mark-kennedy 2017-12-04 06:13
Very neat! I liked the main menu art, and the music was well-put together!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD40 → Sunken
By tay
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 182 | 3.65 | 97 | |
| Fun | 285 | 3.41 | 97 | |
| Innovation | 361 | 3.10 | 97 | |
| Theme | 459 | 3.14 | 96 | |
| Graphics | 107 | 3.92 | 98 | |
| Audio | 215 | 3.27 | 95 | |
| Humor | 434 | 2.31 | 79 | |
| Mood | 101 | 3.62 | 91 |
Very neat! I liked the main menu art, and the music was well-put together!
It was quite hard to figure out who the player is, without moving. Also double tapping key to move feels quite weird. Overall.. fun little game
Good graphics. I found it a bit anoying to have to double tap the directions. And almost never had to fight an enemy.
Very much enjoyed this and loved the art.
Interesting mechanics! The player experience can potentially be improved by graphically showing information, like visible water flooding in the dungeon, or the increased time that is taken for you to move due to heavy gold.
Agreeing with those above me, the art is nice. Other than the double tap which has already been mentioned, I'm a fan.
@AkirAssasin the boot on the right represent the amount of time you get per floor before the flooding, each time you pick up gold it drops by 1. Also thanks for all the comment so far, I know the game can be a bit hard to understand player wise. ^^''
I like this game alot! A simple game with good graphics, the player is a bit hard to discern from the rest of the game. I agree with the fact that the double tapping can get annoying. The music is nice and adds to the mood of the game.
Finally, this is a neat game and gave me some enjoyment while playing it!
I really liked this game!
Fun Concept :) One Question:Why do I sometimes die upon entering a Ladder?
Not a fan of the double tap either, but that's something for you to change in the future, Great Job for now! :-)
Really nice pixel art, and great atmosphere. Main complaint: the levels often put you into situations where you need to fight your way through an impossible to defeat set of enemies to get to the ladder.
This is one of my favorites of ld40 - really like the simplicity, art and mood. Great job!
Once I figured out who the player was, and how to move, it was quite a fun game. Ended up dying because an exit was blocked by an enemy and I had 1 HP left.
The pixel art in this one is gorgeous. I didn't understand why I have to click twice to move, I thought it was because you change your facing direction to make an action. But I didn't understand how to make action either, if you can.
@xacur you can't do actions in the game, you just have to run into objects and the actions do themselves (attack,eat,loot...) Also to everyone, the double tap thing was a try to create a sense of "hurry" to the player, so you guys smash your keyboards ^^'' Guess I'll remove that :3
Wow this is a great submission! You've got great mechanics working with enemies, chests, and coins. I think I'd love to see the enemies move on their instead of standing still. I got up to 900 or so coins by mostly avoiding enemies and collecting chests :). I did find it particularly funny when an enemy was trapped in a corner with mountains surrounding them :p
Took me a bit to figure out who I was and how to move. Had a good time once I figured that out. I kept dying for reasons I couldn't discern. Maybe it flooded and I didn't notice. Well done sprites and sound. Well done overall!
@nammflow Yeah I wanted to implement enemy movement so they could go around and maybe attack you sometimes, but that was a whole other can of worms and I decided to cut it for now. I'll totally continue working on this and add it though! :)
Fun little rougelike! As I'm sure people have said before me, it would be nice if enemies moved. Also, some rooms have inaccessible parts.
Other than that, fantastic game
Fun Rougelike puzzle game with the stationary enemies less of a threat but more of a calculated risk, one of the best so far
Very fun game! I really like that roguelike style!
Intereseting roguelike game, I love the art style and the music. I have to say though that I felt like the path was pretty straightforward most of the time and I also had a hard time diffirentiating between exits and chests. But overall a good game, that I did enjoy quite a bit.
I like the general style, and am fine with the stats being something you "figure out", but didn't like that my choices didn't really seem to matter -- killing enemies or not was my choice unless the map randomly decided it wasn't and chests were random therefore whether I lived or not wasn't my choice. Art and atmosphere was good though.
interesting game, one playthrough i did nothing but avoid everything and got farther then the times i tried to get things and kill everything on stage. not sure if that was inteded gameplay.
