Got past 11 rounds! Interesting concept of losing your skill/powers as you progress. I suspect that the mouse click power is virtually indispensable though, as losing that skill was pretty much insta-death for me, so I'm not sure how the powers are balanced. I like the clean style of the vector art and animation, and I found the sound FX pretty hilarious, good job on making them!

Edit: I remember the ice wall and the mouse click power (which was practically the dominant one to keep full powered I feel)

@randomphantom Haha thanks! It was my first time recording my own SFX. It's amazing what messing around with the pitch inside Unity can do to improve it.

Impressed you got so far! Do you remember your build? (err, anti-build I guess) I tried getting rid of the mouse click power and I was able to survive but once the other skills had higher cooldowns it was GG. I wish I had time to make round 12 the "Final Round" because I don't really think it's possible to win after that.

Thanks for playing!

Love the concept, always wanted to try it.
Music was sadly grating to the ears, other sounds were ok though.

Love the artstyle!

I lasted 7 rounds. best skills are the beam and the ice wall did not touch them to be able to go further but didn't help me much :P Really good idea and a bit depressive to be have to forget our abilities. This was a fine game with anything it might need, good for a compo game.

A backward leveling system: very interesting. Liked it.

I like the idea and it was quite fun to play. The music was good, but it didn't really fit into my idea of being swarmed by enemies. It felt a bit too slow. I really liked the art style tho :) Good job!

@3mpty Thanks for the feedback! I created the music with WolframTones, and honestly I was just excited to have made something usable. So i'm glad you said something, now I can go back and look at it more objectively.

@sgt3v Thanks for the feedback! It is a bit depressive, huh? I wonder if there's a way to give the player the same feeling that they get from gaining an ability by taking one away. Maybe some other meta progression that allows them to improve in another way? Interesting stuff. Also I like the Ice Rune better than the ice wall. :)

@timbaleek Thanks for playing!

@invixel Thanks! I don't really have experience with music so I'm glad you said something. I'll have to play it again and listen to it more objectively, and try to improve next time with it. Maybe even just upping the tempo on it could work, since you said it felt slow.

5 rounds and proud :P
Amazing game. Well thought of, nicely executed. The graphics are top-notch and the gameplay is smooth. Sounds and the track. Beautiful.

Bookmarked! If this is made in 72 hours, don't know what you will manage in a month or so. Probably a AAA blockbuster. Good luck and congratulations. :D

@krishnasism Thanks so much for the kind words, means a lot!

Got to Wave 6! I like the glowyness of the main weapon and also how the enemy health is displayed *not* using health bars but rather as a color tint. (Health bars are the root of all evil.) I also like the little souls the minions leave behind when they die.

Would have been nice to see abilities having a bit more visual flair or visual impacts (e.g. knockback), as well as some variation in the minions (e.g. smaller=faster, larger=slower), but perhaps they existed and I did not get far enough. Sound and music was appropriate for all the wizzardings.

Nice entry. :thumbsup:

I lasted 12 rounds! Wow that got challenging. This is an excellent take on the theme - it's refreshing to see a game where there isn't some battery meter. That reverse skill tree is genius, and I love the art style. The sound design is good too! This truly was one of the better games I have yet seen.

@gwinnell Thanks for the feedback! I was actually racking my brain really hard to try and make the abilities have more "oomph" to them, but couldn't think of anything else. Are you thinking like after effects (Ice Spike breaking apart) or things like screenshake?

The minion variety thing is a great point, and one I didn't consider enough. I decided at some point that it plays fine with just those enemies but I think you're right that it would have added a lot to have different types.

That's brilliant. Great graphics, concept and execution. Definitely, one of the best games from this Ludum Dare, I have played so far. And unlike many other games, this one stays true to the theme. I could only last 6 rounds though.

Super unique and beautiful little game, I love the design so much!

@freedom-is-slavery Thanks so much! Means a lot.

@johnnyc1423 Thank you!

Cool game, it's so fun! I really liked the idea of forgetting instead of learning :)

I'm not sure if the gimmick of losing abilities affects the game too much until the very end. I made it to level 13 without using any of the abilities and ended up dying because the main ice ray was powered down. It'd be better if the abilities were more useful from the start, possibly by making the base game more difficult so you need to use those extra abilities. The game is otherwise well-made.

