I think all the hard work has paid off! A very enjoyable experience with great graphics as usual. The theme is clearly implemented and the voice actors lift the game to a highter level as always. Great work and best of luck during this jam!

combat is bit stiff but the rest of the game is well done, loved the voice over :)

Cool game, although next time it would be nice if you included a web version of the game so people don't have to download anything.

A very complete game, perfect in every way!

Nice and polished game. Feels very professional, voice overs and everything! :)

Although game looks cool, some of the elements fade in this color pallete. Like coins and small enemyes. Voices sounds very good. Gameplay is fun. Great job!

I love the voice, I really enjoyed it. Only thing that annoyed me about the game was trying to pick up the items. Maybe try slightly increasing the pickup radius? Overall, really positive experience!

An absolute gem. Great graphics, very good music (only point, kick drum+bass felt a little too loud in the mix) resulting an in excellent atmosphere for a jam game. Voiceovers are always appreciated by me, and they were good quality to boot. The merchant's voice got ducked behind the music a little though.

I'm not sure I really enjoyed having to stop when firing, but that does add more tactical decision making to otherwise simple combat, so it was probably a good move. Not super challenging though, I was never in any real danger, but this did result in me playing the game to the end.

One of the more polished games I've seen so far!

Really cool game! Loved the art-style and controlling the character felt really good. Had a fun time :) Was super impressed when I saw that this was made with only one programmer and artist, great work :thumbsup: The only thing I would have added is a health bar for the boss at the end, because I felt that a sense of progression there would have been nice.

I think you did a really good job with the game but a health bar to the boss would have been nice. :)

Oh wow! Just wow! First of all a big fan of your LD44 Path of Redemption game. And there are definitely some similarities between the two. When I saw three pillars I even thought that you were reusing the same switch-puzzle from the previous game (and honestly speaking I wouldn't mind, because I really enjoyed them back there).

So yeah, it's super polished overall and the voice acting is a cherry on top! Arrow sounds and the fact that your arrows actually stuck in the enemies make your shots feel powerful and satisfying.
The idea of a looping dungeon is neat, but I felt like it was somewhat of a downgrade in comparison with a standard roguelike maze exploration.

It seems like in every next wave it's the same enemies from the previous one with some extra ones. So it would be cool (especially given the theme of undead and necromancy) if the bodies would remain and when you go back to the same room it wasn't the new enemies spawning, but the old ones reviving. It would add some feeling of looping and persistency I think.

I also found the game to be too too easy. I quickly bought all the upgrades and then just annihilated all the enemies without them ever having a chance. If the game would be more challenging players would also need to manage the health pickups. Not grab them immediately when at full health, but leave them be to have more chances on the next cycle.

So yeah, even though I felt a little bit like the idea of a looping dungeon was somewhat underexplored, it didn't stop me from enjoying the experience a whole lot.

Very polished entry! The pixel art graphics and the level of detail are amazing, especially for a jam game. The voice acting, audio work, and BGM are just perfect. You've done a great job on this project! I only wish there were more roguelike elements, like different types of crossbows, or some sort of special moves. But I understand that in three days it's very hard to implement lots of mechanics.

That was super amazing! I really enjoyed this one and the gfx were so well done. The voice overs were a nice touch, the music was great and the overall gameplay felt really polished. What you all accomplished in 72 hours is really amazing. Congrats on finishing and submitting your game!

I really enjoyed this. Wonderfully polished and a nice varied experience. It took me a while to figure out what to do with the three torch braziers, but the moment the second loop begun suddenly it all clicked into place. The combat felt nice, the enemies were nice and varied and I loved the gameplay meta-narrative of travelling along with the ourobourous until you slay it to escape. Fantastic interpretation. The voiceovers were a lovely touch, espeically having a separate line for each shop item, and the little poems were nice.

The graphics were also very pleasing with some lovely effects. I think my main constructive criticisms are related to the combat, and I think they'd mostly be fairly easy to rectify. The first is that when the combat began I immediately felt myself reaching for a dodge/dash button that wasn't there. It would really help add to the skill ceiling of the game and allow you to make it much more difficult as the onus of evading the projectiles shifts much more to the player. The second is that it was occasionally difficult to see the thin bolts compared to their shadows. I think they could get away with not having a shadow or toning it down a little, and perhaps a trail or some motion blur wouldn't go amiss to help keep track of them. The final is that the pacing and smoothness of the combat was stunted only by the fact that the character must stop to fire. I assume this is because the torso and legs of the sprite aren't separate? But it would be very ideal to do that so you can move and fire at the same time. That would improve the game by leaps and bounds, I think.

