itch.io

Thanks for playing!
Sorry you found the last room too hard, it was supposed to checkpoint you, but we didn't get to add it in time due to checkpoints being tied with our door system. Should've just had the relic in it's own room...which is what I've since done! Once this jam is over we'll push that version, which I also redid the hitboxes for, so they're a lot more intuitive in that version.
We're also adding some stuff we missed out on, fixing softlocks, and making the rest of the escape sequence more of a unique challenge than it currently is.

Originally it was for the NES jam, so I wanted to be fairly restrictive in how much animation and effects were used, which would've helped making the spikey thorns more obvious as something that wasn't just in the background. 
Now that it's over, I can consider doing some more stuff to help the visibility of them.

Thanks for the feedback!

This game rules!

Saved it for around the end 'cause I knew it'd be good, sorry for leaving it 'til last minute.
Really fun gameplay, and the bosses were great with very nice tells, (some'd get ya if you hadn't seen it already, but that's to be expected in this kind of game, knowledge is king. Made it up to the serpent boss, but only had 2 hearts on my last life, so not enough hp in reserve to learn the pattern. Fire took one, dodged the second, got lunged ^^;;

I think I could get it next time, I'll definitely share it around though, there's a few people in my friend group that'd really appreciate this I think.

Started out rough, lost 2 lives in the intro, but had better luck in the boss fights.

Also finding my groove and quick tapping up and right helped a ton with fights.

Awesome game, graphics were a bit much for the system but outside of that pretty flawless, amazing work

Cool game, enjoyed the song and the visuals are pretty fun!

Rhythm gameplay is on point, very solidly made.

Doesn't capture an NES feel for me, especially in the audio department, but outside of that context it's a great bite of gameplay through and through.

Nice work!

Yeah, sorry about the softlocks. Late submission, didn't catch 'em in time (and didn't have time even if we did ><;;)
I do also agree it'd be nice to put down relics with the whip button as well. I did mention it in testing, but our current character controller made that difficult without breaking things I think. (mostly our other coders worked on that so I don't fully know the ins and outs, I'm still a beginner at the coding part ^^;;
I'll see if we can get that put into the update too, but the softlocks will be addressed best we can in a week or so if you want to play it then.

Thanks for giving it a go!

Cool game!

The moving to jump higher part was interesting, made it so you couldn't easily sneak by everything and have to move somewhat erratically which can lead to mistakes.

I really wish jump wasn't also bound to up. Playing this on my controller, I accidentally jumped when trying to move back and forth to gain height a lot, making the game far more punishing than it already is.

mice/rats are rude, they're so small, but still take multiple hits. Getting smacked down with knockback sucks but it is part of the main challenge here and rarely kills you once you get high enough, so it's not too bad. Were it not for the controller issue I'd maybe have finished it off, but the boss did seem to have a lot of health, and I'm not sure if it resets.

weapon swings and general movement feel good, most enemies seem a hitpoint too beefy for my tastes, but are otherwise fine, and your swings can go out fast enough to compensate for the hp, so it's not too bad. Good sound design and effects on damaging, feels satisfying to slice through enemies.

Enemies respawning on the floor you're standing on is rude, but with the design of the game they kind of need to respawn at some point otherwise you'll be climbing back up an empty tower. The flashing is a good indication, I'm just sometimes not focused enough on it.

Not a huge fan of the lack of one-way collision on the sides of platforms, it just feels awkward and not intuitive. I'd remove it, or at least make the box for it smaller (leaving more room to go through) and layer it with another 1 way across that part (assuming it's tileset based)

The blue lines across the screen were interesting, mostly there to break up the zones and maybe checkpoint you? Nice bit of QoL.

All in all pretty nice! Might give it a redo if the controls get changed up later, but I had fun!

Haven't gotten too far with it, and still have some other games to check out, but I'd like to come back and play more! (Got booted out of the game while responding to a message from someone, which is an unfortunate bug but I'll try and be more careful. Was in the middle of deciding level-up options so I couldn't stop and save (or can you? idk, they probably don't expect people to be as indecisive as me, lots of good options to take!

From what little I've gotten into so far it seems really good! I like the character variety and all the art is very nice,both the portraits and the environments, staying true to NES limitations while  being very stylish with a ton of character to them!

Liked having the option to name all of them too!