@rightangel Thank you! :)

@ganbaregameskyle Thanks for the feedback! I think you're just really handy with the ice beam! I'm just barely able to kill everybody with it, and I made the darn thing. You make a good point though, perhaps even speeding up the enemies a bit each round would make it so it's impossible to kill everything with just the ice beam.

That way a very interesting take on the theme!I loved the idea of a reverse skill tree. However the ice beam does seem overpowered and you only really need that and the glacier to get through most of the waves.

@drewg8 Thanks! Yeah, my one wish is that I would have balanced it a bit more, but I didn't want to completely alienate players that weren't very good, so I guess I leaned towards too easy rather than too hard.

Cool game. Very fun to play and cool art style. :smile:

Ok an update. After playing more than 30 entries from this LD, I can tell you that this is THE BEST game by far from this LD IMHO

Ok an update. After playing more than 30 entries from this LD, I can tell you that this is THE BEST game by far from this LD IMHO

13 rounds first try... having the cooldown start on the beam is basically death at that point.
good art, acceptable sounds, interesting idea behind the loosing power. character getting weaker and the enemies getting stronger.

@duck-games Thanks!

@freedom-is-slavery Dude thanks again, really appreciate it.

@jason-kennedy Yeah I've heard other complaints about the balancing around the ice beam. If I continue on with this, I'll definitely need to balance it better. Thanks for the feedback!

Fun entry. Loved the take on the theme. Graphics fit together well. Solid amount of polish for an LD submission. Great Job!

Lasted 12 rounds on my first try. The game is interesting and aesthetically pleasing, and I really like the reverse skill tree idea. I wasn't exactly happy about having to sacrifice my skills, but I never really got the hang of the Ice Rune anyway and the icicle is tricky to aim. I think my favorite part about the player powers was how I could use the ice beam and glacier wall to push enemies around the battlefield. Being able to sculpt enemy formations like that effectively conveyed the idea that my character was a powerful wizard. Well done!

@doug-graham Thanks a lot!

@piscythe I thought that was cool too with the glacier wall and ice beam! Really glad you pointed that out. It wasn't a design decision, it just kinda happened. In fact I didn't even intend for there to be physics initially but it ended up working out. I was talking to somebody else about how getting rid of your skills kinda sucks, I bet there is a way to do it that doesn't make the player feel crappy about it. Thanks for playing and the feedback!

Eternal ice's ability to push things slightly is OP!!! Other powers were interesting as well. De-skilling felt so bad - ha, but fit with the theme ;) Maybe it's a commentary on growing old or something, but was so depressing! Overall, very well done.

Nice idea! The mage is losing his power. I liked the game mechanics too but I wished the rounds weren't so identical.
Thank you for making this game I really enjoyed it!

@greysphere Yeah i'm not sure how to make it less depressing! Still thinking of ways to do so. Glad you were using the powers, some people just used the ice beam the whole game which sounds pretty boring to me :) Thanks for the feedback!

@mrerdalural Having different enemies would definitely help that! If I continue developing it that will be the lowest hanging fruit. Thanks for playing!

This is a pretty good game. I liked the soundtrack of the game (how do you compose such good music?) and the sound effects were pretty realistic. I also liked how the theme was used in that you interpreted power as skills in the game instead of electricity. I didn't like that the gameplay kind of got boring along the way as it was repetitive and didn't really require skills or strategy (I just used the ice beam for the whole game). In conclusion, this game is pretty decent for its awesome audio and use of the theme, but I wish the gameplay wasn't so repetitive.

P.S. Thanks for rating my game!

I like your take on losing power, I was confused because i could not upgrade but the whole idea was to downgrade. I might have missed that but i would make that a bit more clear in the downgrade screen. It could have done with a bit more different sounds the ohhh ohhh oohh was a bit irritating A few more different kind of enemies whould have helped as well. But i enjoyed playing the game well done.

Very good concept! Also well executed :)

Overrall the game is great! Got to Wave 12! I mastered the skill of shooting ice ray (?) so it got less challenging for my last few waves. The mechanics is cool tho.

Really awesome! Loved the concept of the game. The ghosts when the enemies die are also a very nice touch. The music is really cool. Good job!

I'm glad I stumbled upon this game again (I played it very early on and made it to round 12). Made it to round 14 this time! Unfortunately, it really is impossible to beat wave 14 without any skills + cooldown on on the main attack. Wow, you must really have done a good job for me to come back hehe

Nice game! I included it in my Ludum Dare 39 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztP-p00QMyo