Heartaker by lukbebalduke
Hey folks! How you doin’?
I'm thankful for presenting you Heartaker - a hack n slash about slicing enemies in a half with a katana!
Before you download the game, I would strongly advise you to get a mouse in order to play the game - it might be a bit harder playing in the trackpad.
Developer Comments
After so many Ludum Dares I think I'm getting good at creating games that I enjoy play and make. I've had a hard time working almost 30 hours in this project and doing all sorts of stuff; from game design to programming, drawing, animating, making music and some sounds with my voice - recorder on my phone haha!
It is worth mentioning that, although I made the entire game in the weekend, some things really helped me a lot, like using a proper engine and some powerful tools, like Game Maker Studio 2, Photoshop, Spine, Audacity, Sony Vegas and some AI-based tools.
Composing and animating were for sure the hardest parts of the game. It is worth saying that I used a lot of music and sound effect generators for this game, that was later mixed with some of my voice and drum/flute samples till I get an original and meaningful soundtrack.
ChangeLog
The version for download has been modified after the weekend, in order to:
[Version 1.0.0.1] - Fix a bug that would stick the player on the afterlife of the game. - Fix a bug that would prevent the game from continuing whenever an enemy fell out of the map on specific waves.
[Version 1.0.0.2] - Gameover screen is faster. - Upgrades are cheaper. - Shopkeeper's dialogue is faster. - Spawn time is faster. - You can restart the game. - Enemies reset attack timer after dash encounter. - Camera correctly looks at the player if he falls from the map. - Game starts in fullscreen. - Samurai's icon should look sharper.
You can still see the original source and executable under the [Compo - Original] link.
That's it
I hope you enjoy my game! :)
Please, let me a comment to know what you think about the game, this way I can also play yours later!
| Source Code | https://bit.ly/2V7Pigt |
| Windows | https://www.dropbox.com/s/1lfzrkbqvu4xwms/Heartaker.zip?dl=0 |
| Source code | https://www.dropbox.com/s/vfpfzf9iihunpwd/Heartaker.yyz?dl=0 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/heartaker |
Ratings
| Given | 11🗳️ | 23🗨️ |
Translation:
C\Users\Max\Desktop\Heartaker.exe
Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file.
You may not have the necessary access rights to this object.
I am a bit confused though. I am stuck in the death screen, not having enough hearts to purchase ressurection.
@drunkardwolf Thank you very much!
@boltkey That is basically game over, unfortunately, I did not manage to create a proper game restart at that point, so you need to close and open the game haha! Sorry about that!
@felegz Yup, thank you. As soon as I fix some of the major problems in the game I'm going to release it on Itch.io!
Interesting fact: I normally record all my work on Ludum Dare to create a time-lapse, but unfortunately I did not this time. I ended up recording only the first few hours.
Still, if you want to take a look at how the process looks like, some of my previous games on Ludum Dare have a time-lapse attached to the post ;)
Then again, thank you for the compliment!
I Also got stuck on the death screen without enough Hearts, Perhaps add a exit button or something when you don't have enough hearts?
@slotha The player **dashes in the direction of the mouse.** For sure I would add an exit button to the end, but time as short and I ended up coding the afterlife part just on the final hours.
I think the game could stand to be slightly faster paced (with maybe, less reactive enemies on the screen, but more of them at once), while the armored enemies could be a bit more obvious as to how you're supposed to kill them. (It would be fun if say, attacking from a certain direction or a certain number of times was the way to kill them. As far I've seen, it seems to be either based on distance, or time? I'm not very good at game yet haha)
Those are only minor nitpicks, though, the game rocks, especially if it was made over the course of a weekend.
@Kjima I am glad you liked the game, and yes, I completely agree with you! The game could have adjustments in all those aspects and later on, I will definitely think about some more design twists, the idea of enemies that require directional attacks is actually pretty great!
@taylomol000 Thank you so much for the comment! I still have no future plans for this game, but who knows, right?
@Lugo42 yup, well noticed. I would say that there are some very interesting artistic side effects of the way I designed the game, the first one is that as you kill more and more enemies the screen gets more sunken in the blood - which gives not only a cool visual effect but also some sort of emotional result attached to it - and the other thing is that, due to the white and black base colors of the game, whenever you splash blood on the wall it gives the game a certain kind of Japanese color palette, which is really cool. Anyways, thank you very much for your feedback :)
The music got a little repetitive and I kept getting stuck on the screen where you are supposed to buy another turn.
Overall, WOW. I was looking forward to this one based on the screen shots you posted and I was not disappointed.
Oh. And one more minor quibble (you know I loved the game when I am taking enough time to point out something this small).. in your intro credits you have "It is not enough" she spoke. That scans kind of oddly in English. Might I suggest 'she replied' or 'she responded'.
It's very addicting, it's fun and (to me) well balanced, the difficulty curve is well refined.
I didn't understand some things, like why the cost to restart the game always raises or WHY YOU HAVE TO CLOSE AND REOPEN IT IF YOU DON'T HAVE THE QUANTITY OF HEARTS.
But in overall the game is fun and the feeling is GREAT.
Only thing i wihs was that the spawning position of the enemies would be a bit more randomly.
Enjoyed your game really well done!
I hope, you don't stop working above this game. Because i want in co-op and leaderboard in future
All the best
I wasn't expecting at all that rogue-lite twist, it's really smart.