Only seen a bit of the enemies so far, but I enjoyed their designs greatly.

I'll need to play more to comment on the balance overall, but it felt real good so far!
I like the story so far, and I'm intrigued as to where it takes me.

 Only thing I didn't vibe with as much was the music, It's a bit too uncomfortable with the notes, and doesn't change up enough making the environment feel very unwelcoming and eerie. It's not that it doesn't fit the game's mood, more that it's just not the sort of thing I'd want to have in the background constantly. It's mostly the main instrument, the long (strings?), and since the combat music builds off of them, there's no break from it.

But aside from that, the whole things is very enjoyable so far, I'll need to play more into it!

There is at least one transition that's broken in the jam version (duplicated it and forgot to change the path ID to the right door, whoops) that one's fixed at least, I think they're all good now for the next update but I'll be sure to triple check just in case!

Fair shout on the fire item, for me personally it has enough leeway to allow for a slight amount of mistakes but not long enough where it doesn't feel like a satisfying challenge.
It actually used to be tighter! (secretly each of those 'seconds' is actually 1.1 seconds, we extended them to be more lenient while sticking to the single digit partially because it felt cooler and also so we'd be asking for less sprites to display on the character for NES constraints.

Thanks for the feedback!

Thanks for playing!

Yeah, the eye statues aren't fully coded right in the jam version, but are already set up and working proper for the next time we update the game!
Yeah, that's fair with the water segments. I do like the controls I made for it (there's a surprising amount of precision you can have once you get used to it) but they're a bit experimental, and don't really mesh too well with the maps I wanted to (and did make). Maybe if I make it easier to sink faster or just only have vertical movement on the jump button it'll feel more natural. I'll fiddle around with it some before the next update at least.

Yeah, I was a bit worried about the readability in the mushroom area, though I do enjoy the contrast. I figured while it might throw people off at first the way it's layed out indicated enough that it was an obstacle, and worse case scenario they'd know after touching it once, and since you respawn nearby and can get back in seconds, no real harm in it. I was more worried about the opposite, making it look too dangerous and then the player sees purple mushrooms later (the platforming ones) and is like 'heck no I'm not touching that I'll die!" which'd be real bad for the puzzles that need it. But I think it's laid out well enough that it's not an issue in that regard. The fact I like to make my games look less 'blocky'  than most NES games does come at the expense of restricting an already restricted palette. With that in mind I can still do a bit more, maybe add in some skulls or biohazard symbols into the inset wall art (like the glowing mushrooms) would help clue the player in before they find out through more direct means.

Great feedback, I'll keep those in mind!

Thanks for the feedback!
Yeah, we'll try our best to fix any potential softlocks so we can have a more polished experience good to push out once we can update again. Thanks for continuing in spite of that!

Fair shout on the music, with the time constraints it was just more viable for the musicians to compose how they're used to, as they didn't have as much time to spend on the jam. If they had more time they'd have tried translating it to a tracker and stuff. Not sure if they have plans to change stuff later, it's a decent undertaking for sure, especially getting stuff to sound as good with the limited channels/notes played at once. I won't make any promises on that part, but it would be cool, maybe as a toggle-able option.

Yeah we were running real short on time by the time we got the code finished for that mushroom, so there wasn't enough time to playtest, or even add the sound effects we actually had made for it. I have since made that toxic growth in the second spring mushroom section not go as far due to the awkwardness of the jump, as well as added most of the sound effects so it'll be more obvious that it 'pops' back up again. Might add a bit more to it just to be sure, maybe some NES capable screen shake or something before it pops up again. It's already a lot more obvious.

Cheers, thanks again o/

Kinda fun, but got a bit tedious by the time I stopped (level 8, nearly got through twice but fumbled the last input because it's kind of hard to tell when you'll be in the spot to do it) Wrist started getting sore and I still have games to play through so I didn't want to run myself down too much. (thankfully I'm not the main character of this game and can stop ^^;)

Controls were ok, it's inspired by Super Meat Boy but could apply some of the teachings from that like input buffering on the jump (especially on the maps that start you in the air for some reason) or at least more of it if there is a slight amount, and variable jump height which'd help a lot of jumps give more control to the player.

The instant reset is both a blessing and a curse, especially when it comes to the audio, because hearing the spike sound over and over is very grating on the ears. Could maybe do with a more subtle sound and/or a button tap to restart a room (though it might be a thematic choice to have it reset automatically.

