I defeated the Hero in the one more time phase, and then it got stuck on the choice between "There is yet fight in me" or "What happened?". Also the queen does not make a different animation with the Hero's corpse anymore, only snaps fingers (and before that, she did). I think I'm stuck. The hero gains damage by moving towards me. I don't do anything, he dies by contact. Must be a bug.
This 20-minute, single-room anti-game is maybe the best and most succinct encapsulation of the gameplay, appeal, and themes of the soulslike game genre. You play as the eponymous Dark Queen of Mortholme, reveling in the destruction of an upstart hero come to slay you and end your reign of terror. End their life by swinging a big fuckass mace, charging forward in blue flames, and/or summoning a pillar of purple energy (the evilest kind of energy) beneath their feet. But over time, the hero learns. And adapts. And gets better at dodging your attacks.
Then the dialogue begins. There's a whole world out there, beyond your throne room, and they get to experience it and grow and change. But you don't. You only have access to the same old stuff, the same old tricks. I would never call the Dark Queen an old dog, but, well...you know how the saying goes.
Anti-game is the perfect descriptor for this piece of art. It is, as far as I can tell, completely scripted, with no amount of skill or reactivity on the player's part able to change the inevitable outcome. And yet, I still found myself interested in the next part. What will the hero say on their next entrance? What more will I learn about the tragedy of power, the rot at the center of every Souls game? What new way will the hero learn to seemingly taunt me? (I may never know the same kind of frustration as me swinging my ludicrously large mace only for that little pixel fucker to be just out of reach.)
This game sounds like a shitpost (what is it like to experience Dark Souls from the boss' POV?), but it's so much more than that. It's a gorgeous little anti-game with stellar writing, and everyone should take 20 minutes out of their day to give it a try.
It is possible to 'win' in a sense. Stay in phase 1 enough times and never let him get to phase 2 and he gives up, leaving you to reign eternally alone.
It's possible, yes. I wrote that alternate ending scenario to cover for the likelihood that someone will figure out a cheese strat, so that player ingenuity could be accounted for in a way that still supports the main story. It ended up being found almost immediately after launch--I've watched enough speedrunners to see that one coming.
I found a cheesy method that works most of the time. Don't move away from the throne. Spam the magic circle when he is outside of melee range. Use a mace attack when the magic circle prevents him from safely getting away. This works because even though he could avoid the mace by groveling at your feet, he will never actively try to do that while you are at your throne. This means he will get hit by the magic circle or the mace depending on how fast he reacts. The reason it doesn't always work is that sometimes he'll move in such ways that the magic circle is created too close to you to allow him to consider closing the distance for a sword swing.
This is rather ironic because he talks about the glory of change and lost because he is too attached the the idea of slaying you with his sword.
I've literally just done this after triggering the second phae like three times. I've noticed late that after staying at the throne after maybe one or two deaths, the hero could literally deal no damage to me ^^'! At first i thought the lack of sword damage was because of the above, and that the bow damage was so small that i wasn't seeing it...
But after making an accidental dash, i realized i had truly become "Undying"! LOL
Thank you so much for giving this "strategy" tip, I wasn't good enough normally but I really wanted to play through that ending myself (and it was so worth it!)
I so so so enjoyed this. The visuals were stunning and the emotion was perfect. I really felt for these two even in just a short time. I wanted more of them! Honestly, you should be so proud of this project! It's a really inspiring piece. I particularly loved the detail of the Queen being gentler with the Hero's body after defeat. The reaction I had when she picked the Hero up!! I can't give you enough praise, seriously, this game gave me exactly what I wanted from this concept. Thank you!
It's great, after finishing the game once it seems scripted towards one possible outcome with the illusion of choice but the battles are just an excuse for this inspiring short story... Also the visuals are mind blowingly good.
10/10 short game. I especially like the little nuances of the visuals in the burning animation as it progresses, depending on what dialogue you choose, whether you are more curious or stay stoic
Honestly one of my new favorite games. I just learned about it earlier today, and I've already played it like... four times. I may yet do it more. Despite it's simplicity, there's just so many different things to find!
I loved this. Fantastic experience. I almost feel I let the hero down, by not defeating him after he promised me One More Time.
