Parry Hotter and the Stilosopher’s Phone by osh.studio

[raw]
made by osh.studio for Ludum Dare 54 (JAM)

Posting now, bugfixing later...

Controls:

Use Mouse.

Pixel Art Dice Battler Game – How to Play

​Can you make it to Wogharts??? You are a regular dude with a regular name, Parry Hotter, with a liiiitle tendency for pick pocketing. From your first target of the day, you end up in posession of a pretty swanky hat, and, the Silosopher’s Phone. Next thing you know it’s receiving a phone call: Wogharts Wizardry and Witchcraft School is on the line, offering you a position at the school! But you need to hurry, there are limited spaces!

You may not be a wizard, but luckily you have a couple magic dice up your sleeve, as you start on your journey to the school. Balance conquering other student candidates to increase your stats with opening chests to collect new dice, to conquer the final boss and make your way to Wogharts Wizardry and Witchcraft School.

How to Play

Each turn, click on one of the three possible tiles to move forward. There are blank tiles, chests and combat tiles.

Combat

When you encounter another potential student candidate you will enter combat mode. The health of you and your opponent/s is shown in red. The goal is to attack your opponent until their health is fully depleted. You can do this by rolling dice. You start with 3 dice in your dice collection on the left hand side of the screen. Click on a die to roll it, and then drag it into a slot to place it in: Attack, Block or Heal. You cannot move a dice once it has been slotted, however you can replace it with a new dice and discard the previous. Select which enemy you want to attack, and then End Round button to begin your attack and defend against your opponent. Rinse and repeat until you have beaten your opponent! Every victory you can choose a stat to increase, health or blocking capacity. Your dice will replenish each combat, however be careful, your health will not!

Credit

Thanks to sonicallysound, for the banger of a track I found on freesound: https://freesound.org/people/sonicallysound/sounds/624874/

Dev Thoughts

Really enjoyed this LD even though the theme didn't really match well with my initial idea for gameplay, am keen on making enhanced luck based systems at ther moment so want to explore number generation more and incorporate it into games in a fair way. Going into this I really wanted to learn Godot engine as the recent Unity changes are pretty shocking, but I caved because I didn't have enough time to learn it, maybe next time!

Thanks to Josie for helping playtest (:

Ratings

Overall 149th 4.026⭐ 59🧑‍⚖️
Fun 106th 4.035⭐ 59🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 349th 3.614⭐ 59🧑‍⚖️
Theme 858th 3.175⭐ 59🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 297th 4.07⭐ 59🧑‍⚖️
Humor 243th 3.598⭐ 58🧑‍⚖️
Mood 443th 3.673⭐ 57🧑‍⚖️
Given 45🗳️ 64🗨️

Feedback

Congeesetador
03. Oct 2023 · 05:48 UTC
This is a very fun game! I love the hogwarts renames in the game it's hilarious, the animations, design, and audio all are exceptionally made, I like the idea that you have to go forward to see the next tiles in front of you so you can't just see the whole map and go wherever you want, it adds a bit of randomness to the game and I really enjoy that
DmVCh
03. Oct 2023 · 05:51 UTC
Great game! I played with pleasure =)
AluminumFool
03. Oct 2023 · 05:56 UTC
This was a lot of fun to play. Art is absolutely amazing, game play is fun, and music added to the environment. Only suggestion would be to not have to drag and drop the dice to their attack, block, or heal. Maybe just have people click which area they want the dice to go. But otherwise great job!
Derek Glennon
03. Oct 2023 · 05:56 UTC
Really polished game great job!
Shad
03. Oct 2023 · 05:57 UTC
Fun, if I had a more extended version on my phone, I'd play it.
Miller
03. Oct 2023 · 05:59 UTC
This is tight! would love to see a fully fleshed out version!
crylica
03. Oct 2023 · 06:00 UTC
Incredible work on both the art and programming, especially as a solo project! The gameplay was really fun, the randomness of the dice roll helps a lot. It's a bit easy but that's okay! This could definitely be explored further with more upgrade variations. I wish that the health bar also shows your max health, since you don't heal when you increase your hp you don't know what your max hp is until you heal it up all the way. Good job tho, really fun game :D
Gleb_yakovlev
03. Oct 2023 · 06:04 UTC
The game is cool, but I still haven't figured out how much damage enemies do.
LDJam user 259831
03. Oct 2023 · 06:06 UTC
This has to be the best entry I've seen so far! Very fun, fantastic visuals and great music, all around an amazing game.
doubley
03. Oct 2023 · 06:18 UTC
What an amazing game, I definitely spent the most time having fun in this one 5/5 in all categories.

I love everything here, the dice rolling. Choosing upgrades and who to attack first.

