Death of a Lich by Managore
___________________________STORY___________________________
the grand lich is immortal and, many years after each death,
returns back to the world of the living, thanks to his crown phylactery.
knowing this, a massive tower was built to house his crown until his return,
so that each time he rises again he can be swiftly destroyed
before amassing too much power and wreaking havoc.
play as the grand lich and journey down the tower in search of escape.
_________________________CONTROLS_________________________
use SPACEBAR or ENTER (or A on a gamepad) to advance dialogue and prepare jump
use ARROW KEYS or WASD (or a gamepad LEFT STICK) to move and jump (after preparing jump)
use ESCAPE (or START on a gamepad) to return to the title screen
press M to toggle mute and press ALT and ENTER together to toggle full screen
___________________________HELP____________________________
PLEASE FIRST PLAY THE TUTORIAL WHICH UNLOCKS
THE FULL, PROCEDURALLY GENERATED TOWER.
you can also select HOW TO PLAY within the game
if you would like additional clarification, please read on!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUMPING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
you can press the jump button to prepare to jump.
this takes up on turn as normal.
you can then press a direction to jump in that direction.
you can jump over single tile gaps but you cannot jump over enemies.
Jumping into enemies attacks them.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . STATS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
you have three stats.
> health (begins at 3*)
> souls (begins at 0)
> attack damage (begins at 1)
when you die, the health for your NEXT attempt is given by half the
number of souls collected on THIS attempt (with a minimum of 3 health).
increase your health and attack damage by picking up collectibles (hearts and orbs)
and increase your souls by killing and consuming enemies.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ENEMIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
different enemies have different movement speed and health.
> red shirts move every turn and have one health
> green shirts move every second turn and have two health
> armored move every third turn and have four health
> helmeted move every third turn and have five health
> blue shirts move (or aim or fire) every turn and have one health
falling more than two floors hurts you, unless you land on an enemy.
all enemies can be instantly killed by landing on top of them from a previous floor.
melee enemies (all but the blue shirts) attack you by walking into you, when active.
active enemies are animated, inactive enemies are not animated but have a stunned symbol overhead.
melee enemies retaliate when attacked, even while inactive.
the only way to kill a melee enemy without taking any damage is to fall on it.
ranged enemies aim when they match you horizontally, and fire on the next turn.
unless you have moved up or down since a ranged enemy aimed at you, the arrow will hit you.
___________________________ABOUT___________________________
my sixth ludum dare and my first ever turn-based game!
the switch from 'live' games to 'turn based' games was
a real challenge but I'm pretty happy with my creation.
* fixed a bug that led to the player sometimes being unable to finish the game
* fixed a bug where the player-hurt sound wouldn't play for certain events
the grand lich is immortal and, many years after each death,
returns back to the world of the living, thanks to his crown phylactery.
knowing this, a massive tower was built to house his crown until his return,
so that each time he rises again he can be swiftly destroyed
before amassing too much power and wreaking havoc.
play as the grand lich and journey down the tower in search of escape.
_________________________CONTROLS_________________________
use SPACEBAR or ENTER (or A on a gamepad) to advance dialogue and prepare jump
use ARROW KEYS or WASD (or a gamepad LEFT STICK) to move and jump (after preparing jump)
use ESCAPE (or START on a gamepad) to return to the title screen
press M to toggle mute and press ALT and ENTER together to toggle full screen
___________________________HELP____________________________
PLEASE FIRST PLAY THE TUTORIAL WHICH UNLOCKS
THE FULL, PROCEDURALLY GENERATED TOWER.
you can also select HOW TO PLAY within the game
if you would like additional clarification, please read on!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JUMPING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
you can press the jump button to prepare to jump.
this takes up on turn as normal.
you can then press a direction to jump in that direction.
you can jump over single tile gaps but you cannot jump over enemies.
Jumping into enemies attacks them.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . STATS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
you have three stats.
> health (begins at 3*)
> souls (begins at 0)
> attack damage (begins at 1)
when you die, the health for your NEXT attempt is given by half the
number of souls collected on THIS attempt (with a minimum of 3 health).
increase your health and attack damage by picking up collectibles (hearts and orbs)
and increase your souls by killing and consuming enemies.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ENEMIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
different enemies have different movement speed and health.
> red shirts move every turn and have one health
> green shirts move every second turn and have two health
> armored move every third turn and have four health
> helmeted move every third turn and have five health
> blue shirts move (or aim or fire) every turn and have one health
falling more than two floors hurts you, unless you land on an enemy.
all enemies can be instantly killed by landing on top of them from a previous floor.
melee enemies (all but the blue shirts) attack you by walking into you, when active.
active enemies are animated, inactive enemies are not animated but have a stunned symbol overhead.
melee enemies retaliate when attacked, even while inactive.
the only way to kill a melee enemy without taking any damage is to fall on it.
ranged enemies aim when they match you horizontally, and fire on the next turn.
unless you have moved up or down since a ranged enemy aimed at you, the arrow will hit you.
___________________________ABOUT___________________________
my sixth ludum dare and my first ever turn-based game!
the switch from 'live' games to 'turn based' games was
a real challenge but I'm pretty happy with my creation.
* fixed a bug that led to the player sometimes being unable to finish the game
* fixed a bug where the player-hurt sound wouldn't play for certain events
Ratings
| Coolness | 51% | 3 |
| Overall | 4.45 | 3 |
| Audio | 3.52 | 121 |
| Fun | 4.13 | 17 |
| Graphics | 4.61 | 9 |
| Humor | 3.15 | 274 |
| Innovation | 4.27 | 12 |
| Mood | 4.15 | 18 |
| Theme | 4.13 | 55 |
Can already see it placing 1-3
Congrats, and keep it up!
