Awesome game! The main mechanic of using 1 Omamori on each hand is really elegant and fun - align that with how it synergizes with the theme and you have a great game concept!
I love how the introduction of new enemies come with new Omamoris as well. It keeps the experience fresh and expands the strategy space with it. However, there were 2 things that I wasn't quite fond of: - An Omamori having 3 different uses (Passive + Throw + Pray) was a bit too much for me. I'd rather them having just a Throw and a Pray; as a suggestion, Passives could be earned throughout the gameplay as you are able to survive/defeat the Yokais/use X Omamori of the same type or something. - Although I enjoy the Omamori being ephemeral, It was hard to know when I'd be able to use the Pray action or not. Maybe just a feedback on the interface would be enough, but something to allow the "last use" could be fun as well.
Other than that, it was an amazing experience! It was really nice to progress and see how the experience changed throughout and on each play. The randomness of the Omamori spawn along with the enemies really made each play unique and fun. Nice job!
- Yeah, the 3 effects seems to be the biggest design problem at the moment. Will have to solve that first if I keep working on this project, thanks for bringing that up
- The 'last use' feedback is there, the bar gets red when you can't pray before it breaks. But maybe it is too subtle and not solving the problem properly. Will think about a solution
Being able to pick charm with two hands is a nice idea and the limited time use is a nice way to avoid using always the same charm. That's a cute game ! I died at 2.11 so I only saw two or three types of yokai, I'm wondering are there more after ?
Amazing pixel art in the menu. Nice! Also the game was pretty enjoyable. Didn't quite understand the invulnerability one at first. But managed to stay alive for 2:33 at least.
Wow! Really cool game! Love the main menu artwork, the game is really cool too. Tricky trying to control the charms with multiple fingers at once. Feels like a game with a very high skill ceiling! Some of the charms felt a bit too complicated to understand when their explanations popped up in the heat of battle, and some of them had like 3 different effects at once so it was hard to keep all that in my head, but other than that the game was really cool to play! Definitely took some getting used to but I think this is a really creative and clever use of the theme.
Hm, yeah, some charms are harder to memorize. Do you think the icons on the hud over the hands helped you remember the effects? The idea was to show the popup only on the first pick for each charm, and them show the effect icons in the hud.
Again, thanks for your time and hope you enjoyed :)
To be honest in the heat of battle I wasn't really looking at the HUD; I needed to look at the enemies onscreen 90% of the time. The only thing on the HUD I was glancing at was the main icon of which charms I had in each hand and the timers for when each would expire. I didn't have the time to memorize the meaning of each icon and remind myself midbattle which charms had what effects.
To be honest, I think the problem is just the fact that the third charm I acquired, the one with a boot icon on it, had both a main effect AND a special effect when it was thrown that felt too hard to remember. I think if each charm had only a unique main ability and a unique passive effect, as they already do, then that would be enough complexity for the charms. Passive effects aren't a problem for complexity as you don't really need to pay attention to passive effects for them to be useful, so its easy to just not factor them into your strategic thinking and still play pretty optimally.
To be clear, I think having an effect for when you throw charms is a great idea, as it creates interesting decisions for how you best utilize your charms, but I don't see why the effect needs to be different for each charm; that's where it becomes too hard to remember. Maybe you could simply have every charm do the same effect when you throw it. Throwing the boot knocked enemies back a bit, I think if every charm did that it would be a consistent option that would be easy to remember even in the heat of combat. It would still create interesting decisions, because if you have two charms with different effects and need to knock enemies back, you have to choose which charm effect you are willing to throw away and which you want to keep. That's just my idea though, I don't know if that fits your design plan for the game.
I see. Thanks a lot for the feedback! Maybe it is indeed a lot to memorize. My attempt was to make the aesthetics of the charm make it easier to remember. 'the one with the boot' is the wind charm, the original plan was to have a clearer vfx of the area cut (the pray to attack in a circle) a clearer vfx of the pushback (a strong wind) and then a particle vfx that would play in the feet of the player. So the package 'wind charm' would be easier to remember. But I guess the limited time implementation is lacking this thematic glue for each charm and each effect goes scattered into the player's memory.
It will be an important thing to get right if i continue to support this game and your feedback was very important! Took note and will see how I can solve this issue. I wanted to maintain the throw effect, as there is potential to create more depth, but let's see
The idea to have to different charms in each hand is super cool , but the abilities are too slow, I think a way faster charge rate would make the game feel nicer
Thanks for the feedback! o/ Yes I kinda agree. I didn't have much time for balancing stuff around and tweaking cast time and other values. Will try this direction to see how it goes
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The game is really cool, but also visually charming! 🔖✨
Thanks <3 glad you liked!
Awesome game!
The main mechanic of using 1 Omamori on each hand is really elegant and fun - align that with how it synergizes with the theme and you have a great game concept!
