FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD40 → Greedy Dungeon

Greedy Dungeon

By daul, Jamorr and videojames

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall1683.8664
Fun1903.7462
Innovation7902.9261
Theme8653.0263
Graphics1504.2363
Audio1333.8263
Humor4283.2160
Mood2783.6361

Comments

jani-nykanen 2017-12-04 12:46

Graphics are wonderful and the game idea is good, but the controls... it felt like I had no control over where the character attacks with the sword, and that made fighting very hard.

sbarrio 2017-12-04 12:57

Graphics are really good and everything feels really polished. My only problem came with the sword attack, is really difficult to hit what I want. Maybe having a simple 4 direction attack would have been better.

I liked how you can destroy crates, barrels and chairs. Nice little detail :)

sempiternal 2017-12-04 13:04

Gameplay-wise this must be one of the most fun and polished games I've played so far! Good job!

gastricsparrow 2017-12-04 13:10

Plays super smooth. Don't know about the theme... Maybe you could make the connection between money and enemies clearer. Still great job.

andreadbx 2017-12-04 13:15

The Graphics and overall Mood are amazing! The gameplay, i see the control scheme kinda lacking, the fact that you can only direct the attack torwards the direction you are walking is disappointing, good work anyway ;)

odrez 2017-12-04 13:59

This is a fantastic Isaac-like that is fun to play and interesting for a LD entry. I can't give much credit for theme use though as its use isn't very apparent in the gameplay. The procedural dungeons always feel the same in terms of difficulty, regardless of number of coins collected. The fighting could also use more tweaking as hitting enemies is not as reliable as it should be and the enemies are returning their punches too frequently and with too big hits to the players health. All in all, a great entry but it could use some tweaking to make it fun to play.

elzach 2017-12-04 14:00

Nice Graphics and stellar animations.

I dig the design of the enemies especially, but being unable to control the direction of the hit makes this really hard to play and kinda unenjoyable -> also I dont really get how to remove infront of the chest? I WANT THAT SWEET LOOT G'DAMMIT

thomas-molby 2017-12-04 16:40

Especially love the sound design, The reverbed+bitcrushed soundeffects fit the moody slow music perfectly I think

daul 2017-12-04 16:59

Thanks for the critiques and comments everyone! It's great to get a fresh perspective, especially on the controls for which we've probably accepted due to having played it so many times and being used to how it works. Looking back at it now, I can see how it can be a little unintuitive. This is definitely something we'll be looking to resolve in the future as we continue this game outside of the Jam. :)

willisika 2017-12-05 02:40

I love the mood of the game. The artstyle is quite cool and the sounds are great! The aiming mechanics are a bit tricky though. Overall a nice experience.

srabatata 2017-12-05 06:05

really liked the sound effects, the graphics are very good and it has great immersion! I had a lot of fun, congrats!

potti 2017-12-05 15:00

The controls are really snappy and feel responsive. The combat is interesting. Nice one.

victor-sette 2017-12-05 20:07

The graphics are amazing and I had fun just strolling around. But the controls are kinda... like I have no control under the area of attack. And it's too many enemies with enormous swords. Duels I can handle, but with many enemies and open areas get really hard. I suppose it's supposed to be that way, but I feel that areas of nothing but treasures, stuff to break or just nothing would help to think and move better. But overall, pretty great feat.

cklidify 2017-12-05 20:11

Graphics are good, audio is nice, and the game feels really polished, however the game is very difficult in that you can't avoid taking damage from enemies while fighting them because you need to walk in their direction to attack in that direction. It felt like I had very little control of where I wanted to attack no matter how hard I tried.

unlikelynomad 2017-12-06 04:54

love the graphics, animation, and sound! Also... nekkid dwarf swordsman!

manbeardgames 2017-12-06 14:50

Overall, the game feels well done and polished. Graphics and audio were great, and for the most part, the controls were comfortable to use. One minor thing about the controls, and I mentioned it during the stream, would be to maybe let the player stay in place while holding down right-trigger to attack, or not stay in place, but maybe keep facing in the direction they were. Kind of like going into a strafing movement if you hold down right-trigger.

