So good

this was a really nice put together game. some nitpicks about the game would be the drone lazers shooting through the ground. and the boss hitting me twice when i got teleported back to the spawn area. i would ass in some iframes after spawning so you can get away from the been of lazers

As usual, another well-polished entry with amazing graphics and music! The mana mechanic is really well-designed, it did a good job of making me actually make sure to aim before throwing wands at the enemies. 😅

Aside from not getting a second of invincibility after respawning during the boss fight, can't say I can think of a single complaint about anything in the entire game. Personally I really like how the drones are able to shoot through walls, it makes it so they're actually somewhat difficult to fight.

Thanks! Yeah, I didn't put some iframes after spawning, my bad. I made sure to keep the drones away from spawn points in the levels, but that simply wouldn't be possible for the boss.

I could fix drones being able to shoot through walls, but as this has a major impact on level design, this will have to wait for a post-jam version. I'm also thinking about adding a mechanic of cancelling the lasers with your wand projectile.

Great art and balanced game, the tense tug of war of trying to maintain mana to shoot a flying drone (or the minister) while not using it to jump around was very clever. "Nothing in life is certain but death and taxes" :P

Super graphics. Fun to play. Great work! :thumbsup:

I don't know what's more unfair – powerful mages avoiding their taxes, or drone enemies being able to shoot through walls.

Very fun and polished platformer, and a surprising amount of quality content for the compo. The mana management felt a bit sluggish to me. Like the controls would often feel unresponsive because I had enough mana to make a shot, would then attempt to jump and shoot only to realize that the jump ate up mana. Gives the game a start-and-stop feel that I don't think it benefits from. The boss fight felt really good, on the other hand. Maybe a question of the level design and the kind of challenges you put in front of the player. Idunno.

In any case, very impressive work. I had fun!

The art, music and controls are great. I am impressed anyone can make graphics this good in 48 hours. Only complaint is with the player collider causing the player to slide of the edge of platforms.

@esayitch @mixon00 thank you!

@pdotjpg Thanks for the feedback. At first, I added mana because I didn't have a ready-to-use implementation of a snappy platformer character (with things like coyote time and input buffering). So I just made a resource that regenerates on the ground only, to be used for jumping, and because you're a mage, that's "mana". Then, same thing for shooting, why need a cooldown timer when I already have a self-regenerating resource?

You'll notice if you have less than X% mana (but strictly more than 0), you can still jump even when it usually costs X%, it just zeroes out your mana. I could have done the same for shooting to address that.

As for drones, let's say they shoot infrared lasers, that's why they can shoot through walls :P

The graphics are amazing, I loved the humour, the simple mechanics were nicely made. Really great game! good job!

Great art! I love the innovation of using mana for jumping and attack. I haven't seen that kind of action economy choices in a platformer before. Very charming.

- nice use of a single resource (was someone hoping for a different theme) to make meaningful gameplay choices.
- only downside is that it did make some situations were I was waiting for mana to recover
- graphics, music, sfx, etc was all really good.

I love it! This game was the most fun I've played in the jam so far! The graphics were very cute and I like the stylization, the music fit perfectly and helped to set the mood, the mana system was unique, and the boss battle was fun and engaging. The only nitpick I would have is that there were a couple spawning points where the drone lasers would continue to shoot me and kill me as soon as I respawned, but other than that this game was perfect! Awesome job!

Loved it :D Really impressed with the music especially, having the extra tracks for various events added a lot. Only found one secret, might have to do another playthrough later to see if I missed any~

... also thanks for reminding me i still have to do my taxes ...

Really enjoyed playing this game! :smiley:
The mana bar is a cool mechanic.

I was really surprised to see that this was a compo submission! Tax evasion was never so fun :flushed:
Really solid game honestly. I only wish there was some spawn-protection for the boss because I went from riches to rags real quick ;(

"You're taxed!" ahah, really good job, the game is fun, controls are great, well done.

Great game! I loved the graphics - especially the intro cutscene - and the scanline effect added a lot. Generally, the amount of content in this game is huge for a jam game - 2 levels and a boss is a lot! The mana as the same resource for both jumping and shooting is a clever idea too. However, there were multiple times where I tried to jump/attack without mana and it took me a moment to realize why nothing's happening. Perhaps some sort of visual effect would help? I also encountered some tilemap flickering in the first level. Otherwise, incredible entry!

Edit: I just realized I wrote jam game accidently, I meant compo :sweat_smile:

This game is so creative, funny and fun. I really like it!

This is great! I like the humor of it, and the art and polish is very cute! The gamefeel is also really nice with the particle effects and things like shooting pushing you back. And there was a surprising amount of content for how polished the game was!

The knockback on attacking really adds an extra level of difficulty to a simple platformer. Had a lot of fun!

Loved the game! I don't know if was intentional, but has the mage only shoots right, for me, it is a political statement about anarco-captalism...

great job!

Just the right length and difficulty, having to learn the ministers attacks and trying not to knock myself into a corner while attacking is super fun!

I quite enjoyed this!

using the same resource for both jumping and attacking seemed interesting at first, but it became a bit frustrating as the game went on. Possibly because, when shooting down at enemies from above, the projectile would often hit the corner of the ledge so I would need to jump and attack to hit them, but that means I have to wait for my mana to recharge!! :anguished:.

It was also super unfair that the bad guys can shoot through walls and I cant!!!

Still fun and enjoyable, though.

Thanks everyone for the feedback! So drones shooting through walls is definitely not a good idea, though it would make for a good challenge the player can do the same. I'm considering adding another weapon or unlockable ability for the player. Or even "soft" and "hard" walls to incorporate into the level design, wand projectiles bouncing off ledges, etc. Lots of ideas for a post-jam version. At least, lasers colliding with walls will make for a nice particle effect.

I'm thinking about how to solve the problem of waiting for the mana to recharge as well. Showing the minimum mana cost more precisely could help, as well as allowing attacking for any positive mana amount.

As well as the game's message, I never thought that way about a tax-evading mage destroying bureaucrats and shooting to the right. :P

Overall, thanks again for the very positive feedback!

Very nice platformer! Graphically impressive and fun to play. The small defaults have already been mentioned several times, so I won't insist, but apart from that, it's all good!

I like this. the contorls were a bit stiff but at the end I enjoyed the humourous premise the most.

The post-jam version is now published! Lasers are now blocked by walls, minimal shooting cost is reduced, and I also optimized the build size a bit. The source code still refers to version 1.0.