Very well polished! Game feel is really good. Combat is well designed for it's simplicity.

One thing is you can run off the screen running vertically because the camera doesn't keep up.

I love the mood in this! The mechanic is really neat too. Music, graphics, and gameplay are all solid. Honestly, my only complaint is the size of the window. Normally it's not something I really complain about because it IS Ludum Dare, but it's... really small. :P Really great work, though!

Great minimal art style, combined with the audio set a dark mood.

I felt bad when my villagers died. Good job!

Attacking monsters and healing villagers both felt good. Visuals are also very nice. I like the idea of a resting point where you can see all your failures.

i like this! i would play more of this. i do wish it was a bit harder.

Shoot through walls OP, but then NO WALLS!

I think this is stunning. Removing the walls made me feel really vulnerable, good work!

Spent pretty much time in this game

Perfect game, good level of polish, and the screen shake was subtle but there and therefore excellent.

I came to check this out because I liked the animations I saw in some posts during the compo.

And I dig the animations a lot. But wow, it's so much more than that. This entry has a strong vision and all of the details are in place reinforcing it.

I care about my hp much more than in a normal game, so there's a sense of tension. And combat is fast and sometimes brutal. I'm on edge. But the camera has some nuances that raise the tension. I can't run too far ahead without losing visibility, so I have to move in short careful chunks. The aspect ratio and close camera makes it frightening to move vertically. I can't run and gun - attacking prevents movement, so I have to stick and move, stick and move. Use the cover.

The art, music, and sound are all very focused on this mood. I made a mistake, and now there is a corpse to remind me, every rest. It's haunting and tense. I think I'm doing well. WHAM, three hits from a spider just off the screen reminds me of how quickly that can change. Will another villager die because of that? Be more careful.

The first moment when the slavering enemy rushes me: wild panic. I thought I had the luxury of range. No wonder blood drips from his misshapen chin.

This entry transported me fully into its stark vision. Outstanding job.

Few minor nits that intruded: I spawned and backed off from a sudden attack, but happened to spawn right next to the stairs. Entire level gone. That's how I got my first villager corpse.

Was trying to get to the end with five villagers, but I couldn't get down these stairs. Level cleared. Did I miss something? A bug? Or just a grim finale as intended? https://imgur.com/5q4obwE

Last minor thing is there was a bit of chore to that double-check search I did every time, just to make sure I'd cleared a level.

This is strong vision well-supported by every aspect of the implementation. Great work.

Great game, though the camera makes some areas a bit annoying to play through since it's too slow to keep up with player movement, even when you aim forward with the mouse. Very good concept and surprisingly polished for two days of work!

Fun little game, if a bit on the hard side perhaps. Getting ganged by enemies was difficult to get out of.

Overall I think the game answered the theme in a fun and engaging way! But I'd give the player a more sense of purpose, because I didn't really know where to go at any point (or why for that matter)

Atmosphere was wonderful, and graphics enjoyable. Great job!

I wanted to write: "MUHAHAHA, these sorry little enemies! Dont they know they are but kettle to me?! Kettle to feed my friends and family... and random villagers I picked up.."

Buuut entering the dungeon level the enemies promptly handed me my ass.

(Also big kudos to the soundtrack - it's beautiful)

Not much I can say that hasn't been said already. As theloneplant mentioned, the camera moves too slowly, but I think it is only too slow moving vertically. If the viewport doesn't need to be a rectangle, making the height=width would probably fix the camera issue.

No.... mac build? :)

Excellent work! The minimalist visuals and audio work really well to strike a tone, and the controls, combat, and especially enemy design felt polished and incredibly satisfying.

I felt like the combat became a little easy once I realized I could shoot through walls, but then that made the later stages (where you have to rely on the knowledge you've picked up about the enemy patterns to survive) all the more tense and enjoyable.

One problem: my run stopped abruptly when I ran into a staircase that just didn't let me progress when I touched it... I assume this is a bug? Kind of unfortunate. I'll def. be replaying & recommending this one regardless!

Fantastic, as expected. The graphics are stunning especially considering how few colors you used (what, like 5?). I wasn't good enough to get through with 6, but I had a lot of fun. The resting point mechanic is genius.

Really lovely work here. My biggest issue was the camera not keeping up during vertical movement, as has been mentioned by others. Mood is wonderful and the audio-visual aesthetic matches everything else great.

It's too bad I ran into a level where the staircase doesn't trigger scene change in that wall-less labyrinth.

