A Bulletmaster's Ritual by kiririn51

[raw]
made by kiririn51 for Ludum Dare 58 (JAM)

Turns out the afterlife is just as expensive after all.

A little card game where you collect bullets from evil dolls.

Stay on that good chain.

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Ratings

Overall 75th 4.045⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Fun 127th 3.818⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 148th 3.682⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Theme 82th 4.205⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 32th 4.568⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Humor 301th 3.225⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Mood 27th 4.364⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Given 22🗳️ 24🗨️

Feedback

Foursay
Oct 07th · 03:57 UTC
The mechanics overall feels more like a gambling game itself lol, you keep pulling gacha and betting on the greater good. And if you’re lucky enough from the start, congrats, you’ve already completed the first step toward becoming rich (rich in B, of course)! The art style is super cool as usual, and really solid entry overall and just the right amount of absurd... I mean, angel, right?
![Snipaste_2025-10-06_20-53-59.png](///raw/202/02/z/6e751.png)
Faust_Mi
Oct 10th · 01:26 UTC
Stylistically very pleasant music and art! Cool Mood and vibe!
For some reason, the anime Trigun and Cowboy Bebop came to mind. ))


Stylistically very pleasant music and art!
Jesús González
Oct 21st · 07:19 UTC
Cool aesthetics for sure!
fabY
Oct 21st · 19:59 UTC
Oh no I got shot being too talkative ! Keep the intel for yourself everyone !

Very pleasing aesthetic with nice transitions here and there everything feels very polished and smooth. The music and the mood keeps us engaged in a game that has a surprisingly good amount of dialogs which made me want to dig the lore and the find the meaning of this bullet marketplace.

The combat system needed more polish but I can't blame you because we did the same thing: having multiple stats that doesn't really matter because the balancing is too easy haha. Once I got the Guner I just steamrolled onto the cards. I'm not sure but I think one time I had a green feedback for an "attack" but it missed so I wonder if the color just means you have a greater percentage of winning ? And if so it would have been cool to be able to keep pushing our luck and try defeating more opponents before ending the round. Or maybe engage multiple cards before "commiting" so you're pushed to upgrade multiple cards. Very cool ! One of the best games I've played on this jam o/
Jokku
Oct 22nd · 08:16 UTC
Interesting art style and font, good choices with those! The tutorial phase was a good addition and I think it is implemented quite naturally with the story. Nice animations with the cards and scene transitions! Doing plot in a LD game is always a challenge but I think you struck a balance between text and gameplay.

One thing I would change would be the pay chance coloring. Going from green-red to blue-red would be easier to see if one has color blindness :)
Dengyixa
Oct 22nd · 09:29 UTC
I really love the graphics and music in the game!!!
5H08
Oct 22nd · 09:48 UTC
Super awesome entry. Absolutely love the visuals and the music. The premise is sick too. It's truly impressive that you are able to create a game with this level of quality art and polish during the 2 day period. One of the best presented games I've played this jam.

The card system at this point feels a bit too simple and unbalanced (especially the gamblers. their money amount is crazy!) but it's definitely good enough for a jam game. With the current difficulty, I also think it might be interesting to make it so that if you deliberately fail you get into a new narrative branch since the dialogues imply that the main character was forced into this.

edit: wait this is the sukeban games entry? everything makes sense now
anothersomething
Oct 22nd · 15:52 UTC
Excellent art, music, and world building. Was very fun!
FireSlash
Oct 23rd · 04:18 UTC
@5h08 There is a branch for this sort of; if you beat up the locals too much with aggressive collectors, or go after more innocent groups, you build up hate, which has a separate ending.

The balance is a bit forgiving on this though.
LDJam user 214618
Oct 23rd · 08:20 UTC
Great atmosphere and setting. I really liked the graphic style too. Writing wise it was good, but at times a bit much and a bit hard to take in without any kind of delivery (images, animated text,...).

I would also have loved to get some kind of hint on which tactic to use on which character as it was not consistenly the same tactic for each type (at least it felt like I can't always use the same approach on a CEO e.g.)
Overall a good game!
Ciphereo
Oct 23rd · 11:01 UTC
The picture is simply amazing! It has a very unique style. I really like the design of the cards and the characters. It's so interesting!
5H08
Oct 23rd · 11:24 UTC
@fireslash That's the ending I got. Well I guess I was trying too hard.
ChuChuGeralt
Oct 23rd · 12:54 UTC
I really loved the entry. The ending, not so much 😉!

Since I'm a sucker for card games, this was a really nice one. I liked the atmosphere and the music, as well as the story.

The ending, however... not so much. You can't give me the option to extort people and then make me the bad guy!
The ending itself also felt a little bit sudden, but I guess that's due to the time constraint of the jam.

But seriously, this was one of the best games I've played so far, so well done!
darianifakina
Oct 23rd · 15:01 UTC
Really enjoy art style, good job!!!
Alchemic
Oct 24th · 09:37 UTC
Love this! Had me immersed pretty well. The writing is very good, I was fully invested in the world.

Amazing artwork! Although I expect nothing less from y'all lol
LDJam user 246128
Oct 24th · 19:52 UTC
Very polished game, solid art direction and has short but entertaining story! Great work!

I replayed several times but I don't think I have found a single use for "Informant" (Intimidate) goon. I think every time being polite or rough were 1-2 color codes better. Dunno if I did something wrong.