Charming's Sacrifices by Colletto Gregory
You received a strange letter !
Dear Charming,
My land is infested by a strange disease : my people become aggressive and attack randomly with some strange particular move.
You are my last hope.
Overcome 20 encounter to finish my ~~game~~ *hum* quest, and be rewarded by a hug <3 !
Your love, Bert
Seeing this, you jumped on your feet, took your first spell and your most shiny armor, and went without any more thinking. But one question still bother you... Who's Bert ? ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Controls : (If you didn't change the inputs)
- Cast a fireball (your only spell, you should have prepared a little longer...), from the weakest to the strongest: a, z, e, r
- Open a treasure chest: space bar
- Open/close the menu: escape
DevWord :
Thanks to play our game ! It's only a prototype though, we couldn't make it on time. But we're willing to finish it during the next weeks, so if you want to hear about it, just tell us in the comments :D !
Credits :
- Grégory Colletto (@colletto-gregory) : Game Design, Code
- Lise "Caillou" Carreel (@lise-carreel) : Game Design, Visual
- Guillian "Copperfox" Griveau : Music

| HTML5 (web) | https://caillou-multifonction.itch.io/charming-sacrifice |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/charmings-sacrifices |
Ratings
| Overall | 1012th | 2.558⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1023th | 2.173⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 953th | 2.538⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1039th | 1.804⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 762th | 3⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 440th | 3.167⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 647th | 2.577⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 929th | 2.54⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 23🗳️ | 18🗨️ |
Also really liked the graphics ... overall this has potential and good job!
The music is very nice, I could listen to the track for hours.
I had some weird issues where the HUD kept disappearing, first the HP circle along with the portrait and then the 'mana' bar. As others mentioned already the scrolling is a bit off too (yeah I know, stating the obvious...), other than that it could become a very good game if you continue developing!
I liked a lot the taped buttons and the tapped portrait on the boxes, very nice styling idea and choice! ^^
By the way, I'm guessing your are using an AZERTY keyboard? Cause azer was kinda confusing. I think it'd be better to use the numbers above on the next version/game!
But above all, thank you so much for the kind comments, we'll try to take in count all of your returns :D !
Firstly, I'm a laptop user. The resolution that you have selected for the game window is way larger than my laptop's resolution, so a lot of the game, including UI is mostly blocked off for me. I believe you can set itch to scale the view according to the player's resolution, so maybe use that?
It felt like there was many instances where I had mana to attack, but the game wouldn't let me. Even the cheapest attack would fail, and I would be condemned to lose a life. Not sure what triggered the glitch, but seemed to repair on death. I also didn't get the mana system initially, as it was a bit discreet (and half cut off by the resolution). Also, an empty mana bar looks a bit too similar to a full one, so maybe increase the contrast a bit to make it more obvious?
What was the point of items from the chests? Does it improve some stat, because by the point I had found any items, the UI had vanished (which is apparently a feature?) Maybe tell us what the item does, or at least what the item is. There also seems to be the possibility for long streaks of chests without enemies, my record whilst testing was three in a row without any enemies, which feels a bit broken.
Also, when UI randomly disappears, it isn't really a sacrifice. Whilst this may be a bit nit-picky, a sacrifice should be something that a player actively chooses to do. If it is involuntary, it is closer to progression than sacrifice. There could be more depth to this vanishing UI thing if the player had control over when and what disappears, and maybe it gave them some sort of buff. This could add some more strategic elements to a game which is otherwise, very simple in its approach to gameplay. The player doesn't really have much to do, and there isn't really a choice. A better application of sacrifice could fill this void.
Could have been some extra polish added. Little details like the text bubbles are nice, but the text is rather repetitive, with some events even having the same message each time. You could have maybe randomised the message each time? Also the text bubbles don't really fit in with the rest of the game. They seem to use pixel art, and look quite bland in comparison to other artistic elements. Also the pause menu was quite glitchy, and I found a considerable number of exploits using it. The game would continue playing if you paused during a death animation, and upon resume, all the enemies would disappear. Also looks strange how stationary objects such as a chest don't sit still on the floor, and move relative to the ground. There also wasn't a lot of important feedback events. One such missing event was when you tried to open a chest without a key. Nothing would happen, and no feedback was given as to why. Could have maybe made the player say something to indicate no keys? I also get the feeling that the font was actually custom made (if so, well done, fonts usually come straight from google fonts), and whilst this is nice, the text doesn't scale well, as seen in the "Encounter's left" text. This text is blurry and slightly pixellated.
Otherwise, the game is quite nice, and the art and music are simply wonderful. My only concern is that this came at the expense of gameplay, and consequently, the game isn't particularly engaging. There isn't a whole heap to do. The music and art alone keep me there for some period of time, but that only lasts so long. This is a very nice, and rather ambitious game, one to certainly be proud of! Keep on developing, and I hope this feedback was useful! :thumbsup:
Thank you for trying and for your feedback :D !

Quite a prototype you've got there. A good skeleton, but something that could really do with some balancing down the line, if you do decide to retake this concept. The game has its visual and audio charms, but gameplay wise, it's hard to tell what's going on. I never understood what I got from the chests, nor if I was "killing" enemies correctly. It's hard to tell what's an incomplete feature or a glitch, but nothing that can't be fixed with a day or two of fixes. The humor did get me to chuckle though.
You've got interesting ideas, which should be further explored. [My team](discord.whalesandgames.com) is looking forward to play more games from you in the future. Cheers! :whale:
I'm happy to see you enjoyed it though :D !
Also you user AZER for different spell type which is shuffled up in most countrie's keyboard layouts... better would be 1234 or changeable assignments.
Did only rate a few categories so far...
I did like the music, and found the idea to be nice though!
Would have maybe liked some variety in visuals between the attacks. It took me a while to realize that the main difference between them all was their "mana cost" (and damage, obviously). Also, was there any reason that the attack keys were mapped to z, a, e, and r? Seemed kind of random to me, but maybe I'm out of the loop?
Anyhoo, this was a cute little entry. :) Well done!