Dshniidawl Woods

by kalbshack

co-authored: @eric-shaun

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.44

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.20

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.25

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.74

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★4.01

Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.47

Humor★★★★★★★★★★3.20

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.79

LD56_title.png

Demons have corrupted the Magical and luscious Forest inhabited by Magical Creatures called "Dshniidawl".
As Village Elder you lead your Dshniidawls to fight the Demons and bring back peace to your beloved Woods.

Only the bravest of the bravest Dshniidawls came to fight the cause!

Bomb Saplings will sacrifice them self to fight the Demons, but everything is part of the cycle of nature!

Boxer Saplings are tough and pack a punch! they will try to inflict as much pain to the horrible Demons before returning as well into water and fertile soil, provide once more for the Forest!

You need to fight the Evil back to its Origin and Destroy them all, to banish them and bring peace and harmony once more t Dshniidawls Woods!

-----HOW TO PLAY----

Commentary:
We sadly didn't manage to bring all features into the game that we had planned and preapared :(
We had to cut 2 more types of Dshniidawl Saplings as well as 3 additional types of Demons + Boss Demon.
Same for the Portals that need to be closed by the Players on each of the 5 Maps (as can be seen on the Menu Title).

EDIT 2:
The Game is in sorta playable

Comments40

SteD7 Oct 2024, 23:32

This game has really interesting concept. I like the art style of the game and also please finish the game and put it on itch.io!

JEMH2K7 Oct 2024, 23:43

boom boom bam :smile:

Matt Swieboda8 Oct 2024, 00:16

what great sound fx, love the little guys!

at first I didn't realize I had to summon guys, but once I figured it out, it was great!

I imagine I'm searching for the portal you mentioned, but since it sounds like it didn't make it, I guess I'm just trying to defeat the evil souls and survive? Regardless, amazing work, awesome art work and sounds, as well as programming the AI for the enemies and little minions!

U1198 Oct 2024, 00:23

I love the vibe the game has! I would totally play a finished version with all the features you weren't able to add

Kalbshackauthor8 Oct 2024, 00:23

Thanks @matt-swieboda, yeah unfortunately we couldn't quite make it in time, therefore you have to be content with just hunting the demons. But we get better from event to event. Hopefully next time we got our 3rd man on board again. To split some tasks.

Matt Swieboda8 Oct 2024, 00:24

I was very content :) your team did an amazing job!

ms_malloc8 Oct 2024, 01:37

Loved the sound effects! Also the trees as summoning status was a great touch :)

Avery_Dong8 Oct 2024, 06:09

Graphics are very great!

emmagsmith8 Oct 2024, 07:29

It is impossible to convey how much I love this little guys. Your nature theming is very cute and the pixel art is GORGEOUS!! Unfortunately I was unable to keep up at the rate the demons spawned, but I had fun nonetheless. Great job!

Lucy Z8 Oct 2024, 15:34

I like the vibe of this game. Graphics are great and the pixel style is very attractive.

ccollider8 Oct 2024, 15:44

Wow this is gorgeous - I especially love the diablo-style tree health and mana!

LDJam user 2456488 Oct 2024, 15:44

I love the vibe of the game. The graphics are amazing. I think the sounds of 10 of those evil souls stomping was a little loud, but other than that i really liked the sounds in the game.

Liked the game a lot all around.

lerkD8 Oct 2024, 15:47

I love the color palette, graphics are cool!

Glassar8 Oct 2024, 15:52

That was a really cute litle game. And I really wan't to praise the creative health and mana "bars"

jscommander8 Oct 2024, 15:52

Just finished playing your game and wanted to share my thoughts. The pixel art is awesome, and I'm really digging the dark vibes. That forest is seriously creepy - it reminds me of Children of Morta in a cool way. The fire bomb effects look super neat, and I love how you did the health and mana as trees. That's a clever touch!

It took me a bit to figure out how to summon helpers, so I ended up kiting monsters around the map for a while. Also, I was a little confused about buying stuff in the shop at first. I kept tapping the cards until I realized I needed to drag them.

One small thing - sometimes the fire bomb explosions don't seem to hit the monsters, which can be a bummer. But overall, I had a great time playing.

sketchbookbug8 Oct 2024, 16:09

The thing I like most is the mood! You did a really good job delivering the feeling of having demons behind you wanting to kill you! And the sound effects are great.

It's the very first game I played in this jam which had some humor in it ;)

r0bin8 Oct 2024, 19:42

Awesome! I like the atmosphere of the game.

pastel-breakfast8 Oct 2024, 20:48

I love the vibe a lot, and it's fun to spawn the little guys, but it seems like the level progression incomplete or bugged, because no enemies appear after the first level for me.

