Spark Of Imagination!

by magnanix

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.48

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.40

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.20

Theme★★★★★★★★★★2.98

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★4.25

Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.68

Humor★★★★★★★★★★3.03

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.92

Introduction

Imagination, it is something we all have, but more and more in modern times we are losing touch with it. That spark is no longer there, it has been watered down and trodden on by all of the mass media consumption that runs rampant in this modern era. But still, those stories and worlds, those creatures and friends, all existed in the land of imagination. They still do, though our loss of belief in them corrodes their memory, their very image.

This was the basis of the idea for this game, pulled into the land of imagination by imagination itself, you play as the Champion - carrying the last vestiges of the spark of imagination. Your goal is simple: free those creations that have been tarnished, corrupted, and forgotten - free them, and Keep Imagination Alive. Yeah, that is how the theme ties into this work.

Instructions

The game is rather short, and simple - lets call those features.
- W/A/S/D = Move.
- SPACE = Roll.
- Left Click = Attack (up to a 3x combo).
- The icon at the bottom middle of your screen denotes your roll cooldown.
- The flame signifies your health/longevity :).

What led to the game being short?

A mixture of things, ranging from: Oversleeping, struggling with the theme, and a massive loss of motivation and time when the electricity to my apartment blew up (its still not fixed, wont be for days), and learning framework and data structure I'd never used before (Abstraction + Events, its really clean :o)... I also overscoped the project - as I always do. I spent a solid few hours planning the style of gameplay, the theming, and all of these extra functions/content pieces that never made it in.

What was planned and missed? Multiphase fights - Elf to Treant. More encounters (had planned 5 in total, Elf, Orc, Dwarf, Dragon, and Human), definitely overspecced there XD.

All in all though, I love how this came out. I love how my hand made animations (made multiple times due to them looking wrong) finally look nice and flow smoothly. I love how the retro style and shading brought out exactly what I wanted from the game.

*I hope you also enjoy this tiny game, and if you do - leave me a comment :D! I love those :).*

Comments19

tater-hater22 Apr 2020, 04:25

I loved the narration and art style a lot! was that some unity shader, or something custom? the retro feel throughout felt really uniform and it is a shame the game went unfinished, but you made lemons out of lemonade!

Magnanixauthor22 Apr 2020, 06:36

@tater-hater I hunted around for ages to find a solution that worked to bring the retro to life :). A lot of the implementations available are incompatible with Unity 2019, or the new render pipelines, had to try out a few from GitHub using no render pipeline and a post processing effect on the camera + materials to get the proper dithering, jitter, affine uvs, etc. I think it's called "Retro 3D" (?) - is doing the bulk of the lifting here :). So many solutions out there plain don't work with the latest unity, big timelosses getting the look right, but well worth it!

Klaus Peter22 Apr 2020, 11:10

Weirdest enemy animation ever but ok xD The retro style was really awesome and I liked the narration, too.

Bastienre422 Apr 2020, 11:10

Wow, the mood! Art style is amazing, congrats.

The Iddmeister22 Apr 2020, 11:22

I Love the Art Style and the Narration is pretty good too

matt272822 Apr 2020, 11:24

Wow this is one of the best games this jam! Even though you didn't complete it (your message was very humorous. You should rate some games to increase this games exposure! Great find with the retro shaders! It reminded me of n64 zelda! Only thing I wish you added was some elf audio feedback, but I realize you ran out of time.

Overall Excellent job!

Malai22 Apr 2020, 11:28

Really nice retro look! And the voice really fits into the era. Playing on a trackpad, attacking with left click is unfortunate.

Xenoxygene22 Apr 2020, 11:28

I loved the visuals and had a lot of fun fighting the boss! If you ever do more please warn me because this is my kind of game :smile:

gimblll22 Apr 2020, 11:36

I went into battle with bloodlust in my eyes. All ready to take down the enemy of the spark. But alas, my blade let me down by turning a corrupted highborn into just a plain old highborn. I will return my blade to the smith and sue him for false advertising.

LasagnaAndroid22 Apr 2020, 11:37

I think it was a bit hard to play, had a hard time moving (it felt too fast?) and hitting the first boss was a bit slow, as far as I understood I could only damage it while it was in that "stun" state with flames around it, which made the fight waaay too long. Cool idea and loved the effect though!

Ducky22 Apr 2020, 11:47

Kinda fun game. Reminded of the N64 aesthetic (which is a good thing imo). Good job!
Also 10 out of 10 for the narrator voice!

Mravec22 Apr 2020, 14:15

Super cool! Loved the artstyle. I can imagine the narration being done during the battle, not as cutscenes. They felt a bit too long, but I didn't want to skip them. Also subtitles would be great.

Nachodlv27 Apr 2020, 02:57

I really liked the art, it was very nostalgic! The voice acting was nice too. The second cutscene I couldn't skip it. Overall a really fun game to play.

Rojola28 Apr 2020, 14:13

I did not know what I played but I played it through anyway! I enjoyed the graphics and mood, very dreamy. Good job with this one, maybe could be developed into something more?

fatPenguin28 Apr 2020, 21:35

Nice Voiceovers and idea :) Sadly, I didn't really understand if what I doing was right - I ended up dodging attacks and rolling to her asap to hit her, and then collected the flames - a few indicators that I was actually doing something would have been nice, but I know how gamejams can be ^^
good job on finishing your game all alone! :)

lespaul5930 Apr 2020, 09:12

this gave me so hard retro vibes i love it. it was like in my childhood playing N64 or PS1. And the mood had a bit of Dark Souls Vibe. Also loved the Corruption health bar. I would love to play more levels. i hope you keep on working on this game. thanks for the entry :) PS: Great voice acting!

Lestat30 Apr 2020, 10:15

Nostalgias kicks in. Nice graphics. Good job!

Kate9030 Apr 2020, 15:48

I think my mouse is too sensitive for this. Turning to properly face my opponent takes ages! Beside that, I enjoyed narrative, graphic is nicelyu done too! Congrats!

Fififox9 May 2020, 02:29

Love the spoken narrative! The game itself was a bit hard, the attacks didn't really seem to work, and it was a bit hard to move around correctly (oversensitive to mouse movement + unexpected automatic rotation of the character). But the graphics & animations were nice (quite unexpected for an LD game, it was a pleasant surprise!), and again I loved the whole backstory and things like the game over screen text. Good job, nice entry overall!

Other games by @magnanix

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