I had fun playing it, especially in the endgame when my spell speed was very fast and i had 2 or 3 bosses at once :D
Sadly had to reload because i accidentally clicked on the submission banner picture xD
At first i didnt understand the movement, but after finding out that i was faster with moving also with the mouse the movement felt a lot smoother.
The background sounds feel very fitting (but maybe a bit too loud) and i liked that the screen shakes when i got hit by enemies.
At first i stayed too much to close to the portal and wondered why not much enemies spawned, but after moving away more i found a lot more.
After a lot of buffs i had times when i got swarmed by enemies and times when i had to search for more again. I dont know how to explain it. It felt like the enemies spawn either too fast all of the sudden or too slow.
It felt a bit unrewarding to only get one coin for a boss, but i can understand that it would otherwise speed up upgrades to much.
I liked that it gave 50 coins already at the start to immedialy get some upgrades and see the different kinds :D
The upgrades buffs felt sorta too fast to get very powerful, but as a game jam entry it feels fitting to get powerful fast to see what the endgame is like
Thank you for playing and leave an absolute unit piece of feedback!
I will be working on the project after the judging period is over so it means a lot to me. <3
I will be trying to telegraph the movement penalty better in game.
Glad you liked the camera & sounddesign, is all custom made. :D
(Altering volume can be done in options)
Spawning mechanics are currently a function based on distance & upgrades; where no spawns happen around the portal. I will try balancing it further :) .
The plan is to make different enemy types drop different amounts of loot in the future, balancing it was hard especially with this being my first jam.
Glad you liked the 50 coin bonus, I wanted to introduce the mechanic early and give people the possibility to have a starting strategy. :D
This was so much fun! Great game. I know some people didn't like the movement, but I actually liked it. You have to use it to kite enemies in the beginning, flicking your mouse back and forth.
I'm so not made for this kinda game but I did figure out how to move (after I botched the remapping. TWICE. and then fixed it) and shoot and upgrade and got too much adrenaline from the tension, not in a small part to the very fitting and creepy sound design. Awesome job
The creepy sound design and ambiance is inspired by one of my favorite Minecraft mods "The Betweenlands" I want to continue in this direction. Happy the vibe is already working out as this is the first time I did any sound design <3
I had a really fun time unlocking the ULTIMATE FLAMETHROWER but it wasn't until I scrolled down and read a comment that I realized that this is just an interactive webpage! I'll admit I've daydreamed about attempting a project like this, but I doubt I'd ever pursue it. Hats off to you!
Making a game this way felt like the only way I as a web dev could get a working prototype out by the end of the jam, seeing how well it went Im considering to keep working like this on both Alchemist of Shadowland and future jam games! It made me learn a lot whilst also being able to use tricks from web dev. :D
I had fun upgrading into oblivion. Movement is really weird with the facing direction. I think I would make a double-tap run where you can't shoot during running instead. I also found if you go far enough stuff stops spawning. I wish there were some bosses or something to break the flow.
As someone with some limited web dev experience I'm impressed! It's cool that I can just expand the DOM to see the different game elements in the browser.
The gameplay loop is fun and I found myself playing it for quite a bit to see how strong I would get. There's a couple of balancing quirks though.
- The movement felt pretty clunky. I didn't really get at first what was going on and thought the portal was sucking me in, but after a while I realized that it was based on where I was aiming. Even then it felt like I was fighting the movement more than that I was controlling it. Some velocity ramping would also help. - At first I thought I was supposed to protect the portal so I stuck around it and was confused why no enemies showed up. - By making enemies stronger the farther away you are from the portal, it allows the player to pretty easily stack up buffs to the point where they're unkillable and only then venture out. This means that there's never any real challenge as the player can always just stick near the portal to only kill a couple enemies at a time, which is in my opinion the more optimal but boring way to play the game. Scaling the enemy spawn rate naturally over time seems like a more fun way to do it. - The upgrades are very powerful. Especially health regen is very strong. This combined with the fact that enemies do not reapply damage if they stay in contact means that it only takes a few regen upgrades to be unkillable.
I think if you make some changes to how enemies apply damage and throw in an infinitely scaling difficulty ramp on the them with a timer on screen, this would be a super fun "survive as long as possible" type roguelike. Great job!