Nice art! I wish I didn't need to double tap to move, it made the experience feel sluggish. Otherwise the game is very playable and works well.
Loved the art, very cool game!
I really liked this game! Really liked the concept and the art. The only complains is that its very hard to figure out what's happening (sometimes I lose life, sometimes enemies aren't taking enough damage, etc.), which makes it hard to make educated decisions. Some sound effects were a bit annoying as well.
Good artwork especially the UI! I wish the enemies would chase you but i guess the maps are too small for that :) I liked this mini-rougelike! Thank you for sharing it with us!
This is pretty cool and impressive, I'd be interested in a post-jam version! A few small things: - Having to double-tap to move was annoying. I know a single tap lets you change the direction you're facing, but that's only relevant horizontally and didn't seem to matter anyway since enemies don't automatically attack if you're adjacent. - The flood timer wasn't very obvious, the first few times I died I didn't understand why. Including in the death message what killed you (e.g. Spelunky) would help a lot. It would also be super cool if the dungeon visibly flooded so I had a visual indicator of my timer within the play area, I don't have to look away at UI. - If the dungeon is flooding, why am I climbing down to escape? ;)
I like the way of battle the next cell, but the double tap to move is kind annoying.
Love it! Really like the art. Dungeon exploring was fun. I was amused by the fact that Charisma was not a useless stat =). My high score was 528 (although I might play it a couple more times). As others mentioned, double-tapping to move was rather annoying.
Getting feedback when I open a chest would be great, I never notice what stats change, until later I'm like "why do I only have 4 max health?". Similarly some kind of feedback on damage dealt/received would feel really good.
Great job!
Played it one more time, got over 700 points =). Only now did I realize the "time until flooding" was real time, not steps! I assumed it was number of steps I could take, perhaps because of the icon. I'm not sure what I think about that, but it definitely could be clearer (change the text to "seconds until flooding"?), as something realtime is relatively unexpected in a rogue-like.
the double tap is a bit annoying but the sound and art are very cool. Got over 400points :D Congrats!
Nice! Agree with everyone else about the double tap, its a bit annoying, but apart from that I thought the game was cool. Love the dungeon-type style.
The turn-based gameplay is really nice, definitely a neat take on the roguelite genre. Everything is simple and self-explanatory. The game is very enjoyable aside from the double-tapping. Art is lovely, and the music is a bit repetitive but fits the game quite well. Nicely done!
Nice game, liked the art style and color choices. The double tap did not really annoy me, found it fun to play for a while! The only thing that annoyed me were the sets of enemies that spawned in a way that I couldnt pass them without dying.
Really fun and addicting game play. A little confused on how I died on level 4 or 5 with 4 health and 12 time left before flooding.
"double tapping key to move feels quite weird" +1
Impressive art and I like the idea, but most of my critiques have been said about not knowing where the player is when you start. Maybe add a down arrow or something pointing at the player. Either way, I still dug it and played several rounds =) Good job!
Nice entry, though I do agree with most of the criticisms laid out in the comments already: there's far too much RNG for it to feel like your choices as a player are making much of a difference; the double-tap to move seemed unnecessary; travelling up instead of down would have been more consistent with the premise.
If a few of these issues were addressed, I think this would be a lot more compelling as a roguelike. The RNG issue is especially holding it back: giving the player more agency would go a long way (the only real "tactic" I came up with was to take advantage of floors with meat to get s kill in then heal immediately after).
Erm, the idea is not bad but I had some problems with execution: - Controls feels weird as mentioned. How did you ever came up with idea of double-tapping directional button, I wonder? - Everything looks too much alike and too close in color. You can't distinguish monster from the gold coins at the first glance. - The mc sprite also doesn't stand out at all! When I first started the game it took me several minutes to even understand that there is a controlled character on the map. At first I thought that this is some sort of puzzle game and tried to click things around(since moving with keys didn't worked - why did you do double-tapping again? I am really interested why did you do it btw.) And afer every descend you should spend some time to find your character on the map. That's bad.
