There’s not really any way to reasonably achieve the pacifism ending with the random generation how it is. It very often spawns too many enemies for you to be able to move past, or doesn’t spawn enough items you need to pacify them. The items also stop working if an enemy is stepping on top of the tile it’s on, which makes stopping to try to pacify each enemy with items very useless in the long run. You essentially have to pray the random map gen gives you 8 floors with few enemies and a wide open area around the ladder, and I do not think I have the patience for it, unfortunately. When not trying to go for the pacifism ending, the game is fine, though.
Very cool! Love the art, and the gameplay mechanics were straightforward and enjoyable. Quick enough that I can play it in once sitting, which I appreciated.
The trial-and-error aspect can be seen as either a positive or a negative; I personally enjoyed puzzling out which items to use on which enemies, but the hidden health bars until after you attack, not so much. Undecided on the enemy movement and detection ranges.
The boss fight felt a bit hard and grind-y to me, just because once you're within attacking range you don't have enough movement to retreat for even a single turn to regain health or to use a ranged attack, so there's not much strategy to it. (Or maybe I just got an unlucky map gen. I assumed it was the one consistent map, since it was a long lead up path to the boss, but now IDK.)
I was initially trying to do a pacifism route, but as often happens with rangen I was sometimes put into a level with no option but to fight.
Still, very fun! And again, really liked the art. Felt very polished.
There's a lot of heart put into this one. I especially like the art direction and overall story here. The idea that the character begins not actually wanting to fight is a fun twist, especially when it's combined with the fight/distract game mechanics. Really gorgeous.
As I play the game for the first time, I do find myself getting a bit lost in ways I don't believe are meant to be intentional. For example, if I encounter an enemy I'm not familiar with, I must first deal damage to see how much health it has. Also, with spells, I cannot easily tell what they are from far away unless I know to look for the color already. It would be nice if mousing over things outside of your range gave you some sort of information on the entity. When I play the game for long enough, learning item stats and distraction pairings along the way, the game is quite pleasant to play. I have no idea what your plans are with this game, but I think it can be more accessible and more easily understood by being a bit more transparent with certain unwritten rules (Health gained upon going up a ladder, enemy ranges including aggro and attack, etc.).
In addition, I managed to get an ending, but I don't really know if there are other endings. I'm guessing there's probably one based on the pacifism mechanic, but I don't know what exactly I would need to do in order to get it. I'm unsure if I have to not kill any enemies, not kill a certain amount of enemies, or simply find a way to take down the enemy at level 1 without killing it. If there are other endings, it would be nice to get a little hint of what to do upon getting this ending. If there actually isn't another ending, I'm probably looking into it a bit too deeply, haha.
That being said, what you have here at present is definitely fun. It's fun to go through the randomized floors to figure out the best course of action as the game continues. I was a bit skeptic about the randomized layouts in such a puzzle-like game, but it ended up being a really fun feature because of how many different ways there are to respond to enemies. I'm happy that I was able to play this game, and I hope that you can continue to make fun games.
Hey, thanks for the super detailed response! There's a lot we had to cut in order to get the game done and balanced on time, and you bring up a lot of really good ideas for how we can make it more accessible! After the jam ends we will make the game more accessible in many of the ways you have described here.
There is a pacifism ending! But you need to very careful (and lucky) to get it haha
Oh yeah no you did amazing for the time limit imposed on you. I'm glad my feedback could be of use! It's good to have some confirmation of a pacifist ending, though oh my goodness you weren't lying about the luck. The farthest I've been able to get without killing anyone is Floor Six.
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There’s not really any way to reasonably achieve the pacifism ending with the random generation how it is. It very often spawns too many enemies for you to be able to move past, or doesn’t spawn enough items you need to pacify them. The items also stop working if an enemy is stepping on top of the tile it’s on, which makes stopping to try to pacify each enemy with items very useless in the long run. You essentially have to pray the random map gen gives you 8 floors with few enemies and a wide open area around the ladder, and I do not think I have the patience for it, unfortunately. When not trying to go for the pacifism ending, the game is fine, though.
Very cool! Love the art, and the gameplay mechanics were straightforward and enjoyable. Quick enough that I can play it in once sitting, which I appreciated.
The trial-and-error aspect can be seen as either a positive or a negative; I personally enjoyed puzzling out which items to use on which enemies, but the hidden health bars until after you attack, not so much. Undecided on the enemy movement and detection ranges.
The boss fight felt a bit hard and grind-y to me, just because once you're within attacking range you don't have enough movement to retreat for even a single turn to regain health or to use a ranged attack, so there's not much strategy to it. (Or maybe I just got an unlucky map gen. I assumed it was the one consistent map, since it was a long lead up path to the boss, but now IDK.)
I was initially trying to do a pacifism route, but as often happens with rangen I was sometimes put into a level with no option but to fight.
Still, very fun! And again, really liked the art. Felt very polished.
There's a lot of heart put into this one. I especially like the art direction and overall story here. The idea that the character begins not actually wanting to fight is a fun twist, especially when it's combined with the fight/distract game mechanics. Really gorgeous.
As I play the game for the first time, I do find myself getting a bit lost in ways I don't believe are meant to be intentional. For example, if I encounter an enemy I'm not familiar with, I must first deal damage to see how much health it has. Also, with spells, I cannot easily tell what they are from far away unless I know to look for the color already. It would be nice if mousing over things outside of your range gave you some sort of information on the entity. When I play the game for long enough, learning item stats and distraction pairings along the way, the game is quite pleasant to play. I have no idea what your plans are with this game, but I think it can be more accessible and more easily understood by being a bit more transparent with certain unwritten rules (Health gained upon going up a ladder, enemy ranges including aggro and attack, etc.).
In addition, I managed to get an ending, but I don't really know if there are other endings. I'm guessing there's probably one based on the pacifism mechanic, but I don't know what exactly I would need to do in order to get it. I'm unsure if I have to not kill any enemies, not kill a certain amount of enemies, or simply find a way to take down the enemy at level 1 without killing it. If there are other endings, it would be nice to get a little hint of what to do upon getting this ending. If there actually isn't another ending, I'm probably looking into it a bit too deeply, haha.
That being said, what you have here at present is definitely fun. It's fun to go through the randomized floors to figure out the best course of action as the game continues. I was a bit skeptic about the randomized layouts in such a puzzle-like game, but it ended up being a really fun feature because of how many different ways there are to respond to enemies. I'm happy that I was able to play this game, and I hope that you can continue to make fun games.Hey, thanks for the super detailed response! There's a lot we had to cut in order to get the game done and balanced on time, and you bring up a lot of really good ideas for how we can make it more accessible! After the jam ends we will make the game more accessible in many of the ways you have described here.
There is a pacifism ending! But you need to very careful (and lucky) to get it haha
Oh yeah no you did amazing for the time limit imposed on you. I'm glad my feedback could be of use! It's good to have some confirmation of a pacifist ending, though oh my goodness you weren't lying about the luck. The farthest I've been able to get without killing anyone is Floor Six.
looks so proffesional, interesting story