LudumData

Unfabled by Kwiper

[raw]
made by Kwiper for Ludum Dare 49 (JAM)

coverImage.png

In Unfabled, you play as a mad wizard whose horse has been stolen from its stable! Standing between you and your horse is a treacherous forest filled with beasts and guards attempting to stop you in your path!

Your only weapon: Elemental Magic

Combine two of the four primal elements to cast spells and defeat your enemies. But be careful, as the elements are unstable to wield. You only have a limited time to create your spell every time you summon the elements, and if you fail to combine elements in time, they will backfire in your face and hurt you. However, should you succeed to create a spell in time, you'll be able to cast a wide variety of different spells with varying effects. Screenshot (14).png

Two Game Modes

Unfabled has two game modes that play largely the same, Adventure and Survival. In Adventure mode, your goal is to complete all 20 waves of enemies to save your horse. In Survival mode, your goal is to survive for as long as you can.

How to Play

LSHIFT: Open the element menu.

WASD: Select your elements.

LMB: Cast your spell.

Have fun!

Link https://kwiper01.itch.io/unfabled
Link https://kwiper01.itch.io/unfabled
Link https://github.com/Kwiper/Unfabled
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/unfabled

Ratings

Overall 441th 3.738⭐ 86🧑‍⚖️
Fun 420th 3.702⭐ 86🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 590th 3.458⭐ 86🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1329th 2.774⭐ 86🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 347th 4.041⭐ 87🧑‍⚖️
Audio 503th 3.494⭐ 84🧑‍⚖️
Humor 933th 2.637⭐ 75🧑‍⚖️
Mood 913th 3.261⭐ 73🧑‍⚖️
Given 68🗳️ 100🗨️

Feedback

Richard Jiang
04. Oct 2021 · 20:07 UTC
Incredibly well polished! Well done!
LDJam user 237945
04. Oct 2021 · 21:19 UTC
Great game - love the visuals, my favorite was the monkey animation!
LDJam user 243929
05. Oct 2021 · 00:47 UTC
Really nice game! Good graphics, with gameplay that's simple yet unique, and with a spot-on difficulty slope.

Also I love the sounds the wizard makes while casting spells!
Ashley GB
05. Oct 2021 · 00:51 UTC
Great job! A fun, well-polished game, especially dig the audio/visuals <3
David Hunter
05. Oct 2021 · 01:27 UTC
Nice idea, well implemented. The randomization of the elements made it too hard to combine element types, I ended up button mashing.
Noctiphobia
05. Oct 2021 · 01:59 UTC
Feels very satisfying. My only complaint is that button mashing is a bit too effective, but I'm not sure how this could be fixed.
Bhughes
05. Oct 2021 · 02:53 UTC
Visuals were great! well done
John Luke Lusty
05. Oct 2021 · 03:53 UTC
Beautifully polished visuals on this. I really love the effort you've taken to make different spells, but they all just deal straight damage - so maybe incorporate some burn effects, or windy push-back? Also - given that the only thing you can do is cast spells it might make sense for him to just always have the element menu open. Nevertheless, this is a very well executed concept! Coolest magic I've seen in the submissions yet.
aapr
05. Oct 2021 · 04:00 UTC
Love the visual, fun game.
🎤 Kwiper
05. Oct 2021 · 04:12 UTC
@john-luke-lusty Thanks for the detailed feedback! There was definitely more we wanted to do with the spells, but we decided to scrap them for the sake of making the jam. So, for variety, we instead decided to give them different damage types, knockback values, and damage values, giving some of the spells different purposes (the fireball for example being a really good single-target kill attack, and the dust tornado being really good at repelling air enemies.) As for the spell menu, our main idea was elemental volatility, so you're given a limited amount of time to select a spell before the elements hurt you instead. There was definitely a lot more we could have done regarding this mechanic, perhaps making it less button-mashy, but we were focused on getting out a basic, polished experience. Thanks for playing!
Kit Gorn
05. Oct 2021 · 04:45 UTC
A well-made game. Music is combined with graphics. Good atmosphere overall. But balance problems are felt.
Quite Good
05. Oct 2021 · 04:47 UTC
Really liked the variety of spells for each elemental combination. Honestly thought for a bit you could only combine like elements, so I was quite pleasantly surprised when I found out otherwise. Magically well done!
Moonlher
05. Oct 2021 · 05:59 UTC
nice game
squirmonkey
05. Oct 2021 · 06:09 UTC
Pretty fun, I enjoyed the pixel art and the variety of spells.