Despite the visuals being primitive, there's just something about the main game loop that keeps you playing. The upgrades felt substancial and becoming more and more powerful was genuinely addicting. Well made!
Played a few rounds and can agree this is a fun and addictive game style. Very similar to the Vampire Survivors style of game. With new additions like varying enemies, spell augments, etc. I can see this being a fun loop to get lost in.
However, like others have pointed out there are a few issues.
- The background felt pretty disorienting for a while, the only point of reference being the cursor back to the altar. I also couldn't tell if the stage was borderless or not.
- The controls get pretty clunky, especially once you stacked enough speed. The slower movement while moving backwards also took a bit of getting used to at first.
- Power scaling seems to take off pretty quickly. Stacking movement until you get enough HP regen to become unkillable seems to be the go to. I can see this getting fixed by scaling the upgrade costs or adding in new enemies with varying abilities.
Good work though. I would love to see what all you could add in if you continue this project!
Really fun game and addictive, I was too much of a greedy lootgoblin trying to get all my gold away from the monsters unfortunately and I died too soon!
Super fun and addictive! Got to the point where my fireballs where as big as the screen and I was immortal so stopped there haha.
Controls get a little funky at high power levels and the differing movement speeds based on where you mouse is pointing took me a little bit to get used to, but overall the game is great :D
Played the game, became a literal god, 10/10. I stopped at 1128 monsters. Very fun game, addicting loop, always a fan of letting the player become INSANE Risk of Rain style.
Only bit of criticism would be the movement, it felt like I needed to move my mouse in certain ways to run full speed; not sure if that was intentional or not (running forward vs strafing). Outside of that, maybe slowing the progression, or upping the monsters based on the character's level to provide a bit more challenge (or at least length) to the game.
Omg, I'm not sure I've ever played a game where I went from being so scared and weak to being so unbelievably overpowered. It felt so good and the the fun level of your game is absolutely off the charts! And that doesn't even touch on the unique way you made the game in the first place! Wow! Well done!
Neat little game where you can pull a Kirito from Sword Art Online & regenerate faster than you can take damage.
It took me a while to realize you go faster when running in the direction of your cursor. It would be nice to have the screen centered along with a static background. I also had my coins disappearing on me fairly quickly... Although that become much less of a problem as I got stronger later on; It quickly became a stepping-on-ants simulator as I flew across the screen.
I’m very impressed that you managed to create something that is actually a functioning game with a pile of DOM nodes managed by Svelte. While I knew such a thing was entirely possible, a more traditional method of creating a web based game would be to use HTML5 Canvas exclusively managed by Javascript (not that you need to do anything differently).
The other advantage of your approach is that your game is probably the only one that has felt truly web-native, in the sense that I did not need to wait 30 seconds for some bloated WASM thing to bring along its garbage collector like everyone who used one of the major engines (including myself).
I think it is also impressive that you chose a manageable scope, implemented all of it before the deadline, and the game itself was actually entertaining.
I would echo the constructive criticism that some sort of background art would be helpful. The game currently feels “floaty” without it.
Fun! I did get lost and my eyes hurt a little while staring at the bg, maybe if it varied in the mist? effect or of there was a floor texture under it? It felt a little slow for the enemies to attack, at the start its ok to get used to them but maybe over time increase it. also it felt like they all moved the same speed, could be some variety. good job!
Very cool! The only feedback that i can suggest is making it so there is a constant wave of enemies. Sometimes I would wait for enemies but it still is a very good game none the less. Very cute art style too!
Great game, played it way too long 😄 Few things: background offers no point of reference for where you move, early game is a bit tough with coins despawning so fast, late game get easy fast - but it’s very fun & rewarding to get that powerful! Overall, well done!
I changed the key bindings just to see if the text message at the start updates. It does 10/10
On a serious note: Fun little game. What really confused me is the lack of feedback for movement. The background does not seem move relative to the player, so I ended up using dropped coins as a reference.
Obviously once the player gets 100 upgrades the game becomes a cakewalk. On the other hand, there is something satisfying about turning around with your giant beam of death and walking through the fields of gold…
Though bosses or better enemy scaling wouldn’t hurt, it was a great experience.
This was fun, I felt like the monsters were really just trying to kill me, and not the portal, but regardless I did enjoy spending points to increase my stats and seeing my character grow in power! Nice work!
