End of Winter

End of Winter is an action rpg made by Beregon with RPG Maker MZ for the Great Winter Game Jam 2020. Our protagonist is Ratibor, a skiller hunter and archer (that will return in a sequel, Under the Hunter's Moon) with a simple mission: kill Morana, the witch and goddess of winter!

This is a simple premise for a little action game consisting of few maps. Ratibor starts his adventure in a village where he can buy supplies, weapons and armors, and heal at the nearby holy statue. He starts with little money (of course!) so I suggest you to spend them all to buy the best bow and upgrade your weapon as soon as you can, because the aim (no pun intended!) of an archer is hit hard from distance and avoid being hit by feral beasts!

A well designed tutorial will explain how the game works: Move with arrow keys, interact with space/enter. Then you can draw the bow and fire arrows holding Q, and with W you can also strafe without changing direction. But enemies won't stand still, so E is useful if you need to run, but mind that this consume Stamina that is slowly regained with time.
Concerning Health, o recover it you need potions or the magic statue only available at the village.



The game consists in a couple of level/maps, the snowy forest and the ice caves. There are three kind of enemies: zombies, that are slow and weak but there is a huge number of them. Then the werewolves (that I call Amarok's Children... if you played Amarok's Howl you will know why!), that are stronger, faster and deadlier, and were the enemies I hated most! Finally there are the Black Knights that are quite slow but really tough and maybe quite deadly... I say maybe, because I was always able to avoid them! But I guess they are the strongest opponents.

Kill enough enemies and you will level up, improving the characteristics. But scattered around the maps you can also find loot and potions that will come handy during the adventure, even if the only worthwhile thing to buy is the powerful Dragon Bow, that will one-shot the werewolves and make short work of the rest of the enemies. I never needed potions or a better armor, since I played safely, keeping distance from the opponents or running away. Also there is no difference between bows except the damage, so just hold on until you can buy the best one and you are ready to complete the game!

Enemy respawn but after three/four waves of opponents the forest became safe. Ice caves is a bit harder place because of some narrow corridors, but you just have to find Morana and... get ready for what happen next because I will not tell you!



Final Verdict
This is a pretty good short game (I finished it in 15-18 minutes) and taking in account the short time it was made, this is not bad at all. Well polished and without bugs (for what I experienced), the only gripe may be the shortness and lack of more items or variety of weapons and opponents... even if from what I saw they are not needed at all. Maps are simple but well done and serviceable, the tutorial is perfect and well illustrate the system, even if its sequel (that I mentioned in the beginning) improved it! But this is still a pretty good prototype (I'd have liked to see a heath and stamina bar, and also more complex levels/maps but it is ok considering all) and I do not mind the short length: it is an arcade game so a longer experience may result boring without some additions (like more different weapons, monsters, traps etc). But this is not the case.

And I also liked the plot and ending. Simple,effective. What else? There is not much to say, and it is not easy making an action game with this kind of engine, given its limitations, so nice result, oh and it is also playable in browser.
Surely not your average game.