But overall, I emphasise that this was a great entry. Stellar job.

So fun! Good work :thumbsup:

Really impressive work on the graphics! I love how kicking the book made pages fly around! Incredible attention to detail. I think i softlocked myself after the 3rd loop by entering the beast once more (before something else happened? i heard the voice line and I don't know if it turns into a boss fight or something, but I entered its mouth again... maybe i was too quick.) Overall, incredible work, and I loved the voice acting. One of the best games I've played this jam!

@blobo Ah yes you missed the boss fight. I disable the door but apparently not fast enough. Thank you for letting me know, I will fix that for the post-jam update.

Wow! This is super impressive for a gamejam, I can't believe you got it looking this good AND with good voice acting too, very well done. Even the little interactions with props are great (i.e. the books exploding into pages, stepping on fruit, etc). Really well done, this is one of the best entries I've played so far (and I'm not just saying that because my game has the same name haha)

Already thought this was a great submission theme-wise when I saw the title and when I played it, it was even better. Great work! All mechanics seem to work as intended. The music kicks ass. Some elements like the very small enemies and coins could be more eye-catching. It would make a first playthrough a little more intuitive.

Wow, didn't expect a game that good in a jam ! Love the "custom wave" mechanic, but maybe it would have been better not to have the same 3 on the last loop ? (not sure how to fix this)

Lovely entry! Really like your interpretation of the theme, and playing this felt really well-rounded and fun! I was especially impressed by the voice acting, and enjoyed the shopkeeper's comments! :>

Everything from the graphics to the audio seemed really polished! The various particles were super nice, and the fights were fair. The only wish I had was for some more innovative mechanics - but overall, y'all did a really good job, I think! :)

Also, yay for LÖVE! You might want to mention that you can run the game on Linux and macOS!

Very impressive submission. How do you guys only have 26 ratings? You have a big team, get everyone to start rating other games so more people play your game!

The gameplay, graphics, and audio are all top notch. Very well done. I liked how intuitive it was to figure out what I had to do by just looping over the same rooms and seeing the inactive pillars.

I wasn't able to kill the boss at the end because I accidentally entered the dungeon again during the bossfight. The entrance disappeared but when I walked over to where it used to be I got the press E prompt which got me stuck in the first stage of the dungeon.

I liked the upgrade system and the awesome merchant voice actor

Wow this was really good! The usage of the loop theme was nice, I was unclear what it meant to choose one of the three pillars at first, but it was nice the way the mystery revealed itself later. The shopkeep was also a nice touch.

I did have a few small issues: There seemed to be a problem with parts of the game being offscreen, so I couldn't see the shopkeeps head, and I asumme there was also a UI showing my health and arrow count but I could not see it. Perhaps because of that, in the first room I was trying to learn the controls and shot off all my explosive arrows before beginning the game. Last, I ruined the final boss by pressing E after a bunch of fighting, and got teleported away to an empty room and could not finish the game.

But those few tiny things aside, this was a great experience. The art was really great (nice shadows too!), and the audio was strong across the board. Controls were nice, with the hitch in my step when I shot creating more interesting situations than "spam fire all day and backpedal." It also forced me to choose what targets to go after first and who to spend my explosive arrows on.

Very nice jam entry, well done.

I really enjoyed it! The art is great, I liked the soundtrack too, everything looks like a high level polishing, I like the effects when things break (apples and books) and narration is really one of the great points of the game.
I just wish I could adjust the size of the game window, it always opens in fullscreen and cuts both sides a little bit, I only know about the existence of side feedbacks because of the post image, by the way at the beginning when I saw the images, I remembered _The Binding of Isaac_ game. The level of polish is really impressive for a gamejam, congratulations.

@joaog @pkenney

Thank you both for your feedback. Sorry about the fact that the game did not fit the screen, I wanted to implement the ability to change resolution (which I plan to do in a post-jam update) but time ran out. The game is 1080p, so if you have a smaller resolution it wont fit.

Also Windows is for some reason defaulting to scaling applications to 125%, if you do have a 1080p resolution screen, check that this is on 100%, and not the default 125%.


Post Jam Update one released, read more here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/ouroboros-5/$232224