Awesome entry! I like your pixel art and the animations are really cool.

This is really awesome! If this doesn't become a full release, I think I'll die a little inside!

I like your pixel art.

This is pretty damn amazing, love the art style, love the feel of the weapon, definitely a very very solid game here. Amazing work!

Love the art, great job!

An amazingly executed fun game. Hit me right in the nolstagia. I noticed a small bug which I kept moving into the small goomba-like enemies great particles and not damaging me. Other than that; I'd love to see it fully expanded.

Excellent. Saw this being updated on the ld homepage, was not disappointed. Great, love me a shield.

Weeee fun.

Wish it had a better learning curve tho :(
Getting too mad when i only advance 10 pixels per run.

Great graphics which isn't a surprise anymore. Love the amount of character you can put in such small sprites. The shield mechanic was well done and like that I felt like I was playing as Captain America. Hoping to see more levels.

Lovely art 'n effects, good bit of polish. Got kind of stuck when one of the flying enemies hit me and just sort've wobbled about, but like the Cap 'Merica mechanic!

This is so far the best pixel art I encountered playing this compo. Really well made. The animations also feel really polished

Overall solid game. Pretty hard, but that's why I like it so much. Also, great graphics and audio as well. Awesome job!

This is the best game I've seen this LD. It's very fun and it looks beautiful. i love the shield mechanic, and finding out that the shield actually protects you was nifty. Overall really really great

The shield throwing and retrieving mechanic is brilliant. I would love to see a full game of this.

Looking really sweet, as usual! Took me a while to get used to the gameplay, but after that, it was a lot of fun.

The boss fight took very long and I had to retry several times until I noticed there's a glitch in the game that makes it a bit easier (muahaha).

Very good entry!

Really great art and gameplay. The sound didn't work for me on linux but I will probably download the windows version and give it a try.

Love the pixel art in the game and really cool weapon feel. I personally would add some lives instead of death on contact.

Very good! Keep it up!

The boss took a little too long to kill for my liking, but everything else was great.

Great art, great controls and great enemy variety. Very impressed.

Really lovely; 100% bitslap style.

Really nice use of colour to create a bit of depth. Also adorable. :)

A fantastic game as always!

Really, really good. It's easy to believe there's a much larger game there. I would be really excited to see a later release of this.

The pixel art is amazing. The innovation of the shield mechanics is amazing as well~ (And also exploitable when spammed) I certainly had some fun during the run~

This is awesome

Very nice little platformer, but sadly very painfull to play on a QWERTZ keyboard :(

The art is sweet and the shield throw is pretty decent. One hit death sucks and death that cuts to the menu instantly instead of after an animation or a delay is even worse since it looks like the enemy hasn't hit me yet and then I am on the menu.

Awesome game, without any doubt the best I've played so far in the compo category! Love the game feel, the concept is well-executed and your pixel art is gorgeous ! Excellent job overall bitslap !

Wow, really nice and funny game, good job i really like it.
Have just one life is a bit frustating, becouse i die all the time!!

Great consistent style, looked very nice. The shield mechanic reminded me of Athena in Borderlands, it was well implemented and satisfying

Keep working on this! Great idea and great gameplay!

I'd buy it. 10/10.

Looking good. Reminds to me megaman =)
But game too hard, because of perma-dead.

Great graphics. Hardcore gameplay. One hit to die mechanic really tested my patience but on the other hand, I'd waste a ton of coins to this game if it was in an arcade cabinet. The base mechanic is simple and efficient. Solid entry.

Great entry, fantastic sound and visuals. I especially like the simple but quality animations. Gives me a very old school feel from the action to the level design. Although I wish the player had life so you didn't die in one hit.

Loving this game very much! The controls aren't very keyboard friendly. I kept forgetting which was the jump and which was the throw button but it is very fun to play and addicting. Really nice graphics and audio.

The game is really hard, I lost my shield a lot! I could've used some save points but otherwise the game is fun!

Very well polished in every aspect, but it's so unforgiving D:

That was pretty epic. IT took me a while to get the hang of pulling the shield back to kill difficult enemies (including the boss.