Towards the end of the game (level 12+) it felt like the enemies had too much health, and even when I was spamming out attacks as fast as I could, it was taking too many attacks to kill them, when most of the fun (for me) was in trying to quickly pick an attack that was the right shape for the enemies at hand.

Nice work!
ToxicHouse
05. Oct 2021 · 06:10 UTC
Incredible Game! The different use of spells, the variety in enemy behavior, the good use of distinct artwork for characters, each element is important to creating this game! Good job!

PS. What software did you use to create your assets?
kodepo
05. Oct 2021 · 07:29 UTC
This was something new for me in the "endless runner" category. Spell casting mechanic was clever. Good game! Graphics were also polished nicely.
Kybre
05. Oct 2021 · 08:15 UTC
To answer @toxichouse's question: We used a combination of Asperite, Clip Studio Paint and Photoshop for our assets, and that was mostly dependent on what each artist was comfortable with!

Also thank you to everyone submitting feedback! We really appreciate it :)
Westmave
05. Oct 2021 · 09:14 UTC
This is a good one. Took some time to figure out a good strategy. Sometimes he would´t cast a spell even though i pushed to buttons, but my maybe I was just overwhelmed by the combination of button needed to be pressed in combination with the enemies. Got to Level 11, after that it was full mayhem for me. Nice visuals and sound as well. Good Job!
marbles
05. Oct 2021 · 09:17 UTC
I enjoyed this game! I love the variety of spells that you can cast. The pixel art is very neat as well. My only issue with the art is that one single explosion spell. It doesn't go with the pixel art.
Hobzone
05. Oct 2021 · 10:33 UTC
Awesome graphics! Pretty fun to play. It becoming really quickly a mayhem :D
peterfiftyfour
05. Oct 2021 · 11:04 UTC
I love how this old man is just shuffling through the woods but also packing enough magic to nuke the entire forest. I found the best strat was to ignore what the exact spells were and just spam the same keys since they all do something to every enemy! If it was more rock-paper-scissors like spells I think things would get very hard and maybe the game would need to become more slow-paced-puzzly? Awesome work!
Francisco Sanchez
05. Oct 2021 · 12:53 UTC
Loved the game, very good art and animation! I guess the "unstable" theme is applied on the magic and how unstable can be on the time you have to select, but i don't think it applies that much to the theme. The game is very good overall though
🎤 Kwiper
05. Oct 2021 · 15:24 UTC
@marbles Haha, yeah, that explosion effect was a little last minute so our artist didn't have time to make it all pixels
🎤 Kwiper
05. Oct 2021 · 15:33 UTC
@peterfiftyfour Hey hey, thanks! Yes, some kind of type chart for the spells was an idea we threw around, but for the sake of getting as polished of an experience as possible out in time, we decided to forgo that idea, as we didn't have the time to effectively display and teach type advantages. Instead, we just opted to make the gameplay feel more chaotic, so it's like you're playing as this unstable old man packing enough magic to nuke an entire forest. Thanks for playing!
NinjaCatz
05. Oct 2021 · 15:45 UTC
Gameplay is very entertaining. Someone says that the game does not really correspond to the chosen theme ~~it doesn't matter for me~~ , but it is made with high quality, and I like it. Nice work
Daniel Giorlando
05. Oct 2021 · 15:49 UTC
Fun and challenging. I tried to spam my way through my first couple of tries, but you really can only beat this game if you pay attention to what you're casting, which I like a lot.
Saltysa
05. Oct 2021 · 15:50 UTC
I loved the visuals of the game, especially the bears that were cute and terrifying at the same time! I also really enjoyed miwing up the spells, even tho I mostly usesd the same two keys as i dind't really had the time to see what I was choosing before having to choose. I still had a lot of fun : well done!
Greon
05. Oct 2021 · 15:50 UTC
That was a nice game, really liked it, highly reminds me of Magicka, and i love it. Also, i've found a glitch (At least on the WebGL) that if you fire your lasers backwards they would grow to cover the back of your character and take a veeeery long time to disappear, other than that, very well done!
Embedder72
05. Oct 2021 · 16:02 UTC