I loved the variety in the dialogue options, and how it truly let me feel like I was making choices that mattered, even as the final outcome was inevitable, while at the same time letting the characters have clearly defined personalities. More RPGs should strive for that.
Not the creator, but it seems to have been made in Godot (according to logs when running the game from the terminal). Which only makes me appreciate it more.
If you're used to unity, give it a try. Some people find the change pleasant and Godot's way of doing things more intuitive. Also, well, it's free and open source.
I very much enjoyed this, it has gripped me by the throat and forced me to edit it piece by piece in my own way, it is beautiful and i love this game. I too know what it is to only have one legacy.. my poems and when I lost them I felt like I lost myself. A loss that still hurts me to this day.. As a thing that cannot move on. :)
The dialogue between the Queen and the Hero was really interesting! I don't know how to put it into words, but it's very human and both opponents appear as likeable people, even though one is the Evil Queen of Status Quo and the other is a merciless embodiment of Entropy. Their verbal spat is fun and very detailed in showing the slow process of Hero's progress.
The artstyle is drop-dead gorgeous, pixel artwork that is minimalist without being simplistic. The design of the Queen's claws and hammer, the Hero's shadowy profile that just screams "I am coming to kill you", the fantastic Gothic stained glass...
It really sucks that the Queen couldn't change her ways and befriend the Hero. But I feet that's a major point of the game. A existential tragedy you can see, but cannot avoid. Would be nice for someone to write a fanfic with a happy ending though :(
Thank you so much for making this game and good luck in your future endeavours! :D
The way I headcanon it myself is that what the Queen and the Hero did get to have was a fully realised relationship, weird as it was and not meant to last. They saw each other for who they truly were and were irrevocably changed by their time together--for the better, one could argue (when death is viewed metaphorically). Not exactly a classical happy ending, or even one that shouldn't be mourned, but not entirely unkind either.
Such a beautiful way to put it! If viewed metaphorically, it is not as tragic and, perhaps, a bit more hopeful! Because if the Queen just dies there, her change in understanding had little meaning in the grand scheme of things. But if this is to be taken as, perhaps, a shortly-lived relationship, like one would have in real life, then her change would impact both herself and the world even after the end of her and Hero's relationship! This is what one would call "cope", but your canon accounts for it ;)
Oh no unfortunately you've encountered one of the currently known bugs I haven't been able to reproduce and fix myself. The Hero sometimes goes invulnerable after being hit once in phase 2, when they really should be killed. Thank you for making this video--now that I can see how it happens, it will help me fix it for the next update!
It is indeed a frustrating and rigged experience! Poor video game bosses.
Funnily enough the hit boxes do stay the exact same (unless you experienced a rare phase two invincible hero bug, which I've yet to figure out how to fix). The way it works is that the Hero is coded to dodge all attacks perfectly, but those dodge fuctions only have a random chance to run based on how many times the Hero has seen the attack and how far along the game is.
Prove it, release the debug build, lol. I think the mace smash sprite make it seem larger than it is and the early hero pattern makes him easy to hit thus giving the illusion that the inflicting damage area is larger in the beginning.
For real it was an amazing experience.
Surprisingly, I beat him without going into phase 2. I cheesed him by standing in place near the throne and spamming spell and mace, the spell forced him to move closer to me and the mace made him move away, if he ends up trapped between the spell and the mace it is guaranteed hit.
Luckily he was not programmed to spam arrow in retaliation, otherwise I would have been cooked.
Also, thanks to your game, I now have the boss perspective and I can see bosses as a sequence of patterns that can be easily dominated one by one. Thus I was able to defeat Lucine after 160+ deaths, 5+ hours over the span of 5+ months.
Phew, this is a lot, but it was a unique experience :)
Edit: Fixed the amount of hours. I read the game time wrong
Interestingly, I've had the hero dodge attacks after having never seen them before, just so long as the game has progressed far enough. Is that on purpose?
Potential oversight: In the scenarios where you refuse to fight and the hero walks away, it's possible to kill the hero as they're walking away. The game still behaves as if the hero simply walked away and did not die.
