for the lack of a tutorial? :thinking:
In terms of gameplay, swapping the heroes to solve the puzzles is an interesting mechanic that could be quite fruitful. This means that there will be some thinking required by the player, which crashes with the fact that the characters very quickly start to act insane. I do like this insanity thing as a mechanic, but it could maybe be nerfed a little bit to allow extra thinking time (specially on early levels, when the player is understanding the rules of the world).
Oh, and I need to mention that the ambience and the sounds work together very well too! It creates this feel of puzzle-tension that can have quite a lot of potential. Good entry, and good job guys!
Since the image for the Warrior showed E for LOOT and SPACE for DESTROY, and there were no enemies but two mana icons in the map, I pressed E in order to pick up that mana.
Then a "LOOT" word appeared, but then "DOWN" appeared and he did whatever he wanted even if that LOOT order used some of my mana.
When I clicked the mana in the map, and this route showed:
But the undead will do whatever he wants instead of that route, so then what's the point on drawing the route? It feels like I have to wait for minutes and minutes until he randomly gets to the end. I feel like I'm missing something, can you please spoonfeed me on how to play this game?
Several minutes later he got the mana but still didn't walk to the door:
@carlix Hi there! Sorry for that, we haven’t figure out that kind of problems with moving... We should have had a “mouse double click to move” somewhere in tutorial.
Look, there is two types of orders to your Undead: MOVING and ACTIONS. Move by mouse double click. It goes as 1 order. You don’t have to press E to loot manaballs. The Undead picks them automatically by stepping on them. But next levels have CHESTS, and you have to walk to them and press E to LOOT. The same for enemies: press SPACE when the enemy is on the nearby cell. Looting is also taken as 1 order. Destroying is also 1 order.
Every order takes 2 manapoints! On the first level you can only double click the Portal. It will go as 1 order, you will both pick mana and finish level only by 2 manapoints. That’s the point (:
Words appearing are only representing what your charachter is already doing. They aren’t hints or like that, it’s just information. We needed that for test runs, and then decided to let it be.
P.S. We are from Russia, I only learn to speak english, and “spoonfeed” is my favorite word since now :DD
I feel stupid for not realizing I was meant to double click :dizzy_face:
Yay, I manage to beat it. I found out that it was best playing each level with the mage to find out which ones were false traps and decide the best route, then playing it all with the warrior to beat the game.
I saw that after you die you can change to the other character, but it would be useful if you could change it when you wanted. In my first run I manage to beat the game ignoring chests, and for the second time I looted them to check what was inside, and I lost because too many actions.
It was a cool game of optimizing actions, I can see it working great as a phone game. And yeah "spoonfeeding" is a hilarious word, hahaha.
Thanks for your game and sorry for getting confused with the controls.
@carlix thank you for playing and feedback!! We definetely will add “swap hero”-button, that’s the very first thing we realized after getting very first players.
Very nice looking game! The mechanics were interesting and took a few tries to get the hang of, some in-game instructions or perhaps a tiny tutorial level would have been helpful, but overall a really good game. Well done!
Good job on the graphics and the concept! It was cool how the randomness added a time element to an otherwise turn-based game.
Maybe, there could be some hints or puzzles to solve to know where the traps are? It feels a bit random currently, and I ended up just memorizing the levels
The game overall was good. Graphics and audio were nice (the moving sound reminds me of the Plants vs Zombies eating sound). We never really considered a story for our game, but games that do add a good mood, like this one! It took a while to understand the double-click and I still don't understand how to get past the hazards in the third level. It was reasonably fun to play, apart from some of my confusion. Overall, good game and yes, you should definitely keep going! It'll be a good game!
It's a shame that you didn't have more time to polish and balance your game. It's beautiful with a promising concept but sadly in the current state it's a pain to play.
I don't like this random movement mechanic in its current state. There are times where it allows me to spare resources by just waiting for my character to go by itself to the place I want. Sadly it means that I have to wait and this is no fun. You never want a situation where the optimal option is the boring one. The best example for this is your first level. You could win by doing nothing thus sparing 2 mana. But then your players will have to wait a long time at the begging of each level. On the contrary if you order your creature to move near a trap and it then decide to jump inside by itself it's also a big loss of time. I'm not sure if there is really a way to tweak the mechanic of random movement to make it fun sadly. Maybe you'll have a better idea than me but in the current state I feel like the best would be to cut it and make a simple puzzle game. Or go all in with both characters present at the same time and having the one not controlled move randomly. But then you'll have to make traps less punishing otherwise it would get annoying.
Also in terms of controls. A lot of game have move order on the right click and it's the first thing I tried. It might be good to playtest with other players but I think that switching for right click might be the good call.
All in all it's an interesting concept with beautiful character designs. Well done !
Hi that game looked really sweet and I liked the premise (Puzzle Game that looks like a dungeon crawler) however I was really confused at first, but I understand that gamejam games are never finished ^^ Good job on making this game :) You should work on it to make the most out of it, as others stated this is very promising!
