Game over!

We're sad to report that the tournament is now finished. Well done everybody who participated, and special congratulations to the winners, for pwning the rest of us with their awesome skills.

We had a great selection of games, and even though the tournament is over you can still play them! So if you haven't managed to play all (or even any) of the games, you still can (and should)!

What's next, eh?

Get some well-deserved R&R, but make sure you're back in time for the 4th Alakajam! on October 12-14th. It's gonna be magical! :P

Hi there,

During August 2018 I was blessed to work with xXBloodyOrange, Thunraz and Aurvandil on Thyl's Tale. In about two weeks we created a Zelda/Hyper Light Drifter like game. I was really excited when I saw that our game is also featured in the 2nd Alakajam Tournament. In that tournament players fight for the top position in a leaderboard, which takes into account the highscores of 6 games from the Alakajam community.
This post will be a (non-exhaustive) list of tips and tricks to help you with doing a speedrun.

Thyl's Tale Tricks

This is separated into two parts, one that contains spoilers and one that is spoiler free.

NO SPOILERS

The intro is skippable (but doesn't count towards playtime)

If you are tired of watching the intro cutscene for the n-th time, just hit ESC to skip it.

Manage the movement

If you want to get a good time, you need to do precise movement. The normal movement ist done by WASD or Arrow keys and the attack/dash can be used with C/X or J/K. Alternatively: If you enjoy playing with a gamepad, Thyl's Tale also supports gamepads (tested with xBox 360).

Dashing is your friend

You will use the dash to avoid enemies, to pass over cliffs and just to move faster. Therefore get a feeling for the dash and how it works.
Did you notice the timer right above Thyl? That is the dash cooldown. Once the text gets bigger in size and starts to fade, you can dash again. Try to pick the appropriate timing.

Know when to fight … and when to run

There are only some specific places where you really have to fight to proceed. In dev speak we call them "arenas". Those are the levels where you enter a certain region and wall emerge, blocking your movement. The first time this happens in the third level after leaving the city, when entering the ruins and at the boss fight.
In all other cases you can easily run through the levels and not bother with the enemies.
Also see: "Learn the levels" below.

Get some healing

The shrines can heal Thyl if he gets beaten up by the enemies. Just walk near a shrine to trigger that effect. There are some shrine on the way which you can use to refill your health.

Teleport back to the city

When you are low on health you can also teleport back to the city and use the shrine there.

Take a look at the stats

When pressing F you can see your stats. Try to get items which maximize your walking speed and dash range and also minimize the dash cooldown. Good items are the Katana, and the leather armor.

---

---

---

---

SPOILER ALERT

---

---

---

---

SPOILER ALERT

---

---

---

---

SPOILER ALERT

---

---

---

---

SPOILER ALERT

---

---

---

---

SPOILER ALERT

Know your enemies

There are three different enemy types (plus the boss) and all of them require a different way of fighting:

• Slimes: They perform a random walk until they see you. Then they move towards you and if they are in charging distance, they will charge towards you. This is the only time when touching them will hurt you. After the charge hey are exhausted and need to rest a bit. This is the best time to attack them as they don't move.
• Smasher: This big grumpy ork will do a random walk until he sees Thyl. Then he will walk towards you and start his smash attack. Try to deal as much damage as possible before the attack comes down. Shortly before that you should dash out of the white "danger zone".
• Shooter: This cultist attacks you with a magic bullet over a mid-range distance. As he does not deal that much damage it is advisable to just dash towards him and kill him. Luckily he just takes one hit even with the starting weapon.

Of course all enemies can also be killed with the bow and arrow from a safe distance.

Easing the bossfight

The boss (called Raon) has three stages:

• In the first stage Raon shoots 6 magic bullets in a counter-clockwise order.
• in the second stage Raon fires three rounds of 20 magic bullets at a time
• In the third stage Raon summons some minions and goes into invincible mode until you kill them off. Additionally he will shoot an occasional magib bullet towards the player's position.
• The three stages loop in that order.

If possible, try to avoid the third stage as this will take a lot of time. If you bought a good weapon, Thyl should be able to defeat Raon way before that.

Learn the levels (and the world)

Knowing the progession of levels is really helpful as you can plan ahead. This image (created during development time) shows all the maps. They don't show the final version of the maps but a basic, blocked version. It might help you find your way through this adventure.

Know the puzzles

There are two puzzles levels in the game, just before the bossfight.

