Another incredible game by Wuzzy - The storyline is great, the assets and textures are great, and it has a unique feel that makes the game fascinating. The sounds are awesome. Although this doesn't compare with Glitch for me (which is my personal favorite Minetest mini-game at the time of writing), this is entirely different, focusing on defeating darkness with weapons, skills, and collectables.
The mechanics are pretty simple at first - find vases to get healing essence, and kill mobs to get shadow fragments, then upgrade at your local campfire. The strategy that works best seems to be running mad until you find a house with some amount of protection - then you can kill lots of mobs, gain shadow fragments, and upgrade at the nearby campfire. Unfortunately, I think this bypasses a lot of the fun of the game, which may have been geared more towards exploration, but it's often instead dodging mobs wildly and harvesting them in arbitrary ways. Light crystals are pretty rare, you've got to look for them hard! You need three of them to break the barrier which will eventually lead you to the boss. As the game progresses, it goes from a collecting game to a exploration game, looking for the answers and the boss, and exploring pretty amazing places (all the meanwhile dodging mobs). Once you've got most of the upgrades, you won't have so much trouble with the mobs, but you'll still have to run. The boss is super difficult, and it took me a few tries to defeat him. Keep yourself moving as much as possible and keep throwing light.
As for unexpectedness, I can't really say I was too surprised by anything in particular - Despite that, this is my personal pick for best game of the 2023 Game Jam, and I hope it wins, because it simply feels the most complete and polished of all the games, despite the mobs :-)
One extra note: I was kinda disappointed by the ending. The shadows still spawn, and there appears to be no increase in light. I'm pretty sure this was due to limited time(?), but I'd sure like to see an ending where things are a bit more resolved! :)
I'm glad you liked the game, even the mob combat, although mob combat is the least polished aspect of the game. I also noticed there are some dirty tricks where you can just slaughter the shadow mobs without getting hit once, thus quickly getting most upgrades. Although I think not many people found these dirty tricks. Mobs in general are not the smartest and I definitely need to fully rework them. Many players had problems with the mob fight and I fully expected this. I sadly didn't have the time to polish mobs more but I'm planning a post-jam version. If you're interested, I will also write a making-of and post it in the forum thread.
I also agree that Glitch is better (simply way more polished).
The shadows still spawn, and there appears to be no increase in light.
Maybe I shoudn't have built the exit portal in the boss room then to hide this issue. XD
I only added it so you can go looking for the remaining vases. A treat for completionists, basically. ;-)
The in-world excuse is that "the forest still needs time to heal" but this is very lame, of course.
Yeah, since you can return to the Tree of Life, the environment should definitely change.
And yes this was a time constraint thing.
Yeah, I thought the "forest still needs time to heal" thing was lame as well, once I saw that it wasn't healing at all. That's a good explanation as long as the fog starts lifting, the areas start to get a little brighter, gradually, but I understand time constraints were at play here.
I'm kinda disappointed that this didn't make the top 3, but I have the idea that it might spur you to make an even better game next Jam, so maybe that is a good thing? :D
A treat for completionists, basically. ;-)
I don't remember seeing a max value of the healing orbs? - In Glitch you know how many electrons are in your sector, but I didn't see anything like that in Shadow Forest.
Another incredible game by Wuzzy - The storyline is great, the assets and textures are great, and it has a unique feel that makes the game fascinating. The sounds are awesome. Although this doesn't compare with Glitch for me (which is my personal favorite Minetest mini-game at the time of writing), this is entirely different, focusing on defeating darkness with weapons, skills, and collectables.
The mechanics are pretty simple at first - find vases to get healing essence, and kill mobs to get shadow fragments, then upgrade at your local campfire. The strategy that works best seems to be running mad until you find a house with some amount of protection - then you can kill lots of mobs, gain shadow fragments, and upgrade at the nearby campfire. Unfortunately, I think this bypasses a lot of the fun of the game, which may have been geared more towards exploration, but it's often instead dodging mobs wildly and harvesting them in arbitrary ways. Light crystals are pretty rare, you've got to look for them hard! You need three of them to break the barrier which will eventually lead you to the boss. As the game progresses, it goes from a collecting game to a exploration game, looking for the answers and the boss, and exploring pretty amazing places (all the meanwhile dodging mobs). Once you've got most of the upgrades, you won't have so much trouble with the mobs, but you'll still have to run. The boss is super difficult, and it took me a few tries to defeat him. Keep yourself moving as much as possible and keep throwing light.
As for unexpectedness, I can't really say I was too surprised by anything in particular - Despite that, this is my personal pick for best game of the 2023 Game Jam, and I hope it wins, because it simply feels the most complete and polished of all the games, despite the mobs :-)
One extra note: I was kinda disappointed by the ending. The shadows still spawn, and there appears to be no increase in light. I'm pretty sure this was due to limited time(?), but I'd sure like to see an ending where things are a bit more resolved! :)
I'm glad you liked the game, even the mob combat, although mob combat is the least polished aspect of the game. I also noticed there are some dirty tricks where you can just slaughter the shadow mobs without getting hit once, thus quickly getting most upgrades. Although I think not many people found these dirty tricks. Mobs in general are not the smartest and I definitely need to fully rework them. Many players had problems with the mob fight and I fully expected this. I sadly didn't have the time to polish mobs more but I'm planning a post-jam version. If you're interested, I will also write a making-of and post it in the forum thread.
I also agree that Glitch is better (simply way more polished).
Maybe I shoudn't have built the exit portal in the boss room then to hide this issue. XD I only added it so you can go looking for the remaining vases. A treat for completionists, basically. ;-) The in-world excuse is that "the forest still needs time to heal" but this is very lame, of course. Yeah, since you can return to the Tree of Life, the environment should definitely change. And yes this was a time constraint thing.
Yeah, I thought the "forest still needs time to heal" thing was lame as well, once I saw that it wasn't healing at all. That's a good explanation as long as the fog starts lifting, the areas start to get a little brighter, gradually, but I understand time constraints were at play here.
I'm kinda disappointed that this didn't make the top 3, but I have the idea that it might spur you to make an even better game next Jam, so maybe that is a good thing? :D
I don't remember seeing a max value of the healing orbs? - In Glitch you know how many electrons are in your sector, but I didn't see anything like that in Shadow Forest.