Solid work, though the difficulty curve's a bit off. Even knowing about the backpedal penalty, the early levels are punishing because coins despawn before you can circle back to pick them up. As others have mentioned, the later levels become a cakewalk.
Once I got 400+ upgrades and could summon a lazer beam of instant death that filled the entire screen while running faster than god, I tried running extremely far in a random direction, at some point it was very lonely because the mobs stopped spawning. This is the point I had to close the game due to the loneliness. My only suggestion is to add waves so that it isn't nearly impossible in the beginning to pick up the coins, or at least make them not despawn in such a short time. Bosses would be cool!
I like that you have to balance your movement and aiming rather than being able to just run backwards while firing. It stops it just being a circle-strafe exercise and takes more thought.
Played it with a trackpad (can't aim and move at the same time) which added a bit of extra external difficulty. I really like how much the game penalizes you for walking backwards.
Despite being in control of when I got a wave of enemies (after I got regen I was basically immortal by playing like a coward), it still maintained the feeling of danger when leaving the safe zone. The quick and unpredictable spawn rate really keeps you on your toes.
Gotta congratulate you as well for making it without an engine. I wouldn't have guessed from the look and feel of it.
UPDATE: I like the gameplay! I really like the upgrades, unfortunately enemies swarm way too fast, like the rate and movement speed of enemies and the difficulty of enemies needs to ramp up way slower. I found a bug where if you hit caps lock, the player can't move anymore. The player needs invincibility frames, as soon as an enemy hits you and keeps up with you it just bangs against you repeatedly until you die, there needs to be a pause between hits to prevent exponential collisions. This is a great foundation, good work!
Thank you for revisiting the game on stream, I was able to re-watch the VOD.
It's extremely valuable to see someone play, I noticed everyone has a different way of playing & upgrades they pick.
The harsh start is something I'm looking into improving, the idea of forcing a low mob-cap and spawning only goblins early on as said on stream sounds like a great idea. <3
The caps-lock bug I put on my to-fix list! This game is entirely made without engine relying on pure web-tech, there was bound to be a thing or two I overlooked :D .
Iframes should be implemented but I'm pretty sure there is a bug with them, seen both people being machine-gunned & being goblin lords. Will revisit that part of the codebase.
Thanks again for revisiting the game on-stream! Followed and hope to catch one live someday :D <3
Well done, I don't understand how you created it without a engine.
I had a problem that first there was no enemies for a very long time, I just bought everything I could then i waited, suddenly everything came and was faster than me and killed me almost instantly. I'll try to buy better things next time!
I'm not smart enough to understand what you did, but i'm sure it was a lot of work. The game itself seems fun, but is suprisingly difficult, but i like it!
What a strange and ambitious game. I'm not going to pretend I understand what you wrote about forcing web tech into game dev as I'm sure it's way above my head so I'll just talk about the game!
So it's really confusing at first cos you just start behind this weird inter dimensional portal/being thing and instantly get to upgrade a bunch which is pretty cool cos you get to design a starter build basically.
The movement is SUPER confusing. It seems to be influenced by your relative direction with the mouse cursor which then affects how you move with WASD... Even then it felt odd as if there was some sort of tether pulling me in another direction.
The enemies didn't seem to spawn unless I ran out into the wilderness to find them or maybe I was just too impatient waiting for them to find me.
I made it to 34 enemies killed on my best attempt. I really like the eldritch vibes but the background just being the same repeating pattern really messed with my eyes and sense of direction/location so I had to call it quits after that run.
Would be nice to see where you take it as there's a nice foundation here for a rogue-like/survivor-like game.
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I had fun playing it, especially in the endgame when my spell speed was very fast and i had 2 or 3 bosses at once :D
Sadly had to reload because i accidentally clicked on the submission banner picture xD
At first i didnt understand the movement, but after finding out that i was faster with moving also with the mouse the movement felt a lot smoother.
The background sounds feel very fitting (but maybe a bit too loud) and i liked that the screen shakes when i got hit by enemies.
At first i stayed too much to close to the portal and wondered why not much enemies spawned, but after moving away more i found a lot more.
After a lot of buffs i had times when i got swarmed by enemies and times when i had to search for more again. I dont know how to explain it. It felt like the enemies spawn either too fast all of the sudden or too slow.
