itch.io

The most jam thing we can do haha. Search me as m.cacho in discord :)

Idk if itch.io have a way of sending messages between users hhh

hey! It's not a bad move! You are nurturing your dev skills, meanwhile you actually try out all your ideas and creativity. I also do that, I have a loooooot of small songs and pieces that revolves around ideas I wanted to play with. Now that I have more experience and a crazy collection of ideas I actually tried, well... Is very easy now, I burrough from those little pieces in my big projects and commissions. I already know what ideas, patterns and concepts work well, how much time they take to me, and ofc what I like to do.

 So, very good of you! 

Really, you are very creative and have a playful mind (I tried your other game too haha), it's exactly what is lacking in the industry. the day you feel ready to have a big project I vet it will be veeeery good.

And ofc, I love helping and working with creative/passionate people! Please feel free to reach when need sth about audio, or even just talk about games, it's ok :)

Wish you success!

Your friend,

Cacho :)

Hey! Very fun; I enjoyed it a lot. Sick and beautiful bullet hell patterns.

I've always wanted to collaborate on a bullet hell game! If someday you're in the mood to create another one for another jam, count me in.

Wishing you success in this jam!

Cute!

Hey! Are you planning to continue working on this game after the jam? Because it's great! The art style is one of my favorites in this jam. The cinematic intention is very well executed, and the music is kind of simple and relies almost exclusively in field recordings and sound design, but is super effective and adds a lot to the atmosphere. 

It's a nice touch to add the soundtrack as a downloadable in the jam submission; I will do the same with my music in future jams. You guys are on my favorite list! I've added your game to my collection in case you update it.

Wishing you success in the game jam!

Hey! Loved the pixel art; it looks pretty good! The game, music, and everything overall are is good enough, considering you did all of that alone. 

I am a composer myself, so if someday you need a hand or have a question about anything audio-related, feel free to message x)

Good luck!

Sad the game cant be opened, however in the depiction you provided sounds fun

If afterwards you manage to upload this correctly please invite to play! 

Feel free to play our game if you wish as well! 

Cheers! 

Hey, the depiction of your game sounds very fun hahaha. Sadly the game as you uploaded isnt running. It sounds very fun, if afterwards you upload your game correctly, invite me to play :D 

Hey! I had problem running the game :c 

Hey! I wanted to play your game, but so far i cant get it running :c Did you have a problem uploading it? 

Hey! This one is pretty creative! There is a room of improvement in the art and sound. But the creativity and the ideas are there! Is fun and have replayability.

Wish you success!

Haha, very straightforward name. 

The game has potential! It's not very intuitive at the beginning, but once you understand the mechanics, they are fun. Spamming attacks breaks the game, but I understand the vision with the parries and blocks. If you continue developing this game, it will end up very cool for sure. Send a message if you do so! I would love to try.

I can't give a high score in the art section due to the use of AI-generated art for many reasons both because of quality but also other kind of problems that come from AI, sorry...  The music is ad hoc but not great.
But in your favor, I want to say that even with the use AI, you were able to assemble it with the rest of the art, and the sprite placement in a coherent manner. I especially like the opening level where you move in tall grass.

Congrats and wish you success in the jam! 

This is a personal favorite in the jam. Good job, Donitzs! Among all the games, the level design is  one of the best here! I mean is challenging, smart use of the enviroment, you are such a talent. I also enjoyed reading the info page and the process of development. This is not just a good jam entry, but this works very well as a portafolio item. Congrats!

The music is good, but it can be better. If someday you need a hand with any musical endeavor, even trying to replicate the limitations of a particular sound engine, I would love to help! 

Wish you success in the jam!

Hey! Finally had time to play your game and review it.

Let me say it now: you guys are the winners! At least an honorable mention in something, but wow, this is the best game in the jam so far for many reasons.