Классная концепция, я впечатлен! Мне нравится нарратив, который вам удалось создать в рамках темы конкурса, правда, весь сюжет был представлен на странице игры, а хотелось бы, чтобы и в игре были его отголоски)) Что касается геймплея, то некоторые вещи были весьма плохо понятны, как, например, смена персонажа или обыск. Мне кажется, что было бы классно, если бы механики вводились постепенно - это одновременно и обучение, и погружение в игру. Насчет графики могу сказать, что по скриншотам она потрясающая, но эти сжатые маркеры перемещения производят негативное впечатление. Впрочем, не катастрофично и все равно могу сказать, что вы проделали большую работу, молодцы! P.S. Мой проект тоже про некроманта, и мне бы очень хотелось получить фидбек от вас =)
@krakadushka спасибо за фидбэк! Мы сейчас полишим билд, чтобы он выглядел приличнее и был похож на рабочий прототип х) Нарратив просто не успели впилить, так как концепт оказался сложноватым, и мы большую часть времени потратили на кор. Поиграем! Спасибо!
Comments46
I have the same opinion as @benjamintausen and @jasonsumm1.
The game is interesting but confusing.
I like graphism, ambiance and sound design. And the concept is original.
For us it is first ludum. Ran out of time :smile:
I found that I can move my zombie, but the cost is too high, and the random movement are quite frustrating. I stoped at the second level I confess..
> And I guess it is feature that the characters move on their own if you wait to long?
You are right! We wanted to present a concept that you control stupid units that have quite low attention and couldn't focus on thing too long.
The character sprites were funky and good looking, and so were the enemies. The background tile texture could've possibly used some upgrading, but it's obviously fine, as in the end of the days its a game jam :) But anyways it's a nice entry, hope to see you guys continue the game-making!
Please try both mage and warrior.
MAGE can’t fight, while defeating enemies is the only way to reach next level.
Now an imbalance takes place: it’s possible to reach finish by WARRIOR, but impossible by MAGE. We keep working on that! If you have any other questions, please ask
thank you for playing!
The controls are a little bit confusing, and might have needed a bit of explanation for players to be able to follow along, maybe a tutorial with very little failure chance so that players can also get the small kick that they are doing it correctly before continuing. I do understand that there's little time in game jams and we usually leave tutorials out of it (I include myself in that group), so maybe tweaking difficulty curve could've made up for the lack of a tutorial? :thinking:
In terms of gameplay, swapping the heroes to solve the puzzles is an interesting mechanic that could be quite fruitful. This means that there will be some thinking required by the player, which crashes with the fact that the characters very quickly start to act insane. I do like this insanity thing as a mechanic, but it could maybe be nerfed a little bit to allow extra thinking time (specially on early levels, when the player is understanding the rules of the world).
Oh, and I need to mention that the ambience and the sounds work together very well too! It creates this feel of puzzle-tension that can have quite a lot of potential. Good entry, and good job guys!
Then a "LOOT" word appeared, but then "DOWN" appeared and he did whatever he wanted even if that LOOT order used some of my mana.
When I clicked the mana in the map, and this route showed:
But the undead will do whatever he wants instead of that route, so then what's the point on drawing the route? It feels like I have to wait for minutes and minutes until he randomly gets to the end.
I feel like I'm missing something, can you please spoonfeed me on how to play this game?
Several minutes later he got the mana but still didn't walk to the door:
Look, there is two types of orders to your Undead: MOVING and ACTIONS.
Move by mouse double click. It goes as 1 order.
You don’t have to press E to loot manaballs. The Undead picks them automatically by stepping on them. But next levels have CHESTS, and you have to walk to them and press E to LOOT. The same for enemies: press SPACE when the enemy is on the nearby cell.
Looting is also taken as 1 order. Destroying is also 1 order.
Every order takes 2 manapoints! On the first level you can only double click the Portal. It will go as 1 order, you will both pick mana and finish level only by 2 manapoints. That’s the point (:
Words appearing are only representing what your charachter is already doing. They aren’t hints or like that, it’s just information. We needed that for test runs, and then decided to let it be.
P.S. We are from Russia, I only learn to speak english, and “spoonfeed” is my favorite word since now :DD
Yay, I manage to beat it. I found out that it was best playing each level with the mage to find out which ones were false traps and decide the best route, then playing it all with the warrior to beat the game.
I saw that after you die you can change to the other character, but it would be useful if you could change it when you wanted.
In my first run I manage to beat the game ignoring chests, and for the second time I looted them to check what was inside, and I lost because too many actions.
It was a cool game of optimizing actions, I can see it working great as a phone game.
And yeah "spoonfeeding" is a hilarious word, hahaha.
Thanks for your game and sorry for getting confused with the controls.
Maybe, there could be some hints or puzzles to solve to know where the traps are? It feels a bit random currently, and I ended up just memorizing the levels
I don't like this random movement mechanic in its current state. There are times where it allows me to spare resources by just waiting for my character to go by itself to the place I want. Sadly it means that I have to wait and this is no fun. You never want a situation where the optimal option is the boring one. The best example for this is your first level. You could win by doing nothing thus sparing 2 mana. But then your players will have to wait a long time at the begging of each level. On the contrary if you order your creature to move near a trap and it then decide to jump inside by itself it's also a big loss of time.
I'm not sure if there is really a way to tweak the mechanic of random movement to make it fun sadly. Maybe you'll have a better idea than me but in the current state I feel like the best would be to cut it and make a simple puzzle game. Or go all in with both characters present at the same time and having the one not controlled move randomly. But then you'll have to make traps less punishing otherwise it would get annoying.
Also in terms of controls. A lot of game have move order on the right click and it's the first thing I tried. It might be good to playtest with other players but I think that switching for right click might be the good call.
All in all it's an interesting concept with beautiful character designs. Well done !
Good job on making this game :) You should work on it to make the most out of it, as others stated this is very promising!