@pkenney describes my own feelings to the T. I really enjoyed this game and the experience it created for me. Like @pkenney I also spawned too close to a stairs once and lost a level. Other than that this is a solid entry. Great job!

Really great mood with good sounds and graphics. Personaly, I liked the small screen ! The gameplay is fun to play while being enough simple to not encroach on the atmosphere and let the player immerse himself in the game. I was a little confused at first because i thought the right click was to speak and that there was a bug because ne message appear when i clicked on people and it is only after that I understand that smiley face was not a dialog button but an emotion icon. So may be you can make the icon more explicit. Also the end is very frustrating because like other players I finished on a dead end with a stair that was not working although the game is intriguing and I wanted to know more !

The art style of this game is excellent, and the audio adds tremendously to the mood. The subtle camera shake that occurred when launching projectiles was also a nice touch. Thanks for sharing this submission.

This game is awesome, and probably my favorite entry so far. The music is really good in how it builds mood and atmosphere within the game, and also reinforces the sad backstory. Shooting the discs felt very satisfying and the enemies felt quite different to each other. The concept is also very creative! Good work!

Beautiful. Combat feels so tight in this game -- sliding around corners, baiting enemies in, then unloading before they can. These little one-on-one duels! The visuals are very simple but extremely effective. The upgraded version of the main enemy is scary -- the way he can warp around and fling a bunch of shots at once, but the sprite is a big part of it too -- he looks completely unhinged! One of the best games I've played this Ludum Dare. Congrats on this game!

I was doing great until I got destroyed in the space scenario haha! Nice game, I really like the polishment and the setting created a very atmospherical feeling. One thing I would like to say, you definitely knew how to use the palette and the graphic is neat! Great job!

Great mood, loved the pixel art - only nitpick was the camera movement. It felt unfair going up and running into 3 different enemies at once, other than that, I enjoyed it :)

a perfect ninja atmosphere

Loved it!

However I got stuck at what I can only assume was the end, I simply couldn't descend the stairs to the next area. I think I may of had 5 villagers + the one I got at that zone so maybe that possibility wasn't accounted for?

Sorry folks, for some reason there's an error at the end of the catwalks that doesn't allow you to see the game end screen despite... well reaching the end. I'll try to get it fixed by the end of the weekend! Thank you for all your feedback and support so far! :) This is my first Compo so I'm proud of what I was able to accomplish

Solid game. the minimal look and audio really brought it all together. Nice job/


For me, this game right here was all about the *Mood*, and at this point in time, based on the games I have rated so far, it's definitely the strongest entry I've seen in terms of it. It was a profound experience that made me seriously take into consideration my health more than I think I've did in practically every other game, and the whole heavy setting, from the visuals, to the audio, to constantly seeing I had failed a villager from the start of the game made this a very solid playthrough all the way through.

As I've mentioned, the whole setup from the graphics to the audio was really well done, and the gameplay was as polished and as demanding as one could expect. At a certain point, I was legitimately preoccupied in understanding the enemies attacks as to make sure I could avoid them as much possible in order to conserve health to give the villagers. That on itself, also tells a lot of this game in specific.

If there's one thing that I have to critique is that the game started feeling repetitive after a while, and that some of the latter sections could have been shortened down. The impact still carried with me all the way through the end, but with the latter section lasting multiple rooms with not as much sense of progress as the beginning, I felt like some of the gameplay (plus visuals and audio) started to wear out much more. Gladly, given how well the mood was executed the game was it really didn't impact as much by the end as I thought it could, and everything else, as I've mentioned, was really there!

[In behalf of our team](https://twitter.com/WhalesAndGames), I must re-iterate once again that this was the game that got perfect _Mood_ for me, and I really look forward for the stuff that you create next! Thank you for this absolutely amazing _Compo_ entry and experience! :whale:

@jorgegamedev Thank you so much! This means a lot to me, especially because I'd never had confidence that I could really make much of an impactful game. I'll definitely be utilizing what you've mentioned as criticisms to improve my future endeavors!

* nice graphics.
* cannot save all the children makes me guilty.
* it seems easier after I found I can shoot through the wall
* then there are no walls any longer :(
* bug: after the restart, walls become invisible but still there(in levels has wall)

Nicely put together game with great minimalist graphics and great music. I liked the tutorial. I got a little confused with when I was getting new vils vs how I would get back to the "house" to feed them. Here's me playing the game on twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/208575214