The clinging up against a wall feels a bit counter to the premise of the game, maybe if you ran the other way when you hit it, or ran up the wall? Obviously doesn't work with the current level layout but perhaps if you return to this idea at some point.

Some beautiful spritework, character animation and the soundtrack is fantastic as well

I love, love the ending screen, it's so pretty <3

What I love less about it is how quickly I got to see it, despite taking my time to soak in the charming atmosphere and collecting all the veggies I could see (seriously, just about chased one off a cliff, haha)
Seriously, I wanted more! 

Such is the fate of jam games, especially ones as polished as this, but I'd love to see it expanded upon in the future!

The little hat raise in the crouch animation is so cute too, palette use is top notch overall~

Gah, and the enemy animations are so cute, especially the rat one that gets knocked over / ^w^ \

No notes, keep doing what you're doing o/

The gameplay is pretty fun! Premise is cool too, love the creativity!

Didn't fully make sense how some stuff effects you but so long as you're jumping you can be in full moonlight? But then again you can roll right into and through an axe swing in Dark Souls and still come out unscathed so maybe I shouldn't apply logic to video games.

The jumping is fun and does break away from otherwise sticking to the shadows and following along them.

I really enjoyed the creative ways that shadows were cast in the game, the flag raising and lowering being my favorite, very cool visual.

If you were to expand upon the game later, I think it'd be really cool to add ways for the player to interact with the environment, and get stuff to show up and cast shadows that wouldn't otherwise be there.

For it's current state it's pretty enjoyable as is!

Doesn't have much of an NES feel with the way parallax works here, not to mention the amount of sprites on screen or the sizes.
Felt alright though, very flashy, and I enjoyed the intro cutscene.

Not too much in terms of gameplay, kinda just moving around and trying not to stand in place long enough to get hit, wish there was a bit more to it. But I've never seen the appeal to number go up games like Vampire Survivors, so maybe I'm just the wrong audience for it. Not really sure how to improve it, feels like enemies either smack you occassionally or might as well not even be there.

Took me a while to realize the different buffs were replacing my current stacks instead of adding effects onto it, which was a bit unintuitive and didn't feel great. Ended up grabbed by a big guy and beaten up by the gang of green flying ones from full health, so...RIP

Character and enemy designs were pretty cool though.

Cool!
Some of the tileset issues made navigating a bit hard, but otherwise it was pretty fun.

Loved the audio design in this one, very nice.

Brutal when a bat is approaching you menacingly and you're one one hp and the gun does damage to you, haha. But then I probably shouldn't have let it get to that point.

Blasted away Anubis in less than 2 seconds so I didn't get to see what he did, but I enjoyed getting there.

Hah, I do not have the reaction time for this game, lol.

Combined with how long it takes you to change direction, it's pretty punishing. Edges of the map feel oddly sticky as a result too. Kinda has me wondering how the game would feel if it screen-wrapped in normal flight mode instead.

After a bit I realized that in order for the dash to work, the enemies would all have to end up in lanes at the bottom, which made some enemies like the snake feel less insane to react to ^^;  But even with that knowledge I still wasn't fast enough. I concede to those with twitchier reflexes than I.

Game was fun though, I just wish it was maybe a bit slower at first before ramping up to the sort of speed the game starts you on currently, and maybe for the character to have a bit easier of a time turning around, it does feel a bit out of place for the kind of character design, I'd imagine something stockier having that kind of momentum. 

Still, it's a fun little arcade minigame!

Fun game! I think the last dungeon could maybe be a bit shorter, as the puzzle to it mostly boiled down to 'checking if a path is open, if not, push button and come back' 

Movement was pretty stiff, true to Zelda 1 from what I recall, but I'd prefer if it wasn't quite so committal. 

Generally the boss design seemed fine, I liked the first boss the best, but the second one I could not seem to find a way to move to not get hit by the three directional attack, the top left corner seemed the best bet, but I'm not fast enough to dodge the last wave. I don't think I had much curse either, and I don't think it could be reflected. Always got hit at least once, but maybe I just missed something about it. Was able to damage race the boss down so it didn't end my run at least.