The glove felt really rewarding to use, the range on it and how powerful it felt were great. Also, who doesn't love being able to pick up chairs and thrown them at your enemies. On the opposite end of that, the sword felt a little underwhelming after getting it. The range seemed to be less than the gloves, and didn't feel stronger to use.

I really look forward to what this will become. Please keep working on this and release it.

2017-12-06 15:24

oh congratulation! Nice art! Can I follow it also on indiexpo? Do you have also a page there? This looks great! I looked for the games that used the #LDJAM but I don't find yours. So good luck!! I will hope to make a video about it!

daul 2017-12-06 17:39

@ManBeardGames Thanks so much for the in-depth review and your stream of the game last night. We'll definitely be improving and expanding on our game moving forward, and hope to have even more fun and unique features for gameplay.

Here is what our current roadmap looks like for our next version, in no particular order of priority:

* Improved control scheme for Game Pad and Desktop. * Linux and Mobile support. * Updated Level Generation and Layout. * Weapon and enemy rebalancing. * Boss fights. * Additional props / graphics to fill out the rooms. * Additional dungeon levels, as well as unique level palettes for lower levels of the dungeon. * Local Co-op. * Additional enemies and treasures.

We're looking forward to the changes we'll be making in the future and hope that these will improve the game immensely.

Thanks for playing!

videojames 2017-12-06 19:51

@roy87 Hey thank you! I'm not familiar with Indiexpo, but I'll look into it :)

georgebgreen 2017-12-06 20:42

This is cool! The collision on the enemy swords felt a little weird at times, maybe that's just me though. The audio was well one too, albeit it could use a look at the volume on some of the sounds. The visuals were also very nice! Great job, this one has potential to take it further!

videojames 2017-12-06 20:47

@georgebgreen Thanks dude, totally agree with all your critiques. Thanks for playing :)

weizengaming 2017-12-06 20:57

It took me a while to get used to the controlls and hitting always in direction as I'm walking, but at least with controller it was really smooth after getting used to it. I'm looking forward to see the improvements and extensions you stated in your comment.

videojames 2017-12-06 21:08

@weizengaming much appreciated, thank you for your feedback!

akusan 2017-12-06 23:03

I love zelda like games and this one is no exception. The art style looks cool too. The sound effects is hit or miss, there are cool ones that male the player sound really strong and there are weird ones. But great entry, great job on your game and thanks for sharing !

weeping-rupee 2017-12-06 23:16

That gauntlet man, really fun to use. Are there any other items in the chest? I got the gauntlet three times.

Pros: I love the look. First decent rogue like I've personally seen in an LD. The character design on the wizard guy was great-- that staff with the laurels on it.

Cons: The baddies are a little damage spongey-- this would have been fine actually had the gauntlet done more damage b/c my experience was this:

"Aw man this sword is not doin it its not really worth it to fight these guys I'm just gonna run like hell" "OH SHIT lookit the animation this gauntlet, its gonna fuck em up" "AH! I fucked em up!" "Oh wait no i just knocked em far back, here they come again"

Bugs (I wont hold these against you considering the procedural generation buuuut for your edification)

-I started in a door-less room my first run

-the first chest I found was blocked by a rock door the the baddies pushed in a way that I was unable to get to the chest. Thinking back maybe i needed the gauntlet to break this wall? At the time I thought it was a bug.

-Enemy drops sometimes get stuck in walls.

Nice work!

videojames 2017-12-06 23:23

@akusan thank you for the feedback my friend, and you're very correct we need to work on some sound levels!

@weeping-rupee thank you for your detailed feedback and compliments! We definitely agree with your critiques and are going to keep working on the game and will fix those things. As far as the blocked loot, you need to use the gauntlet alt fire to pick up the rock and move it, but you should definitely be able to smash it too. Thanks for playing!

daul 2017-12-06 23:26

@weeping-rupee

Thank you for taking a look at our game, and reporting those bugs!

