Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD43 → Dungeon of Lost Items
By g12345
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 241 | 3.43 | 24 | |
| Fun | 208 | 3.35 | 23 | |
| Innovation | 92 | 3.65 | 24 | |
| Theme | 238 | 3.52 | 24 | |
| Graphics | 305 | 3.14 | 23 | |
| Humor | 276 | 2.63 | 20 | |
| Mood | 202 | 3.27 | 24 |
I like it! I see inspiration by Mamono Sweeper, is that right?
The playing board holds far too much information, much more than what is needed. And it is very crowded and confusing.
It took me a while to realize how the game works, particularly what the items do and that I lose them on each monster.
Eventually I got it and reached the stairs.
I like the system and I think that with a bit of further work, an interesting puzzly dungeon game could run on it.
I like holding down the ENTER button and feeling like god as levels are created and destroyed at my whim. As for the game, it feels solid but I feel like I'm missing something because I never got close to the stairs
@boltkey : Well, I've played Mamono Sweeper a lot, but I still wouldn't consider that to be the main inspiration. I've played way too many turn-based dungeon crawlers/puzzle games lately to say that it's only Mamono Sweeper.
I'd say it's more likely to be Creeper World and Boulderdash for the masses of items and monsters on screen, or the completely randomized world layout. There are probably 3-5 other games to blame too. But I hope that I could make a game that I could play once every day with a randomized field and still getting a challenge.
I do plan to work a bit more on it to make a game I can play every day with some challenges in it. As you can see the simple layout can already be solved by using many of the rules together. In a later version I can make it easier too, but I just wanted something challenging for myself for the LD entry.
@sethr : This game being more of a challenging dungeon, I'd say you should try to learn and understand the rules, but the most important thing in this game is 'inventory management'. Your ATK and DEF is based on your inventory and that's basically the way to move forward. :smile:
I really enjoyed this game. There was a lot of depth in what is a fairly simple game, which is great! One thing that would be nice to add is an indicator when you start to show you where you are. I realize it is the same place every time, but I still got lost starting over :P Other than that, well done!
I thoroughly enjoyed playing this game :D Once you get the hang of the movement/inventory system it's a genuinely challenging puzzler that actually makes you think! Took me a minute to figure out where my guy was at first since there's a lot going on on the screen but that's part of the charm I think. :)
Some kind of feedback would be nice to let you know when you've lost health and sometimes I'd accidentally move 2 steps instead of 1, but those were very minor issues that didn't hurt the overall game. Very solid entry!
Funny. Quick play. You should do a mobile version. Ideal when you have a few seconds to spend at the coffee pause. You should add a screen capture on the description. It's more engaging ;-)
@srakowski @rebecca-kremer : Thanks you for playing and your suggestion to make it more obvious where the player starts. I think it's a great idea and if i have time for a post-compo version I'd certainly try to add it in! I ran out of time doing compo so I ended up doing the most important stuff.
@rebecca-kremer : the HP loss is a great idea too!
@jihem : I have no idea how to write for mobile. I also just added a screen capture in the description. I had planned that but I was very tired. Thanks for playing!
Fun game! Simple, but with enough depth to be fun. I managed to complete it once I found that you can kill an enemy when either attack OR defense is sufficiently high. The game would have more replay value with multiple levels, with each level adding a new feature/item/monster.
I beat it yay! Took a while to figure out how it worked. Once i did, it went pretty smoothly getting it to allow me to run around the map working my way to the elusive door. Died quite a few times before i figured out how to move the items around so that i wasn't opening myself up to being destroyed. Music, sounds, and levels will be amazing for this idea. :-)
Super tough game at first til you play a bit and then look over the rules again. In terms of sacrifice and decision-making, there are certainly a few points where you get a little stuck and you debate between a couple paths to take and guess which one's the safest, but for the most part you try to find the path that has the most items you can collect to get through in one piece. The game is almost like Desktop Dungeons where you can just sit back and calculate for a while on how to progress and I like that, and a few more rpg mechanics could really put the player in the position of analysis paralysis (a good thing). Cool concept and I liked how you really made this as a game you would enjoy playing daily yourself.