It felt a bit unrewarding to only get one coin for a boss, but i can understand that it would otherwise speed up upgrades to much.
I liked that it gave 50 coins already at the start to immedialy get some upgrades and see the different kinds :D
The upgrades buffs felt sorta too fast to get very powerful, but as a game jam entry it feels fitting to get powerful fast to see what the endgame is like
Overall a very fun game :D
Thank you for playing and leave an absolute unit piece of feedback!
I will be working on the project after the judging period is over so it means a lot to me. <3
I will be trying to telegraph the movement penalty better in game.
Glad you liked the camera & sounddesign, is all custom made. :D
(Altering volume can be done in options)
Spawning mechanics are currently a function based on distance & upgrades; where no spawns happen around the portal. I will try balancing it further :) .
The plan is to make different enemy types drop different amounts of loot in the future, balancing it was hard especially with this being my first jam.
Glad you liked the 50 coin bonus, I wanted to introduce the mechanic early and give people the possibility to have a starting strategy. :D
Again, thanks for the feedback <3
This was so much fun! Great game. I know some people didn't like the movement, but I actually liked it. You have to use it to kite enemies in the beginning, flicking your mouse back and forth.
Awesome game!
Thank you! I will however take feedback from both sides by polishing the movement more whilst keeping the penalty. Glad you enjoyed it. <3
I'm so not made for this kinda game but I did figure out how to move (after I botched the remapping. TWICE. and then fixed it) and shoot and upgrade and got too much adrenaline from the tension, not in a small part to the very fitting and creepy sound design.
Awesome job
The creepy sound design and ambiance is inspired by one of my favorite Minecraft mods "The Betweenlands" I want to continue in this direction. Happy the vibe is already working out as this is the first time I did any sound design <3
I had a really fun time unlocking the ULTIMATE FLAMETHROWER but it wasn't until I scrolled down and read a comment that I realized that this is just an interactive webpage! I'll admit I've daydreamed about attempting a project like this, but I doubt I'd ever pursue it. Hats off to you!
Making a game this way felt like the only way I as a web dev could get a working prototype out by the end of the jam, seeing how well it went Im considering to keep working like this on both Alchemist of Shadowland and future jam games! It made me learn a lot whilst also being able to use tricks from web dev. :D
I had fun upgrading into oblivion. Movement is really weird with the facing direction. I think I would make a double-tap run where you can't shoot during running instead. I also found if you go far enough stuff stops spawning. I wish there were some bosses or something to break the flow.
Loved the atmosphere, really makes you feels like you're alone in the night surrounded by creatures, could see myself playing this for a while
As someone with some limited web dev experience I'm impressed! It's cool that I can just expand the DOM to see the different game elements in the browser.
The gameplay loop is fun and I found myself playing it for quite a bit to see how strong I would get. There's a couple of balancing quirks though.
- The movement felt pretty clunky. I didn't really get at first what was going on and thought the portal was sucking me in, but after a while I realized that it was based on where I was aiming. Even then it felt like I was fighting the movement more than that I was controlling it. Some velocity ramping would also help.
- At first I thought I was supposed to protect the portal so I stuck around it and was confused why no enemies showed up.
- By making enemies stronger the farther away you are from the portal, it allows the player to pretty easily stack up buffs to the point where they're unkillable and only then venture out. This means that there's never any real challenge as the player can always just stick near the portal to only kill a couple enemies at a time, which is in my opinion the more optimal but boring way to play the game. Scaling the enemy spawn rate naturally over time seems like a more fun way to do it.
- The upgrades are very powerful. Especially health regen is very strong. This combined with the fact that enemies do not reapply damage if they stay in contact means that it only takes a few regen upgrades to be unkillable.
I think if you make some changes to how enemies apply damage and throw in an infinitely scaling difficulty ramp on the them with a timer on screen, this would be a super fun "survive as long as possible" type roguelike. Great job!
Despite the visuals being primitive, there's just something about the main game loop that keeps you playing. The upgrades felt substancial and becoming more and more powerful was genuinely addicting. Well made!
Played a few rounds and can agree this is a fun and addictive game style. Very similar to the Vampire Survivors style of game. With new additions like varying enemies, spell augments, etc. I can see this being a fun loop to get lost in.
