Finally a pro-pineapple game. Really funny, nice visuals. Music reminded me of Doom. The combat wasn't super fun, but it worked well enough. Good job.

Heyo xel!

So, here's a little bit of feedback!

Feel free to ignore most of the things due to jam scope etc, but as always I’ll give feedback considering you’ll work on it after the jam.

Could’ve been better:
- Battle music is too short, the loop becomes really noticeable
- Grinding is really boring, and it makes the game feel like a task, instead of a challenge that I want to overcome
- Apparently the answer you pick doesn't matter, since most of the answers are similar with different wordiness
- A lot of hand-holding and explanations, instead of just letting the player explore, showing "the key before the lock". That makes me reading the text more as obligation instead of I'm curious of what this means. I'd make that optional.

Good points:
- The art is amazing
- Overall atmosphere and the dialogues are really fun!!!!
- The lobby music is amazing


Hope that helps, and if you happen to update this game, come back here in your comment section to remember me and drop me a tweet or something!

If you have time, please click on my profile and give me some constructive feedback on my game (:

See ya!

This was amazing. Beautiful visual, good humor, satisfying juicy gameplay. Amazing job.

Glorpol is my bae! =D That's awesome game! Very good!

Nice job! It had a really nice aesthetic and cute writing. The combat was snappy and fun. I kinda wish there was minor differences in the enemies (even just getting bigger over time) but I understand the time limit is tough. Really fun overall!

I really love the art and writing in this one great job. Did think combat dragged on a bit too long. More enemy variety would have been greatly appreciated.

I loved this! The combat was super simple but it suited the feel of the game. The humor was good (why did it give me Rick & Morty vibes?), and the art and animation were super clean. I like the Paper Mario homage in turning around. It was a bit frustrating to give an answer to every single dialogue box; I think perhaps most of it wasn't needed and it was overuse of that feature, but where there was clear branch in the answers (ie "Experience?" or "Experience!!!"), that made good sense. The game playing out with the tutorial is the perfect way to introduce these kind of game mechanics. Audio was ok - perhaps a little bit bland and repetitive, but not to the point of grating too much. The spells were really nicely put together. Good job putting this all together for the compo and thanks for sharing!

artwork and presentation and feeling of polish are all really good, music is also nice and fits in well, gameplay is ok but gets a bit samey and the dialogues while initially sort of fun for setting the story and so on in the end gets too frequent and I want to just get on with the game, the spell effects were nice and fun but didn't really feel there was much challenge with the enemies, still good work though and impressively polished feeling.

I liked the clean, minimalist art. You did a lot with very few lines! It was funny and the sense of polish was really impressive. It felt *good* to beat up those cup-cake spirits.

Wow, what an amazing game, the artwork is really good, the dialogue is funny, the music is really nice, gameplay feels good but if you keep atacking next to the invisible wall you go through it and you can keep going, also the delay for the special attacks is quite high, meaning that in the most times the basic attack is better because you won't get hurts as easily. Overall it's a really good game, one of the best I played yet! Wonderfull Work!

Holy crap, this is freakin' hilarious! The art and animations are also really good. You should like, make games for real, unless you already are. Are you?

Masterpiece! Best game I've played this Ludum Dare, and I've played around 50 so far. I hope this gets into the Top 10 for a few categories since it certainly deserves it! Brilliant graphics, amazing gameplay, great audio, and every bit of content works so well together. This could be extended in content and be released/published as a full game! Improvements: maybe less dialogue at the start (but a full release would keep the amount) and please add a boss fight! I played right to the end, it was so much fun!!! 5 stars!

P.S. Make sure to keep rating games, so this masterpiece gets up there on the leaderboards!

I love the artstyle, one of the best I've seen so far! the music doesn't really fit the mood I think and the tutorial is a bit too much but it's ok because the writing is enjoyable!

It felt like a full game and complete game, amazing to know it was made under 72 hours. I really enjoyed the game-play and story line. Congrats on your entry.

Very nice game! I loved the graphics, very clean and cute and perfect for this game. The combat was nice as well, just challenging enough. The different skills added some variety, some different types of enemies would be fun as well, maybe that is something you could add if you keep working on this. It's a super nice game so I really think you should!

It looked great, the sound design was spot on and I loved the humour in the dialogue. I think the length was perfect and I liked the fact that the goal of the game was clear from the start.


Análise...

