LdDB
Ludum Dare #55compo

Blood of the Altar

by hot-noggin-studios
Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.88
Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.96
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.29
Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.80
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★4.32
Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.25
Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.80
Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.79
`contains pixelated depictions of blood`

PLAY IT ON ITCH.IO

THE ALTAR HUNGERS

*You are a child of the altar, bound to it by heart.
Foes dare to overtake it and rip it apart.
When foes are defeated and corpses remain,
take their bones to the altar for the aid you obtain.
With the force of your kicks you swear to defend,
and protect the altar until the very end.*


Blood of the Altar is an arena fighter made in 48 hours for the Ludum Dare 55 Compo.
It uses the theme "summoning" as the main mechanic, by having the player sacrifice enemies to summon assistance in combat.

All of the assets were made by me within the time limit, including:

- Pixel art graphics in PixelOrama
- Retro sound effects in BFXR
- Particle effects using Godot
- My very messy GitHub repo

I did a single "Typo" bugfix, which is allowed in the rules, after submission time. I added only this line of code, to fix a game-breaking bug, which I overlooked because of tiredness and rushing.
Tags: #arcade, #godot, #pixel art
Genres: fighting
Tools: Bfxr, Godot

Comments29

Aarimous
Aarimous15 Apr 2024, 02:18
Nice work, the are you made here is incredible. I did have some issue with how loud the sound effects are. Might be a good idea to have a way to lower the volume in game and or a way to prevent the sounds from "peaking" when the same sound effect are played. That being said, this is a great entry and you should be very proud of what you made. I hope you had a fun time.
nickCherns
nickCherns15 Apr 2024, 02:22
I really enjoyed your visuals and how smooth the gameplay felt. I did feel like the audio was a little loud but none the less felt like a cool little game to play and the stakes felt high!
ViniFlores
ViniFlores15 Apr 2024, 12:53
Fun little survival game, amazing graphics, gameplay loops satisfying although a bit short
LDJam user 383212
LDJam user 38321215 Apr 2024, 18:24
Short but very engaging gameplay loop. The particle effects and polish make the game feel very smooth to play!
tomi-vahamaki15 Apr 2024, 23:09
Really nice visuals and sound effects. It feels like polished and satisfying. Great job!
goodwincek
goodwincek16 Apr 2024, 02:10
The variety of summoning spells was really cool and unique. I had a blast playing. Survived till 0:52 in my best run, so definitely a short and sweet game. There was definitely some loudness factor with all the sounds overlapping, but I dig the retro sound FX. Sometimes adding some low or high passes to sounds can separate them better when they'll be overlapping a bunch, or just soften them overall.

Love the pixel art and all the crazy particle effects!! The kicking felt really good how it slows down a bit during the kick. Nice gameplay loop. Great job!
LDJam user 36805116 Apr 2024, 10:31
Really cool game. My suggestion would be to have a combo system when you destroyed multiple enemies in a time frame. Gg
Conrad Etherton16 Apr 2024, 15:01
Really awesome visuals and gameplay! I could definitely see myself playing a lot of this with just a bit of updating and expanding!
onqdll
onqdll16 Apr 2024, 15:28
Played for 15 minutes without even noticing. Sliding after a kick is super satisfying! I wish altar abilities had just a little bit more predictability. Maybe the direction from which you drop bones could control the spell direction or something of that kind.
LDJam user 141701
LDJam user 14170116 Apr 2024, 15:58
Really nice! I got to ~52 seconds I think.

It took me a bit to realize that the player didn't have a healthbar so much as a 'two-hits-in-1-second-death-effect'. I think this is communicated well enough by the players opacity, but I missed it on the first two plays.

The level of polish is really good! I think if I would tweak one thing, it would be some way for me to decide what effects the bones would create.
Hot Noggin Studios
Hot Noggin Studiosauthor16 Apr 2024, 16:06
@sirlich There is a healthbar, though, it's shown by the level of destruction on the altar, but I can see how you'd miss that. I've got a little idea for how to give the player more control of the altar for the post-jam version.
torcado
torcado16 Apr 2024, 17:46
oh man this is super fun!!! really engaging gameplay, i got in a perfect flow state of moving and dodging. nice and challenging.
the art is really nice, everything is clear and easy to pick up. no complaints here, nice entry!
Gulcar16 Apr 2024, 17:53
Great game! Played it almost 10 times before getting to about 50s. Sometimes its very hard to not get hit. Also nice art!
Harmadillo16 Apr 2024, 18:17
Nice game. Visuals and sound effects set the mood of the game nicely. My best run was 47 seconds.
The_BM
The_BM16 Apr 2024, 19:07
Noice game. Quite some polish. A little bit on the hard side but fun.
LDJam user 384191
LDJam user 38419116 Apr 2024, 20:28
Really fun, didn't see the time pass while playing! The running animation made me laugh, and the overall look of the game is really nice and juicy. Nice to see controller support on a web game!
Dywanix
Dywanix16 Apr 2024, 20:41
Interesting idea. I really liked artstyle and music.
PieRo_PBeS_studio
PieRo_PBeS_studio16 Apr 2024, 22:12
the pixel art and animations are great... the whole thing is deliciously stupid. Maybe we should lower the difficulty curve which climbs quite quickly but hey it's a point of view. I'm curious about what happens next.
HolySparks
HolySparks16 Apr 2024, 22:26
It gets pretty frantic pretty fast! I like it!
CourtneyLapin16 Apr 2024, 22:54
Had a lot of fun with this! Everything is very cohesive and well made. My best run was 1:53. Great work!
LDJam user 352490
LDJam user 35249017 Apr 2024, 02:11
This was fun, and super stylish. It was a bit hard to predict exactly where I'd end up after a kick, so I usually ended up holding the opposite direction as soon as I started kicking. Not sure if that was the intended style of play. The Scarecrow tutorial at the beginning was perfect.
dardasaba17 Apr 2024, 08:55
Loved this, especially impressive since it's for compo! The graphics were really good with the red particles over the background (great color combo!) and the gameplay was fun! (even if pretty hard xD)
LDJam user 147386
LDJam user 14738617 Apr 2024, 12:57
Some of the sfx are a little loud, but this is an awesome, simple and clean game. Nice work!
I know it's not part of the judging criteria, but I like the theme on the itch page!
congusbongus
congusbongus17 Apr 2024, 13:16
Gameplay was smooth and juicy, nice simple fun. It's a cool take on the theme!
Hot Noggin Studios
Hot Noggin Studiosauthor18 Apr 2024, 15:22
@sudocoffee Yep, kicking itself is sort of a risk-reward attack, and sliding backwards is something I do a lot too! The timing is generous, but I think it works out nicely.
Roroto Sic
Roroto Sic20 Apr 2024, 13:09
very good aesthetic ! (pixel art / color palette) !
a good challenge !
here is my hight score :
CemKaanU25 Apr 2024, 08:26
Gameplay was great but having more control over summoning could be great and the audio was a little bit off with the effects and volumes.
LDJam user 386211
LDJam user 3862113 May 2024, 23:51
Such a polished little game, the art is 10/10 but my main issue was getting coordinated enough with the controls, I think it would have been nice to have some actions on the mouse as well!
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