Gameplay: Many people talk about the responsiveness and how good it feels to press the buttons, so I will not get very deep into that. I would like to talk about the jump mechanic. I don't know if it's on purpose, but the falling section of the jump movement is kind of slow. This, combined with the double jump and some bullet hell attacks from the bosses, gives a super satisfying aerial combat/movement style. An aspect that many games in the jam failed to succeed in is actually providing a variety of bosses. Even we, in our own game, needed to recycle sprites and movements. The bosses in your game are varied in feel,  looks, move set, and strategy. Well done!

Art: The art is outstanding, a beautiful combination of 3D perspective with 2D sprites. The predominance of the color red, alongside enemies resembling Oni's masks, gives an apocalyptic sense of danger while also giving that Japanese feel (The music helps a lot in that regard too). My respects to the artist who was able to put all of this together in such a short time. This is great stuff! Congratulations!

Music: Here I can give more insights because I am a composer myself. And the first thing I want to shout out from the composer is his variety of output. Very flexible and presented great musical ideas, combining Japanese scales and instruments with western orchestral timbres and even chiptune-like synths. And as I mentioned before, his use of sound design and the use of chromaticisms in pentatonic realms reinforce a lot the Japanese feel the game wants to convey.

Many composers in this jam made the mistake of creating powerful yet repetitive, loop-based music for boss fights. While loops are crucial in video game music, it's vital to minimize their repetition in boss battles. Since these encounters are intended to be lengthy and challenging, excessive repetition can quickly become annoying. Thankfully, this composer grasps that concept perfectly! Also, because of this necessity of long format music for bosses, I can understand perfectly why the music suddenly stopped during the second boss.
However... Personally, I would not mind if you guys repeated the first boss battle music hahaha, it's better to repeat than to have nothing in the background.

Just as a personal taste, I would try to reinforce more of that Japanese feel in the boss battle. It's very present in the game title, but not that much in the rest. Japanese music is characterized by its "Dark" quality; mostly the "In-sen" scale represents the best qualities of classical and court Japanese music. The boss music, however, feels very bright; some extensions even remind me of a kind of Lydian sound, wich is not coherent with the previous musical elements and the feel of the game.
Using diatonic scales to represent Japanese music is not a problem, but in this case, I would rather choose a Phrygian Scale. It has the same tone quality as Japanese anhemitonic scales. And the relationship between the 1st and 2nd grade of the Phrygian gives exactly the same feels as the In-sen scale. In fact, the Phrygian scale IS the In-sen scale but with one extra note.

Overall, the game is great. I believe you guys will win. It has creativity, quality, and everything about it is great. Wish you success, guys!

Hey! Thank you again for your very insightful review. Today, I finally had the time to play your game, and there is a lot to say:

Your take on the theme is definitely the most unique and creative in the entire jam, period. Also I'm a huge fan of turn-based games, and yours is really unique. I definitely encourage you to continue developing this game. The idea is great, and I see a potential GOTY here if you manage to polish it.

Talking about the strategy, it's super well thought out. You can swap parts that the enemy has already destroyed. It sounds broken, but if you don't have a strategy, you will end up losing anyway. My strategy was to go stealing the tail first since it's the only body part the enemy has and I don't. Then I exchanged my destroyed left arm with his, then used my demon arm to destroy his remaining arm. In this way, he will have a difficult time destroying my head since he just have legs to attack. Once the arm is destroyed, I proceed to destroy the demon's head, and... it didn't die? Ahhhhhh HAHA. That would had be very satisfying if worked out

AThe art and fonts used give super nice dark fantasy vibes! Love it. Maybe it would be nice to add some kind of visual cue to know wich body arts are destroyed, so i dont need to check body part one by one to plan and strategice. 

Regarding to your music curation for the game... Let me give you some advice as a composer (And gamer). The title music is long, beautiful, and elaborated; the boss battle music is great and super repetitive and catchy. However, It would work better the other way around. Strategic, challenging boss battles like yours are long and invite replayability. In that case, using very repetitive music is an awfully wrong move, even if the music is dope (The track you chose reminds me a little bit of the Mother series), the high exposure to repetitions will make it annoying over time. 