Nice game. I really enjoyed and like others have said it's very polished. I did find the controls to be a little uncomfortable for me. If there was anything I'd like would to be able to choose my own layout.
Laurent
05. Oct 2021 · 16:12 UTC
The idea is simple but quite addictive as it forces you to think quickly. The relation to the theme is not the most direct, but every other aspect is top-notch.
benskca
05. Oct 2021 · 16:42 UTC
Beautiful visuals and great music!
mike09123
05. Oct 2021 · 16:43 UTC
I think your idea is great and with some modifications it could be amazing. Since you are using elements, it would have been cool to have enemies where only a certain element works on them. For what I've seen so far, everything works on anything, which took out all strategy. Also, I didn't feel like I needed to do any specific combination, so I just button mashed. If you could add some strategy and prevent button mashing from being effective, this could be a very fun game!
wertyyytrew
05. Oct 2021 · 19:18 UTC
The Spellcasting was fun, but the randomness of the elements resulted in button mashing gameplay. Still a very polished game worth playing
Patsui
05. Oct 2021 · 20:41 UTC
Cool visuals and pretty unconventional gameplay. I had a hard time casting spells but after I got a hang of it I just mashed my buttons together.
m1nus
05. Oct 2021 · 20:54 UTC
sooooo beautiful! and the music is great! loved playing it!
g5-leonardo
05. Oct 2021 · 22:40 UTC
Well polished game. I really liked the mood and the game is engaging till the end. Good Job :smile:
mythalore
05. Oct 2021 · 23:11 UTC
Lovely presentation, do wish the elements weren't as random, ended up just spamming for whatever rather than being more tactical.
FlyWolfe
06. Oct 2021 · 01:46 UTC
Awesome art and I loved the effects you can do with your spells. The way they were against different enemies and situations was a nice touch. I'm not a huge fan of the randomness when I also have to choose quickly with a delay between casts, but it still felt really cool to let off a lava beam or an explosive shot. Really cool game!
Levi
06. Oct 2021 · 04:35 UTC
Hey! Great idea for a game. As others have been saying, well-polished for a jam entry. You already know it's really fun to play based on other's feedback, so I thought I'd just add my own two cents on some critiques :) I didn't know if there was a benefit to using different element types. The powers were different but they didn't seem to hurt the enemies differently. It eventually became so difficult I just mashed the keys without thinking about my decisions and it was an effective strategy. This is a game jam though so no expectation to have that fleshed out, just some thoughts. Enjoyed playing it. Thanks for making this.
EdevJogos
06. Oct 2021 · 06:25 UTC
Fun game i've enjoyed playing it, i was quite impressed with the amount of different magics you can cast, on a post jam update it would be nice if they were slowly introduced like the magic gets more unstable with time and different elements show up, this way i would be able to memorize all the combinations and by the time the game gets hard i can quickly think about what magic to use with the elements at my disposal.
🎤 Kwiper
06. Oct 2021 · 06:43 UTC
@edevjogos Hey, thanks for playing! That's definitely a really cool idea, something I'd like to explore if we ever revisit this game concept some more. Just didn't wanna make things too complex for the jam, yanno? haha
It would definitely be a lot better if we add more strategic elements like that to it.
Hotowlgirls
06. Oct 2021 · 13:24 UTC
Can't help but think of magicka when playing. What I like about this game is that you're effectively under a time limit so there's pressure to use your spell combinations rather than test and trying to figure out what's best. Part of the fun of the game for me is seeing the different combinations of spells that you can use. Fun game.
lucasvb
06. Oct 2021 · 13:27 UTC
Very well polished, the pixel art is really good, especially the backgrounds. The mechanics is pretty nice with the randomness (really forces you to invest in thinking about the spells), although I object with wizards going on a rampage on innocent wildlife! :P

On a more serious take, I was wondering if there was any benefit in using certain combinations for different creatures, but other than the dynamics of the magic (like the water bubble falling, so I can't hit bees/crows) there did not seem to be much of a difference.

