A Precious Arrow by Benjamin
*Goal*
You heard of a temple ruins where the mythical Simetra Bow is hidden...
*Keyboard*
- Arrow Key to move your character.
- Hold Space Key to aim with your bow.
- Release Space Key to shoot your only arrow.
- Hold Down Key to crouch.
- Press Space while crouching to drop your arrow.
You heard of a temple ruins where the mythical Simetra Bow is hidden...
*Keyboard*
- Arrow Key to move your character.
- Hold Space Key to aim with your bow.
- Release Space Key to shoot your only arrow.
- Hold Down Key to crouch.
- Press Space while crouching to drop your arrow.
Ratings
| Coolness | 81% | 2 |
| Overall | 4.16 | 5 |
| Audio | 3.85 | 19 |
| Fun | 3.76 | 40 |
| Graphics | 4.39 | 15 |
| Humor | 2.79 | 286 |
| Innovation | 3.26 | 264 |
| Mood | 3.86 | 34 |
| Theme | 3.99 | 29 |
Well, I managed to finish the game with the arrow in my possession and using it to kill the cyclops thing, but the ending seemed the same, so apparently I missed something. Either way, it was a nice game. Looks great and the music is good too.
Anyway solid entry apart from small bugs, really liked the tiles and the theme which remember me NES Battle of Olympus and Kid Icarus.
other than that, great game :)
Oh well.
I really like the big triangle, it got something from Toriyama's characters, and it's AI is pretty nice.
Again, a great entry of yours.
This beautiful pixel art really reminded me of Nes games, and the music is nice too. The gameplay is kinda interesting, great intro, and it's fun to find how to get rid of the different enemies.
Solid entry for sure, I'm having a lot of fun! :D
Too frustrating for me =(
+ diverse world and mobs
+ nice music
- a bit too difficult for my taste though...
Overall, congrats for a solid game!
But it's fun and amazing at the same time! The retro feel, graphics and music are so nostalgic! And those triangle mushroom things were talking to one another :0
I couldn't even reach the cyclops even after so many retries ._.
#A=%1 @8 l8f4<c4r >f<cfd+d16d+16c4 r4^8>a+16<c16
d4>a+4 r a+ag16a16ra+<c4r2>
f4<c4r >f<cfg d+4r r4^8 f16g16g+gfd+fc>g+<c>f4 r2rrr1r1;
// RYTHM
%1 @9,,,36 q1
$>g<reo8l16cccc;
// BASS
%1 @1,,,30 o3 l8
$ frffrf l16 d+d+d+r l8 frffrd+16 l16 fgd+>a+r;
// MAIN
$A;r32$k-3A;
// ++
%1 @4q2,,40 %v2,4 v10
$l16ff((ff((ff((ff))ff))ff))ffff <ff((ff((ff((ff))ff))ff))ffff>
You may paste in this webtool : www.benjaminsoule.fr/tools/vmml
After all that I actually had to take two screenshots of the endings as a trophy/ proof that I actually did it.
Great game from you as usual, beats me how you managed to make it in 48 hours. Magnifique!
Its really tough, though ;)
The graphics style is really cool. I would call that "retro at its best";)
Great work!
Apparently I used a detour to avoid the cyclops the first time, pretty unintended I guess.
Oh well, on to find the second ending...
Game's is pretty hard. Nice graphics. I did prefer your previous LD entry.
One drawback is that the levels don't feel equally designed around the idea. I could use some more information about where I'm going to get new items, and more options to backtrack. Like, I got into the strawberry boss fight before I was supposed to, and had to restart the game. It felt like a punishment for doing well.
With more appropriate level design, you could also safely have a checkpoint on each screen transition. I get that this is meant to be retro and all, but it's the year 2013, and by now you have the freedom to question NES games' fake difficulty/length that comes from replaying sections.
Nonetheless, this game had a definitive feeling of exploration. There's quite a lot to be seen for an LD game, so good job for that.
The game is a mix of difficult pussles and annoying issues.
Art is awesome, i love how it looks like a broken NES game, good job on that for such a short time. The song is cool but the jump sound could have been less high pitched.
Good job and good luck =)
I played the four first panels at least 100 times and never got past them...
Well at least I can say I know part of the game by heart XD
And the sfx... watching those two goomba-like enemy chatting while I tried to make them come closer was funny.
But man... just how do I get past that goddamn scorpion without using my arrow? @_@
I think I already know how to flee from the cyclops battle (if that's indeed what should be done, since I could only get there without the arrow), but I failed when trying...
Well, I'll just have to try again later! =D
I found it super difficult though. I'd really like to romp through these levels with a whole load of arrows and swords and things. As it was, I had difficulty even avoiding a frog..
It's really hard and I am still trying to go through lol.
Good job :D
Perfect use of the theme. Great puzzle/platform/action mixture that really forces you to think about the "one" that you get.
Nice sprites (although I find myself wishing it stuck to classic NES color restrictions) and that BGM is sweeeet!
Wonderful entry all around!