If this were a longer game, I'd suggest dialing back the difficulty initially. Those enemies who float down from above were REALLY frustrating. :D

I loved this game, though. Great job!

Beautiful graphics, as always!
The game is hard and unforgiving... But you got a lot of material for a compo entry!

Awesome game man, had a lot of fun playing. Art style is great!

Excellent on all accounts.
I want more of it.
You're very talented.

Nice colours. I can tell you are a real palette fetishist! I like the visual / audio feedback on things. I'm a big fan of white flashing objects. The gameplay is maybe a bit uninspired.

Very well done! Love the style and everything else :D

That was incredible buddy! A compo entry as well! I would happily play a full game of that. Good luck!

I'm confused about the mac port. Can you explain what's going on with this?
“Shieldmaiden.app” is damaged and can’t be opened. You should move it to the Trash.

What security settings are you suggesting that we should lower?

Great graphics and a lot of fun.

Fun! Really difficult, but I imagine that was intentional.

Super fun, super pretty, super sounding!

One major critique: the deaths are super jarring! Need a death frame and a fade to black to smooth that out a little. Great work! :)

definitely amazing game, will be waiting for the full release ;)

Intense game. Very well designed from the start to the end. Great job!!!

It is the best entry so far. A bit frustrating given the single-hit kill, but still great. Will you do a full version of it?? I DEMAND!

The art and gameplay are both absolutely fantastic. The sudden death is an annoyance though (being thrown straight to the title when you touch an enemy). I see that you already noted that in the post-mortem, so if you keep building this further I guess that would be one of the first things to polish.

Damnnnn, this is hard :P

Reminds me a lot of Cave Story. Amazing graphics as usual, and the audio/music is pretty good too.

I liked the Rom-hack style difficulty, but the things which your shield protects from seem random and inconsistent

Really feels like an arcade game from 80s - with a learning curve of the arcade games from 80s ;D

Excellent game! I really thought I was playing a NES game :)

Awesome. Really fun. The shield mechanic is great.

Awesome mechanic. Love the boomerang effect.

Fantastic game, the pixel art is top notch. I have no idea how you got it so good in such a short space of time.

The controls are really good and I like the shield mechanic you have. Dragged the shield back and took out two enemies at once, very satisfying. I played on the keyboard but an old NES style usb controller would have been nice to use, I will try out the box controller later. Its tough on the keyboard and one hit kill is tough.

Really well done on a great game, one of the downloads I will be keeping :D

* * * * * you got my 5 stars

Radicool!

Well done! eeerily similar to an idea i've had in my head for quite a long time, I love LD.

This was hard but very cool. Thanks for this game ;)

very beautiful and well crafted game! I really like the feel of it and the sound effects were spot on ^_^

Best game I've seen so far! If you made more levels I would pay for this lol! The art, audio, theme, everything was awesome. Only thing is I don't really know how to damage the double crow-head-type enemy, dunno if that's a bug or not, but it seemed like sometimes I hit him and it did nothing and sometimes it killed him. And also dunno if this is a bug or a feature, but if you shoot your shield under the boss, then pull it back before it hits the floor, it damages the boss multiple times. Such creative enemies and the mechanics were awesome, sometimes took a bit long to pull back the shield after sending it off into the distance lol, but was cool imagining what it was doing to any possible enemies ahead.

Reminds me of some sweet-ass Rygar Diskarmor! I love your art and the music is great but that jump sound gets old after a bit. The game is hard and requires good reflexes and concentration... and that's a good thing! Rad entry. Good work!

Awesome game. Great pixel art.

Feels great with an XBox controller. Wish I could get that kind of control feel in my stuff! :) Awesome work.

Nice platformer! You totally nailed the "megaman-like" style of the game in everything: art, sound and gameplay.

I think this would've also been a nice entry on that "you only get one" themed LD that happened! I like the art and animations, but the sound...oh boy...it's so good! :D

Wished there was a lifebar or something like Sonic's rings, though. :P

Love it! As someone who also made a platformer/Metroidvania I was on the lookout for others and your pixel art grabbed my attention. Shield mechanic was really fun, game was pretty difficult though - not managed to beat it as of yet! Overall, top notch :)

Just loved the gameplay! Animations and level design are awesome! I don't really think that a shield is an unconventional weapon, but nevertheless, awesome game!