But overall, very good and fun entry for the jam!
Misfire_dev
06. Oct 2021 · 16:34 UTC
really enjoyed playing this game and spamming buttons to make new spells, well done.
Pixelydian
06. Oct 2021 · 19:29 UTC
Music was so epic! Beautiful game and I thought this was a unique play style. I let my 11 year old play it and she said it was "amazing and you could play forever in a fun way, beating your own high score." Attack sounds and visuals were awesome - bonus points for epic attacks like the fire beam. Great job!
🎤 Kwiper
06. Oct 2021 · 19:41 UTC
@pixelydian Oh my god, thank you! That's so adorable! Tell your 11 year old we really hope they had fun with it!
Tygrak
06. Oct 2021 · 19:56 UTC
Amazing looking game, the visuals for the backgrounds really are top notch. Definitely a bit inspired by Magicka right? -- I loved those games so it is nice to be reminded of them. Nice job!
AdrianKrawczyk
06. Oct 2021 · 20:00 UTC
That's a lovely game!
It reminds me of a game called 'Magicka' because of the element mixing part and i so much love this idea. I'm impressed of how much content you were able to give to players and just how fun was clicking 2 different elements and checking out what happens. My favorite would be magma laser and Avatar-style earthbending!
Ekilibr
06. Oct 2021 · 20:03 UTC
Kept me engaged and super focused! The game is well balanced, with a great progression curve that kept me hooked up until lvl 18 (then I died...badly :D).
At first I was spamming random spells, and then the more I moved forward the more I understood the logic and tactical choices needed to achieve the spells.
Due to the randomness, I have to admit I ended up doing the same key combination, and then choosing how to cast the spell based on the situation rather than choosing the spell itself.
Would've been interesting to test with a fix setup, or with a slow motion when the wheel of spells is opened.

Really enjoyed it anyway, thanks a lot!
Tyler Law
06. Oct 2021 · 20:41 UTC
Really fun! At first I was just randomly picking things to mix as fast as possible but as things went on and I got a hang of what combos did what I would try to be more strategic. The audio is great and so are the visuals. Really impressive job! Well done.
GloomyFolken
06. Oct 2021 · 21:03 UTC
Great game! Everybody already said about Magicka, I really love that game and the core mechanic of combining the elements. I'm impressed you managed to implement all these combinations in time!

However I believe the theme of this jam had worked against Unfabled. Because of the time limit to cast a spell and the random layout, I found it more effective to just cast spells spamming the same two buttons, and the only skill I managed to acquire was to determine which skill will be cast using those elements, and sending it to the right direction. Take this with a grain of salt though, maybe I'm just too accustomed to how combining the elements work in Magicka.

Still a great game and a very solid entry overall, congratulations!
Muros
06. Oct 2021 · 22:08 UTC
Interesting game. I like the mechanics, they are unusual. I don’t remember what I would have seen somewhere similar. The graphics and music are beautiful and create an atmosphere. I was pleasantly surprised by the variety of enemies. You can immediately see a lot of work done. The only thing I think is that the spell window should always be kept on the screen. With so many enemies, calling ago through the button every time is very inconvenient.
VPhyre
07. Oct 2021 · 01:58 UTC
Very fun game. I really liked the graphics, I think the visual part of the spells is very well produced.

I also liked the sound and music in general, although I think the volume in general was too high. This hindered my experience a bit, but nothing that compromised the quality of the game in general.