1 - Mecânicas, Aprendizado e Fluxo:
Achei muito interessante ter a sala antes do local dos combates, com interação com os outros dois personagens, fora o personagem do jogador (PdJ).
Senti que há ilusão nas escolhas entre as falas, mas que cada escolha faz a narrativa ser um pouco mais individualizada (mesmo que algo ilusório).
Toda a mecânica foi muito interessante, só não gostei da dificuldade em se posicionar para lançar as magias (entretanto eu não saberia dizer a melhor forma de resolver isso, por conta de ser em tempo real e qualquer modificação nas velocidades dos personagens alterar bastante o balanceamento).
Aprender a jogar foi rápido, ainda mais com o tutorial (em jogo).
O fluxo de jogo foi crescente, mantive-me imerso dentro das batalhas, entretanto sair da cena de batalha me fez parar para resolver algo (na vida real), então é um momento de descanso, mas é também um momento de saída da imersão (talvez proposital). Caso o interesse seja na imersão em conjunto com a ação, talvez seja interessante adicionar um botão para "próxima onda" em vez de voltar para a sala (mas isso pode quebrar o fluxo narrativo).
Para tempo de Ludum Dare, creio que tanto as mecânicas, quanto o aprendizado e inclusive o fluxo de jogo foram bem aplicados.

2 - Gráficos, Áudio, Narrativa e Polimento:
Achei interessante a forma como foram feitos e a escolha por rotacionar o sprite (isso ficou engraçado também).
Sobre ter como sair da câmera, indo para além da tela, eu não sei se é uma coisa muito boa (especialmente sem uma seta mostrando a própria presença e a de inimigos na área externa).
O áudio ficou bacana para tempo de game jam, apenas apontaria polir/melhorar o áudio fora de batalha (por ser um pouco cansativo). O tema de batalha me agradou bastante.

3 - Cultura:
Culturalmente vi referência ao Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood.
Não sei se foi proposital, mas o "esqueleto/ceifador" me lembrou uma animação que passava na televisão também (The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy).
Lida com vitomancia e com a questão moral de manter vida (dando como saída o simples fato de pagar um preço para fazer algo que (a priori) seria errado (aos olhos da "morte")).
Creio que o jogo possa ser polido e que, se for do interesse da equipe, fazer a "prequel" da história, justificando a solidão do aprendiz/feiticeiro (talvez envolvendo a família dele).
Assim o jogo poderia dar um retorno cultural, sustentando na mecânica base já elaborada.

4 - Monetização:
Creio que se o jogo for estendido para antes do início, ele possa (tirando proveito das mecânicas e do aspecto artístico) ser vendido em stores como itch.io. :)

Analysis...

1 - Mechanics, Learning and Flow:
I found it very interesting to have the room before the fighting location, with interaction with the other two characters, apart from the player's character (PC).
I felt that there is an illusion in the choices between the lines, but that each choice makes the narrative a little more individualized (even if somewhat illusory).
All the mechanics were very interesting, I just didn’t like the difficulty in positioning myself to cast the spells (however I wouldn’t be able to say the best way to solve this, due to being in real time and any changes in the speed of the characters change the balance a lot ).
Learning to play was quick, especially with the tutorial (in game).
The game flow was increasing, I kept myself immersed in the battles, however leaving the battle scene made me stop to solve something (in real life), so it is a moment of rest, but it is also a moment of exit from immersion ( maybe purposeful). If you are interested in immersion in conjunction with the action, you may want to add a "next wave" button instead of going back to the room (but this can break the narrative flow).
For Ludum Dare's time, I believe that both the mechanics, the learning and even the game flow were well applied.

2 - Graphics, Audio, Narrative and Polishment:
I found it interesting the way they were made and the choice to rotate the sprite (that was funny too).
As for getting out of the camera, going beyond the screen, I don't know if it's a very good thing (especially without an arrow showing your presence and that of enemies in the outside area).
The audio was nice for game jam time, I would only aim to polish / improve the audio out of battle (because it is a little tiring). The battle theme pleased me a lot.

3 - Culture:
Culturally, I saw reference to the Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood.
I don't know if it was on purpose, but the "skeleton / reaper" reminded me of an animation that was on television as well (The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy).
It deals with vitomancy and with the moral question of maintaining life (giving as a solution the simple fact of paying a price to do something that (a priori) would be wrong (in the eyes of "death")).
I believe that the game can be polished and that, if it is in the interest of the team, do the "prequel" of the story, justifying the loneliness of the apprentice / sorcerer (perhaps involving his family).
Thus, the game could give a cultural return, based on the basic mechanics already elaborated.

4 - Monetization:
I believe that if the game is extended to before the start, it can (taking advantage of the mechanics and the artistic aspect) be sold in stores like itch.io. :)

Great game! The dialogues I think were the best.
The artstyle is cute. I see potential for developing further.

For a 48 hour game that was super polished. The dialogue was funny, but there was too much of it. I enjoyed the battles though they could have been improved a lot with more variety in enemies. The audio was serviceable.
It didn't offer anything new in terms of gameplay or ideas, but it delivers an establish style very successfully.

