You’ve been captured by the enemy and thrown into a prison deep in the heart of an island. To reach the sea and escape, you must face 13 legions, each composed of 13 enemies. Enemies come in colors of red, yellow, and blue. In order to defeat them, you will need to use a sword with a matching color. Also, be mindful of the rocks falling from above. Choose one of the four paths you want to take, your choice will determine the difficulty of your journey.
\nIf needed, you can adjust the game’s window size using browser zoom.\nAlso, the game has some sounds, so make sure to adjust the volume.
\n","source":"alszczep/13legions-js13kgames-2024","stars":0,"comments":[{"at":378880830,"author":"Mark Vasilkov","login":"mvasilkov","gh":140257,"url":"https://mvasilkov.animuchan.net","twitter":"mvasilkov","text":"Such a cute little game! Nice attention to detail: the biomes are cool, main menu has the key bindings, I like how everything has names. The falling rocks is the right idea, forcing the player to move around.
\nUsing WebGL for this game is an interesting choice, didn’t expect that. Had a good chuckle when I saw the ThirteenElements type. :)
Two things that I think can be improved:
\nThe levels have high ground, but it’s not very useful. Maybe the enemies could jump to the platforms and then divebomb the player. Or the player character could have a ground slam attack, something like that. This would make each level’s layout have more impact on the gameplay.
\nTangentially related to the previous point: in a game about fighting, I feel like the fighting could be more varied, for both the player and the enemies. For example, let’s say the blue sword isn’t a sword anymore, but a blaster. And blue enemies don’t come close to you, but instead fire arrows from the corners, something like that.
\nThanks for the feedback! There could definitely be another enemy in the game, and I could probably squeeze out like 2 kilobytes for it (I had a lot of space left in the end and filled it with stuff like the logo in the main menu), but I ran out of time. In general, you are right in that the fighting could be more complex, the game can get boring quickly. When it comes to weapons, it was on purpose that there is only a sword (and the same enemy in three colors), I tried to save some space by having only one sprite instead of three, and applying the colors in the shader.
\n"},{"at":379032413,"author":"FoumartGames","login":"foumart","gh":3528138,"url":"https://www.foumartgames.com","twitter":"FoumartGames","text":"Fun beat’em up. At first I though I would suck with these three different sword attacks, but no, I even did a couple of perfectly cleared stages (would be nice to have some kind of bonus for that). I found that jumping on platforms don’t help if you are getting overwhelmed already.
\n","games":["Odyssey"]},{"typ":2,"at":379080858,"author":"Michelle Duke","login":"mishmanners","gh":36594527,"url":"mishmanners.info","twitter":"MishManners","text":"Interesting concept.
\nVery colourful! Sound effects are good - even made it left and right audio (directional audio) (but probably a bit too far). The game stalled at the end after I died, and the sound continued.
\nI like the idea of the different coloured swords, but the controls are super intuitive. Once I got the hang of using both hands on the keyboard was a lot more fun. Wasn’t clear that I had all three swords from the start - but this is awesome.
\nThe platforms didn’t really do much, I fact I could just stay on a platform whilst the enemies gathered below.
\nSome ideas to make this even cooler:
\nI liked that the rocks falling got faster for some levels - made it fun and challenging. The sword sounded more like a whip and really reminded me of Indiana Jones; which is def not a bad thing!
\nBackground colours might be a bit too much for some players; especially those with colour sensitivity. Overall, great game though. Found myself playing till the end. Add a little bit of game music and this could be the final touch (I know it might not have fit in the <13kB though!)
\n"},{"at":379404815,"author":"IroncladDev","login":"IroncladDev","gh":50180265,"url":"https://connerow.dev/","twitter":"IroncladDev","text":"Interesting concept with the different-colored enemies.
\nI found the platforms quite useless since enemies can’t jump.
\n","games":["Salvadoran Reclamation: MS-13"]},{"at":379639088,"author":"Jonathan Vallet","login":"jonathan-vallet","gh":5329099,"text":"interesting game, good idea to have weapon useful for every kind of enemy. platforms seems useless as enemies can’t jump
\n","games":["13 Steps to Escape"]},{"at":379744339,"author":"Michael M.","login":"Schnark","gh":17846729,"url":"https://schnark.github.io","text":"Unfortunately, I could not play the game: I have “search as you type” enabled in my browser, so when I try to attack the browser search suddenly shows up. You should call .preventDefault() on all keyboard events to prevent this.
Interesting game mechanic with the matching colors for swords and foes.
\nWhat a pitty, that the enemies can not jump on the platforms, and that they are not affected by the fallig rocks. Would be cool, if the player could use the pushback to use the rocks for additional damage.