Excellent game! The art and music are gorgeous, and the game is very fun to play. It's quite challenging, but I like that - it reminds me of Megaman :)

Cool game. Nice art and music, and solid controls too. Might have been better with a life bar or at least more checkpoints. Good stuff!

It's both pretty to look at and fun to play. Awesome!

Excellent game! Loved it a lot

Awesome game.

Wicked game! Nice mechanic. Simple, consistent graphics. Great little backing melody. Insta-death = HARDCORE :D

Great job man!

artwork and music are great - i need to work on the controls when i play it again - nice job

sexy pixel times nice fun happy shield sim good work hot job top dog

Captain America!!

Great feel, great art, woo!

Awesome!

I really wish it supported joystick, but even with the D-pad the controls feel great. Top notch quality overall. Good work.

Just beautiful!

Excellent job ! The shield mechanism is really good idea for the theme.
The game is difficult but once you understand the shield protects you and you don't need to spam it, the game is a little easier. :)

Super well made entry with great graphics! I included it in part 6 of my Ludum Dare 32 compilation video series, if you would like to take a look :) https://youtu.be/Q11RJey0954

Virus scanner Avast keeps rejecting the rar file on Windows. I'll try it on other OSs when I have the time

I have scanned the file, it is fine. Avast is a bit too eager in your case.

Wow, this was great! I had a tough time with it at first, but it proved a really cool mechanic that was thoroughly engaging and fun. I'm not sure how well it'd scale up to a larger game, but for a short game like this entry it was more or less perfect.

Pssst! You are in todays Ludum Dare to Believe! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysM6emYb6ZM

Nice and tight =) sort of wish there was a health bar since I got to the boss and died.

Really really good entry. Short, challenging and complete. I liked how responsive controls and how nice graphics are. Innovation part was a bit missing but still.

This game is way too difficult. I'd like to say that the boss fight was amazing but I really didn't get that far and I don't think I want to anymore. U no checkpoints ?! Otherwise, really good mechanic, nice pixel art and cool music.

This is a compo entry? How did you do the art? How did you do the music? It's really really polished for a solo 48 hour effort. I'm blown away by it.

It's so well done for such a short time it makes me want to give up game design because I could never make something this polished all by myself in 48 hours.

Well done

Joe. Art about 2 hours music 2 then the rest :)

Really great entry! I enjoyed this a lot! Everything is fantastic, including the art, music, controls, mechanics, and design. I think one of my favorite things about this is that the shield actually protects you and you are left defenseless when you attack. It's such a nice mechanic with good risk/reward. I have a couple of small criticisms but they pale in comparison what is good about this game. Those criticisms are:

1) It's hard to tell what actually kills those birds. The first couple took a ton of hits to kill and the last one I killed took just one hit. I'm not sure what exactly killed them.

2) It could have used some sort of transition or better indicator when you died. The sudden jump to a black screen was a bit jarring.

3) The music has a bit of silence at the end of the clip before it loops again. It was pretty noticeable to me.

Like I said though, those were incredibly minor complaints and what is great about this entry far outweighs those. Awesome work!

Great pixel art! Cool idea to use a shield as a weapon. The game is very polished, though I thought taking you right to the title on death was a bit abrupt. I'd love to see more.

Wonderful entry, marred only by the fact the game is short, the story somewhat inconclusive, music was too repetitive, the gameover screen is a bit sloppy, and the boss is so frustratingly health tanky.

Of course, I'm only pointing out the downsides because I feel that's more helpful, it's still an incredible entry.

Great art, really solid gameplay. Well done!

Loved it. would like to see some more levels for this.

Really solid entry! I love that retro vibe!

Art and audio are really good, and so is the concept and the controls. I'm not sure why but I can't seem to get into the gameplay itself.
Still, awesome game.

The shield mechanic es very well done, nice art and feel. The controller did not worked for me.

The windows version is undownloadable :(

Want mooooooooore! I was definitely hoping to find a doublejump powerup somewhere. :P