@Evergreen Games: you can, it just takes a few attacks, depending on your attack damage. sometimes it's definitely worth it!
It's very addictive and I'd love to see a complete game out of this. Great visuals and design. The tutorial and transitions are very smooth.
It lacks only one tiny thing: digital soul counter or any other way to quckly count them. :D
This is a really fun, excellently made game in any context, but to do it in 48 hours? I'm just amazed. You've earned my genuine admiration.
You get a bit unfairly goofed by the rng at times it feels like, but overall I enjoyed it, good work.
Really amazing work dude! Great job!
Good game, as always; I'm still working on the 20 souls task, though.
It's pretty hard but engaging.
Congratulations, one more awesome game to your credit :)
The sound effects weren't that clear: sometimes I'd hear a sound and know that something happened, but I wouldn't be sure if I'd been hit or not.
I didn't get very good: melee enemies feel very punishing when I only start with three health initially.
@Franklin's Ghost, tuben999, mortus, chromebookbob, hexagore, sprawl, qkerguelen, meursault, boardtobits, mike.cullingham, commodoreKid, Pierrec, A Flat Miner Studios, Miltage, uheartbeast, WubAlliance, Bocodillo, GeorgeBroussard, Shaw, TijmenTio, blay09, Koneke, Realize2D, cbear_wallis, Otrora Games, 01101101, CrownCity: Thank you all so much for your supportive comments! It's so wonderful to hear so many kind words!! :)
@Modoc73, kikaz: Thanks. I wish I had had time to add better sound and music! That's always the way when you only have 48 hours, though.
@Crowbeak: All those sci-fi chess variants you see in shows and movies always confuse me, haha. I think I can see the similarities, though!
@Devark, Vaida: I hope the tutorial and the explanation on this page helped a bit with the controls, but I definitely agree that the controls are not super intuitive. Please do let me know if you think there's a way the controls could be handled better, for any future version I might make!
@HolyBlackCat: Yeah I think I should have added that in, it is a bit of a pain counting up to twenty dots! I made the skull icon go white once you hit twenty but I think you often want to know how far away from twenty you are, rather than whether or not you've reached twenty yet, and the icon going white doesn't help with that.
@Yakka, Kerdelos: I knew that would bother some people but I really thought it improved how the player approaches combat, and makes it so that, unless you're really, really careful, your health is slowly trickling down as you make your way down the tower. I liked how that feels, thematically, even while it can be grating to be losing health. Thank you for the comment! :D
@foreverisbetter: Thanks! Of the 48 hours I must have spent nearly 40 hours working on this. I was ridiculously ambitious and I only barely, barely finished it all in time.
@DragonXVI: Yeah I tried not to accidentally copy Necrodancer, which I adore. The green shirts definitely have a Skeleton vibe to them though.
@Unept, Mathieu Muller: If I work on it any more the first thing I'll do is throw all the sound effects in a dumpster!
@BtheDestroyer: Glad to hear it was a false alarm!
@SaintHeiser: Once again I made the game way harder than intended! Stomping on enemies and killing archers is pretty much my go-to plan, which is almost the same as your own.
@Solifuge: Thank you very much for the detailed comment! :)
@01010111: Yeah I wish I had better sound effect skills, and that I could have dedicated more time to them. I definitely recognize them as a big weak spot!
@Mike Mezhenin: It was nice to have an idea for something other than a platformer this time, it's always more fun trying something new.
@Draknek: I mention earlier in this comment that I figured the fighting would feel off, but it ended up seeming necessary for balancing purposes. I think I will work more on the game, and I'll try playing around with the player's health, enemy health and enemy attack damage and see if there's a way to make it work so that if you kill (or perhaps overkill) an enemy you don't suffer any retaliatory damage, but in the timeframe I had no other way to balance the game. As for the sound effects, I agree that they're vague and pretty average overall but my hope was that the visuals would convey enough of what was happening. Thank you for mentioning both of those points though, it definitely reaffirms for me that if I work on the game any more those should be two of the things I look into first.
Congrats on the awesome work!! =D
I really enjoyed playing it!
When I finally figured how the game works, attack was the most useless stat. I avoided combat at all cost and tried to always fall on an enemy. I also tried to always clean floors of archers, since they gave "free souls", instead of having to lose life battling...
Until I read how stats works, I was expecting that after getting enough attack I'd be able to kill enemies without suffering damage (which, kinda explains my strategy of avoiding battles).
The only thing I wish were different was jumping. Other than being able to jump over pits, I wish could jump over arrows and/or stomp enemies... Maybe for dealing extra damage or being able to damage 'em without being hit... (at least, if you killed the enemy)...
Even I like procedural levels, may be on this game non-procedural would be great. It would be a cool puzzle game...
Looks really smooth, especially the smoke effects. Great background story as well.
As always awesome work, can't wait to see your next game ;)
Very close to perfection ! Good job !!
Super polished & perfectly scoped and with enough content to be enjoyed for quite a long time.
Kudos!
A little bit hard. Fortunately there's a tutorial.
And as usual, impressive for a 48h game! :D
Graphics are top notch and the gameplay is one of the best I've seen this LD. The mechanics are just very clever and make you think about your next moves.
I could easily imagine this being build upon and released as a full game someday.