Booking It

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.95
Fun★★★★★★★★★★4.08
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.67
Theme★★★★★★★★★★4.28
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★4.40
Audio★★★★★★★★★★4.15
Humor★★★★★★★★★★3.22
Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.98

:books: Summary:


The library is collapsing! Use your book smarts to get out of there before you'll get crushed to death!

:video_game: Controls:


- Arrow keys or WASD to move
- 1, 2 and 3 to select summons
- Mouse to spawn or despawn demons

:clapper: Credits:


Everything done from scratch in the span of three days.

- :notes: Music & Sfx (@Whirlguy)
- :desktop: Code & Design (@Whirlguy)
- :paintbrush: Art & Animation (@Whirlguy)

A huge thanks goes out to @Kylazaur for helping out whenever I got stuck with programming and SurrealEmber for creating the "Lost Century" palette on Loscpec!
Genres: survival

Comments21

Jesse J. Jones
Jesse J. Jones15 Apr 2024, 22:33
Really loved the style of this!! The difficulty spike felt very nice as well, and had a super cool mechanic! Really great entry dude, you should feel extremely proud! 😄
LDJam user 237261
LDJam user 23726115 Apr 2024, 22:45
Super cool art style, especially at the cutscene and I love the monster designs. I really didn't expect this kind of game looking at it but it works really well. Maybe it gets too stressful for me too fast, I would've love to have more casual minutes at the beginning!
Persepolis18 Apr 2024, 19:16
oh my god I deeply love the animation and art design!
Dan Allison
Dan Allison18 Apr 2024, 19:19
I know it's a jam game and I can't expect hours of content but I'm genuinely bummed out that it was over so quickly. I thought the summon mechanic was incredibly clever and only having one of each demon at a time made for some fun moments (Mostly me falling down because I resummoned what I was standing on haha). I love the art - both the cutscene and platformer art is great. Music was awesome as well, platforming felt really tight too. Overall, this is just a really, really solid entry in every way so huge well done.
MonroeLabs
MonroeLabs18 Apr 2024, 19:23
Waw, that was brilliantly exectuted, and by a solo dev! Thank you for this fun and inspiring experience :)
Jupiterintardis
Jupiterintardis18 Apr 2024, 19:25
The jumping function is not that sensitive.
Love the art style of pixel style and hand-painted lines!
tinykidtoo
tinykidtoo18 Apr 2024, 19:34
I like the short but sweet intro cutscene sets the mood really nicely. Had some trouble as soon as I got to level two. Not quite ready for such a difficulty increase. Part of it stemmed from the non grid placement, which makes overlapping placement tough. as both need space to spawn. But the game is nice and polished.
Oliver Richmeier18 Apr 2024, 20:01
Great entry all around! Really good art and music, the gameplay feels responsive and polished, very well executed.
fabula_rasa29 Apr 2024, 19:10
Great stuff! The concept is unique and well-implemented. Music is really cool, changing with the mood and urgency of gameplay. Graphics is very nice as well. There is a myriad of small cool things, like implementing controls inside the game world, that show attention to detail and polish.

Really impressive job, especially for a solo in such a short time. You should be super-proud :smile:
Nuanda79
Nuanda7929 Apr 2024, 19:32
I tried your game and I'll tell you what I think. The introduction is very nice, there's a true artistic touch. The game is clean, works well, and is cute in its mechanics. I passed both levels and managed to escape from the library. I'm glad to see it was developed with GameMaker, which is one of the first game engines I used myself to program video games. As I always say, in a game jam, when you manage to create a game with a beginning and an end and it's playable, you've already done great work. In your case, everything is combined with excellent execution and an intro that I really appreciated a lot. Congratulations.
JHax
JHax29 Apr 2024, 19:37
This feels really well polished! So impressive to get a cut-scene intro in. Feels like even though it's quite a short game the levels are well crafted and play around with how you can use all of the different summons effectively. The graphics are also very cool!
Skvader_41829 Apr 2024, 23:27
The art and polish in general is pretty damn good. The game in general was very fun and I had a blast, until it ended rather quickly. For a 3 day project, this is some good stuff.
LDJam user 301151
LDJam user 30115130 Apr 2024, 02:34
Great game, really liked the visuals!
Having a level to get used to the controls before starting it off with the time limit really helps making the game feel complete! great work!
LDJam user 371030
LDJam user 37103030 Apr 2024, 03:17
Wait what?! This was really good stuff! I really enjoyed quite a lot! There is some challenge, there is the potential for strategizing on using the different summon blocks and all else fits quite well : )) - music, the retro pixel art, giving me Shinobi vibes. And the music is awesome (what did you use?!?)

