I love the graphics. The movement felt a bit clunky, and wasn't very responsive. It'd be nice to go diagonal and to stop faster.

Nice work!

The pixel art looks great. Diagonal movement would help a lot with making the movement feel better. And the volume levels could use some work as well, the door opening sound is a lot louder than the rest of the sound effects.

But overall a solid game.

Unfortunately for me the game kept moving me down and spamming my attack forever, so I couldn't really move or play the game. But the art style was great! Extremely nostalgic for those old-school visuals.

Thanks for the feedback.

Nice work! I managed to make it through what felt like quite a few levels (maybe 10 or so? room I died in had, I think, two kinds of lizards, bats, and a couple pressure plates). Not sure if it was intentionally part of the "loop", but the first 4 rooms always took exactly 4 tries to find the exit... not sure if I was getting unlucky or being trolled ^_^.

Text on the main menu was really hard to read from being blurry, would be better if it's nice, crisp pixel art text or something.
When I slash the pushable block it seems to move in a random direction, makes those room pretty frustrating.
Controls didn't feel great, mostly because I could not change direction or attack until I fully stopped moving, I guess.

Visuals are great!

@jimbly Thanks for playing. Each room does have one exit that is always the same for that room. Sorry about the text. I didnt have time to make a good splash screen. Also, I know the controls need some work. Part of it is because I tried making in like the Classic Zelda game and it has those same kind of controls. Like no diagonal and stopping when you attack. :)

Well done I got the Zelda vibe with the loop feel :D Also liked the graphics. Well done :) @itskdog

Having never played the original zelda, this was really quite a unique experience. From what I've seen, the graphics are almost spot on and the gameplay quite close. The sfx clearly reminiscent of the style as well. One thing to note is I did have to read the comments to understand the gameplay loop and how there is only one room that grants access to the next. It definitely adds interest and explanation to the theme, but perhaps it could be clarified with some audio cues. At first I thought I was getting unlucky rng or there was only room type. Again once I got it though, I realized there is quite a bit of depth to this with the variety of monsters, levers, and scenery. Cheers! :)

@michael-feldman Thanks for playing. I wish I had been more clever in how to figure out which way to go. I was thinking of putting in an item that the player could buy with the gold and then use to show at least two possible ways.

Hey, you did a dungeon crawler too! Did you use Famitracker for everything like we did?

Great job! You clearly have great taste. =P

@stephenwhoskins I used Unity for the programming. Krita for the art. Deflemask for the sound.

@itskdog Oh, seriously? I used Deflemask when it was first announced, but it was really limited in its capability at the time. I'll try it again. Thank you for the inside scoop!

@stephenwhoskins I used Deflemask because it was free and you can use the Nes chipset. I just messed around with it until I made a sound effect that was "passable"

These graphics are exciting!

@itskdog Famitracker is also free and it let's you do a 99.999% accurate composition for the 8-bit NES 2A03 chip. And you can emulate the chip expansions that were made available through cartridges. It was used for a featured arrangement in Cave Story and in many other places as well. It's possible you might really like it if you haven't tried it yet.

@stephenwhoskins thanks for the information. I'll have to check it out.

Graphics are great, very Zelda-like, great job! I feel the controls would need a bit of polish, they were quite slippery

loved the pixel art And nice level design

Nice game! Graphics are good, but the controls are not very responsive. Good job!

I got this far: https://imgur.com/ou490xI

It looks very nice, and the sounds are solid, too. The concept is nice, and fits the theme, and there is a huge variety of enemies and obstacles for a compo game. Really nice work, in a lot of ways.

The controls are a huge drawback, unfortunately. It's not a problem that I cannot go diagonal. The problem is that I cannot switch direction until after the deceleration of my previous direction finishes stopping me, which feels like there's just a huge lag in turning. To experience this in a straightforward way, hold D to move right. While holding D, press S. You keep moving right, all that is fine. Then release D. You think the character would immediately switch to down movement, but there is a huge delay.

Most of combat was dominated by this delay. Original-Zelda-style combat is about quickly reacting to the changes in direction of the semi-predictable AI, and spiking your sword shot onto them without getting so close you get hit. That very often requires an instant switch of direction immediately before the swing, and I just can't do that in this game.

I know others mentioned the controls so maybe I'm repeating, but I'm a big believer that control feel is the #1 thing in these jams, so I hope the extra detail is constructive.

Glancing at your code, I think the problem might be an unintended interaction between PlayerController.ProcessInputs() and CharacterMove.GroundMovement()

In ProcessInputs you do:

horizontal += Input.GetAxis("Horizontal");

And then in CharacterMove.GroundMovement() you have:

xVelocity = speed * input.horizontal;
//...
if (xVelocity == 0)
{
yVelocity = speed * input.vertical; //Set up and down movement
}

If you read the documentation for that "GetAxis" function you're using, here: https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Input.GetAxis.html

You will see a tiny note at the bottom:

> Note: The Horizontal and Vertical ranges change from 0 to +1 or -1 with increase/decrease in 0.05f steps. GetAxisRaw has changes from 0 to 1 or -1 immediately, so with no steps.

So my best guess is that the GetAxis step feature creates a "cooldown" when the horizontal walk is released by your player. That cooldown takes several moments to get all the way to zero.

While it is still not zero, your "if (xVelocity == 0)" check returns FALSE even though the user is not pressing any x-direction movement button. And this is why the player cannot instantly turn down.

My experience is that I hate this smoothing that GetAxis does, and I usually just read raw Input.GetKeyDown. You can use GetAxisRaw instead. By accessing the raw input, you can take more direct control of the game feel and get it just right.

Hope that helps!

Anyway, this one unfortunate thing in the controls aside, the rest of your entry is really strong and well-done for a compo. There's an ambitious amount of scope here, with nice art and sound and design. I look forward to seeing what you come up with next!

(EDIT: I tried the fixed-controls version and it's a lot better. I still think it's a tiny bit mushy and if you are still using the smoothed GetAxis I suggest trying GetAxisRaw, but it's a big improvement already.)

@pkenney Thanks so much for playing and looking at the code. I noticed that in my controls as well. I'll keep tweaking until it becomes better. You almost made it to the last room where you find the Circle-force. I think you had one more room of enemies.:)