The overworld was cool, could do with something to let the player know where they have or haven't been. Almost missed the last dungeon thinking that I had already swam to all the unique zones there, but was double checking due to paranoia (and generally knowing my sense of direction is pretty poor.

The shovel was cool enjoyed being able to use it against the pit enemies, I think the reflect could be used a bit more for puzzles, and would generally like the other tools to see more use, but there's a lot here for the time given, so I'm not surprised some didn't see as much repeated use later. (perhaps an invulnerable enemy you need to blow into a pit with the wind wand for example?) Wasn't a fan of how you needed to dig to find stairs sometimes but would be forced to take damage when enemies came out. Maybe a brief period before they start moving would be nice? Otherwise it's a bit of a health check, and you lose more than you gain from the ones that had health pickups instead. For someone like me that likes to be fairly thorough, I had to dig them all to know if I was missing anything anyways.

The curse mechanic was interesting, but I didn't feel the urge to make use of it, especially when the character is already not particularly fast. I'd rather just take less damage and learn the fights better with more leniency towards getting hit. Maybe the kind of thing that'd appeal more to me on repeated playthroughs.

Sound design could have been a bit punchier, some more sounds for enemies and item usage would go a long way in improving the feel of the game.

Apologies if I'm critiquing too much, it was still a fun adventure, and kept me going all the way through to the end. Strong base to a game and very impressive for the two weeks to make all of this.

Fun game!

A bit of awkward stuff left in, like some random collision on the map (presumably from later adding collision to one of the black tiles forgetting it was used at some earlier bits. Would recommend avoiding having tiles that are the exact same in usage/visuals in the tileset for this reason.)

Gameplay-wise it was fun! very Castlevania inspired, and the dash attack as the werewolf was fun. Wish there was a second phase to the boss where the moonlight shines through and you finish him in werewolf form. Maybe it was scrapped for time.

Fun little exploit while in werewolf form, if you press pause during a dash attack, the sprite and hitbox of the attack remain for the rest of the screen/until death. 

Boss health didn't seem to update so I was surprised when they suddenly died, but for the most part it felt pretty polished. Nice!

Rough around the edges but still has charm to it

the graphics didn't feel all too NES-like, but were enjoyable on their own

There was one part during the game that I needed to do a blind drop to a platform below (ended up gambling on a long jump instead and got spiked) so I'd just be aware of the camera and what you can and can't see while playtesting. Always try and approach it from a new player's perspective, if you only drop down because you know the platforms there having built the level, it's not quite ready yet.

Not the long one onto the platform with gems to guide btw, that one was fine, it was earlier on.

Otherwise the game felt pretty good, The smiley enemy looked a bit like a collectable to me, where the grimoire? later on did not. (well it kinda did but in the context of the smiley enemy I did swipe at it first to check xP)

Some audio would go a long way in improving the game feel.

Fun gameplay, enjoyed finding the secrets. Good pickup design in that stuff only dropped health or item charge if you had need for it, and otherwise gave points.

Wish it had music, but otherwise was pretty solid.

If I can add a slight critique with the level design, it'd be in the very last enemy stage before the boss. The point where you drop down with fireballs shooting in both directions has a bit of geometry that goes inwards at the bottom for no particular reason. I thought it might be hinting at a more subtle secret room, but I just fell to my death lol. The actual secret areas are well hinted at, but you might want to just make that a straight line down like the rest of the platforms to avoid curious folks like me plummeting to their doom xP

Game was quite enjoyable, the character art was very cute, gameplay was well balanced, nice work!

Really cute little game!

I enjoyed the opening cutscene, and the end was rather silly.

Classic Zelda-esque dungeon exploring, which is always a good time when done well, which is certainly true here.

I liked the use of the umbrella as a weapon, reminds me of a game idea I had a while back that also had an umbrella as a main weapon... maybe I should actually get around to making that someday. But I digress!

I enjoyed using it as a shield to slowly close the gap between enemies, and having one be out on the ground deflecting shots was a good tell for those who hadn't made the connection already.

I liked seeing all the ghosts together at the end, and that to them we were just kinda hanging out and playing together, or at least that's how I interpreted it...which makes me feel better about accidentally stabbing the one that upgraded my umbrella earlier, sorry about that!

Only thing it's really missing is some music, but other than that it feels pretty complete!
Nice work!

Fun game, not familiar with the lore at all, but the character interactions were enjoyable!