The door-less room issue will hopefully be resolved in our next build, as we plan on reworking the level generation system so that it is more consistent.

The first chest being blocked by the rock wall is actually intended. You are able to lift the rock out of the way with the gauntlet, however I agree this can be confusing, and the enemies shouldn't be able to move it out of the way.

Thanks for your feedback!

turbulentwinds 2017-12-07 00:23

I am going to be harsh in my feedback. Because I love this thing. One of the very few games I have played for much longer than I needed to in order to rate them. Only about 2-3 other games of the over 50 I have played are this good. That being said, there are a lot of issues.

The biggest problem is the attacking. It is difficult to strike where I want and the combat does not have much depth. I find it much easier to avoid fights than to engage. To fix this:

A. I would love a parry/block system. B. Faster player attack. C. Lower enemy count with slower attacks (there needs to be a buildup in the animation and sound to alert the player that the enemy is attacking so they can parry or dodge, Dark Souls is a great example game to play and analyze for this)

Secondly, there needs to be more content.

A. Enemy variety is a must B. More weapons C. More health items (that you can save for later)

Third, I want a shop system so bad. It would be great if you collect a ton of gold and bring it back to the wizard dude to get upgrades, health, weapons ect. Also, the gold needs to have a bigger impact on gameplay (the slowdown needs to be more noticeable).

Finally, there is no incentive to fight enemies. I just run by them as I am punished for fighting (on that note wider doors would be good, I got stuck sometimes, slowing me down and causing me to die). You need to add a weapon drop or something to make fighting a good deal.

This was one of my favorites so far and has a ton of potential!

daul 2017-12-07 01:43

@turbulentwinds

Thanks so much for the feedback, it is very valuable for us to gauge the important issues that need to be resolved for our next version. I'm happy to hear that you enjoyed the game, and hope you'll come back in the future to check out the changes we've done to make it better!

turbulentwinds 2017-12-07 02:10

@daul I will definitely be coming back to this one! I already have it bookmarked (I got Biology tomorrow so I need something to do :D)!

solluxx 2017-12-07 02:31

Took a bit of time to get used to the sword controls, and the wall collision might need a look. The graphics and sound work are great and it is a great little game overall, I'm a sucker for zelda-likes. Great job!

wheffle 2017-12-07 07:59

I'm a sucker for dungeon games so I really enjoyed this. I wasn't able to get very far though. I got the gauntlet a few times, but the combat is really unforgiving. It was a little much that the enemies anticipated your location, had a lot of range, and attacked so quickly. Also the player's sword is really skinny, resulting in some frustrating misses.

The controls were good, but it sometimes felt clunky when you were trying to move and attack at the same time. It felt like NES Zelda but without the top-down view to help the player know which direction the sword will go. Not too bad though.

But the art and animation was spot-on. The music was great dungeon background music, and the audio was really good! The player's attack and pain grunts were perfect. Overall it was really well-polished, which is something to be said in itself for a jam game! Great job guys!

lucas-ferrantelli 2017-12-07 19:53

WOW nice game dudes ! Great graphics

videojames 2017-12-08 02:27

@solluxx @wheffle thank you both for playing and for your feedback!

almost 2017-12-08 07:19

Stab Stab Stab Stab Stab Stab!

almost 2017-12-08 07:20

It felt a bit weird that I had to move in order to aim my sword. I would have liked to be able to use WASD to move and IJKL to aim the attack. Enemies following you from screen to screen also felt weird.

jhandsy 2017-12-08 07:31

Really well done! I'm sure its been said before, but I think the biggest problem is the fact that the attack goes in the direction of the characters momentum, rather than based on which direction the player pressed. The art is beautiful, the audio was awesome, and the game has tons of polish!

antti-haavikko 2017-12-08 14:16

Very nice!