Two points of improvements that I see :
- It's hard to see where the dash/attack ends, so sometimes it's hard to figure out if you'll hit the enemy/fall into a hole
- Despite the rogue-lite aspect, dying can happen. Then not being able to skip the texts (be it at the beginning or during the death part) becomes a bit painful :)
But as I said, really impressed by the quality of execution for a compo game!
Good job !
Well done!
The animation and sound quality is superb! I think it's a bit too difficult for me. It really frustrated me, that I could not buy much upgrades, because respawn costs a lot. Also I think the warning sign is a bit fast, so I could not react in time and felt the game is "cheating" because one moment a character was jumping to the left, next moment it unleased a deadly strike to the right. IMHO the game mechanics are not well balanced for an average gamer.
Overall it's a really fluid, great game. For a compo it's incredible!
- Make the game pause when offscreen (Having dual monitor made it quite difficult to play sometimes, as I would ocassionally click outside the screen, and lost to someone coming my way).
- Do a hint when you first die like "Press ESC to skip text". I figured it out at the 3rd death, and saves quite a lot of time.
I hope you keep working on it, I see great potential in it.
Good job and hope to see it become a released game in the future.
Also that blood shield icon didn't make much sense to me. I knew they died in blood because of your description, but the icon makes it look like it's immune whilst in blood. This could be better explained.
Fantastic job though, 5/5
@neithernathan Thank you. I can see that the not being able to restart the game is a common critic, and due to that it should be now fixed in the new version of the game!
@kunonooni Yup! I actually didn't even think about the death is useful theme haha!
@riftpoint-entertainment Cool! I will take a look at your game later ;)
@nico-fallosch Hmm, interesting. Thank you for the feedback, I will think more about the way I designed the spawn wave system to make sure it feels more organic!
@ludwici Thank you very much for the suggestion! Right now I'm not currently thinking about working on this project - especially because the lack of time - but if I do, I'll make sure to think about a leaderboard or a multiplayer mode for the game.
@ekilibr Thank you very much for your feedback! I will try to think in some design solutions that could help the player have more control over the dash and also make information clearer. I appreciate your comments ;)
@nerzal Thanks! And btw, I think the difficulty curve of the game is a problem by itself, so you are actually right, I have to tweak it.
@cpx3 Thank you very much for your feedback! I agree with you, the game is harder than it should be at the moment, so I'll make sure to take some time and think about clever solutions to make the game more approachable, easier to learn, and probably remove some of the dumb difficult that should not be in the game at all. I appreciate your comment :)
@pusheeneiro Tks! <3
@palsina Lots of samurai games I see haha! Yup, thank you very much for the feedback, I'll take a look at yours later!
@zuzupd Thank you very much! I'm glad that you have a great time with the game :D
@sir-daniev Thank you very much also! Fun fact is that a lot of the sfx have been made recording my voice, and that includes shouts, dash, jump, and blood.
@adam-clayden Thank you very much folk! You've mentioned a good point, I really need to make something about the samurai's icon. I will try to make it clearer in the future or redesign this mechanic entirely. Either way, I do appreciate yout comments on the game :D
@mateusboga Thank you for the feedback! You can be sure that I will rethink about this pits in the level design haha!
@black-potion Tks man!
@akronsus haha great! Yup, I will think about how that game could expand in the future and see if can get more time to put into this project, but even if I don't, thank you very much for the comment!
@falak So, I guess that besides me you are the only one who actually made into the 100th heart?! Haha! Amazing man, thank you very much for playing and I'm glad you enjoyed the game!
@rayriver yup, thanks for the comment!
Considering its a compo game its an amazing entry!
Idea with enemies only killed on stains and the movement feels very responsive and great,
I was surprised to see upgrade menu after death, suits the theme well and looks great too.
I think option skip the dialogue after death or speed the text up on click would be great its too slow right now.
Unfortunately I couldnt reach 100 hearts because the game did not open fullscreen and I whenever I clicked its borders it would automatically fold, which was very annoying. Maybe adding a fullscreen toggle would work?
Apart that the game feel is really great, and for a game made in 2 days by a single person its just that amazing, I adore those effects and sounds when I kill someone!
@anion-z , @nippaaah pressing "escape" skips dialogues for me. I do agree that it should be indicated in-game, as it really helps stay in the action.
Took me a few times to understand that respawn costs were going up at each death.
The music, sounds and feel to the game are spot-on! It doesn't get boring quickly, I can tell you that. Cheers!
@anion-z Thank you very much for the feedback! When I was designing the afterlife part of the game, I intentionally added a Game Over screen before that in order to create a surprise effect, and I am always glad that it worked!
Also, I will make sure to change the way the mouse is working right now in the game, and also make sure to explain how dialogues could be skipped ;)
@nippaaah Cool! Thank you for the comment ;)
@geist-191 I'm Yup, I can see that the lack of information about how to skip texts is an issue. I shall work on that. Thanks for the feedback!
@fusionnist Thanks for the message! Great to see your feedback! And yeah, I should fix these pits in a future update of the game, thank you very much for also pointing that out :)
@levidsmith I see your point, I've changed the text to make it clearer for everyone who's landing on this page. Thank you for highlighting that out, I am really sorry that apparently, the original version was not distinct enough from the version 1.0.0.2
@firepit-games Tks!