A beautiful knot! You always make great games and this is one of my favorites. I got both endings, though I was way off track on the crown one, and had to peek at the source to figure out where. The sequencing is great, and I had several occasions where I gave up because I thought something was too hard, but then couldn't stop thinking about the game, and then figured out a thing to try and it worked. :) (And thank you for the hint in the screen shot.)
Some sequence breaks:
- You can get past the scorpion and keep your antidote, if you make it off the screen before it runs out. This means that you can go back to the right and survive the scorpion a second time (or arbitrary number of times). Moreover, you can escape the super strawberry like this: After entering the room, immediately move to the right and then to the left to position most of your body off-screen (go as far as you can). Supa Fraise will usually attack low, breaking through the wall, then quickly again high. During his second attack it's possible to jump over him and escape. I only did it once, and then stepped on a frog, but I think it's possible to beat the game without fighting the cyclop this way, or have an arrow when fighting him??
- I'm pretty sure it's possible to get the antidote without giving up your arrow, though I never succeeded (such a long hike!). But I did jump over the monkey from the right, which should require the same clearance. If you did this you could reach the cyclops the normal way with an arrow, or it'd make the previous sequence break much easier cuz you could just shoot supa fraise. You could also avoid picking up the bow and arrow at all, which I thought would be the 2nd ending for a long time.
Another bug: If you die while supa fraise is breaking a wall (earthquake), the window can stay horizontally offset until you reload.
Some flaws IMO: I think the starting part of the game could use an additional save point (maybe near the monkey), as I think many people will be turned off by how hard this part is. I also thought the second group of strawberries was very frustrating to get by, since as far as I know you just need to wait for them to randomly move somewhere in order to get over them. The cyclops fight was really hard but ultimately satisfying. The fact that 'R' restarts (and saves) without prompting was frustrating when I tried to press ctrl-r to fix some graphic bugs!
This game was really hard but totally worth the challenge. Thanks for making it! Top marks. :)
I recommended this to my friend who also enjoyed it. I realized that I did something unnecessarily hard when I played (and that may make my last message confusing): I got back the arrow *after* defeating the Cyclops. For what it's worth, I think it's better if you have to do it this way, as it is somewhat interesting to make your way into prison from the far right. In particular, your last obstacle is the first frog--and on level ground he is much more difficult than the others. The symmetry of having this first trivial opponent be your last challenge I thought was really elegant. Anyway, guess I suck at going the right way
To be fair, I didn't like the mechanic, if was one arrow by screen I would like a lot more, but maybe is just my taste.
Impressive work for 48-hours! Great job!
A bit too demanding for my short attention span, but a lot of people like hard games too. I'm a wimp and I didn't finish it though. I killed the blue thing on the far right, but nothing happened. Then I figured I was supposed to go in the hole and gave up after being killed by the second set of mushroom guys a couple of times.
It's too bad since judging by the screenshot, I didn't see much of the game at all.
The strawberry and cyclops should really telegraph their next move a bit so the player can react. When surrounded by rubble, I started jumping in rhythm with the cyclops's actions just in case he also jumped, since waiting for his action to start would mean you were too late.
I see discussion of multiple endings or paths, but I couldn't detect them. The two options seem to be going to the top right or going underground. No sense going to the sea monster at top right, you can't get past it even if you kill it. When you go underground, you have to use your arrow on the scorpion because there's no other way past it. I never figured out how to get by the cyclops; I figure you're supposed to build a tower of rubble high enough to escape through the top? I gave up after a couple dozen tries.
Any kind of checkpoint system would be welcome. As would a weighted random number generator that would pick the more useful enemy behaviors more often.
The jump physics were maddening when trying to get between triangle guys or navigate rubble around the cyclops. I felt like the character should only be moving while jumping if the player was holding an arrow key. The character went happily bounding too far into enemies so many times.
The art, numerous screens, many enemy types, and animations were really nice. I think it could work with some rebalancing.
-mildmojo
I sometime have the ffeling that some of you have no checkpoint at all. The game should let you restart at the point where you find your last object.
The problem is the first object you pick is far way in the game. I should have added one object sooner to add a checkpoint in the game...
@BluShine You really figured out what was the game problem. This lack of clearness between arcade and puzzle. For exemple those red little triangle guys can be passes without a fight or dodge move. But I think nobody actually find how, because most of the player was thinking it was just a difficult arcade part. From my point of view I was thinking they will struggle to find the easy way to go. That's why I was so light with checkpoints.
@tom7 Thanks for the bug report. It tooks me time to understand how you achieve to get the arrow back "after" the cyclop but know that I understand it makes me want to make it the normal way to get the second ending :D
Congrats for the music too :) I'm amazed by the level of polish you achieved in only 48h!
I actually spent a large chunk of time thinking I was stuck on two fronts. I couldn't get past the red guys going down, and the monster in the water was just a dead end. Just before giving up I decided to try to jump on the water monster's head (which was counter-intuitive since jumping on everything else killed you). Then, suddenly there was SO much more world to explore.
I did enjoy the "puzzle" aspects of the game and hate I wasn't skilled enough to see the rest of it.
Still, great job overall!