Honestly if you have any intention of adding more content to this game, it might be fun to turn this bug into a feature, teehee.
Dang, I thought I'd set the Hero invulnerable for that because I knew someone would try to get sneaky! So many bugs in these alternate scenarios--I did not test them thoroughly enough. Thanks for the report, I'll add it to the fix list.
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Another ending is when you dont attack at all. Hero goes back a few times because of boredom then comes back and kills you.
I defeated the Hero in the one more time phase, and then it got stuck on the choice between "There is yet fight in me" or "What happened?". Also the queen does not make a different animation with the Hero's corpse anymore, only snaps fingers (and before that, she did). I think I'm stuck. The hero gains damage by moving towards me. I don't do anything, he dies by contact. Must be a bug.
Super weird bug, I'll have to see if I can fix it. So this happened after killing the Hero during the dialogue that ends in "one more time"?
Yes!
By the way I reseted the game and replayed it and beat it as normal. I really liked it, it's not only fun but beautiful. ♥
Absolutely amazing game for the short 20 min time, reminds me of the premise of slay the princess
This was wonderfully well done, short and sweet with very good dialogue.
This 20-minute, single-room anti-game is maybe the best and most succinct encapsulation of the gameplay, appeal, and themes of the soulslike game genre. You play as the eponymous Dark Queen of Mortholme, reveling in the destruction of an upstart hero come to slay you and end your reign of terror. End their life by swinging a big fuckass mace, charging forward in blue flames, and/or summoning a pillar of purple energy (the evilest kind of energy) beneath their feet. But over time, the hero learns. And adapts. And gets better at dodging your attacks.
Then the dialogue begins. There's a whole world out there, beyond your throne room, and they get to experience it and grow and change. But you don't. You only have access to the same old stuff, the same old tricks. I would never call the Dark Queen an old dog, but, well...you know how the saying goes.
Anti-game is the perfect descriptor for this piece of art. It is, as far as I can tell, completely scripted, with no amount of skill or reactivity on the player's part able to change the inevitable outcome. And yet, I still found myself interested in the next part. What will the hero say on their next entrance? What more will I learn about the tragedy of power, the rot at the center of every Souls game? What new way will the hero learn to seemingly taunt me? (I may never know the same kind of frustration as me swinging my ludicrously large mace only for that little pixel fucker to be just out of reach.)
This game sounds like a shitpost (what is it like to experience Dark Souls from the boss' POV?), but it's so much more than that. It's a gorgeous little anti-game with stellar writing, and everyone should take 20 minutes out of their day to give it a try.
It is possible to 'win' in a sense. Stay in phase 1 enough times and never let him get to phase 2 and he gives up, leaving you to reign eternally alone.
How? The hero is almost unkillable past a certain point and dodges all attacks. Is there a way to cheese the fight?
It's possible, yes. I wrote that alternate ending scenario to cover for the likelihood that someone will figure out a cheese strat, so that player ingenuity could be accounted for in a way that still supports the main story. It ended up being found almost immediately after launch--I've watched enough speedrunners to see that one coming.
Oh and great writeup by the way! I enjoyed reading it
I found a cheesy method that works most of the time. Don't move away from the throne. Spam the magic circle when he is outside of melee range. Use a mace attack when the magic circle prevents him from safely getting away. This works because even though he could avoid the mace by groveling at your feet, he will never actively try to do that while you are at your throne. This means he will get hit by the magic circle or the mace depending on how fast he reacts. The reason it doesn't always work is that sometimes he'll move in such ways that the magic circle is created too close to you to allow him to consider closing the distance for a sword swing.
This is rather ironic because he talks about the glory of change and lost because he is too attached the the idea of slaying you with his sword.
I've literally just done this after triggering the second phae like three times.
I've noticed late that after staying at the throne after maybe one or two deaths, the hero could literally deal no damage to me ^^'!
At first i thought the lack of sword damage was because of the above, and that the bow damage was so small that i wasn't seeing it...
But after making an accidental dash, i realized i had truly become "Undying"! LOL
Thank you so much for giving this "strategy" tip, I wasn't good enough normally but I really wanted to play through that ending myself (and it was so worth it!)