Very cool idea, good work guy!) I was pleased to play and think a little about how to achieve the goal)
The game is tough but fair. And a lot of fun! Figuring out a good path and order to proceed in the level reminds me a lot of Desktop Dungeons' gameplay but I actually think I prefer the even more minimalist approach you've taken here. It's definitely in my top 3 gameplay-wise in this Ludum Dare and I'd love to see you continue to work on the concept. :thumbsup:
While the sprites are nicely done I do wish the graphics would be less busy and little more clear so that I could tell items apart from the monsters at a glance instead of squinting at the screen. Having just a few pixels more resolution per sprite and playing around with the palette (maybe reserving cool&dark tones for enemies and warm&bright to items?) could help?
gonna play this again -- very fun -- thanks for making this game
Thanks for all the comments!
@peachtreeoath @antti-tiihonen @loveapplegames It's funny you say it's like Desktop Dungeons. Obviously I've played that before (but a long time ago) and I didn't even noticed the similarity before. I wasn't planning to add more levels, but like Desktop Dungeons, it's possible to add new monsters into it and even more levels. I can try it but it will involve even more tweaking (and I'm really busy this month).
As for the graphics and music and other stuff, I can probably have an option to remove the brownish background tiles to make the tiles stand out more, but I'm really bad at making graphics and music...
@antti-tiihonen as for the squinting, sorry about that... I can probably try something to make the different categories looking a bit different, although I also noticed, while playing, is that part of the fun is to find the item patterns yourself. That doesn't mean I can't make it easier for the eyes for people who would like to skip that part. I can probably just change the floor colours to match items and enemies, but it take some time before I have time for it.
Is the path to the exit always possible? After a few attempts, I got about 3/4 of the way and then felt I could not progress. Maybe it is because I made some mistakes earlier on..?
I really like the simplicity of the mechanics and sacrificing your inventory works well for the theme. A little hard to read at times but I can just zoom my browser window. :slight_smile: For people who like little desktop games like Minesweeper, this would be a joy to play every day to pass the time. Very nice entry! :thumbsup:
@gwinnell Thanks for playing.
The game is NOT guaranteed to be possible. It's randomly generated. However, to mitigate that, you are given 5 items at the beginning, and there are lots of items to be found. So the chance is pretty much 95%+ I'd say that most layouts should be possible.
I just played the game today (again), and I could finish that one generated map with full health, so I can only suggest you to play again.
As for the small size of the game, with a browser resize, that's intentional. I've played games in this LD that didn't fit my screen, so I'd rather be conservative. (Also I can't draw so more pixels is just not going to help. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: )
I like the pixel art. I think the game would have benefited with smaller levels, maybe they get bigger or harder as you progress. I was harder then I thought it would be and I found myself actually planning out my route in advanced, which is a good thing! good luck
A real mind game, each decision seems crucial (it fit with the theme). Actually I found your game very original. I think You've got an interesting concept that could be developed.
A super interesting game idea, simple but addictive in a way! I like how it somehow feels like dungeon exploration but also like a minesweeper game. Would definitely fit as a mobile game.
Indeed the rules are a bit confusing and overwhelming at first, but we eventually start to figure things out. To make things smoother, an idea would be that when you first try to enter a tile with a monster, the menu on the right could display the outcome before resolving the action, requiring you to press the key a second time to confirm.
One thing that is still unclear to me is what ATK vs PWR does. Maybe DEF is disregarded for damage if ATK > PWR? To me it what would have felt good is if we were simply prevented to go to a tile where PWR > ATK (ie. we can't kill the beast).
Fog would have been a nice addition as well, like you'd only see the monsters from tiles around you, instead of being incited to plot the whole route in advance.
A pretty fun game overall with good replayability. I've managed to win it once :)
This was very interesting! I like the graphics and I can't say I have seen anything like this before. The controls were a bit "twitchy" and registered multiple key presses if I kept the key down for a few milliseconds to long. All in all a very good entry for this ldjam, I am impressed!