[SA Game Jam 2019] Sticks & Stones: The Craftening

Jam name: (SA Game Jam 2019)
Project Name: Sticks & Stones: The Craftening
Level of experience 3 Hobbyists
48hr entry

DOWNLOAD LINK ENTRY: Google Drive Link for Windows
DOWNLOAD LINK UPDATE 1: Google Drive Link for Windows

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Sticks and Stones: The Craftening is a game of the most dedicated, and furiously fast-fingered blacksmith in all the Land.

Tasked with cleansing the plague of undeath from the forests of Forestia, our most brave lad of lads must use his absolute unit-like lightning-fast fingers to slow time and craft his enemy's ultimately devastating demise.

Who can stop this stalwart defender of human truths and peasant rights?

Sometimes a blacksmith just wants to smash, nah mean?


Progress Update 1:
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Step 1: Find Materials with your eagle-like super vision.
Step 2: Use your amazing lightning-fast fingers to make the world go slooooow while you pick the pieces of your recipe.
Step 3: Call on the power of your Blacksmithing Gods to set ablaze the forge that is your hands so you can craft weapons anywhere and everywhere.
Step 4: Realise that all your remaining components which were not used on the weapon's recipe have melded into the weapon anyway, strengthening its durability. THE GODS DON'T WASTE CRAFTING MATERIALS!
Step 5: Use your absolute-unit-like brawn up close or your time-bending-360-degree-chameleon-vision focus when aiming down the crosshairs of the bladed beauties you just breathed life into.
Step 6: Remember the weapons that have spilled monster blood for you. Cherish the memory of each and every one of them when they break. Because they will break. And when they do, you'll be scouring the land to get your revenge on the sons of breeches-and-weapon ruining monsters.

Be the most epic Blacksmith you were always meant to be and maybe the Bards will share your tale.

Progress Update 2:
We've updated quite a few visual cues as well as rounding up the types of game modes we wanted. We couldn't really add too much depth to the narrative, sadly, as we think it could have been really nice, but we feel the gameplay is pretty solid.

Progress Update 3:
We've added an Endless Mode for those who just want to have a go at the mechanics without end. And finally, we uploaded our Windows build (As seen at the top of the post). A recipe list will follow, as well as possibly a WebGL build.

List of Free Assets Found Online:
- Tree Backdrop
- Terrain
- 2D Adventure Character
- Menu Backdrop and Island (Not the character)

Progress Update 4:
Unfortunately we ran out of time and cannot supply a WebGL build, as the one we have is broken.

List of Recipes:
1 Wood = A Brittle 2x4 Plank of Utmost Justice
1 Iron, 1 Leather = A Gleaming Sword to cut Truth from Evil
1 Wood, 1 Iron = A Hatchet with the spinning power of all the ocean's whirlpools.
1 Leather, 1 Bone = A Spear to pierce the hearts of your enemies from 10 miles off.
1 Leather, 2 Iron = A Hammer as durable as the mountains themselves.
1 Wood, 1 Soul, 1 Bone = A Staff for utmost thwacking (Yes, a spell would have been cool, but there wasn't time.)
3 Soul + Your Weapon (If one is equipped) = A Full Restoration of your Smithy's Health

Try hitting the diamonds in Story Mode by throwing your weapon with the Right Mouse Button *The Tip Text seems to be bugging in terms of position on some PCs, so you can't see the message. Thought I'd state it here.

Update 1 Notes:
- Cleaned up the UI to better show on screens with resolutions smaller than 1920 x 1080, as well as tweaking it here and there to make text more legible.
- Added a list of Controls on the main menu splash.
- Tweaked controls for those who want to use the arrow keys as opposed to WASD.
- Tweaked the Blacksmith's Dialogue in the 1st level of Story to reflect the control changes.
- Increased the rate at which materials drop in Endless Mode and slightly decreased the rate at which enemies spawn.
- Added a list of recipes in Endless Mode. This is visible at all times to better the experience. Crafting when you've put a bit of distance between you and enemies should give ample time to read and implement a recipe.
- Fixed a bug where upon restarting Endless Mode there would immediately be enemies present.
- Fixed a bug where the player would get carried off of the map in Endless when dying on top of a horde of enemies. (Not entirely fixed, but you can press Escape to restart the level so it shouldn't be an issue.)
- Fixed the Endless Mode not having barriers which caused some players to fall of the screen when trying to evade masses of enemies.

Comments

  • Looks like an interesting concept. I like what you guys are going for! Good luck!
  • OHHHHHH!!! Them pixels <3! So pretty!
    I like the slow mo giving you those sneaky attack opportunities! Very cool
  • This is really impressive, I love the animations and the slow mo jump looks awesome
  • Looks amazing, are you using asset packs or is it all created from scratch? :0
    Thanked by 1emileChantler
  • @Jelligeth, we will have a list of things made vs assets found online that we used since there are a few of both :)
  • The game looks absolutely amazing, particularly, the on the fly crafting and combat system really makes it look like a fun system to interact with.
    Graphics are also looking real good
  • The game is uploaded and ready! Let us know what you think!
  • Heyo,
    I gave it a go.