• The first puzzle level is easy: just activate the first trigger (best: shoot it with an arrow so you don't have to walk there) then walk up the bridge towards the second lever and activate that one. Then go back towards the first platform (the one in the south west with the wall) which is now reachable through a second bridge. Activate that third lever and continue to the north of the level.
• The second puzzle follows right after that but requires some tinkering. The combination is as follows: Left Trigger, Right Trigger, move towards the (now reachable) platform, activate that trigger, go back to the south and activate the middle trigger. Then move towards the top platform and fight with the boss.

Maybe the trickiest game of the tournament is Whirling Blades, a mouse-only game where all items are used automatically. It can be difficult to understand exactly how things works in the fast-paced action, yet there is a lot of depth to uncover. Let's figure things out together!

Please share in the comments section any info or correction you have, I'll update this post accordingly.

---

Items

Item	Dropped	Triggers	Action
Blueberry	Bushes with visible fruits	When the energy bar is depleted	Refills the energy bar
Apple	Trees with visible fruits	When the health bar goes below a certain level	Refills the health bar
Seeds	Fruitless trees & bushes	When walking on a corrupted tile	Reverts the tile to normal grass
Gel	All enemies	When item count reaches a certain value	Upgrades the weapon - First upgrade = 60 gel - Second upgrade = 150 gel - Third upgrade???

Enemies

Enemy	Properties
White insect	Simply runs towards you. May randomly transform into Double spike creatures. If you're cornered, they can deal massive damage due to no attack cooldown.
Double spike	Does not move. Fires artillery strikes that corrupt tiles.
White mask	Moves slowly, shooting purple boomerangs at you.

Tips

• Corrupted tiles: They slow you down, and destroy any living plant on them. Corruption spreads with time to neighbor tiles. In the early game, you can delay the spread of corruption a bit by restoring grass as soon as you can with your seeds. More generally, clear the spike enemies early to prevent them from firing their corrupting attacks.
• Dashing: Useful not only for escaping monsters but also as an attack. Actually seems more powerful than the basic attack.
• Item gathering: It doesn't seem like plants or fruits grow/spread, so gather everything you find as fast as possible.
• Saving blueberries: Technically your energy bar resplenishes automatically, so if you're careful with your clicking, you can save blueberries for later… But to be honest the blueberries rarely empty, so click away!!!

There's no way I'll be able to win this one.

They're all from genres I tend to be bad at aside from MAD SEED and Whirling Blades (mine). It doesn't help that I'm also on a really tight schedule for the Super Potato Bruh development. Looks like @voxel will get an easy first place. :P

Here it is, at last: the 2nd AKJ Tournament!

"Hey, why the late starting date?"

We decided to delay slightly, to allow thorough voting on the 5th Kajam (theme: "Retro"). You can view the results here. Congratulations to the winners, and to everybody who participated!

So, what's this tournament all about?

Between the 9th and 23rd of September 2018 we'll be playing and competing at six games submitted to previous competitions. You can see the rules here.

Enough! What are the games already?!

Game	Author(s)	Genre	Jam	Notes
Hunk Hustler	sebastianscaini, Josh_Schwarm, Wulusi, carsonmackie	Beat-em-up	3rd Alakajam!
MAD SEED	voxel	First Person Shooter	3rd Alakajam!
Pandemia	benjamin	Puzzle	3rd Alakajam!	Play vs 1 AI
Philosopher's Strike	Wan, Thrainsa	Space Shooter	1st Alakajam!
Thyl's Tale	Laguna, KaramBharj, Thunraz, xXBloodyOrange	Action RPG	5th Kajam
Whirling Blades	DaFluffyPotato	Isometric Combat	3rd Alakajam!

In September, Alakajam! is not hosting a gamedev event. Instead, we will play jam games! (omg)

How it works

For two weeks, everyone will get to play on a selection of 6 games (mostly from the 3rd Alakajam) on which they'll try to make the highest scores/best times as possible. Using screenshots as proof, players will battle to enter (and remain in) the leaderboards.

Leaderboards points are awarded to all players that enter the top 10 of a game. At the end of the event, on September 23rd, the player with the most points wins the tournament! Check the 1st tournament winners to see the current title holders :)

As usual, there's no prizes to be won other than bragging rights. We're just here to have fun!

Submit your game to the event

Hosts @toasty and @wan will pick games among those that:

1. Have a game page on Alakajam!
2. Have enabled the "High scores" option on their page
3. Haven't been featured in a tournament yet

If you want us to check out an entry you made:

Submit your game here (Selection is over!)