PS4 controller worked perfectly. Did you use some plugin or something for the controller? Usually the button mappings are all over the place on different controllers with Unity's default Input Manager (or at least they were in the past). The control mechanic was spot on with controller, but as seen from the other comments, it seems to not be the case with the keyboard. The aiming took some time getting used to but it was really very accurate and intuitive after getting the hang of it.

Don't really know what the deal with the money was. Didn't notice any changes even though I always gathered all of em.

Dunno if it was only me but the glove felt worse than the starting sword. Didn't really find any use for the carry mechanic either (expect for the blocked chest obviously). And because of that, on my winning run (I think) I cleared the whole level before grabbing it. And then I didn't really get to use the big sword at all. Was that really the end. I did scour the whole level again and actually did find one more enemy but nothing else. And fighting with the big sword felt like more of the same. It seemed like the hitbox of the sword was still the same as that of the poke of the starting sword even though the animation promised a bigger hit area. Not quite sure of this though since I only got to fight one enemy with it but it did seem I was missing quite a few times even though the animation looked like a hit. So did I miss something or was that really the "end"? Kinda anticlimactic if it was...

The enemy AI could use a bit more love. They were super dumb and very easily exploitable. They were pretty much only dangerous if you tried to go for a swing while they were spawning in (learned that lesson quite quick) or if you somehow managed to get surrounded.

It was kinda easy to get stuck to the walls sometimes while walking next to them. Might be an issue with how the colliders are setup. Also there are some z-ordering issues but obviously these are very minor and don't affect the gameplay or even the look at all. greedydungeon.gif

Overall, awesome job! Enjoyed the game very much and in the end still felt like I'd want more content.

daul 2017-12-08 18:14

@antti-haavikko

Thank you for your review and feedback! We're hard at work on the bugs you mentioned, as well as some other things that should really improve the fun and feel of the game. Hope to see you again when we have an updated version.

Thanks for playing!

jasperarmstrong 2017-12-08 23:06

Very cool little game! The art was great, the sounds were decent, and the game played well. Also it appeared to be procedurally generated, which is cool. I'm not sure if there was some end goal, or if it was just to get as much gold as possible. Overall great job!

vlandemart 2017-12-09 19:25

Idea is cool, but realization of it lacks polishing.

First of all - you should've made attacks facing cursor direction, not character's. Secondly - hitting through the walls is not cool, you should add a raycast to check if you are not hitting a wall.

daul 2017-12-09 20:19

@vlandemart @antii-haavikko @jhandsy @almost @wheffle @solluxx @turbulentwinds @weeping-rupee @weizengaming @georgebgreen @ManBeardGames @cklidify @victor-sette @potti @willisika @elzach @odrez @andreadbx @sbarrio @jani-nykanen

Thank you everyone for your feedback regarding the controls and other issues!

Please check out the POST-JAM links on this page to see an updated version with the following features/changes.

Version 2: - Added AI Pathfinding BETA - Reworked Controls and Added Crosshair for Aiming - Updated Level Generation System - Updated Sound System

Please let me know how you think the controls feel for this version.

Thanks again for the feedback!

EDIT: If you don't see any changes (for example if you move your cursor and don't see a crosshair), you may need to clear your cache.

manbeardgames 2017-12-09 20:46

@daul

* Adding the crosshair was welcoming, especially for controller. I felt better in control of the swings knowing where I was placing them with it there. If you wanted to go along with my previous suggestion, you could make it so that the player is always facing the left/right direction of the crosshair.

* One thing about the AI, when I'm in a room with enemies, and I move to another room, say to the left, sometimes the enemies will follow me into the room I goto and get stuck on the wall like this greedyDungeonWallEnemyStuck.png

* Also, to go along with that, they seem to follow left and right through rooms, but sometimes they weren't following me up and down through rooms. They wouldn't be blocked by a wall, but they would stop just before the threshold. This caused me to get hit some when backtracking since I didn't know the enemy was there until I went into the next room going up and they would hit me.

daul 2017-12-09 21:10

Thanks @ManBeardGames for testing it out!

