Whirling Blades

a fast paced isometric combat game

Whirling Blades is a fast paced isometric combat game that uses 2 buttons… Left and right click.


Important things to know:

  • items are used automatically, just keep an eye on how many blueberries and apples you've got left. :P
  • there are four weapons, try to get them all!
  • red bar is health, green bar is energy
  • every enemy has multiple unique traits, these are important to figure out!
  • there are little quirks to the game that'll also help you if you figure them out

Some Useful Buttons:

  • P: Pause
  • F11: Change Window Size
  • Escape: Close Game

Screenshots/Gifs:


Please submit your scores to the leaderboard on the right! ^-^

Linux Troubleshooting:

Some have had issues with the Linux build (it worked on 2/3 of the machines tested on). If you get an error, you can always download the Python 3 source and use that. Just make sure you install Pygame.

The commands if you want to use the source on Linux:
sudo apt install python3-pip
sudo pip3 install pygame

Voting results

Overall
5th
14%
7.545
Graphics
4th
10%
7.682
Audio
6th
17%
6.682
Gameplay
3rd
7%
7.318
Originality
5th
14%
7.273
Theme
7th
21%
7.500

This game entered in the Solo competition (29 entries).

Comments (18)

jsagerdev
 • 5 years ago • 

Very fun game, looks and plays great! Nice work

Ztuu
 • 5 years ago • 

This was the one I was most looking forward to trying from your posts throughout the jam.

I love the graphics, the game looks awesome! The idea is really cool and the animation of the tiles rising is a nice effect.

The game is pretty hectic, I'm impressed how many different mechanics you implemented.
Very strong submission, nice game!

Even the download page is cool as hell.

Caique Assis
(@caiqueassis) • 5 years ago • 

Fast paced indeed man. I was clicking the hell out of my mouse that my wrist hurts now ahaha

I got a rad sword and survived for 2 minutes and 42 seconds…

The looks and buttons are deceiving! This game is actually pretty hard. At least for me!

Oat
(@OatMealPal) • 5 years ago • 

Really fun. It feels nice to just run around and slash stuff with a bit 'ol blade.
Really good graphics, as always. x)
Also, pretty interesting enemy designs. I like 'em.

Tehsplatt
 • 5 years ago • 

Absoloutely love the art work in this, and the hit feed back is really well done, awesome job!

kartercas
 • 5 years ago • 

wow, one of the best games out here!

Baconinvader
 • 5 years ago • 

Easy to learn and hard to master, the best kind of game! I really enjoyed playing, the controls and movement feel simple and easy to use, the graphics are colourful and nice to look at the gameplay is top notch. My only real complaint is the music, which feels slightly unfitting (that and the small window is very easy to click out of, a fullscreen mode wouldn't have gone amiss).
Also, were you using PyOpenGL? I've been meaning to learn it myself

DaFluffyPotato
  • 5 years ago • 

@baconinvader It uses Pygame. :P

Baconinvader
 • 5 years ago • 

@DaFluffyPotato just wondering if you were using both, pygame FTW :)

James_Deans_Jeans
 • 5 years ago • 

I just saw this featured on the front page of itch.io. Congrats @DaFluffyPotato.

DaFluffyPotato
  • 5 years ago • 
Raindrinker
 • 5 years ago • 

Looks amazing, plays really well. A bit too hectic but that was kinda what you were going for so I guess it's alright. I just cant appreciate the mechanics, I dont really feel like the items I have are meaningful to me, I'm just bashing buttons and having fun and the screen flashing red cause I'm bad.

Works reaaally well, the music and the arena hack'n'slash. Nice! :)

Wan
 • 5 years ago • 

Cool fast-paced action! The game is super challenging, I was super busy left & right clicking, at least the game doesn't need our input to use items :P

A technical nitpick is that I easily lose focus by clicking outside the game window.

Gameplay-wise after a couple games I still have no idea how items, upgrades & enemies work. It doesn't prevent me from enjoying it, but given that your scores are much higher than us mere mortals, either we don't look closely enough or the game doesn't give enough hints.

Anyway your pixel art is excellent as usual, using an isometric perspective was a cool change and worked well. The visual effects & animations are good as well, especially how the character moves around the map. I also liked the sound work, the music does get a bit repetitive after a while but I liked how it fits the energic pace of the game.

DaFluffyPotato
  • 5 years ago • 

@wan the idea behind the items was to add depth without adding initial complexity. :D

hyperlinkyourheart
 • 5 years ago • 

I really like the simplicity of the controls in this game, and how intuitive and simple the movement and combat is. It's really fun and arcadey. On the other hand, I don't really feel like I was engaged with the items I was collecting or what some of the enemies were doing, it was just a mad whirling, dashing riot. I seemed to be replanting the grass, but I don't know why. And then after I while that stopped happening and I don't know why. There really seems to be a lot of depth there, but something needs to be done to bring it out. But even not understanding a lot of what was going on, it was still fun, and that is definitely an achievement!

The art is really good, but some of it clashes a little bit. A different ground colour would help the trees and bushes stand out a bit and add some depth, and likewise a different colour for the purple ring things, which clash with the cleared ground areas.

I like the music, very energetic.

One of my favourites I've played, for sure.

HuvaaKoodia
 • 5 years ago • 

Hack and slash, automatic inventory management, a variety of enemies, an ever growing world, corruption, two button controls; quite a combination this! Individually not uncommon, but together an original mix. Fits the theme too on multiple fronts.

Hacking and slashing then feels quite good, managed 5 minutes going around the periphery squishing the corruptors. Figuring out what each ingredient does, looking at the popups, wasn't too difficult. Why does gel make the sword more powerful though?

The visuals are fine although I find the sprite work to be somewhat lacking in the shading department. Kind of teetering between 8 and 16-bit palettes, if you catch my drift. The musical instruments are more like noises, annoying at that. Sound effects fall into the similar low-fi category. Not a fan.

The major issue I have with the interactivity, apart from becoming samey after a while, is the lack of a full screen mode. I kept clicking outside the window which always costs a bit of health. Changing the cursor would help too, mine is black so it pretty much disappears once corruption gets out of hand.

Ok work.

Overall: Above average (6)
Graphics: Above average (6)
Audio: Below average (4)
Gameplay: Above average (6)
Originality: Good (7)
Theme: Good (7)

Wan
 • 5 years ago • 

If anyone's interested, I have started a guide for the game:

Figuring out Whirling Blades

DaFluffyPotato
  • 5 years ago • 

@voxel First try 24:42:2. Easy. :P

Here's a hint: I used the "saving blueberries" strategy. However, the biggest impact was from a very basic strategy that you guys seemed to have figured out, but not perfected.

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Links

Windows / Python 3 Source DownloadVideoLinux (Read Description Notes)

Author

DaFluffyPotato

Details

High scores Submit score

#UserTime
1@DaFluffyPotato24'42"020 
2@voxel11'21"700 
3@M2tias7'16"770 
4@Wan4'41"520 
5@Kleinzach3'57"350 
6@toasty3'38"092 
7@Ztuu2'58"720 
8@Laguna2'46"067 
9@dollarone2'05"035 
10@sebastianscaini1'54"060 
Total submitted scores: 10
View all 10 scores