So summarizing the advice, for long levels or bosses, difficult or replayable: Long-format music will be a good choice. In the same vein, the shorter the scene, level, or the easier and less replayable it is, shorter-format music will suit better

I enjoyed the game; your idea is nice, and I will give you the highest score I have given in this jam. Very well done. If you continue developing this idea and need a hand in any audio endeavor, feel free to send a message; I would be glad to help :D

Wishing you the best in this jam

Hey!

Gameplay: The idea of the game is fun and engaging! In the first play session, it's a little bit unfair since the mechanics are not that obvious. However, they are super easy to understand, and by the second session, you are already prepared to rock it! Once you get used to the mechanics, how the platforms and projectiles behave, the game has the perfect amount of challenge. Personally, I LOVE games that forces you to constantly move and never stay in the same position (Obssesed Doom player here) played this game a lot.

Art: It is extremely minimalist, but it suits the retro pinball-like concept very well and gives a certain vibe to the game. It would be nice to add a blinking color effect in the red platforms to make easier to predict when the platforms will switch color.

Music: The music is good; I would just give some advice to the composer. When you have boss fights that are designed to endure a considerable amount of time, I would avoid using short loops. Long battles plus short loops equal lots and lots of repetition and can hurt badly the perception of the soundtrack from the listeners perspective. This becomes worse when you consider bosses as sth challenging that invites constant repetition. Being that said, in the realm of videogame music a lengthy and challenging boss fight is your best chance to show off your composition skills in long formats. 

I enjoyed playing this game a lot!

Wishing you good luck and success!

Your game is super fun! Nice mechanics, and the art is great. Glad to see other developers making pirate games as well :D Wishing you success in the jam!

The idea of exchanging with Shield, Gunner and Captain was supposed to shine with challenging level design based on strategy and placement. Sadly we didn't have enough time to make an elaborated level design. We needed to point in a less ambitious route haha. 

Thank you a lot of the detailed review and insights, they are valuable since we will continue developing the game. 

Later in the night I will give you my review in your game n.n

wow! You don't have an idea how happy you make me with this comment. Thank you! Yeah, we went a little bit to ambitious with the gameplay for the scope of a jam hahaha. But if you like it, I invite you to follow us because we will improve and refine that aspect and add more! 

Hey! Thank you for the encouraging comment. I am really happy that energy and main intention of the game is clear! 
We're absolutely enamored with this idea and definitely we are going to refine, expand, and publish it!

Thank you again! 

And of course, if we need any help or anything we will let you know. 

I am trying your game btw, later in the night i will give you my review :) 

Yep, the original dea is to protect the gunner with the captain. So the gunner can charge his weapon and deal fatal damage to the crab. The characters cant die, they just get stunned, is more about dealing with the boss as fast as possible to avoid further damage in the ship.

By any chance are you using mac? I am the only one in the team that have the same problems as you, also theo nly one with a mac hehe xc

Hey! I'm glad you liked the music Mister! I appreciate your comment a lot!

The visuals are great! 
The music was kind of repetitive considering the lenght of the levels.

Many interesting playstyle and ideas, this definitely can evolve in a great game!

Congrats!

Loved hell a lot the idea and the concept! Super creative the idea of linking a date sim with a boss rush! Unexpected! So far i rated you guys the highest haha fun game!

The only thing i would change is that when you choose a dialogue between battle, its kind of counter intuitive to change from playing with keyboard to choose the dialogue with the mouse. It would be nice if i can just shoot an arrow to the desired answer or sth like that. 

Good luck and success! 

Sadly i cant play it on mac :,c But i need to say, the art looks awesome! Have success! 

The strongest point of your game is clearly the art and visuals! I liked the mechanics, the bosses and the main idea. But needs a lot of improvement, mainly in the level design. However its pretty solid submission for a mounth! Congrats!

The game is fun! And the difficulty curve is very well crafted! Have success in the jam!