Enjoyed the variety of gameplay here, and the spritework was good too

Solid little adventure!

(forgot to lock the door gag was pretty good)

Ice puzzle was neat and nicely implemented~

Fun game!

Graphically, it loses a bit of the NES feel with how many palettes are used (especially in the shop menu) The inconsistent asset size is also a bit distracting. 

Gameplay wise though, it's a nice and relaxing fishing game, just a chill time. I like how there are some things in the shop that serve no purpose aside from knocking them off the shelves, it's a good bit.

Fishing mechanics worked well, simple but effective, and I enjoyed unlocking the ability to go deeper and find out what there was to be seen at the bottom.

cute game with a lot of charm~

Thanks for giving it another go!
Yeah, Poyo and Bucket put a lot of good work into the soundtrack, I'll be sure to pass that along to them!
(I feel a bit bad because we forgot to re-add the title screen as we just launched into the start of the game during testing, so you can't hear the intro track. It'll be added as soon as we can update the game again.

And yeah, I completely agree with your opinion on the Metroidvania aspect of that. (to be honest, Ste kinda did that without consulting the rest of the group first) To be fair, it was initially going to be much more of a Metroidvania with relics you could drop and pickup freely, but partway through I just had to admit that our plans for it weren't going to be doable in time (that and the prospect of dropping relics wherever not only led to a million possible softlocks it would just result in a lot of backtracking. I proposed the relic pedestal idea, and that helped designing go a lot smoother (though not softlock proof, we'll try and make contingency plans for those, sorry ^^;)
Had it been my  call I wouldn't have submitted it there, as you said the current game is entirely linear, just with a few mandatory detours (and only keys as far as progression unlocks in a Metroidvania is kinda lame imo), but it is what it is. (it might have also been setup earlier to upload to both via Godot plugin, and seeing how late we submitted there wouldn't have been time to tick that box off ^^;;)

And yeah the ending scene is super cool. Flinigan whipped that up in like the last couple of hours or so too. Dude's crazy skilled, idk how he does it. Really solid fundamentals and a lot of practice I guess.

Thanks again!

Neat game, definitely took me a while to get used to the controls (base instinct was to keep holding the jump button but you pretty much need to release it right away)

Got pretty sick of a certain bird camping the area I needed to get across, so I stopped there, but it was pretty interesting climbing. Initially the controls felt very unreliable but once you start to better understand the movement you need to do to get things to work it becomes a lot easier to get around without falling or staying in one place trying to get a handhold.
 

Mechanics were interesting, always cool to see people experiment with different movement options.

This was so much fun, holy crap.

Probably my favourite game of the entire jam (at least of the ones I've tried so far)

Graphically it looks phenomenal, and the cutscenes are really well made.

Might not be 100% doable on NES due to how the scrolling works combined with the sprite sizes, but outside of that it's a visual joy, I adored the cave level visuals especially with the top and bottom parts scrolling adding such a great illusion of depth.

The gameplay was so fun, action packed and the perfect difficulty for me. (I'll leave blight mode to the more hardcore peeps, base challenge was juuust right~) I like how you don't need to parry anything aside from the final boss (which is extremely well telegraphed so not a problem) as getting the timing right for those rarely feels worth the risk/time investment for me in  most games. I'll stick to my sword and board swinging and dodging, and the game fully allows for that playstyle. 

Checkpoints were well placed, and the crowd control magic felt very impactful and powerful...even if I forgot to use it aside from like... twice lol.

I really enjoyed the bat fight, kept me on edge the entire time, despite being able to do it hitless my second attempt. Certainly felt like it made me work for it though!

Took a bit to realise what the final boss' gimmick was, but once I did he was an absolute joy to fight. What a great sending off for the game.

Felt like a fully realised experience, great work <3

Health is pretty generous but it doesn't actually matter due to the enemy placement and constant bottomless pits. In how far I got, I'd never gotten close to dying via hp drainage.
Knockback is very classic NES, but not in a good way. They don't make many games like this anymore for good reason.

Plenty of enemy placement that makes it near impossible to get through without perfect timing should you have already died and lost your sub weapon.

Aside from that though the game is absolutely fantastic, graphically it looks stunning, and matches the best of games from the era.