Thank you so much for your work, I'm truly amaze. I hope we can see more of the queen in the future.
Android please!
yuri in my darksouls game? yes please
This was honestly beautiful to play through. Anyone reading this--I really recommend just diving in and playing through it blind.
Baller game
Honestly I really enjoyed this! now I wanna find similar games tbh
also, THIS GAME IS SUCH HIGH QUALITY OM LEGIT IS BEAUTIFUL
I so so so enjoyed this. The visuals were stunning and the emotion was perfect. I really felt for these two even in just a short time. I wanted more of them! Honestly, you should be so proud of this project! It's a really inspiring piece. I particularly loved the detail of the Queen being gentler with the Hero's body after defeat. The reaction I had when she picked the Hero up!! I can't give you enough praise, seriously, this game gave me exactly what I wanted from this concept. Thank you!
I was *exactly* high enough for his
It's great, after finishing the game once it seems scripted towards one possible outcome with the illusion of choice but the battles are just an excuse for this inspiring short story... Also the visuals are mind blowingly good.
wait why did she say that 😭😭
Is this real? If so how to get it
No, sorry, it’s an edit I made!
Not the ending we deserved, but the one we truly needed.
Super well polished! The animation on the queen is really impressive.
Is this made with the godot_dialogue_manager addon?
Yes! It's a good one
I blindly tried this game, and it's absolutely fun!!!
This is my new Roman Empire.
10/10 short game. I especially like the little nuances of the visuals in the burning animation as it progresses, depending on what dialogue you choose, whether you are more curious or stay stoic
Honestly one of my new favorite games. I just learned about it earlier today, and I've already played it like... four times. I may yet do it more. Despite it's simplicity, there's just so many different things to find!
This was a really fun experience, thanks for making and sharing all of this.
I'll have to consider hunting down a video later showing some of the alt scenarios, as I followed a pretty typical neutral path I feel.
This was wonderful! A great concept, with rad art, fantastic dialogue, and music all to make it hit home!
I loved this. Fantastic experience. I almost feel I let the hero down, by not defeating him after he promised me One More Time.
I loved the variety in the dialogue options, and how it truly let me feel like I was making choices that mattered, even as the final outcome was inevitable, while at the same time letting the characters have clearly defined personalities. More RPGs should strive for that.
an amazing game! i would gladly recommend this to any and all of my friends :) i loved it so much, i hope you continue to make more cool things!!
okay! managed to beat the hero using cheese strats! the dark queen reigns forever!
How did you do that?
so, i got to the dialogue where the queen says "one more time". but died there.
i have to ask is it possible to survive that one? because it seems nearly impossible to.
I don't think it is, at the end I was attacking the hero and hitting with the claws but they weren't taking damage anymore.
I I expected it to end well but it was still good.I was wondering which game engine did you use?
Not the creator, but it seems to have been made in Godot (according to logs when running the game from the terminal). Which only makes me appreciate it more.
Godot is the best
Oh PFP is outdated here oop
I haven't used Godot so I can't say it's the best.
This is something I wouldn't know since I don't use Godot, thanks :)
If you're used to unity, give it a try. Some people find the change pleasant and Godot's way of doing things more intuitive. Also, well, it's free and open source.
I very much enjoyed this, it has gripped me by the throat and forced me to edit it piece by piece in my own way, it is beautiful and i love this game. I too know what it is to only have one legacy.. my poems and when I lost them I felt like I lost myself. A loss that still hurts me to this day.. As a thing that cannot move on. :)
How can a game of 20 mins make me feel a sadness void in my chest? Amazing, dude. 10/10
Amazing game!
The dialogue between the Queen and the Hero was really interesting! I don't know how to put it into words, but it's very human and both opponents appear as likeable people, even though one is the Evil Queen of Status Quo and the other is a merciless embodiment of Entropy. Their verbal spat is fun and very detailed in showing the slow process of Hero's progress.
The artstyle is drop-dead gorgeous, pixel artwork that is minimalist without being simplistic. The design of the Queen's claws and hammer, the Hero's shadowy profile that just screams "I am coming to kill you", the fantastic Gothic stained glass...