    I'm not sure if there's a story mode, other than it being a tutorial screen.
    But I gave endless a go, and it was very difficult, but fun.
    Maybe increase the rate at which resources are supplied.
    One Wood = One Attack is quite harsh :P

    Love the concept over all.
  • edited
    Appreciate the feedback! The story requires you to hit the diamonds with a weapon to progress, I just realised after your comment we forgot to actually state that in game. Since the tutorial level gives you as many pieces of wood as you need, you get to play around there for a bit to figure the timings and such out.

    Luckily you can craft things other than Planks to fight with ;)
  • so i find the game strangley addictive(endless mode) also love how the crafting works .the story mode seems a bit broken and i cant read the blacksmith text properly. I can see how this could be very fun game to pass time but in its current state not so much. So to improve id suggest to add more drops / have less enemies at start and gradually increase them/make it so u can escape bigger hordes of enemies and jump higher.
    thanks for letting me play
    heres a video review:
  • We've realised that the game's UI seems to bug out when the resolution is not running at 1920 x 1080. There are a few bugs that have come to our attention, but all sadly after the jam has finished and we've run out of time. You can throw your weapon with the Right Mouse Button which should make hitting the diamonds a lot easier xD The tooltip that states this seems to fall out of the screen with lower resolutions.
  • edited
    Please let me know if you're based in CT, JHB or where?

    Also, based purely on your title screen, I think you should win.
    Thanked by 1FlyinGerbiL
  • edited
    I gave both story mode and endless a shot. I'm not great at the game, but still had fun!

    Pros: Very good implementation of the theme! Movement felt great. The crafting and aiming didn't seem to lessen my enjoyment of the faster-paced combat. Everything looked nice and the text that was commenting on my failure was great btw xD

    Cons: The fact that weapons broke so easily, (useful) material drops seemed a bit too rare and that I couldn't stock up resources (I always seemed to have 1 stick, despite picking up two or three) made the game quite difficult. I also lost quite a few materials by crafting nothing (only realised the recipes were on this post afterwards).
    Some music and more sound effects would have complimented the action nicely :)

    Oh! and for story mode. I never had enough resources to kill both the enemies and the diamond to progress, which forced me to take a gift from the gods (which might have been 2 souls and an iron). These post-match gifts ended up killing me faster than the enemies :,<

    I'm going to try this game out a few more times and will be keeping my eye out for any updates :D
    Thanked by 1FlyinGerbiL
  • @Fengol, the team is based entirely out of Cape Town :) and thank you!

    @GiGGa, thanks a lot for the in-depth feedback! The success and failure texts were a bit of a last minute addition, but glad to hear you liked it as much as we did :) We have some ideas for updates (from just balancing to polish to content even) but time isn't always on our side since we did this as Hobbyists. Hopefully we get around to it soon! We feel the mechanics are nice enough to try and push into something bigger, so hopefully you'll hear about it soon :D
    Thanked by 2GiGGa Fengol
  • - Don't put red text on a grey background. It's very hard to read.
    - Your crafting success/failure messages are a bit epilepsy inducing.
    - I didn't realise I was supposed to hit the diamond until I read it here. Then it took me a while to figure out how.
    - I did not like the controls at all. I play with the arrow keys so I can't reach the space bar and use the mouse at the same time. Why isn't the up arrow for jumping?
    - At one point a bunch of enemies pushed me off the right side of the screen. I couldn't die but I also couldn't do anything except watch crafting materials fall from the sky and enemies spawn (pic attached).
    - Other times I die in mid air(?), land on their heads, and get carried off screen but can't restart.
    - I like the art of the enemies (which I assume you guys did?).
    - I shouldn't lose health because I land on someone's head.
    - I very rarely heard any sound effects.

    I really tried to play - I really did - but the speed coupled with struggling with the controls and the unforgiving weapons and enemies just made it too difficult for me. I like the idea of crafting during the action but then it either needs to be even slower or paused completely.
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  • @watman, thanks for the review! :)

    I've posted the updated version of the game. You can now craft with num0 and jump with both W and Up Arrow as well. I've removed the red text and just made it more legible. I've updated the tutorial text a bit to specify that the diamonds need to be hit, as well as fixed the UI layout so these things read better (this should also fix the UI issue with the 'Tips' box not displaying for some.

    As for sound, our usual sound guy wasn't around due to being on the road for music shows, so we focused our attention elsewhere as none of us are particularly versed in doing sound nor do we have/know which programs to use for these things, so we figured we'd rather stick to the devils we know than those we don't ;)
    Thanked by 1watman
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