The enemies themselves are fine (the skeleton is pretty aggressive but it feels pretty badass to slice through all his shots), and I really enjoyed the ninjas (when they weren't kicking me into pits), they're visible enough after the first time that you can watch out for them, but just subtle enough that they can still get you if you're distracted with the other stuff on screen.

The sword slash felt great and obliterating your enemies in one quick swing makes you feel very powerful. I really wish there was a down slash of some sort, so many deaths came from needing to jump over to a platform with enemies, them edge-guarding, landing on their head and falling in a pit. The game does at least allow infinite lives as far as I can tell, and has checkpoints, but some of them work against you when there aren't any sub weapons and you have enemies right after a pit.

Out of all the games here, this probably feels the most true to the NES, and if you're nostalgic for that sort of experience, a hardcore speedrunner (or just masochistic) it'll be a perfect fit for you.

Not my game, but definitely someone's game. I cannot deny it was very well made, and the enemy placement is obviously 100% intentional to emulate that old-school kind of experience, and it does that to a T.

Fun game!

Was going to say that the flashlight UI being a different size than the rest of the pixel art took away from the feel, but actually that was a result of weird rescaling due to me zooming in really far on the browser to play it fullscreen.

(not sure if it was supposed to rescale automatically but was very small for me)

Otherwise then, it was pretty solid all the way through!

Did have some issues with platforms moving down not allowing you to jump off of them, and I decided to climb past the exit to see if there was a secret in one of the stages, only for the screen scroll to kill me which...didn't feel great ^^; Would recommend locking the vertical scroll once it reaches the floor tile of the end door to avoid this issue.

The blocks which activate tiles were well made! I like how they have different expressions to indicate that they're starting to run out. Great attention to detail there.

The flashlight mechanics overall were fun, but could have made more use of it. There's a lot of horizontal movement potential you can do with the hover, but the stage design doesn't play into it much. From a combat point of view, I found myself without much reason to engage with enemies, and more incentive to ignore them and use the fuel to hover past. Maybe if you had some faster enemies that more aggressively chase the player, but get stunned by the flashlight, That way they're not so brutal that they can show up and kill you if you're low on battery because you could stun them get some distance while you charge and then finish them off.

Graphics were solid, and being checkpointed at the start of the level made it easy to redo things if needed.
Good game, would like to see it expanded on o/
  

Cool game!

Wish it had more audio, but the general gameplay was enjoyable. Needed a bit more polish in some areas.

The climbing mechanic wasn't obvious at first, I made it past the first screen where you're supposed to use it by jumping at it enough and forcing the collision to work, but soon after the level design made it more clear what you were supposed to do. It was a bit unclear that you could jump off trees because you have to be standing still, but it was consistent once I figured that out.

There was a point in the caves with a block slightly higher right on the other side of a screen transition, which made it seem like the screen ended there. I'd try to keep block levels the same across area transitions to avoid confusion. Making a more distinct tile for the one-way collision blocks you can walk past vs the standard tiles would help in making the cave area more readable as well.

Overall though it was very nice! I enjoyed going out of my way to collect the extra treasures and explore the map, and those massive snakes made for a real intimidating foe, having you backtrack through dangerous areas at times to get enough hits in.

Graphics were very nice, though the water reflection took away from the NES feel, and clashed a bit with the artstyle outside of that. Maybe some sort of dithering could achieve a similar effect?
I do agree with others saying crouching and shooting could give you a different shot arc.
Great start though, hope you expand on it o/ 

Thanks for playing!
Yeah, unfortunately there are some softlocks that we didn't get to patch in time (currently working on a post-rating period version to address those)
In general the side paths are pretty linear, and if a door leading out gets unlocked it's best to continue through the door soon as you can.

Otherwise make sure not to die while holding a key ^^;

Sorry about those, hope you have better luck with it if you try it again during the jam o/
(also there's supposed to be a checkpoint in the final room which has already been addressed for the post jam version, but feel free to just head back if you die after doing the event in the room (you'll know when you get there) (or just call it complete there, but there is a pretty cool ending screen Flinigan made if you go back)

The game was a lot of fun once I got adjusted to the flow of it, which took a fair few tries.

Initially it looks like a rhythm game, but upon playing it, it feels more about timing than anything.

Some friends and I actually teamed up a couple years ago to make Beat Beet for the first NES jam, which similarly had you playing 'notes' as you dodged boss attacks.