It really sucks that the Queen couldn't change her ways and befriend the Hero. But I feet that's a major point of the game. A existential tragedy you can see, but cannot avoid. Would be nice for someone to write a fanfic with a happy ending though :(
Thank you so much for making this game and good luck in your future endeavours! :D
Thank you for the very thoughtful comment!
The way I headcanon it myself is that what the Queen and the Hero did get to have was a fully realised relationship, weird as it was and not meant to last. They saw each other for who they truly were and were irrevocably changed by their time together--for the better, one could argue (when death is viewed metaphorically). Not exactly a classical happy ending, or even one that shouldn't be mourned, but not entirely unkind either.
Such a beautiful way to put it! If viewed metaphorically, it is not as tragic and, perhaps, a bit more hopeful! Because if the Queen just dies there, her change in understanding had little meaning in the grand scheme of things. But if this is to be taken as, perhaps, a shortly-lived relationship, like one would have in real life, then her change would impact both herself and the world even after the end of her and Hero's relationship! This is what one would call "cope", but your canon accounts for it ;)
Really nice game! Loved the story but I swear the hero's cheating bro there's no way he didn't die
Oh no unfortunately you've encountered one of the currently known bugs I haven't been able to reproduce and fix myself. The Hero sometimes goes invulnerable after being hit once in phase 2, when they really should be killed. Thank you for making this video--now that I can see how it happens, it will help me fix it for the next update!
It has been fixed now, so thank you again!
easily one of the best games i've ever played
They didn't go on a picnic, I'm sad :(
My doomed love story...
That's what fanfics are for.
indeed
I did find one bug in one of the endings
The ending where you beat the hero I for some reason end up sitting in the sky
Amazing game, with a bit of frustrating and aggravating aspects that are not the strength of the hero.
[the image is a spoiler]
Still the game was rigged from the start and you can't convince me that the hitboxes and attack damage areas don't change.
And now if you'll excuse me, I am going to beat the sit out of Lucine, her defeat has been long overdue.
It is indeed a frustrating and rigged experience! Poor video game bosses.
Funnily enough the hit boxes do stay the exact same (unless you experienced a rare phase two invincible hero bug, which I've yet to figure out how to fix). The way it works is that the Hero is coded to dodge all attacks perfectly, but those dodge fuctions only have a random chance to run based on how many times the Hero has seen the attack and how far along the game is.
Prove it, release the debug build, lol.
I think the mace smash sprite make it seem larger than it is and the early hero pattern makes him easy to hit thus giving the illusion that the inflicting damage area is larger in the beginning.
For real it was an amazing experience.
Surprisingly, I beat him without going into phase 2. I cheesed him by standing in place near the throne and spamming spell and mace, the spell forced him to move closer to me and the mace made him move away, if he ends up trapped between the spell and the mace it is guaranteed hit.
Luckily he was not programmed to spam arrow in retaliation, otherwise I would have been cooked.
Also, thanks to your game, I now have the boss perspective and I can see bosses as a sequence of patterns that can be easily dominated one by one. Thus I was able to defeat Lucine after 160+ deaths, 5+ hours over the span of 5+ months.
Phew, this is a lot, but it was a unique experience :)
Edit: Fixed the amount of hours. I read the game time wrong
Mosu, feel free to delete this reply if you don't want mentions of other games on your page.
The name of the game where Lucine is from is infernae by Anuke.
Interestingly, I've had the hero dodge attacks after having never seen them before, just so long as the game has progressed far enough. Is that on purpose?
thank you! such a wonderful game
Took several tries but I got all three endings. Last one took several tries but I've defeated a Dark Souls Protagonist.
Lovely game! :3 The pixel art is beautiful.
Potential oversight: In the scenarios where you refuse to fight and the hero walks away, it's possible to kill the hero as they're walking away. The game still behaves as if the hero simply walked away and did not die.
Honestly if you have any intention of adding more content to this game, it might be fun to turn this bug into a feature, teehee.
Dang, I thought I'd set the Hero invulnerable for that because I knew someone would try to get sneaky! So many bugs in these alternate scenarios--I did not test them thoroughly enough. Thanks for the report, I'll add it to the fix list.
Glad to help :]