Demo The Spell - A Top Down Fantasy Action Game [DEMO]

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Drasnus

Guest


The Spell is a fantasy action game that we have been working on for awhile now, and we have just finished our proof-of-concept demo.

You play as a wizard taking on an entire castle full of soldiers by himself. He can create fire and wind, throw objects (and enemies) telekinetically, and shoot bolts of pure kinetic energy. Walls can be destroyed, furniture can be smashed, and anything flammable can be burned.

The wizard is extremely powerful, but his health and mana are limited. Think carefully about each situation and make the most of his powers.

The demo features a woodland section and an entire castle, ending with a bossfight. There are also some unique areas and secrets to break up all the combat.





Webm - 1
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The demo can be found here.
 
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DeadEaster

Guest
This game is great! I love the lighting effects and the art is top notch. Having a semi crappy computer it was great that I had the options to turn off the 3-D wall effect, and change the lighting quality. I think you did a great job at introducing the different spells at the beginning and forcing me to use and comprehend them to advance. Overall my favorite part of the experience was the art, from the landscapes in introduction scenes to the background objects. everything seemed carefully planned and gives you a great sense of immersion in this world. You have really pushed the bounds of GMS and I give you props for that.

The only thing I regret is not having any constructive criticism to give to you, my experience (so far) has been phenomenal. I will continue playing and let you know if that changes!

Also, I have been trying to figure out for quite some time how to do introduction scenes and short videos like that, any pointers or tips?
 
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MEITdev

Guest
Looks amazing. The only critique I can offer is the glitching walls when moving, and the music, which is just bad (in the video, my advice is to change it). Other than that great animations, great effects, love the game play. Do you have expected release date for this?
 
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Drasnus

Guest
This game is great! I love the lighting effects and the art is top notch. Having a semi crappy computer it was great that I had the options to turn off the 3-D wall effect, and change the lighting quality. I think you did a great job at introducing the different spells at the beginning and forcing me to use and comprehend them to advance. Overall my favorite part of the experience was the art, from the landscapes in introduction scenes to the background objects. everything seemed carefully planned and gives you a great sense of immersion in this world. You have really pushed the bounds of GMS and I give you props for that.

The only thing I regret is not having any constructive criticism to give to you, my experience (so far) has been phenomenal. I will continue playing and let you know if that changes!

Also, I have been trying to figure out for quite some time how to do introduction scenes and short videos like that, any pointers or tips?
Thank you very much for taking a look. I'm glad you like it, your compliments mean a lot.

If anything does occur to you, don't hesitate to mention.

We handle cutscenes using an empty room (or a map where enemies haven't spawned in yet) and an object called obj_scenecontroller. The object simply loads scripts and deletes itself when the script is finished.
The scripts contain all the cinematics seperated into states. For example: State 1 will spawn a text object and then set the state to 2. State 2 is empty except for a check to see if the text is finished, if so it moves onto state 3, and so on.
The scripts are all self-contained, creating and deleting all the necessary elements of each scene.

Looks amazing. The only critique I can offer is the glitching walls when moving, and the music, which is just bad (in the video, my advice is to change it). Other than that great animations, great effects, love the game play. Do you have expected release date for this?
I assume you mean the flickering on the walls? I think this is a symptom of the game's low resolution and the texture stretching required for the fake 3D effect. I'll keep that in mind though and I'll try to find a solution.

Could you go into more detail on why you didn't like the trailer music? We just used one of the in-game combat tracks, so I'd appreciate some more perspective on why you think it didn't work.

I'm glad you liked the other elements though, thank you. We don't currently have a release date in mind, this demo currently comprises 100% of the work we've done on the game, so it could also be called a prototype or a proof-of-concept.
 
M

MEITdev

Guest
Thank you very much for taking a look. I'm glad you like it, your compliments mean a lot.

If anything does occur to you, don't hesitate to mention.

We handle cutscenes using an empty room (or a map where enemies haven't spawned in yet) and an object called obj_scenecontroller. The object simply loads scripts and deletes itself when the script is finished.
The scripts contain all the cinematics seperated into states. For example: State 1 will spawn a text object and then set the state to 2. State 2 is empty except for a check to see if the text is finished, if so it moves onto state 3, and so on.
The scripts are all self-contained, creating and deleting all the necessary elements of each scene.


I assume you mean the flickering on the walls? I think this is a symptom of the game's low resolution and the texture stretching required for the fake 3D effect. I'll keep that in mind though and I'll try to find a solution.

Could you go into more detail on why you didn't like the trailer music? We just used one of the in-game combat tracks, so I'd appreciate some more perspective on why you think it didn't work.

I'm glad you liked the other elements though, thank you. We don't currently have a release date in mind, this demo currently comprises 100% of the work we've done on the game, so it could also be called a prototype or a proof-of-concept.
Always happy to help fellow GMakers.