\nDifferent behaviours of the enemies also would add much to the gameplay. Currenty they are all the same: just moving towards the player and eventually hit with their sword.
\nIf the player would start with only one sword and the different colors would be added in later levels, that would automagically create a story in the game. :-)
\nHowever: solid game entry!
\n","games":["Aargh! Triskaideka attacks!"]},{"typ":2,"at":379816342,"author":"Richard Davey","login":"photonstorm","gh":164476,"url":"www.photonstorm.com","twitter":"photonstorm","text":"I have to admit, I ended up playing this for far longer than I expected :) In this game you control a little sword wielding player who can dash left and right and swipe his sword. 13 baddies rush at you, in one of 3 different colors. Hit them a few times with the right colored sword (use JKL to change your sword color) and they’ll die. Survive 13 levels of this and I assume you win the game (I only made it to level 5). I liked that the levels had variety - they changed color, the attack waves felt different, the hits required to kill them felt different. Some levels have rocks falling from above that you should avoid, although for some reason the baddies are impervious to them. The graphics and sound are basic, but work and are kind of charming in a retro way. The only thing I couldn’t quite understand was why the levels had platforms you could jump onto. The baddies don’t follow you up there, so all you do is run around above them while they carry on spawning in until all 13 of them are going crazy down below. Perhaps you need to use it on later levels? But I didn’t in the first 5 I played. Overall, I enjoyed my time with this little swash-buckler.
\n"},{"at":379837905,"author":"Ryan Tyler","login":"tyler6699","gh":50468,"url":"https://carelesslabs.co.uk","text":"Clever idea, if the knockback was more would create some room to hit one and then the other.
\nSome powerups would be great, maybe a rainbow sword.
\nNice graphics, simple and fun!
\n","games":["The Fear Factory"]},{"typ":2,"at":380273420,"author":"Victor Debone","login":"debone","gh":763457,"url":"https://javascri.pl/","twitter":"javascripl","text":"Hello! Thanks for your submission to js13k!\nI’m sure you’ve worked hard on your game, but I’m not aware of how much time you spent on it, so excuse me if things I mention were in your mind, but got left out in the rush of the month or just because you hit the 13kb limit :)
\nSimple katana-switching game that with a bit of effects and juice it can be pretty fun.
\nI managed to the get to 8th I think and the enemy just stack on top of each other, making it hard to know which sword to use and being hit becomes unavoidable. Having the enemies collide with each other would be a good choice.
\nAlso the jump is too sharp. I would like some on-air time so that the character is really jumping.
\nLooking forward to more gimmicks in the post-compo
\n","games":["Wands of Triskaidekai"]},{"typ":2,"at":380378185,"author":"Matt Hackett","login":"richtaur","gh":24601,"url":"https://valadria.com","twitter":"richtaur","text":"A cool little slasher that reminds me of classic Atari games.
\nI get that the theme was integrated with the counts of legions and enemies, but I wish the theme was involved with the core mechanic of the game (the color-switching/attacking) in some way.
\nA very playable game with lots of charm. Well done!
\n"},{"at":380416692,"author":"Jasper Renow-Clarke","login":"picosonic","gh":26137750,"twitter":"femtosonic","text":"The game was fun and played well. Needing to remember which colour sword was which button was fun.
\nI liked how the attack sound effect moved from left to right depending on which way you were facing.
\nLuckily I was able to avoid the falling rocks, so never found out what happened. Although the enemies seemed immune ?
\nThe animation of fighting was good, maybe it would be good if the enemies also had an animation when the swung their swords?
\nAlso it would be good if the enemies chased you onto the platforms.
\n","games":["rollermaze"]},{"at":380418843,"author":"Mohammad Jawad","login":"mhmdjawad","gh":22205462,"url":"https://pdemia.com/","text":"good work on submitting the game in the challenge keep it up.\nscroll screen distrubt seeing everything in canvas
\n","games":["The 13 Invaders","Cookie Maze 3d","Maze Runner vs 13","Tower Defence Walking 13s"]}],"results":{"theme":{"rank":125,"min":1,"score":2.05,"max":4.2},"innovation":{"rank":115,"min":1,"score":2.45,"max":4.47},"gameplay":{"rank":120,"min":1,"score":2.4,"max":4.29},"graphics":{"rank":153,"min":1,"score":2,"max":4.76},"audio":{"rank":108,"min":1,"score":2.2,"max":4.34},"controls":{"rank":134,"min":1,"score":2.4,"max":4.24},"primary":{"rank":135,"min":6,"score":13.5,"max":24.47},"label":"Overall"}}