I Love Glorpol. The simple graphics were nice and the audio, while short, made me feel epic. This barely scraped by on theme, but was totally worth it.

Very cool, was fun levelling up. The triggering of the powers was a bit inconsistent, sometimes I'd trigger the timer/cooldown , but not the attack.

I couldn't get to level 6. :slight_frown: 

Wow, thank you all for your comments so far! It's always great to receive feedback during these jams and to reflect on what can be improved! I commented below with responses to most of you! Thanks so much for taking the time to rate and review!

@nyunesu Thanks for the feedback! Agreed about the music. Regarding grinding, I definitely wish I could have made it less repetitive. I ran out of time and wasn’t able to put in the other enemies I had planned! For the tutorials and dialogue, I definitely see how it could be a bit handholdy. I initially wanted the entire game to be dialogue focused but shifted away from it day 2, I think the remnants of that initial direction don’t mix too well with the new core of the game! Thanks for your feedback!

@snesgaard Agreed! I wish I had time to get in the other two enemies I had planned :(

@madebychaz Thanks for the feedback! I originally had planned on much more expansive dialogue but at 4am in the morning I just started slugging things in! Audio was last minute so I was just happy to have something in haha.

@automatonvx Agreed about dialogue dragging on and combat feeling repetitive! If only I had time to put in more enemies :(

@marcelo-zoletti You found one of the bugs! I didn’t have enough time to fix it and figured it wasn’t too game breaking :) For spell casting I wanted to balance the players decision between attacking and spell casting. I think if I put in an ability to push back enemies that it would help quite a bit.

@scott-steffes Thanks! Making games is actually my day job so I do have a fair amount of practice!

@emperor-eagle Thanks so much! Agreed about the dialogue for the jam. If this was a full game, it’s totally a good amount- but a bit overboard for this jam!

@thelemba Glad you found the writing enjoyable! I tried to make the tutorial unobtrusive but dialogue can definitely drag!

@emmatw Yes I would love to add different enemy types! I just need a hyperbolic time chamber!

@gustavo-christino Thanks so much for your in-depth feedback! Getting outside the bounds of the camera is definitely a bug, that shouldn’t be happening! The original idea was a mix of Frankenstein and Full Metal Alchemist so you’re pretty spot on! And don’t tempt me with thoughts of monetization! It’d be great to turn this into a full monetized product!

@melonking Agreed on both counts! Dialogue can definitely drag and the audio leaves…. a bit to be desired hah

@clblobby Shhh don’t mention it’s loose connection to the theme!

@johnnysix I didn’t explain it in the game but some spells are only front facing, so if you don’t have any enemies in front of you they will fail to fire but the cool down will still activate. If I had more time I think I would rework how that functions!

@xel Do you post your work anywhere?

A lot of polish here! Looks and feels good to play with feedback on everything. Most issues I've had have been brought up by others the main thing being finding ways to make the combat more engaging. I think making the spells more distinct could be a fun idea. Instead of just damage spells how about some buff/debuff spells. Freeze enemies, charm them and make them fight each other, healing, there is a lot of potential there.

@scott-steffes Not really, I work full time for a studio that does mostly client work and my night hours are spent doing freelance for other indies, sadly doesn't leave much time for me! Part of why I love doing Ludum Dare is that it's a chance to create something that's just mine! You can see some of the non-NDA work I've done at [my portfolio](https://matthewvroman.com/).

@silkworm-sweatshop Thanks so much! Yeah buff and debuff would be really cool, the freeze effect is neat to think about and probably wouldn't have been too hard to implement! Why weren't you around when I was making the game!

OH man i LOVE the walking animation of the character. This game is super adorable. Fantastic work!

OMG, these dialogues were hilarious. That's an extraordinary level of polish for 48h, crazy. And the fighting felt organic and rounded. Also like the art style. Great game!

I love the atmosphere, it is awesome! Love the visual and audio design. Also it is quite funny!

Funny. Charming. Awesome graphics, stylish music and generally a really good aesthetic! Would be nice to see this developed further!

Just played your game on stream! Great work!

Awesome entry! Great art, nice music and high amount of polish. The humor was on point. Great job!

Positive: I actually laughed. Not just a giggle - a full on laugh. Good stuff! Graphics are stylish, instructions clear, fits the theme and plays without any glitches or bugs, it seems.
Negative: A little repetitive. That is literally the ONE bad thing about this game.
Glorpol: Cute. Worthy of BFF status.

Wow Im really impressed by how satisfying the combat mechanics are. The art and animation looks really good too. Also love the amount of humor you put into the game. Im amazed that this is done in 48 hours. :O

good graphics