That's awesome! Had some struggles fighting the bigger enemies like spiders at first, but eventually figured it out. Well done my guy, I had fun playing it!

Nice small game :) I like the audio and the spellcasting with health, though it couldve probably gone a bit deeper into the theme

Cool! But I think sometimes I was unable to hit the bat when I stood closely to it, while it was killing me.

This game is great. It almost feels like it was released in the late 1980s, gameplaywise.

Great effort on the intro, sound and mood. Then a bit of a twist to the standard formula (pay with health to cast spells), and somewhat hard controls. The player then memorizes the game for the next life until he can beat it in minutes.

The staff attack is incredibly weak, thus tempting one to use the spell. I guess it fits the theme? I still think the staff should be longer.

Forgot the spell key - Passed the gamee with normal attacks ) Nice game !

Nice game. Nicely executed. The art and music are great and they contribute to a consistent mood. The game was easily completed without using any magic though, so it might benefit from balancing.

Since there is a score and treasure to increase the score. Maybe there could be more emphasis on it?

Neat game! It was temptating to use spells to kill enemies faster. Almost got lost on my way back to home :D Camera controls were a bit akward as you couldn't see enough where you were going when moving downwards.

Was a cool game. The graphics were really good IMO. Love the more minimal pixel aesthetic. The Music/sound was cool too. Unfortunately as some others said, I think the use of theme maybe wasn't the greatest. Maybe using HP for regular attacks as well would help?

That was cool. The graphics were good and movement felt fast. The combat was a bit bare bones, I don't know if there is any strategy to it. I beat it on my first try, feels good. Ok, I just read that I could have cast fireballs, I didn't know that I could but it didn't seem necessary.

The art and music are great.It might need some balancing.

Cool game! I made a game with a similar interpretation of the theme but the your gameplay/genre was totally different, in a good way! :smile:

Something that could be tweaked is the hit detection on the player, I struggled with walking underneath traps because the collision seemed to be the whole sprite, not just the area around the feet.

Really liked the art and music too, good job!

Great stuff, it would be cool to see what you could do with some more time.

Loved the stages and the size of the level! Had a bit of trouble finding a lot of the hit boxes for the traps and bigger mobs, but other than that it was a nice experience and a good game.

Not bad! I like the graphics and the music a lot. I think that the actual combat mechanics could use some work. You have to be really close to enemies to actually hit them.

Simple and fun little game, good job.

This is a great effort for your second Ludum Dare game! Here's some things I suggest looking into:

* I felt like the environment was too similar throughout, which made navigation pretty tricky. Maybe different areas could have different colored walls or something. Maybe add some skeletons or unique props to help the player build a mental image of the location.
* The traps on the floor have too large of a bounding box, and it's not clear how close you can be before its triggered. Maybe make the box a bit smaller so people just trying to skim by don't get shanked.
* The music during gameplay seemed very short and it was pretty repetitive. I didn't pay too much attention to it though while I was playing.
* Since the bats are on a sine pattern, it's hard to know how to position the player to attack them.

You managed to do a lot in the time you were given. Great work! Also, I suggest releasing MacOS and Linux binaries with your games in the future too if you can. Since you provided the source I was able to play it on my Linux desktop just fine. Hope you have a wonderful day! :thumbsup_tone1:

I like that graphics and sound. Simple operation also great!

Killer job on the compo!
I didn't notice any glaring bugs and you covered pretty much everything you needed.

I liked the limitation of not being able to look up or down, it made for some interesting fights

Interesting ! I love it !

A nice game. I liked the graphics. Had good time playing it.

Your sound is almost perfectly working for your game. Except for sound of the hero walking. It seems a litle bit clockticking for me.

Your graphics are nice but not awesome yet. Your game is good but I'm not sure that there is something more that you can give to players due to this project. I think you should go and start a new project. I think you can create really intresting things.

Also execuse me but I can't see currency in your game. Only "your life is mana".

But It was intresting timespending. Thank you.

Thanks for all your votes and the comments. Some replies here (in no particular order):

@phobos001 : Yes, I also thought about more variation in the environment but time ran out. I also decided not to artificially grow the maze (which would have been easy) but leave it rather small to avoid senseless repetitions without more content. And the bounding box is too large, correct, need to fix that.

@mironx : I tried to go for some pixel art/80s style, both in graphics and gameplay, and see what I could accomplish in the short time.

@pincushion : Another idea was to use the score as experience points and to advance in strength and magic attack capabilities but that was sacrificed to time constraints then.

@retti01 : There should be more monsters where you need the fireball to win, agreed.

(And I am still trying to play most of your games in return. :grin:)

Sick, I beat the game!

Finally a game jam game I can beat! Haha. Loved the NES feel of this.

The colliders were tough to deal with but I found it added to that 80's quirky mechanics feeling.

I literally made it out of the dungeon with 1 HP left! I was super scared I was going to walk into a trap or meet some bat I'd managed to skip. It is a rare sight to see an actual victory screen as well! Good job with this.

I really like your aesthetic here, and I think the music in particular really helps to give an '80s vibe to the game, even though it's not what '80s game music would have sounded like!

I liked the tradeoff between using the risky staff attack vs. using the fireball. However, I found that sometimes I was able to attack the bats with the staff without losing life, and other times I would get hit quite often, and I couldn't really tell the difference between those cases. As others have noted, a little more bounding box feedback would really help your mechanics shine!

I liked the size of the maze - not too small and not too big. Just right! Fun game, though more variety in gameplay would've been nice.

Nice job! I've been wanting to play a game like this for a while! Awesome. I enjoyed the maze and there were plenty of dangerous things in there. Those traps are really sensitive. I liked the balance of choosing whether to use the fireball or smacking enemies with the wand. Plus, I like how you incorporated opportunities to navigate around enemies!

Nicely done! Pretty common interpretation of the theme, but you executed it pretty well. It took me a few tries to get through.

I liked the graphics and music quite a bit; they definitely fit that retro vibe.

I always try to provide a little constructive criticism where I can, so I'll mention that the combat was a little bit tough with the staff. I think making it short definitely added temptation to use the spells, but perhaps it was a little too short to be feasible without hitting the enemies a lot. It also would've been kinda cool to see a couple enemies added in for the final return trip. (Or just make the exit door conveniently close to the amulet, of course)

Don't let that take away from my praise for the game; it was a fun one! Thanks for a good entry.

The game was really nice ! I enjoyed the story and also how big the levels were. I also really like the enemies and the take on the theme! Check out our stream for more feedback and to see how we played it https://www.twitch.tv/sdg_ryo

the theme was well represented, i like that you have to consider which enemies to fight and which ones to dodge. the levels are well designed and it is rewarding to explore. The hitboxes/battle can easily be improved with a little tweaks. good job!

The spikes reminded me of Prince of Persia :smile:

I had to play it twice to get to the end. At first I didn't get where I need to go so I just spent all my life on fireballs.

Anyways, I found out that sometimes the fireball does not kill an enemy even though it touches it. Some kind of bug.

But all in all, sweet little game with suspense music. The walking sound is funny, sounds like the wizard's going around in flip-flops. :)

Well done. Keep up the good work.