In regards to the walls - yes that is what I had in mind, thank you for putting it in a sentence that makes sense :D

In regards to the music - while the theme seems to be good, it lacks structure in my personal opinion. It seems rather chaotic in places. I like the Major/Minor scale shift in the middle to give it a more spooky feeling. I would only suggest to try to give it a more simple structure - Start, Middle, Chorus, Something, Outro - and loop that. In addition, the drums can be a little quieter as they are intrusive, and maybe less instruments. In the 8bit music era the most you could get was 3 instruments playing at a time, and the most iconic music (like mario, zelda, ff series) comes from the simplicity.

I can definitely see players humming the tunes from your game when they are little less complex.

Do not give this one up! with the amount of sh*t I see on steam every day, your game could be one of the more fun and enjoyable in the indie section!
Keep up the good work.
 
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Drasnus

Guest
Always happy to help fellow GMakers.

In regards to the walls - yes that is what I had in mind, thank you for putting it in a sentence that makes sense :D

In regards to the music - while the theme seems to be good, it lacks structure in my personal opinion. It seems rather chaotic in places. I like the Major/Minor scale shift in the middle to give it a more spooky feeling. I would only suggest to try to give it a more simple structure - Start, Middle, Chorus, Something, Outro - and loop that. In addition, the drums can be a little quieter as they are intrusive, and maybe less instruments. In the 8bit music era the most you could get was 3 instruments playing at a time, and the most iconic music (like mario, zelda, ff series) comes from the simplicity.

I can definitely see players humming the tunes from your game when they are little less complex.
That's helpful, I'll keep it in mind.


Do not give this one up! with the amount of sh*t I see on steam every day, your game could be one of the more fun and enjoyable in the indie section!
Keep up the good work.
Thanks!
 
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MEITdev

Guest
So I have played your game for about an hour or so and I would like to share my experience and provide some feedback.

Graphics: Very nice graphics in the game, like the gore and kicking heads around. The cut scene graphics could do with some improvement if you would like to release this officially but for what it is, it looks great.
Love the effects, and the fluidity of the animations

Sound: The sound effects are high quality, sound when you walk in water, when you walk on dead bodies, just great.
BUT I cannot get over the music, sorry man, it just does not feel right to the situations. The Dynamic music does not change when there is a battle, I did get my adrenalin pumped up while fighting 4 knights that I could only knock off and then shoot and had limited mana to do that, but the music ruined it for me. Either something more 8bit or more orchestral music would be cool.

Game-play: Now, where to start. I like the skills, love the interaction with the objects using the telekinesis in combination with my attack. Loved to roll boulders on enemies or throw fire from the fire pits at them. Loved to activate the traps and lure the enemies so that they get destroyed. Overall the interaction with the environment is great, I can say that it feels very professional and made me want to play the game more.
The learning curve is good, you have enough time to learn the skills and how to combine them to get a result. It took me 2 deaths to figure out how to kill the heavy knights, so that was very fast and intuitive too.
Now, the light seems useless, never used it as well as the second skill, just left click attack and the telekinesis.
Also the mana depletes just too darn fast, don't get me wrong, I like challenge, but some way to replenish it - maybe in the ponds or fountains? - would be great. Also the loot from crates and chests would be great addition as after a while I did not bother to shoot them anymore as I wanted to preserve the mana for enemies, I see that as a opportunity missed form the point of a player interaction, some loot like health or mana refill would be nice. I just found myself running out of the room, then back to deal some damage, then out again, reverse repeat until all enemies were dead.
In the puzzle room where I found the key, I just had no idea for about 15 minutes where to go, some indicators would be nice as I gave up after that and started the game over again to enjoy the combat :) Maybe something to think about.

Overall: I don't know if you are a professional dev or just a person with good taste, but this feels great. The game play is fluid, the combat is impact-full (if you ignore the music). The attention to detail such as fire spreading, tables flipping, ability to "throw" the fire at enemies, use tactic during combat... all great. The story line seems quite generic but it is not bad, just "expected", which is good in a way. With some updated music and cut scene graphics I can see this passing Steam GreenLight, hell, I would love to see it there and give it a big thumbs up. You need more social presence and marketing my friend. Overall, one of the most finished and polished games that can be found on these forums.

Feature request: Leveling of the spells, maybe "learn" new spells, make the light relevant for some areas, more interaction with the environment (the falling tree at the beginning for example was great and I hoped to see more interaction like that), some loot from boxes..

I hope that this will be helpful to you for your further development of this project.

Keep up the good work!
 
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Drasnus

Guest
Hey dude.

I'm sorry you didn't like the music. There's not a lot I can say except that I did my best, but thanks for your honesty, it's appreciated.

By the light, do you mean the shield? People often underuse it, and I think the tutorial could probably be clearer. It's intended as a way to safely pass through enemies without taking damage. All the spells cause the mana to pause before it refills, but the shield doesn't, so if you're low on mana you can use it without consequence and your mana will keep refilling itself.

Your mention of the crates is interesting, I never even considered putting more stuff in them, but it makes perfect sense. I might give them a random chance to contain potions, or more commonly weapons that can be thrown. Good call.

Getting confused after finding the key seems to be fairly common. You're intended to return to the main hall to unlock more doors, so I'll try adding some brief dialogue that mentions this.