I even got up to level 20! Is there a win game state or just endless enemies?

there is definitely an action economy disadvantage at the end where your max damage is 13-15 rolling high and a group of enemies is hitting for 40-50 damage per round in the end. So I think some followers as upgrades would be cool.

I loved it all though, especially the sound and graphics. Bravo, I would buy this on steam for sure.
Branquelo
03. Oct 2023 · 06:20 UTC
Man, what a fun game. I started playing and then got addicted. I had to stop because i want to see more games, but, man, congrats, this game is something else haha. Good Job
🎤 osh.studio
03. Oct 2023 · 06:26 UTC
@doubley Thanks for playing! Did you beat Level 20? there should be a win game state after that :) (possibly a bug)
doubley
03. Oct 2023 · 06:52 UTC
Oh No! I died to a group of 4 guys at 20 XD @osh.studio, You really made a banger here. You have to do something with this, Love your work
Boyar
03. Oct 2023 · 07:09 UTC
Did not make it to Wogharts.... crushed to know that i was really close (died on 18 lvl)
Still, wery fun game, 10 stolen phones/10 would recommend
Alpie
03. Oct 2023 · 09:26 UTC
I had fun playing it. After 20 minutes it got quite repetative
Would be cool to have different abilities from the chests
(Maybe I just didn't make it far enough?)

Small bug when enemy wizard stays together with you in a cell is lil funny ;D

Idea is cool too, involves just enough strategy to keep interest
Bumble
03. Oct 2023 · 11:25 UTC
I played this one until I lost and then while reading the comments realized I was just one win away from a possible winning state?! Well, I think I have to get a second run going then :D

It is definitely a small experience that can be enhanced with a lot of stuff, but I think for a gamejam entry it is better to polish the core idea than to go to far and this one hit the sweet spot!
rongon
03. Oct 2023 · 11:45 UTC
Interesting concept on RPG fights, I like controlled random where I can put the dice after the roll is done. I didn't make it to Wogharts, it looked like a endless fighting, a bit repetative after a while.
The art is amazing tho'.
I think there is some problem with resolution, I can only see dice in full screen view, and in top right corner "Level" label is cut.
ehgoodenough
03. Oct 2023 · 11:46 UTC
Loved unlocking treasure chests and new dice! I wish if I got an enemy down to 1 hp, they'd just be defeated. It's so infuriating to have to spend one more round of attacks just to take out a near-defeated foe. Music got a little repetitive, but it has good beats.
lespaul59
03. Oct 2023 · 12:33 UTC
I really liked that entry. Played it with pleasure :D i love the vibe and graphics. Awesome job, well done!
Teamelon
03. Oct 2023 · 12:49 UTC
The game is good. 9/10 gamblers approve.

Lost on the first try at the last level, couldn't left so good game without a proper ending => won on the second one.

The concept is really good, after adding some deatils it can make a great game.

The plot is funny reference)
acousticAnalyst
03. Oct 2023 · 13:57 UTC
Games is alright, but got boring fast. Still a good effort
Jean Verissimo
03. Oct 2023 · 13:58 UTC
Very addictive game, great gameplay. I really liked the graphics and theme of this game
JCMonkey
03. Oct 2023 · 15:08 UTC
there seems to be a bug where i can select tiles while in the select a card menu. other then that the game seems interesting, maybe add more choices of things, like a third card. good job!
ShidyGames
03. Oct 2023 · 15:34 UTC
Cool game! I just feel it isn't challenging enough. It was very easy to keep fighting and opening chests without taking any damage from the enemies. Also maybe it's me, but when you pick a new dice I think it replaces the top one every time (it would have been cool to be able to manage the dices, maybe I missed it?)
WeirdBitGames
03. Oct 2023 · 16:26 UTC
This is a really great concept for a game, really, really great! I love the idea of randomly decising your stats eah turn and having to judge where best to place them. I hope you end up making and released a full game based on this on Steam, truly! (I really liked the battle music too!)
Enreh
03. Oct 2023 · 17:00 UTC
This was really fun! Difficulty felt spot on for me (think I shot myself on the foot by skipping some fights, as I just saw they boost your stats? My best ended up being level 20). The visuals and sounds are spot on and it just feels very well polished.
Enver Arco
03. Oct 2023 · 17:20 UTC
Really well made for a jam game and I think the mechanics are deep
Nash
03. Oct 2023 · 18:52 UTC
This was a very solid package - especially as a jam game! I enjoyed it for a good while.

There would potentially be some improvements to balance here. After a got a certain dice, that was the only dice I ended up using because it outshadowed all other dice statistically. This could potentially be fixed with having a cooldown for dice or "a dice deck" of some sorts.