In the end, I liked the magic and general mechanics of the game. Good job.
brads.space
07. Oct 2021 · 13:26 UTC
The artwork is amazing and I like the core concept. I would say that you're not given enough time to select spells and I ended up mostly picking at random.
LLlarsO
07. Oct 2021 · 14:51 UTC
I had a lot of fun! At first I sucked hard, but after a while I got used to the mechanics and controls. Gameplay was addicting. I also liked the audio feedback in general. You felt the hits of your projectiles, which is important for this kind of game.
ZacharyPinkham
07. Oct 2021 · 21:58 UTC
Very cool work! The whole thing had a great feeling of polish and really like the way the mechanic works, it was very easy to stay motivated to try again because of how satisfying it was to play! The music was great and really helped set the atmosphere of the game, but the more 8-bit sound effects kind clashed with it for me, I think I would have preferred that the sound effects followed suit with the music for a more hi-fi sound. But if that's my biggest complaint, then you're definitely doing something right!
🎤 Kwiper
08. Oct 2021 · 04:48 UTC
@zacharypinkham Thanks for playing! Regarding the 8-bit voices, they're only like that because I didn't want people to hear my voice as this old dude LMAO
Oune
09. Oct 2021 · 11:06 UTC
Great entry. The game is nicely polished, especially the pixel art. It's a lot of fun. The integration with the theme is the only weakness, I think. Having such limited time to select the spell has a tendency to create frustration rather than enhancing the gameplay.
Caloudon
09. Oct 2021 · 20:23 UTC
I liked that this was a simple game designed for the player to focus on one game mechanic of casting spells. Great job.
zimny11
09. Oct 2021 · 23:45 UTC
Cool idea! The art style and music are simply awesome.
LuhUchiha
10. Oct 2021 · 15:55 UTC
Great art combined with an epic/adventurous music! Good work!
Alexej
10. Oct 2021 · 17:26 UTC
WOW great game! I wished there was a little more predictability, or that it could feel more tactical, but well polished, even a survival mode! pretty amazing.

To be fair, probably if you play it more often, you know the spells and can react quickly enough to be more tactical, I was merely pressing just two random buttons hoping for the best, if you make it to a full game it would be nice to slowly teach the combinations... have the first levels consist of only two elements (still 4 buttons), then 3, and so on.
but I think this is a system that could make a great magical Runner. maybe later have more combinations, or modifiers or even make a difference what element you hit first...

anyway, great job!
farouchelark
11. Oct 2021 · 06:07 UTC
I definitely only have the skills to button mash here, would love to play a slower version where I could properly choose which spell was best for each enemy as more of a puzzle game. I also wish you could see what level you made it to when you died on adventure mode. Besides those issues, oh my god this game is rad. The graphics, the sound, the different spells, the number of enemies?? how did you do this in 72 hours??
xpoho
11. Oct 2021 · 09:25 UTC
![изображение_2021-10-11_162513.png](///raw/d14/a3/z/480b7.png)

Никогда больше не буду оставлять лошадь без привязи!
LDJam user 238142
14. Oct 2021 · 15:37 UTC
What a great game! Love the art (and so much of it!!!), nice music (the sound effects on ennemy hit got repetitive and annoying though). It's a very strong entry overall, congrats!
Soulo
15. Oct 2021 · 20:02 UTC
Interesting idea. Really fun!
Nomus
17. Oct 2021 · 19:17 UTC
Amazing idea ! Really fun to beat
Emaigualmc2_art
20. Oct 2021 · 20:02 UTC
I love art and the visuals are really well done. I was not so convinced by the mechanics to cast the spells I did not find it comfortable and it did not make much sense to have to be looking for the spells all the time, maybe if they were only visible all the time and to cast them I have to follow a particular sequence or command it would be better. Incredible work! I really enjoyed the art a lot xD
Shea Kelly
21. Oct 2021 · 07:14 UTC
These graphics are beautiful, really fun keep doing what your doing
🎤 Kwiper
22. Oct 2021 · 02:06 UTC
Thanks for playing everyone! Everyone's comments and feedback were very valuable for us! See you next jam!