The flame of Liotes

Clever idea, thematic. Sure, it's just a shmup, but I happen to like those.

Dodging zombies and managing the one and only ability is challenging and fun. It takes a little bit too long to reach peak franticness, there's a 30 second drought right in the beginning of each round. The intro is also unskippable.

I like the animations (flames and bouncing zombies), but the graphics are otherwise very crude. The zombies are gnarly in a bad way.

Solid work.

Overall: Above Average (6.0)
Graphics: Bad (3.0)
Audio: N/A
Gameplay: Good (7.0)
Originality: Above Average (6.0)
Theme: Above Average (6.0)

@HuvaaKoodia Thanks for the honest feedback! I really appreciate that :)
I thought that skipping the into cutscene wouldn't be needed, as you jump right back into the action by pressing space after you died, but I can see your point.
I will continue working on the problems you mentioned.
Thanks again and have a nice rating phase.

Great little time waster. Sure the grahics are crude and there is no audio, but i had a solid 3 minutes of pure entertainment with this. Honestly one of the better games because it doesnt aim higher than it can achieve.

@ValdeTheAssetMan Thanks for the feedback! I am glad you had fun with the game :)

entry text could fill faster or give the option to click to 'finish' it, it was filling way slower then I can read.

Intresting take on the theme of being a living spell trying to not hit something.

@AndroitConceptions Thanks for the feedback! I figured that there are a lot of non native english speakers here, so I thought that I should slow the text fill down a notch. But yea, you are right, I should have implemented a "skip cutscene" button.

Interesting way to take the theme!
Everything is clear and the gameplay is straight but enjoyable.
It's a shame that there are no sound effects, everything feels better with them. :)
My max score is 16.
Good job!

@havana24 Thanks for the feedback! I would have loved to added sound effects, but I sadly did run out of time.

Cool, I like that your tried to take a different twist on the theme.
The narrative was good, I liked that there was a little humour in there.

Oh my good the swarm of like 5 zombies together is horrifying.
I like that the difficulty starts slow then gets more hectic but it gets REALLY crowded pretty quickly.
I like that you can't shoot to often, means it's not just like any other arcade shooter.

Overall I like this game and I like how you interpreted the theme.

@Ztuu I feel flattered, thank you!

The thing I like best about this entry is that you can't just spam fireballs: need to really conserve them for the moments they matter most.
however, you also need them to score points, so it's risk/reward. good job.
if there was one thing to improve, I'd say give the game some sound fx.

Most of the feedback I have was already given in other comments.

The concept of the story and the take on the theme is neat. (By the way to get philosophical are the fireball cast by the fireball you play alive too ? It might be fun if they actively tried to avoid the zombies too, even if it would likely make it a lot harder).

It's true the graphics a very basic but I'm assuming you're a beginner, it's a good start (finished is better than perfect) and I'm sure you can improve a lot if you keep practicing. Morevover some of the concept for the zombies were cool (like the quarterback, altought not a 100% sure what he's doing in a fantasy world).

The game could do with more input feedback and juice : sfx, visual effects like particles when zombies get blasted, etc. The risk/reward of the shot is interesting but right now the gameplay feels a bit empty, maybe adding a bit of physics on the ball could be interesting (like accelerations) or just other possibilities than just moving and shooting.

Anyway congrats for finishing a game for your first jam (that's already quite an achievement) !

@maartene thanks for the feedback! I will be dedicating time to sound fx and music on my next game jam.

@Ashtrail I actually did think of giving the mini fireballs a mind of their own, but then decided against it just for the sake of consitency in gameplay.
Its true, the graphics are very basic and I will be trying to put more work into them the next time around.
Some visual feedback is a great idea, I mean, who doesn't like some sexy explosions ;)
Thank you!

Interesting take on the theme, I like idea of being the spell that was cast instead of the spell caster, and the overall endless runner gameplay. Controls wise, it would be nice to have the option to use the arrow keys instead of (or in addition to) WASD. Congrats on the submission and great job completing your first game jam! :D

@devharts thank you! You're right, I should have thought about alternative controlls. It was quite a journey, I learned a lot and I am really excited for my next game jam :)

It's pretty good actually. It's easy to catch and easy to play but it's very well balanced. I liked the idea of an alive fire. My only complain is the zombies hitboxes: those arms seems anoying hard to dodge.

@katuiche Thank you! The arms actually have no hitbox, because I also thought they would be hard to dogde, so just ignore them ;)

This was pretty fun! Your waves felt fair and resonable to avoid in most cases, and the fireballs made the occasional impossible situation still have a good player-controlled way out. I died to a solid wall of enemies on my high score run of 23, but I also overused fireballs to make things easier just prior, so I put the blame on myself. It's always a good thing when you can get the player to admit that, and not blame the game or RNG. =P

The graphics were also nice, the football player zombies were particularly funny the first time you saw them. Every enemy had a defined behavior and moved at just the right speed to adapt to, which added a lot to the randomly generated sections feeling like prepared waves. All in all, well done here! Only thing I'd tweak is some feedback when an enemy is very close to killing you, like the flames flickering or shrinking slightly, as the instant death wasn't something you could adapt to while playing.

@innomin thanks for he feedback and I am glad you liked it! The danger feedback is a very interesting idea, I will definitely consider it in the next games I will create :)

The picture during the intro looks great, very moody. Pity the entire game isn't in that style.

The text shown at the start of the game proper is clipped on both sides in the WebGL build. Maybe the wrong aspect ratio?

Gameplay-wise, there's nothing particularly new or interesting going on. It's just a matter of dodging the zombies, and occasionally shooting one if the bar is finally full, but it recharges way too slowly.