Unstable Magic

by drsmey

co-authored: @noctiluca

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.93

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.90

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.81

Theme★★★★★★★★★★4.21

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★4.25

Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.78

Humor★★★★★★★★★★3.10

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.70

You play a Witch with a broken wand and uncontrollable bursts of magic!

Find a way to survive spooky waves of monsters, from evil bunnies to possessed duck mages, progress to harder levels, and use high concentrated spells!

Survive for as long as possible and set a new high score!

Controls:
Arrow Keys - Move
Z/C - Change Spell, Reverse Wand-Rotation
X/V - Super Ability (needs charge)!

Code+Sound by DrSmey, Art+Design by Noctiluca

Genres: action

Tools: PICO-8

Comments27

blobo4 Oct 2021, 19:19

I always love PICO-8 games! This one is definitely tough to master, the best I could do is 108 points. I really enjoyed the artwork! All the enemies were super adorable. I'm sure you could use the hourglass in the corner to estimate the angle of your next attack, and use that to properly aim, but all I could do is just goof around hoping a shot actually hits something, which was less frequent that you'd think. Great work all around!

loueee4 Oct 2021, 19:25

Super fun game! Trying to time the magic bursts as well as the super made for interesting strategy. Love the sfx and pixel art too

LDJam user 2514444 Oct 2021, 21:24

Wow, a pico8 game! Nice! I had a tough time tho lol. GG guys!

LouieJams4 Oct 2021, 22:01

Amazing idea, great art and really fun to play! Proud of you both! :D

saintheiser5 Oct 2021, 03:46

Good small game! Like how you implement game mechanic with two weapons and gigashoot. Visuals are good, yeah!

LDJam user 2431935 Oct 2021, 05:53

Shooting is really really unstable here. I've discovered a decent trick to counter that and managed to survive longer. The game could be better had the shooting been more stable.

Solar eclipse5 Oct 2021, 09:18

Really fun game, I especially enjoyed how I initially felt totally out of control, but soon started to learn how to control my attacks/movement indirectly by switching spells and timing the special. Really innovative design and fun to play around with!

The graphics and art fit the pico-8 aesthetic perfectly, and were colourful and attractive. The visual effects were super polished too. Evil rabbit enemies get a special mention, they were so cute hehe.

Got 246 as my highscore so far, lets see how much further I can get :)

Kitkii5 Oct 2021, 17:53

Very nice Pico8 game, really loved the designs of the sprites, a tad tricky to get used to the shooting since it felt like I was misfiring all over the place but once I practiced for a bit it was a very enjoyable experience especially with the super ability too.

Jega Studio5 Oct 2021, 20:56

Really cute game I love it. The sound effects were perfects,great job

dezom5 Oct 2021, 21:03

This is soooo polished! Very cool, the graphics are super smooth and pleasant to look at and the SFX feel like they are carefully caressing my eardrums. I also love how there is seemingly a pretty high skillcap to the game since you can change rotation. I thought the skeleton enemies were a little too difficult, but maybe I was just bad.

eldogg5 Oct 2021, 21:05

Really nice colors and cute pixels. The witch's wand did feel like it was out of control.

popertots5 Oct 2021, 21:12

With these jams its always hard to tell the difference between "poorly balanced" and "i just suck at games". This game is so appealing that i kept replaying and i actually got better over time, so it must have been a "me issue". 5/5 on all counts. definitely one of the best I've rated so far. Keep it up

Nillard6 Oct 2021, 00:12

The spell charge time changing really sells the "unstable" part.

Quite Good6 Oct 2021, 00:37

Very cute game! I like the colorful visuals and the game is very polished. The feedback when you shoot is well done too. I did think it was a bit too unstable and hard to control, but maybe I am just bad at games. Great work on this one!

Dedjo06 Oct 2021, 13:16

One of my favorite for the moment :D A bit hard but I love the gameplay and the art

Muros7 Oct 2021, 12:27

Nice game and very fun. I really liked the pixel art and retro sound. Interesting, though not overly simple gameplay.

fae.pdf8 Oct 2021, 17:38

One of my absolute favorite entries of this jam. Extremely charming, beautiful, wonderfully crafted. It all works like a charm. The mechanics mesh together perfectly. Love the balance between the two spells and the two special attack, the heal on level up, the difficulty curve, the way to change spells to gain partial aiming control, the little sand timer, the UI and graphic design, the use of color to communicate the different spells... Awesome work.

BadPiggy9 Oct 2021, 10:17

Nice idea for a mechanic and good visuals and audio. I felt that the game would have benefited from having a little more control over your aiming though. If the wand turned a little slower it would have been a little better. Still, good entry

Exmxpx9 Oct 2021, 12:22

This is polished and controls are tight, it's fun to play and the visuals and sound are on point. Great job.

minibobbo9 Oct 2021, 14:27

I really enjoyed the feeling of this game. I felt like I was always on the cusp of out of control but never quite there. I also naturally came across the wand wiggle method as the best way to get what control I could from the magic.

This would have benefited from a cool background music loop but I like the audio design that exists in the game. Graphics were neat and I like the particle effects that made up the magic spells.

MaggardJosh10 Oct 2021, 01:21

Very nice way to tie the theme into the mechanic. Also loved the special abilities. Had fun playing this entry!

LDJam user 23794510 Oct 2021, 18:54

Nice! Even if it's pico8 love the graphics, game feel and polish.

naali11 Oct 2021, 03:46

Very fun. I liked the audio and graphics a lot.

Ismael Rodriguez12 Oct 2021, 02:41

Super cute game, I love the artwork. I never got used to the random wand thing, not sure if there's a trick to it? I just kinda ran in circles kiting enemies and hoping it hit. It was fun to unleash the super attacks. Good job overall!

MFauzan13 Oct 2021, 02:15

fun game and the art is also good.

TwistedHawk17 Oct 2021, 18:13

This is a neat idea! Having to control the yoyo is very difficult! I think this is a great idea if you were to take a game and develop it further!

Mislav20 Oct 2021, 13:47

Wonderful game! From art to gameplay and SFX, everything fits so nicely into the theme and the level of polish for a game jam is amazing! This is how I imagine all wizard apprentices :)

Other games by @drsmey

★3.93

★3.98

★4.07