However, like others have pointed out there are a few issues.
- The background felt pretty disorienting for a while, the only point of reference being the cursor back to the altar. I also couldn't tell if the stage was borderless or not.
- The controls get pretty clunky, especially once you stacked enough speed. The slower movement while moving backwards also took a bit of getting used to at first.
- Power scaling seems to take off pretty quickly. Stacking movement until you get enough HP regen to become unkillable seems to be the go to. I can see this getting fixed by scaling the upgrade costs or adding in new enemies with varying abilities.
Good work though. I would love to see what all you could add in if you continue this project!
Really fun game and addictive, I was too much of a greedy lootgoblin trying to get all my gold away from the monsters unfortunately and I died too soon!
Super fun and addictive! Got to the point where my fireballs where as big as the screen and I was immortal so stopped there haha.
Controls get a little funky at high power levels and the differing movement speeds based on where you mouse is pointing took me a little bit to get used to, but overall the game is great :D
Played the game, became a literal god, 10/10. I stopped at 1128 monsters. Very fun game, addicting loop, always a fan of letting the player become INSANE Risk of Rain style.
Only bit of criticism would be the movement, it felt like I needed to move my mouse in certain ways to run full speed; not sure if that was intentional or not (running forward vs strafing). Outside of that, maybe slowing the progression, or upping the monsters based on the character's level to provide a bit more challenge (or at least length) to the game.
Great job!
Omg, I'm not sure I've ever played a game where I went from being so scared and weak to being so unbelievably overpowered. It felt so good and the the fun level of your game is absolutely off the charts! And that doesn't even touch on the unique way you made the game in the first place! Wow! Well done!
Neat little game where you can pull a Kirito from Sword Art Online & regenerate faster than you can take damage.
It took me a while to realize you go faster when running in the direction of your cursor. It would be nice to have the screen centered along with a static background. I also had my coins disappearing on me fairly quickly... Although that become much less of a problem as I got stronger later on; It quickly became a stepping-on-ants simulator as I flew across the screen.
I became faster than my own fireball.
Oodles of fun, I could see loosing way too much time to this.
I'll be honest, I don't really see much of shadow or alchemy in this. Don't care, too fun.
I wouldn't call this a deck builder, though.
I’m very impressed that you managed to create something that is actually a functioning game with a pile of DOM nodes managed by Svelte. While I knew such a thing was entirely possible, a more traditional method of creating a web based game would be to use HTML5 Canvas exclusively managed by Javascript (not that you need to do anything differently).
The other advantage of your approach is that your game is probably the only one that has felt truly web-native, in the sense that I did not need to wait 30 seconds for some bloated WASM thing to bring along its garbage collector like everyone who used one of the major engines (including myself).
I think it is also impressive that you chose a manageable scope, implemented all of it before the deadline, and the game itself was actually entertaining.
I would echo the constructive criticism that some sort of background art would be helpful. The game currently feels “floaty” without it.
Fun! I did get lost and my eyes hurt a little while staring at the bg, maybe if it varied in the mist? effect or of there was a floor texture under it? It felt a little slow for the enemies to attack, at the start its ok to get used to them but maybe over time increase it. also it felt like they all moved the same speed, could be some variety. good job!
This was such a fun experience and I felt godlike at the end. Personally I would have loved some music. But other than that a fun experience.
Very cool! The only feedback that i can suggest is making it so there is a constant wave of enemies. Sometimes I would wait for enemies but it still is a very good game none the less. Very cute art style too!
Fun game, nice work, I'm Godlike.
I got virtually immortal by picking only speed movement, so to easily fix my immortality you could put a faster enemy after a while.
If you work on the background to give some sort of reference, and enemy speed you have a good going game ! GG
Great game, played it way too long 😄 Few things: background offers no point of reference for where you move, early game is a bit tough with coins despawning so fast, late game get easy fast - but it’s very fun & rewarding to get that powerful! Overall, well done!
I heard this is how you’re supposed to play it… 🤔
cool work
I changed the key bindings just to see if the text message at the start updates. It does 10/10
On a serious note: Fun little game. What really confused me is the lack of feedback for movement. The background does not seem move relative to the player, so I ended up using dropped coins as a reference.
Tough early game, easy late game, it is a fun experience tho!