The combat here is a lot more involved though, being the sole focus of the game. 

One thing that was apparent when making it was just how hard it could be trying to focus on two things at once, and we ended up having the notes play on the bottom, feeling like that made it easier compared to looking up. Perhaps a setup like that would feel better for the first two fights at least, where the boss is on the ground, so you could watch the playhead at the same time as the boss to keep an eye on which attack they're telegraphing.

Still, it's able to be overcame and it was pretty cool, there's a lot of character in the animations, which were lovely (though maybe a bit too fluid for the NES) Some more indication for bosses taking damage would be helpful though, especially with how much health they have. I was starting to wonder if the first boss only took damage by shooting while they were attacking or something, but I don't think that was the case. Maybe a bit too much hp to get through, for my liking at least. Speaking of HP, very much appreciate how the blue rounds restore health, I don't think I'd have pushed myself to the end of the game without them!

Mothman felt a bit awkward compared to the first two, I had trouble seeing if there was any tell to the fireballs that got sent across the screen, which was rough considering how his other attack tries to keep you on the side where they come out of. Thankfully they're consistent in that they always go bottom to top, so as long as you aren't on the bottom, (or at least are far enough away from the side to dodge) it's manageable enough. Retreating to the top corner and diving down and running right once he starts sending swarms that don't expire before reaching you seemed to be a good strategy. 

Hectic, but a good time!

Bit hard to rate this one considering how much of it is still in a prototype state, but there's some good ideas here!

Character design on display is pretty cute~

Some things felt rather unintuitive, like the tree branches not being able to platform on. Not sure if they're supposed to be or not? If not I'd consider outlining them with the darker shade of brown on the tree, and/or just raising them higher up on the map in general so they can't feasibly be reached. The skunk enemy also seemed very chill and didn't move, so I assumed it was an NPC I could talk to until they did damage to me, maybe they're supposed to be but got changed in the time crunch?

On my first playthrough I just used the AK at first since I thought that was maybe how you were supposed to attack after messing around with the controls, as a debug tool it's maybe a bit too accessible, to the point it just seems part of the expected control scheme. After taking down the bunny I thought 'oh, maybe I wasn't supposed to be able to attack yet'
I did beat the game after without it, and it went well despite some hiccups. The bunny boss was well made, the attack pattern and telegraphs provided a good challenge while feeling fair.

I still don't fully get how you're supposed to go to the right area without taking damage. Maybe bouncing on a frog or mouse enemy? Or maybe the aforementioned branches were meant to be jumped on. If it was the former, then the lack of a screen transition nearby to reset the enemies makes it a bit troublesome. I just ended up damage boosting, seemed like the best course of action, which isn't a great feeling as a player when you're not sure there is an expected alternative.

The pickup/climb ability was cool! I liked throwing stuff about and bouncing it to do damage to enemies, and the apples healing you but also being able to be grabbed and thrown if you were at full health already was a nice touch. I noticed you can platform on them, so maybe you're supposed to use that to get across the spikes on the way back? If so it's a bit rough since it's rng whether the mouse drops it, and the jump is very precise.

Took me a little while to figure out what the climb ability did (I thought maybe it was what allowed you to jump on those branches, but it was not) Turned out to be a wall jump, which worked fine once I knew it was that. Some indication when jumping against walls either animation wise or slowing the player's descent when pushed against them would make it more clear, but I assume this was just a time constraint thing. Never enough time to add everything you want, the way you'd like it to be, in a jam setting ^^;

The map screen and transition effect look great! Not sure if the NES can do it in that kind of motion but seemed to be emulating a mix of tile swap and screen scrolling, very interesting for sure, and the character art here is lovely too. The icons for the various power ups look great and I can imagine the sun changes to the moon or something later, though I haven't had the timer tick down enough to tell. Presumably it will at some point if it doesn't already, which is just a very nice extra bit of detailing.

There's a solid and charming game that could come out of this for sure, best of luck if you continue with it o/

Very solid player movement!

The stops between transitions and yoyo swings pulling you along made it feel quite authentically NES, as well as giving the player time to prepare for the next input, making going through the level very intuitive and fluid.

Love the yoyo mechanic, traversal is a lot of fun once you master it, and still fun while you're getting used to it.