Cool idea, but I too find the controls a little bit weird and lost a few seconds every turn to find my char, but this is something that you can get use to it. The main problem, in my opinion, was dying and not knowing why. Every run I did, I just died. The art is gorgeous (just stand out the char).
Excellent work! Congrats! Decent balancing too
@sun-wukong okay so to address the idea behind the double tapping. It has nothing to do, with changing the direction your facing first then moving like some people mentioned. The whole point of it was to have people have a sentiment of hurry. Here's what I thought : let's say you've been playing the game for a little while to a point where you get around 5-6 seconds to get to the ladder. The ladder is on the other side of the room, and there's 2 monster you got to kill before getting there. Thus the player would have to hurry and press around 12-14 times in these 5 seconds to finish the level in time. In a short resume that's why there's double tapping to move, to have the player tell himself "Omg I need to hurry if I don't want to drown here!" Also I thought I'd try something different :3
Pretty nice ! The sound, graphics, and the need to rush create a pretty cool mood :) However, if you don't need those arrow keys, please implement them: it was pretty hard to play from an AZERTY keyboard :,) But overrall very good job, and solid RNG !
Awesome game, great art and game play! Great Job!
Very stylish game with good, approachable puzzle-y gameplay. While the game was well balanced, I wish there was a tiny bit more depth and choice involved with the tactics.
Good effort. Some visual clarity aside, the concept is good and simple, and some more balancing to prevent 1 monster from being an instakill would give it more strategic value. Well done.
great mood and style.
Fun little spin on the roguelike genre
Nice little game. :)
I liked the flooding mechanic so you couldn't stay around too long. I did find it very hard on my hand having to double-tap to move. A single tap would've been enough. Good job :)
I died to a stealth flooding, didn't even notice it. Great game though, I support the decision to move by double tapping - everything felt more pressing and urgent as a result.
Quite fun! The double-tap WASD controls threw me off for a while.
Overall it's a very well executed game. Music, sounds and graphics are great. Gameplaywise it's a bit monotonous, but that's understandable for a game made in such a short time. My only real complain is that it's hard to keep an eye on a flood level.
I would have like for the theme to have tied in a bit more. Money weighing you down is definitely done in a lot of these games and it doesn't stand out as a big feature in this game as much as the rest of the dungeon crawling which is simple but solid. I think the audio could have been balanced a bit better as well, as the sounds were far too loud compared to the music.
The core of the game is solid but the character could have stood out a bit more as well, otherwise the visuals are well made. I'd like to see this evolved into some kind of pocket dungeon crawler game, it would be a great fit for mobile/handhelds!
I looking forward to playing postLD version. The contrast could be little higher and I don't think there is a need for two tap movement - direction is always same as action. Oh and for few first stages randomness could be overridden so there is always safe passage.
Solid roguelike game! Fun to play, but sometimes can't understand why I lose. Flood working very strange way...
Liked the simple graphics, think they worked well for this but do think there could be more contrast with the text as at times it was a bit unreadable.
Cool tactical little game! Love the small playing field. Sometimes it was a bit hard to understand what would happen when doing things, and the 'drowning' thing is a bit hard to see. Was there any reason why there is a double keypress necessary to move? Seems like single press would do just fine?
This is very cool, I love the sense of urgency and stress given by needing to spam the movement buttons. At first I didn't quite understand why I didn't need to kill all the enemies to get through the level, but once I realised that the water was a bigger threat it all made sense.
It took a while for me, but onve I get the gamepaly it was really fun. Its a really hard game. Unlike others I like the double tap mechanic and how it get slower over time. The art is great and the sound goes well. Incredible job for a 48hs game. Top entry!
I love these kind of dungeon crawlers and you managed to pull of something very atmospheric. Your graphics are awesome and the game appears very inviting. Definitely an achievement in such a short amount of time.
I have some criticism though.
I think I would have preferred not having to double tap to move, for me it didn't give the game anything but was a minor annoyance when you wanted to move quickly.
The gameplay could have used an additional round of polish. I didn't feel the weight of the gold and didn't really understand how it was supposed to slow me down, but maybe I didn't get far enough. The cursed chests were more of a curse than a blessing because when I was low on health I couldn't afford to open them for fear of having less health afterwards or dying right away which happened once.