But I still think this is a superb jam entry. Well done!
Phillip Scott
03. Oct 2023 · 19:02 UTC
Nice pixel art, high polish, music gets old after a while. The core gameplay is fun and could be decently expanded upon - good job
LDJam user 300461
03. Oct 2023 · 19:20 UTC
Its kind of a simple game, there could have been more things done with the strategy of how you pick which dice to roll and what not. Otherwise its a chill game
imwonderr
03. Oct 2023 · 20:21 UTC
Very fun and well made game. The dice animation feels very polished! Congrats on the entry!!
merdeboi
03. Oct 2023 · 21:45 UTC
Think the comments already all nailed it, fantastic entry. The difficulty seems to ramp up a bit slow, but the die animation, music and visuals all make a compelling and fun package.
TheLastSlowpoke
03. Oct 2023 · 22:50 UTC
Visuals are simply top notch. The gameplay is also great, a bit long, but fun mechanic!
Netrunner Nobody
03. Oct 2023 · 23:18 UTC
Really nice art, very polished game, and the music was a particularly funky choice - but the game mechanics are admittedly a bit lacking: the player has no agency over whether they win or lose, there's simply the optimal strategy of one-hit KOing as many enemies as possible and then using the remaining highest die to heal, and then block.

Still, the game showcases great artistic ability!
ZackOhLantern
04. Oct 2023 · 05:38 UTC
Cool game! I really like the gameplay. Unlocking new dice and deciding if a high max versus a high min is better. I wish there were more than 3 action slots. maybe spells or skills as upgrades would be good for those. The game is a little too easy because I almost never take damage and if I do i easily heal. This game is a really cool concept and with more enemy types can be stellar. the art and audio work together great.
QuentinVLF
04. Oct 2023 · 12:50 UTC
Well done, the game feels nice! At first, and as a TTRPG player it was a bit confusing to throw d20s that can't go up to 20 :sweat_smile: The gameplay is nice and the strategic choices give a pleasant touch. Would love to be able to unlock skills!

Really nice one!
Yurain33
04. Oct 2023 · 15:48 UTC
Cool art!
noagard
05. Oct 2023 · 10:38 UTC
Nice game!I like graphic and sounds!
lupercalia
06. Oct 2023 · 08:37 UTC
I like this idea very much, to roll the dice and assign it to the actions. The most satisfying thing was to find new dice. The combat was too easy. I imagine, if it would be harder, it would be more meaningful to choose between new dice and healing for example. So more challenge and more variety in enemies and maybe ... special dice with powers? ... would be nice. A solid and promising game idea! Thanks for making that! :)
Jadener
06. Oct 2023 · 11:05 UTC
I really like this game ^^ with some little content and endgame, it could become something much bigger, the potential is there and I enjoyed playing it ^^
PorumbDulce
07. Oct 2023 · 16:41 UTC
loved it, with a few bosses, and maybe some more cards to collets this game has a ton of potential
Joao Pedro Salim
08. Oct 2023 · 00:37 UTC
I loved the way the dice is rolled! Also, so fun to play! Would like to see more enemies or special powers!
Matt Green
08. Oct 2023 · 18:00 UTC
Very addicting! the gameplay loop was pretty simple, but I couldn't stop playing (until I died). The graphics were great. The controls felt pretty intuitive.

I only knew from the comments that the game ended at 20, and maybe some indication that I can only move forward? Otherwise wicked entry.
LDJam user 372231
09. Oct 2023 · 18:58 UTC
The game is very nice, but it kinda gets boring after a while. Maybe add some variety? I liked the music very much
AdamCYounis
18. Oct 2023 · 06:15 UTC
Hey! Thanks for submitting to discord, I thought this concept was pretty wild, I have no idea how you came up with it. It's impressive that you put together an RPG in such a short span of time. I thought the gameplay and production values were all pretty straightforward and suitable for a jam. It was easy to get into the action and make intelligent choices based on my dice rolls.

I did however find the overworld a little bit lacking, as there wasn't really any clear reason to choose one fight over another, and I never knew how far I was from my destination. This made the experience drag on somewhat, and I did drop off around 10 battles in when things got too repetitive to retain my interest. A "distance to wogharts" counter would have helped build some anticipation for the ending.

Short of reducing the total encounter count to reach the ending (which I think would have been the most practical option), adding some additional twists to the combat might have helped keep things interesting. stacking dice for double attacks, for example, would have helped with the multi-enemy battles. Just a bit more diversity of gameplay choices to mix things up. Different enemy types could have been interesting as well.

Overall, a really impressive entry given the time it was made in. Thanks for sharing again!