The Harvester by flanne

[raw]
made by flanne for Ludum Dare 52 (JAM)

Harvest the souls of your enemies to steal their skills! This a turn-based strategy game.

​Controls

​WASD/Arrow Keys - Move

Space - Harvest

1/2 - Use skills

Mouse Click - Click buttons to use Harvest/Skills

Ratings

Overall 103th 3.964⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Fun 190th 3.732⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 127th 3.768⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Theme 276th 3.911⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 99th 4.304⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Mood 76th 4.093⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Given 6🗳️ 21🗨️

Feedback

mrnotcrazy
09. Jan 2023 · 19:50 UTC
I love the gameplay, it is a bit difficult but skills help once you get them.
Knatterton
09. Jan 2023 · 19:51 UTC
Such a lovely score, and great graphics.
Love the pixel art!
sullycollins
09. Jan 2023 · 19:57 UTC
The concept of harvesting your enemies and gaining their method of attack is brilliant. I enjoy how it creates so much strategy around not only movement but choosing which attacks to keep stored and when to use them instead of harvesting.
The character you play as also reminds me a lot of Thresh from League.
fc85057
09. Jan 2023 · 19:57 UTC
Love this tactical gameplay mechanic. Skills work so well with the grid set-up, and it's immensely satisfying to have enemies take each other out! The graphics and audio are beautiful as well and work great together.
I encountered some resolution/graphic issues when playing on full screen where things would go off-screen. Is the grid intentionally smaller and not taking up more space? (Or am I just not good enough and the grid expands in later rounds :D ?)
Great job!
Thiradil
09. Jan 2023 · 19:58 UTC
Love the graphics and the music, theme is respected so good job!
Patsui
09. Jan 2023 · 21:03 UTC
Great idea mood and graphics! Gameplay is a little hard but still, amazing work!
titos2k
09. Jan 2023 · 21:41 UTC
love the gameplay.

one thing - the prompt about removing the soul is very sneaky now, you can die if you follow the instructions because removing soul takes a turn (sometimes you have to dodge). Maybe it should be more obvious its not 'required'. Or removing soul shouldnt take a turn.
LDJam user 317693
09. Jan 2023 · 23:46 UTC
The art is really nice and I absolutely love the gameplay, for something so simple it is really fun. I just really like tile-based combat, honestly. Would love to see an expanded-upon version of this.
plexsoup
10. Jan 2023 · 03:43 UTC
Great game. It's humbling to see great submissions like this one!
Nodra
10. Jan 2023 · 07:44 UTC
Graphics and audio are top. Took me a few tries before I learned to dodge when they wind up.
bartalomew
10. Jan 2023 · 09:11 UTC
what an atmosphere! the combat worked well once I got a feel on it. the music is one of the best I heard so far in this jam.
Kongo
10. Jan 2023 · 09:38 UTC
That feeling when everyone starts beating each other up :D Wonderful! You also created a great mood!
ekaktusz
10. Jan 2023 · 10:39 UTC
I have to agree with the others: the audio, the graphics and the atmosphere is really really good! The gameplay is very fun as well, but it's a little too difficult for me. Overall very nicely done, great job!
Alex de la Cour
10. Jan 2023 · 12:22 UTC
I loved this! Beautiful pixel art, great atmospheric music and fun gameplay that requires thinking and planning - difficult but not too difficult. I thought it was a lot of fun to play.
schnodelfactory
10. Jan 2023 · 14:20 UTC
What a cool concept! Fantastic soundtrack and real fun gameplay.<3
Erik Kubiak
10. Jan 2023 · 14:44 UTC
The concept is really nice but the controls are a bit tough, a way to see the timing could be nice also
Phillip Scott
10. Jan 2023 · 18:21 UTC
keep trying to play this like a turn based game and getting annoyed :smile: the art, sounds and mood of the game are good but its hard to play it in real time for me
Kostas Nik
10. Jan 2023 · 20:45 UTC
Great pixel art and overall atmosphere, very good music that suits the theme very well. I liked the concept that you gain the defeated enemies skills. Also feels very polished for a game jam game!
It feels like a turn based game and i kinda got confused because i can avoid attacks real time. Great effort
LDJam user 221750
11. Jan 2023 · 08:47 UTC
I like this game a lot! Very moody audio and art. UI/UX is a bit clunky at times, but for a jam entry it's alright. It's cool that enemies can hit each other, gives you a room for tactical combat. It really feels like an potentially good mobile game, good concept and execution.
pauljs
12. Jan 2023 · 00:25 UTC
Honestly great game! Really love it, way more difficult than it look! Miss maybe the possible to cancel harvest when activating and still have the possibility to move aside from that, small concept that work perfectly! One of the best I have tested, congrats!
LDJam user 297532
15. Jan 2023 · 18:42 UTC
Great game! I really liked the system where you inherit the powers of your ememies, making the progression curve feel very natural since the stronger the enemies get, the stronger you get as well... The art style of the game is very fitting with it's music and it's overall atmosphere, like this chilly spooky dungeon crawling retro game. It was very fun to play, took me a while to get the hang of it but after 4 or 5 tries, I managed to beat the game (That's some good balancing).

I also liked the fact that the enemies could hurt each other! Makes for some pretty strategical decisions. Would definitely love to see this get expanded to a full game introducing more skills and perhaps more skill slots! But for a game made in only 3 days, this definitely suffices... Great work, Loved it!
Rongo Matane
15. Jan 2023 · 22:25 UTC
Love the game! The pixel art is excellent, really nice and constrained but striking. Music and sound are also very pleasant. In the end what matters most though is the gameplay, and i that was lovely. I really liked needing to replace one of my existing abilities, as this brought in all the depth. The enemies announcing their move first allowed strategic gameplay, especially after i learned that they can damage each other.
I only see two or three clear improvements, and i assume it has been as usual a time constraint.
1. it would be nice to see the cooldown on my abilities
2. it's not very clear that a round is over and whose turn it is. Looks like there is a small delay between movement and changing the numbers, and no sound. Maybe the UI could move back a little or "grey out", or the field could change in color to indicate whose turn it is.
3. sometimes i expected the enemy to strike me when moving next to them as they had no cooldown - only for them to do nothing. I assume this is because you have to move first for them to make a movement decision, but then you don't want them to strike you without ever indicating it first and giving you a chance to make a move first. Tricky, not sure if and how this can be improved.
Great job :)
squimmy
17. Jan 2023 · 13:59 UTC
This is a neat idea for a game. Aside from some inconsistent behaviour (bugs?) around when enemy attacks are telegraphed, I think the main thing that bothered me was that hits didn't feel like they had much impact... maybe because there was no sound for an attack landing? (unless this is also a bug? I played on firefox, if that matters). Anyway, aside from that, this was a cool game!
Matt Rix
22. Jan 2023 · 04:54 UTC
This is great and has a lot of mood for how minimal it is.
The one control that's really important that isn't listed is right click, for cancelling an action and deciding to just move instead. Also between rounds when it says "press any key" I had to switch to another app and back every time. But yeah those are minor issues and expected in a jam game.