The cyan/magenta/yellow color palette is super cool.

Thanks for sharing

Chocolat-Endive8 Oct 2024, 21:54

*Heyooo ~ boom boom bam*

These little sound FX are perfect. The shop UI is a little difficult to understand, and I think the third level as some weird collision. My character kept getting stuck in place where I was not seeing any obstacles.

Love running in the wood and summoning little helpers whith their cute voices.

Pimping9 Oct 2024, 05:43

nice audio and graphics. Definitely boom boom bam

superpaltus9 Oct 2024, 10:40

Nice graphics and cute little minion guys that fit the theme well. I had some trouble with collisions, as my character sometimes got stuck and couldn't move. Also, I couldn't figure out how the upgrade shop works. Overall, a fun game that needs a bit of polishing to become great!

PS: loved the way you did health and mana trees. Looks awesome!

mushlord9 Oct 2024, 10:41

I really liked the game for its gameplay and graphics. the style is just wonderful!

Kalbshackauthor9 Oct 2024, 11:34

@superpaltus yeah we accidentally left the original map inside the level layer. Therefore the old collisions are still present additionally to the ones from the new map. Sadly we didn't realized that before submitting.

mymdz9 Oct 2024, 11:41

Visual stuff looks great!

Mibi889 Oct 2024, 12:47

A really fun game, with amazing graphics, but I didn't quite understood what block the player, so maybe you could add some contrast.

Kalbshackauthor9 Oct 2024, 14:16

@mibi88 thx. Like i mentioned before we left some unintentional collision layers in there which we didn't recognized until the deadline.

LDJam user 1746389 Oct 2024, 18:16

Fun game, I loved the "Hello!!!" and "Booboobam" sound the cute creatures make when you summon them 👍
Bravo!

Angrybeard9 Oct 2024, 18:17

very atmospheric artstyle, the representation of live and mana as trees was a nice touch.

Iwant_Pizza9 Oct 2024, 21:59

Very fun, i like all of this

Mibi8810 Oct 2024, 08:18

> @mibi88 thx. Like i mentioned before we left some unintentional collision layers in there which we didn’t recognized until the deadline.

Oh ok, but couldn't you fix it afterwards?

> Certain Bug Fixes are allowed. You can’t add new features, but if something broke or didn’t work correctly as you were finishing up, you can fix this after the deadline. You are asked to highlight the changes you make in your submission (a short change log). You probably wont get a 2nd chance with some players, but at least it wont be a problem for future players.

In https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/rules.

After all it's still an amazing game, Gj!

Kalbshackauthor10 Oct 2024, 09:56

@mibi88 Oh I somehow thought that would only apply to the initial additional hour. Of course it's an easy fix, we already did on our local version. But I will upload it then with a changelog. Thx

Mibi8810 Oct 2024, 12:05

Cool, it will make the game way more enjoyable.

greymouth10 Oct 2024, 18:44

Love the art and the little noises of summoning the little guys! It's a little challenging to understand if they are working right since you cant really control who they are targeting but was a fun challenge! Keep jamming!

Gerrit10 Oct 2024, 18:45

Nice graphics and sfx, would have loved a sound track to the game! :)

RoBOT10 Oct 2024, 18:47

Wow looks amazing and the sfx are very funny. Unfortunately not a lot to do and the demons are not very smart. The Trees representing the mana and health are really cool idea.

bjornstenlund10 Oct 2024, 18:54

Nice pixel art and very good animations! It's good that you took time creating feedback when stuff happening. So like feedback on the character when I get hit and on the enemies when they attack, sound effect etc. I also really like the small animation when opening pause menu!

As I see has been discussed already I think that the collisions of especially the small trees are a little bit in the way. If you could have had small boxes at the start of the trunk I think it would have been really nice (and then sort draw order with y value). I think the keys for summoning was a bit unfortunate, typically I think its best to use WASD + mouse when possible - so maybe left click, right click instead of 1 and 2. I also couldn't figure out how to summon without getting hit (to kite them), I think it would be better to have a faster character and then have the monsters coming from every direction to balance it.

Anyways, good job!

Wendy22210 Oct 2024, 21:35

I love the little guy though I didn't realize I needed to spawn them at the very beginning. The SFX is hilarious, boo boo bam, lol, fun game to play!

Sasha2013 Oct 2024, 21:20

I’m drawn in by the clever theme interpretation and the gorgeous aesthetic of the game. God Job!