I agree there is definitely more work that needs to be done with the pathfinding and sections of walls where players and AI get stuck. We'll keep all of these suggestions in mind for our next update!

nahual 2017-12-10 01:26

Voices are so cute :) Love how the game feels

marc-grabow 2017-12-10 01:51

Nice style, smooth transitions, cute graphics, fantastic game! As mentioned a few times before, the "attack in the direction you're looking" might not be the best way to go but apart from that I think you have a very good start for a "full" game here! Keep it up guys!

antti-haavikko 2017-12-10 09:34

Another thing I forgot to mention, the health bar look doesn't fit the rest of the game at all. And it doesn't read very well because the lack of indication of what is full health. I'd also switch the health bar and coin count positions.

gruhh 2017-12-10 11:58

Good game! I liked the mechanics of attack, it works with the proposal of the game without needing something more complex. And it had a detail that caught my attention, the enemies are permanent between the rooms, and this indicates the possibility of escalating the difficulty in a dynamic way. Some details that I think could be thought of for a new version:

- Enemies could have a region that the player would need to enter in order for them to attack, they could also have a little more "anticipation" before attacking and having a small randomization so that the attacks did not all come at once - More visual feedback in the attacks, to demonstrate more strength

Congratulations on the project.

---

Bom jogo! Gostei da mecânica de ataque, ela funciona com a proposta do jogo sem precisar de algo mais complexo. E teve um detalhe que me chamou atenção, os inimigos são permanentes entre as salas, e isso indica a possibilidade de escalar a dificuldade de uma forma dinâmica. Alguns detalhes que acho que poderiam ser pensados para uma versão nova:

- Os inimigos poderiam ter uma região que o jogador precisaria entrar para que eles atacassem, também poderiam ter um pouco mais de "antecipação" antes de atacarem e ter uma pequena randomização para que os ataques não viessem todos de uma vez - Mais feedback visual nos ataques, para demonstrar mais força

Parabéns pelo projeto. :flag_br:

neowhoru 2017-12-11 21:57

cool game - the controls are a little bit hard in the beginning. But i finished up the dungeon so its pretty cool. Love the art style.

littlelegend 2017-12-11 21:58

Wow cool game and a hard one :O After the gauntlet I died everytime... You guys did a great job with this :) I dint really get the deal with the gold... why is it the more you havem the worse it gets? Controls on keyboard a bit of, but other than that a great game :) If you are interested here is my entry: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/piggybank-farmer-tycoon I would love to get some feedback on it <3

videojames 2017-12-11 22:03

@neowhoru Thank you for playing and for your feedback! We'll be continually tweaking and improving the controls until they're completely solid :D

@littlelegend Thank you as well for playing and for your feedback, currently the gold system doesn't work as well it will soon, we have a whole difficulty scaling system planned. Your game looks cool, I promise I'll check it out and leave you some feedback tonight when I'm home from work!

mightymarcus 2017-12-11 22:08

The fighting is really well made. I like it, that the enemies are following into other rooms. The graphics and the sound are nice. The random generated rooms too. The AI is a little bad (like my english). I hid behind a chest and three guys were to silly to just walk around. :) But it is a really well made game. One of the best I played here.

videojames 2017-12-11 22:22

@mightmarcus Haha I'm sure our AI is worse than your English, it seems pretty good to me! Thank you for playing, you're very kind :D

illabom 2017-12-12 01:25

Very nice game you have here. WELL DONE MY SON Come check out my game if you like! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/virus-detected

deathray 2017-12-12 02:43

Nice graphics and sound, but I did not grasp the attacking so was dead very quickly. :sad:

blakemcdeezy 2017-12-12 12:09

Fun game! I loved picking up the gauntlet! The nude knight made me laugh. I found the controls tricky, which made staying alive super tricky as well. I would run around, avoiding conflict, and hope enemies would get stuck to walls. Al in all, cool game! Great, pixelly goodness!