I like how after a few minutes you can blast the entire map with a laser beam lol
Really neat game! I struggled to defeat the enemies, but it was definitely fun to try and survive and upgrade!
Obviously once the player gets 100 upgrades the game becomes a cakewalk. On the other hand, there is something satisfying about turning around with your giant beam of death and walking through the fields of gold…
Though bosses or better enemy scaling wouldn’t hurt, it was a great experience.
This was fun, I felt like the monsters were really just trying to kill me, and not the portal, but regardless I did enjoy spending points to increase my stats and seeing my character grow in power! Nice work!
Solid work, though the difficulty curve's a bit off. Even knowing about the backpedal penalty, the early levels are punishing because coins despawn before you can circle back to pick them up. As others have mentioned, the later levels become a cakewalk.
Once I got 400+ upgrades and could summon a lazer beam of instant death that filled the entire screen while running faster than god, I tried running extremely far in a random direction, at some point it was very lonely because the mobs stopped spawning. This is the point I had to close the game due to the loneliness. My only suggestion is to add waves so that it isn't nearly impossible in the beginning to pick up the coins, or at least make them not despawn in such a short time. Bosses would be cool!
This is really fun!
I like that you have to balance your movement and aiming rather than being able to just run backwards while firing. It stops it just being a circle-strafe exercise and takes more thought.
The upgrades are fun and compelling.
I like it!
Played it with a trackpad (can't aim and move at the same time) which added a bit of extra external difficulty. I really like how much the game penalizes you for walking backwards.
Despite being in control of when I got a wave of enemies (after I got regen I was basically immortal by playing like a coward), it still maintained the feeling of danger when leaving the safe zone. The quick and unpredictable spawn rate really keeps you on your toes.
Gotta congratulate you as well for making it without an engine. I wouldn't have guessed from the look and feel of it.
UPDATE: I like the gameplay! I really like the upgrades, unfortunately enemies swarm way too fast, like the rate and movement speed of enemies and the difficulty of enemies needs to ramp up way slower. I found a bug where if you hit caps lock, the player can't move anymore. The player needs invincibility frames, as soon as an enemy hits you and keeps up with you it just bangs against you repeatedly until you die, there needs to be a pause between hits to prevent exponential collisions. This is a great foundation, good work!
Thank you for revisiting the game on stream, I was able to re-watch the VOD.
It's extremely valuable to see someone play, I noticed everyone has a different way of playing & upgrades they pick.
The harsh start is something I'm looking into improving, the idea of forcing a low mob-cap and spawning only goblins early on as said on stream sounds like a great idea. <3
The caps-lock bug I put on my to-fix list! This game is entirely made without engine relying on pure web-tech, there was bound to be a thing or two I overlooked :D .
Iframes should be implemented but I'm pretty sure there is a bug with them, seen both people being machine-gunned & being goblin lords. Will revisit that part of the codebase.
Thanks again for revisiting the game on-stream! Followed and hope to catch one live someday :D <3
Well done, I don't understand how you created it without a engine.
I had a problem that first there was no enemies for a very long time, I just bought everything I could then i waited, suddenly everything came and was faster than me and killed me almost instantly. I'll try to buy better things next time!
Well done!
I'm not smart enough to understand what you did, but i'm sure it was a lot of work. The game itself seems fun, but is suprisingly difficult, but i like it!
What a strange and ambitious game. I'm not going to pretend I understand what you wrote about forcing web tech into game dev as I'm sure it's way above my head so I'll just talk about the game!
So it's really confusing at first cos you just start behind this weird inter dimensional portal/being thing and instantly get to upgrade a bunch which is pretty cool cos you get to design a starter build basically.
The movement is SUPER confusing. It seems to be influenced by your relative direction with the mouse cursor which then affects how you move with WASD... Even then it felt odd as if there was some sort of tether pulling me in another direction.
The enemies didn't seem to spawn unless I ran out into the wilderness to find them or maybe I was just too impatient waiting for them to find me.
I made it to 34 enemies killed on my best attempt. I really like the eldritch vibes but the background just being the same repeating pattern really messed with my eyes and sense of direction/location so I had to call it quits after that run.
Would be nice to see where you take it as there's a nice foundation here for a rogue-like/survivor-like game.