I love how the introduction of new enemies come with new Omamoris as well. It keeps the experience fresh and expands the strategy space with it. However, there were 2 things that I wasn't quite fond of:
- An Omamori having 3 different uses (Passive + Throw + Pray) was a bit too much for me. I'd rather them having just a Throw and a Pray; as a suggestion, Passives could be earned throughout the gameplay as you are able to survive/defeat the Yokais/use X Omamori of the same type or something.
- Although I enjoy the Omamori being ephemeral, It was hard to know when I'd be able to use the Pray action or not. Maybe just a feedback on the interface would be enough, but something to allow the "last use" could be fun as well.
Other than that, it was an amazing experience! It was really nice to progress and see how the experience changed throughout and on each play. The randomness of the Omamori spawn along with the enemies really made each play unique and fun.
Nice job!
Thanks for the detailed feedback!
- Yeah, the 3 effects seems to be the biggest design problem at the moment. Will have to solve that first if I keep working on this project, thanks for bringing that up
- The 'last use' feedback is there, the bar gets red when you can't pray before it breaks. But maybe it is too subtle and not solving the problem properly. Will think about a solution
Thanks a lot for the time! Glad you had fun :)
Being able to pick charm with two hands is a nice idea and the limited time use is a nice way to avoid using always the same charm.
That's a cute game !
I died at 2.11 so I only saw two or three types of yokai, I'm wondering are there more after ?
There are only 3 enemies. I hade 2 more planned but didn't have time :( so 3 enemies and 6 charms with different effects.
Yeah, I think with 2.11 you already saw all three enemies, but might not have seen all charms
Really cute game!
Thanks <3
Amazing pixel art in the menu. Nice!
Also the game was pretty enjoyable. Didn't quite understand the invulnerability one at first. But managed to stay alive for 2:33 at least.
Impressive for the short time.
GGs
Happy new year!
Happy new year!
Thanks for the time and so glad you enjoyed :)
Wow! Really cool game! Love the main menu artwork, the game is really cool too. Tricky trying to control the charms with multiple fingers at once. Feels like a game with a very high skill ceiling! Some of the charms felt a bit too complicated to understand when their explanations popped up in the heat of battle, and some of them had like 3 different effects at once so it was hard to keep all that in my head, but other than that the game was really cool to play! Definitely took some getting used to but I think this is a really creative and clever use of the theme.
Thanks for the feedback <3
Hm, yeah, some charms are harder to memorize. Do you think the icons on the hud over the hands helped you remember the effects? The idea was to show the popup only on the first pick for each charm, and them show the effect icons in the hud.
Again, thanks for your time and hope you enjoyed :)
To be honest in the heat of battle I wasn't really looking at the HUD; I needed to look at the enemies onscreen 90% of the time. The only thing on the HUD I was glancing at was the main icon of which charms I had in each hand and the timers for when each would expire. I didn't have the time to memorize the meaning of each icon and remind myself midbattle which charms had what effects.
To be honest, I think the problem is just the fact that the third charm I acquired, the one with a boot icon on it, had both a main effect AND a special effect when it was thrown that felt too hard to remember. I think if each charm had only a unique main ability and a unique passive effect, as they already do, then that would be enough complexity for the charms. Passive effects aren't a problem for complexity as you don't really need to pay attention to passive effects for them to be useful, so its easy to just not factor them into your strategic thinking and still play pretty optimally.
To be clear, I think having an effect for when you throw charms is a great idea, as it creates interesting decisions for how you best utilize your charms, but I don't see why the effect needs to be different for each charm; that's where it becomes too hard to remember. Maybe you could simply have every charm do the same effect when you throw it. Throwing the boot knocked enemies back a bit, I think if every charm did that it would be a consistent option that would be easy to remember even in the heat of combat. It would still create interesting decisions, because if you have two charms with different effects and need to knock enemies back, you have to choose which charm effect you are willing to throw away and which you want to keep. That's just my idea though, I don't know if that fits your design plan for the game.
I see. Thanks a lot for the feedback! Maybe it is indeed a lot to memorize. My attempt was to make the aesthetics of the charm make it easier to remember. 'the one with the boot' is the wind charm, the original plan was to have a clearer vfx of the area cut (the pray to attack in a circle) a clearer vfx of the pushback (a strong wind) and then a particle vfx that would play in the feet of the player. So the package 'wind charm' would be easier to remember. But I guess the limited time implementation is lacking this thematic glue for each charm and each effect goes scattered into the player's memory.
It will be an important thing to get right if i continue to support this game and your feedback was very important! Took note and will see how I can solve this issue. I wanted to maintain the throw effect, as there is potential to create more depth, but let's see
All good, I understand!
The idea to have to different charms in each hand is super cool , but the abilities are too slow, I think a way faster charge rate would make the game feel nicer
Thanks for the feedback! o/ Yes I kinda agree. I didn't have much time for balancing stuff around and tweaking cast time and other values. Will try this direction to see how it goes