Congrats, mate!

A few tips: please please please - add a better capsule next time - the game is better than it ;) (will drive more people in instinctively). And also comment more on other's games - that's the real driver :D
The only technical complaint is that my character got stuck sometimes, but nevertheless, enjoyed the vibe : ))
Colisan
Colisan30 Apr 2024, 07:57
Good game, well done! Cinematics are really impressive!

If you want to improve the platforming feeling look for : coyote time, edge jump deflection, jump input buffering, ledge grabbing, etc. It's all doable in GM and will make a world of difference.

If feel like you could keep adding onto this game, it's a solid base :thumbsup:
orbitaldot
orbitaldot30 Apr 2024, 08:04
Great little game! The art is impressive, I really like the main character's design. My only complaints about the game are that the platforming is a little janky (the player animation seems to go crazy sometimes after landing), and it'd be nice to skip the little intro animation in the second level (I died a few times on my first attempt before getting the platforming, so it would've been nice to skip that animation). Other than those minor things, you have a solid little entry right here, good stuff :D the title is also funny & smart ;D
Whirlguy
Whirlguyauthor30 Apr 2024, 08:51
@jesse-j-jones thanks man super appreciate ya! If anyone is reading this, be sure to check out Jesse's game I found my brother's old cartridge!! If it doesn't win funniest game of the jam I don't know what will :laughing:

@save-sloth-studios if I had more time I would have loved to do a more platforming oriented level and include some enemies before actually moving into full on panic mode haha. Thanks for all the kind words, I'm really glad you enjoyed it!

@persepolis haha thanks so much, I'm glad you dig it!

@dan-allison Such praise, thank you! Yeah the gameplay is a bit short haha. Would have loved to do more expanding if I had more time but I'm really glad you liked the mechanics!

@monroelabs Thanks! Yeah I really wasn't sure if this idea was going to work out at all when I started working on this but I somehow pulled through! :D

@jupiterintardis haha yeah I see what you mean. The platforming could have used more work, it's definitely a bit janky. Getting stuck in the ceiling and all that :eyes:

@tinykidtoo thanks for the kind words! Yeah the increase in difficulty might have been a bit much and I agree it can be tricky sometimes to place demons in tight little corners. Glad to hear your enjoyed the experience :D
GoldyXEN
GoldyXEN30 Apr 2024, 19:27
This is a very great game with good audio and art. The girl is cute.

However there are some bugs when you jump into demons while they are begin summoned and you can get stuck in walls and die when you otherwise wouldn't have. Or maybe its just a wine issue idk.
Whirlguy
Whirlguyauthor30 Apr 2024, 23:25
@jhax Yeah during development I just really enjoyed the thought of players being able to get creative with the summons and come up with solutions of their own, how cool of you to notice! :D

@skvader-418 I'm really glad you had fun!
LDJam user 371030
LDJam user 3710301 May 2024, 06:22
@whirlguy The game "capsule" is the thumbnail image you see when browsing games ; )

If you open your own list of games and compare your last capsule to some others, you will see it's kind of poorer quality than some of your previous games. That's a trick professionals use when creating games (e.g. for Steam): very high quality capsule, even paying professionals in that case (just an example how important that is). It has subcontious powers basically. You can read some articles.

Believe me or not, I got 20 ratings very quickly ckly in the first week - I believe due to the capsule (yes, it's absurd).

Thanks for sharing the music tools! Really love the retro vibe of your game (love this kind of music).

GL!

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