I'm glad you like it, there's two of us and we're just amateurs. Pretty much all of your requests are things we've got planned for the future.

Thanks for taking the time to look at it and critique it, it means a lot.
 
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MEITdev

Guest
Hi there!

I have recorded a short "honest first impressions" feedback video for your game.

The purpose of this video is for you as a developer to see how players play your game, what are their expressions as well as some likes and dislikes. Basically the personal feedback is something that is hard to get, so I am hoping to help you just a little bit with this video.


Keep up the great work!
 
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Drasnus

Guest
Great video, thanks for taking a look.

I kept notes while watching so you can be sure I'll address some of your points.
 
M

MEITdev

Guest
Glad I could be of service!

It appears other people like your game as well so I made a second part of my gaming experience to provide some more feedback for your great game!


Hope this will help you with the development, I may do a third part if you are interested, love to help you guys polish the game (even tho it is very polished as it is ^_^ ).

Thank you for your time!
 
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Drasnus

Guest
Another great video. This level of feedback is much appreciated.

I should probably clarify what I meant about the shield. It's not that it doesn't deplete mana, it just doesn't delay it. If you fire off another spell you'll see the mana bar pauses for a second before it begins to refill, but with the shield it'll start refilling right away.
 
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MEITdev

Guest
Another great video. This level of feedback is much appreciated.

I should probably clarify what I meant about the shield. It's not that it doesn't deplete mana, it just doesn't delay it. If you fire off another spell you'll see the mana bar pauses for a second before it begins to refill, but with the shield it'll start refilling right away.
Thank you, glad you liked it and hope it helps!
I did not catch that about the delay of mana refill, maybe I missed something!

If the video gets at least 50-100 views I will do part 3 of the WIP version of your great game!

I will keep an eye for an update from your side :) PS: Is all pixel art from you guys? It is majestic! And the gory levels, oh just love them.
 
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Drasnus

Guest
Released a new update today:


The game now autosaves at checkpoints, and progress can be loaded from the main menu.


Potions now have a drinking animation.

We also added a brightness slider to the options menu, amongst other small tweaks and fixes.
 
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dj_midknight

Guest
Everything looks very good. Ill give this a go later today!

[note] Gamepad support for this would be excellent. Ill mock something up with xpadder for now.
 
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Drasnus

Guest
Everything looks very good. Ill give this a go later today!

[note] Gamepad support for this would be excellent. Ill mock something up with xpadder for now.
Thanks. This game does have some basic gamepad support (it works ingame but not in the menu yet). It's a little experimental as the game requires some precision. I have beaten it before with the pad though.
 

Rivo

7014
Actually looks really fun to play! I really like the blur effect you put on the gif above! How did you do that did you just use a sprite? or something else? Oh and could you upload a single exe? My anti-virus auto deletes zipped files and won't lemme restore them :/
 
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Drasnus

Guest
Actually looks really fun to play! I really like the blur effect you put on the gif above! How did you do that did you just use a sprite? or something else? Oh and could you upload a single exe? My anti-virus auto deletes zipped files and won't lemme restore them :/
Thanks. I'm not sure what effect you're referring to, the cursor?

It has been my experience that single exe files will get flagged by browsers/anti-virus just as often; I'd recommend just adding an exception for it. If you're using Chrome you should be able to see and restore the file by going to 'chrome://downloads/#'.
 
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dj_midknight

Guest
So I have a bit of feedback for you as it pertains to your gamepad control. Overall it works pretty well, but I would suggest setting up a mouse sensitivity setting. I find that with the current gamepad speed its too easy to end up on the wrong side of the cursor and get annihilated before you can readjust.

The post ability delay before mana starts regenerating might be a bit too long. The regen speed however is fine.
 
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Drasnus

Guest
So I have a bit of feedback for you as it pertains to your gamepad control. Overall it works pretty well, but I would suggest setting up a mouse sensitivity setting. I find that with the current gamepad speed its too easy to end up on the wrong side of the cursor and get annihilated before you can readjust.

The post ability delay before mana starts regenerating might be a bit too long. The regen speed however is fine.
The current gamepad implementation is experimental so thanks for the feedback. I'll try to flesh out the settings for it in future updates.

I did add a minor feature to help with what you mentioned: holding right stick will make the cursor move faster. I was thinking it might also work if doing so would snap the cursor back towards the character, what do you think?
 
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dj_midknight

Guest
I think thats a fair idea. Given that the game is quite heavily based around the movements of the cursor its gonna be tricky to get it just right. You might also consider mapping the viewport coordinates to the stick directly, but that might feel worse than it is now. Its probably going to take a few itterations before your happy with it.
 
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Drasnus

Guest
I think thats a fair idea. Given that the game is quite heavily based around the movements of the cursor its gonna be tricky to get it just right. You might also consider mapping the viewport coordinates to the stick directly, but that might feel worse than it is now. Its probably going to take a few itterations before your happy with it.
Yeah, it's tricky. We'll keep working at it.

Amazing art, fake 3D or 3D?
Thanks. Very, very fake.
:)
 
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