Fill-In Fantasy by frogcheese

[raw]
made by frogcheese for LD28 (COMPO)
Walk around the overworld and level-grind against monsters, old-school RPG style. The catch is that you can only level up once, and the improvements you receive depend on how you fight. The goal is to fight monsters until you level up, then fight the boss at the castle.

The theme of course is you only get one level or level-up. You also get one potion so you can heal yourself if things go south, so there's that too, but what I said earlier is the main idea. That's where "fill-in" comes from, by the way; "fill-in" as in a "substitute" hero, someone who can only manage one level.

Game was made with LibGDX, sounds with Bfxr. The music was made in GarageBand. I used a GameBoy soundfont called "GBFont" by MaliceX for it, which you can find at http://woolyss.com/chipmusic-soundfonts.php. I didn't see any license information in the package I downloaded, so I'll assume that it's free for use.

Tested on and should work for Windows, OS X and Ubuntu.

Updates:
* 1.01 - Fixed the timing of the music since the looping was off by one beat. Also added what keys are used to play in the HowTo section.

Ratings

Coolness 58% 3
Overall 3.16 379
Audio 2.83 328
Fun 3.19 291
Graphics 3.16 376
Humor 3.43 97
Innovation 2.42 795
Mood 3.11 275
Theme 2.97 451

Feedback

shard123
18. Dec 2013 · 01:35 UTC
I liked the idea and the art style, it would be cool to see you expand this with more features.
Lyje
18. Dec 2013 · 01:36 UTC
Love the graphics, style and audio! Gameplay is very grindy, obviously, but given it's kept short it's still fun til the end.
Nelien
18. Dec 2013 · 22:42 UTC
More content would be great, particularly more choices in combat. Still, a solid game.
netmute
20. Dec 2013 · 18:04 UTC
Very polished and nicely done! I couldn't really figure out how my playstyle affected the level up, and ultimately the dragon killed me. I little bit more feedback from the game on this would have been nice. Otherwise really enjoyable :)
postmodestie
20. Dec 2013 · 18:26 UTC
I just have to mention the humor, which is .. humorous :) Everything else is also very pleasant!
godan
20. Dec 2013 · 18:31 UTC
Really good! The pace was nice and fast. More features would be cool to see!
jdpalmer
20. Dec 2013 · 18:33 UTC
Nicely done. I like the style and gameplay.
miwuc
20. Dec 2013 · 18:34 UTC
Cute and pretty funny too :)
The gameplay would need more work to turn this into a real game.
01101101
20. Dec 2013 · 19:49 UTC
The idea is cool but the game could benefit from a little bit more feedback during the fights and when the level-up occurs. The enemies really made me laugh :D
acp_ld
20. Dec 2013 · 19:57 UTC
great entry, everything is really well put together
badlydrawnrod
20. Dec 2013 · 19:59 UTC
Cool art style, great tune and some original monsters. Nice to be fighting "disabled angels" and "rats with attitude" rather than the usual orcs and goblins.
nyytroh
20. Dec 2013 · 20:01 UTC
YEAH! Annoying random encounter FTW! :D But seriously I think the art style is perfect for the combat phase, but not so much in the world map. Also to add to the whole "one" theme, the world map is a single frame
rnlf
20. Dec 2013 · 20:43 UTC
Not exactly my kind of game, but looks and feels like a solid and finished piece of work. Good job!
archaeometrician
20. Dec 2013 · 21:23 UTC
Hehe nice game ! Great work!
arrogant.gamer
20. Dec 2013 · 22:00 UTC
Ha ha ha! Awesome! I played two levels, doing mainly magic the first time and _only_ running away the second. Running away didn't seem to make me better at anything, though. Is there a way to win by evading all encounters (I guess that's a victory in and of itself?).

Anyway: superb.
peacegiverman
20. Dec 2013 · 23:03 UTC
Interesting art style. The gameplay itself is too grindy for my taste. Would have liked it if I had more options, like different spells for example.
jonask
23. Dec 2013 · 20:15 UTC
I liked this
goerp
23. Dec 2013 · 20:19 UTC
Ah, what the hell, I liked this game so much. 5 stars!
I loved the simple graphics, I loved the humor, I loved that you really had only one level up and the music is catchy as h*ll!
Maybe not the most innovative of games, but who cares?
Now I'm gonna try the 100 meter dash dreams.
bodsey
27. Dec 2013 · 17:20 UTC
Well, overall it's pretty great entry, from art to sound. Not especially my cup of tea, but I recognize it's fine work, well done.
foumart
28. Dec 2013 · 21:11 UTC
Very nice! I would probably play further if you kept Laif's gained level on complete and multiplid enemies' properties a bit :)
Dry Tree
28. Dec 2013 · 22:48 UTC
I really liked the writing in this - good marks for humour!

It was quite annoying that the text lingered for so long at the start of every encounter with no option to skip it and then, on beating the game, the text automatically advanced slightly faster than I could read! (hint: always make your text slow enough for dyslexic people but always with a button to breeze through it as fast as desired ;))
saulopz
07. Jan 2014 · 00:55 UTC
Nostalgic RPG and good graphics. :D fun game.