Took me a bit to get used to the nuances of it, like how the up swing is a bit forward and up so you'll miss trying to swing at stuff from directly below.

Love the additional challenges thrown into the main area, traversing from one side of the street to the other from the top was easily my favourite! (the timing for that last bit is tricky,  much earlier than I expected)

The boss was fun, if a bit on the easy side, but it matched the overall challenge of the rest of the game, so it makes sense. I do wish it maybe went higher once it got to half health or something so you couldn't just beat on it from below the whole time (aside from dodging the one ground covering attack) (ps. I did spend the game wondering if it was going to make that reference, and I was not disappointed, haha)

Only nitpick I have is that the game could have a bit of a grace period after you finish a level before letting you reenter, or just close off the doors that no longer have something new to collect. I ended up redoing a level I'd just finished because I'm a bit fiddly with my controls and tried to upswing the yoyo before moving away ^^;;

8 Bones collected! Not sure if I missed any, could maybe do with a message at the end that lets you know how many there were in total.

This game is great, though it probably could do with some checkpoints and a bit of balancing.

The atmosphere is fantastic, which is greatly helped by the audio design. Everything about the presentation here meshes together perfectly, making it feel very polished and cohesive!

The idea of having the rest of your party made up of various tools as weapons is pretty cool! Also makes it so that losing the encounter when the leader runs out of health perfectly logical, because they can't really be expected to do anything on their own.

Love the first person dungeon crawling aspect of it, combined with the minimap, exploring felt intuitive and clear, never had to worry about getting turned around and ending back where I came from accidentally. Very seamless.

Tried a couple times, but both times I just got combo'd to death in a single turn from full hp, the second time I even made it to the lantern and leveled up Liam again, but still got oneshot by the same group after buffing everyone's defenses. I guess I should've debuffed them first maybe, but I just wanted to take one of them down before they all got me again. Sadly the two remaining attacked Liam only and landed both shots ^^;
Not sure if skill issue or my luck is just terrible, but I did enjoy playing it even if I don't feel motivated enough to start from the beginning each time when the game can end in an instant like that.

From the overall quality it's pretty clear that's just a case of not having enough time to test every scenario enough (very hard to do when there's RNG to combat and enemy AI to test every possible low and high end of luck to see if it's fair enough, and even then it takes a lot of experience to know what playstyles people will likely gravitate towards based on the mechanics introduced)

I hope you continue with this one!

Pretty fun game!

Admittedly, it took me until after the second boss to realise there was a dodge roll in the game. 

Really enjoyed the rolling doing damage to enemy curse, and since I hadn't rolled up to that point, the downside didn't impact me at all. Was quite satisfying getting the timing of that right to roll through the boss while they're attacking and keeping the aggro.

The committal nature of the weapon at the start didn't feel great, but once I got some stuff to affect my attack speed the rhythm of combat flowed a lot better.

Well done!

Cool premise, platforming felt pretty solid.

Definitely one of the best ones I've played so far as far as expressing the theme of the jam.

I think I somehow bugged it where picking up the dash charge would automatically expend it, which was useful in some segments but made others impossible ^^.

Might have something to do with trying to get my controller to work on it, but for as far as I got it was very fun!

Wish I could skip the opening cutscene on replays though, as it takes pretty long to scroll through.

Didn't feel like an NES game, but was pretty fun!

Very forgiving with the health system, and made it amusing to just speed through later levels, and doing a bit of guessing to trade off time spent on each level.

Not a huge fan of the surface mine gimmick, having to take damage to place a flag didn't feel very good.

Overall though, quite a polished, enjoyable experience!

Fun game!

The base gameplay loop was interesting 
Simple premise, but solidly executed.

Fun arcade style experience!

Probably too many sprites than the NES could handle but otherwise felt pretty authentic

I'm pretty bad at telling what's going on and often missed some when stuff triggered around the same time once the crowd got bigger, but then that's kind of the entire challenge.

Pretty cool!

There was planned to be a checkpoint after grabbing the relic ^^;;

Unfortunately due to how our checkpoint system was made, it was tied to our door system, so adding checkpoints midway proved to be a bit more challenging than we could push out in time. (literally this was the final bit of code we attempted to add to the game, but as you can see by the submission time, we had to give up on it and just send the thing as is.

Once we can edit the game again, it'll be there. o7

Glad you enjoyed it though!