The flooding mechanics were a nice touch to give the game some urgency but I never felt it was a real threat.
All this is a bit unfortunate because I think if you had skipped the theme altogether and made a classic dungeon crawler, the game would have been outstanding and I would have kept playing for a long time.
I hope this critique doesn't sound too harsh. I enjoyed played your game and you create a great atmosphere. Doing all this in 48 hours is a great achievement, despite some aspects that were a bit rough.
@cerno-b Thank you a lot for the review, I don't take it harshly at all. I agree with pretty much everything you said. If I took the jam instead of the compo or had managed my priorities a bit better the game could be way better. I wish I had took more time to make the game more clear, I forgot the fact that my game actually had many different concepts and that wouldn't be easy for the player to grasp. Also I wished I had more time to play test the items,monsters,etc.... But this is a jam, so it can't be perfect ahah. Thank you again for the review, I'll probably upload a new version after the jam fixing those things (if I can)
@tay Tag me if you do. I'll be happy to play it again when you are content with the level of polish. Anyway, congratulations to the almost 90 ratings!
Solid little dungeon crawler RPG. The double tapping to move was a little awkward a first and seems like a strange design decision, but at least it tells you how to move on the title screen. Some of the enemies on the opening levels seem a little overpowered. Maybe introduce more powerful enemies later on in the game. I think the flooding meter works well, so it keeps the player moving through the game. However, it seems like there's a point when the flooding goes a little too fast.
This was a fun, interesting little game! And very impressive for the timeframe. Great submission :D
The graphics and the audio is pretty good, and I like the general mood where it's clear you could die at any minute. Once once figures what are threats and what are good items, going through each level becomes a sort of a thrill ride, with very little predictability on what's coming next. I do, however, think some aspects of the game, such as the flooding acting as a timer to indicate how long the player has to survive, was rather cheap and uninteresting way of turning this game into an arcade, high-score experience.
I tried to make out what were the negative consequences for collecting treasure, since I noticed nearly all of my stats changed, but it was hard to tell. This is a shame, because it's honestly one aspect in the game I though was most interesting. To make the game better-telegraphed, it would have been nice to have animations indicating how your stats changed, especially right above your player character. Additionally, it would have been cool to have treasures indicate what boosts they'll give before the player obtains the treasure, without mentioning the negatives. That would give a nice risk-vs-reward incentive where one might focus on increasing attacks stat at all times, as a consequence of sacrificing everything else.
I wasn't a fan of using double-tap as the method to move either, though I realize the intent was to commit to one's action. I also had a hard time figuring out which sprite was the player at the beginning. They blend in with the meat and enemies pretty easily.
I played enough to get a high score of 1291, but I now realize that I have no idea which tactic worked well enough to lead me to this score, since I don't do nearly as well with my current tactic. That tactic is to (A) avoid fighting monsters unless I have to or if I have enough meat to get back to 100%, otherwise it's too risky because the game might force me to fight in the next floor, and to (B) pick up the gold and the chests when I can. I see in the description that each chest both helps and hinder, but I can't really tell either way; because the flooding is on a timer and I can't pause, there is no time to examine the numbers and besides I don't remember what the numbers were a moment ago anyway. Adding "+1" and "-1" markers next to the affected numbers would make the effect clearer, and if some of those markers were colored red and other green, it would drive home the idea that each chest is both a blessing and a curse.
I was often surprised to die for apparently no reason, but I assume it must be because of the flooding. If the flooding bar stopped moving after death, it would make it more obvious whether it was indeed the cause of death. Even better: since you already have nice raining graphics, it would be much clearer to use them to indicate the flooding level, this way it would be impossible not to pay attention to it.
The game was fun enough to keep me playing many times, but I still think the actions would benefit from more intrinsic rewards, instead of mere points. For example, perhaps there could be a special door every couple of levels which could only be opened if the player is strong enough (has enough XP) or can pay the fee (has enough gold)?
Really fun little game you've got here! The graphics and sound fit the mood well. The only concern I had was that I didn't really understand why did you have to press the directional key two times to move. That said the only thing I can tell you it's congrats on your game!