FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD48 → Asterisk

Asterisk

By Jeremy Scott Olsen, crychair, teenythanos, zlan100, Dagostino Audio, Woodspixl and ohsnapitzsean

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall2383.95309
Fun4373.67310
Innovation9383.18310
Theme2704.10309
Graphics2714.25311
Audio564.29312
Humor1413.90303
Mood4473.85304

Comments

nick-barrash 2021-04-27 00:51

Voice acting on point! Really polished game, I had fun!

id-sketch 2021-04-27 00:58

Absolutely love the art, especially of the menus

skoobydoo 2021-04-27 00:58

I had some issues with the sound getting laggy and clipping, not sure if it was the game overall running poorly or just sound. otherwise its a pretty neat implementation

benosuke 2021-04-27 00:58

A realy good idea, gg for the voice acting and the atmosphere, they are really successful !

ian-mcd 2021-04-27 00:58

Overall very clean. mine collision is a bit wierd but otherwise very cool!

potucket 2021-04-27 00:59

This was a really fun play, I recommend giving it a try!

sandtoise 2021-04-27 01:00

Really solid entry! The music is great, and the art is clean. Nice job.

niksg 2021-04-27 01:00

great graphics and voice acting

phantom49 2021-04-27 01:00

Amazing! The voice acting caught me offguard and the whole experience was extremely wholesome. Awesome Game, congratulations for the team behind it.

mahalis 2021-04-27 01:01

This is absolutely terrific. Fun to play, catchy music, and the writing’s great—I got the silliest grin on my face at the "we will remember… FERDINAND…" line. I must have gotten lucky on my first run because I got something like $13K before hitting a bomb—the subsequent few were much briefer. If there’s one thing I’d like to see it’d be a way to jump; it was a little frustrating scanning something off to the side that was _just_ a little higher. But I guess only being able to go deeper fits the theme. Amazing work.

enderbit 2021-04-27 01:01

I whole feel of this game is great. The audio and art are both polished and work great together. Great job!

zackavelli 2021-04-27 01:06

This game was extremely well polished, voice acting was especially excellent! The game mechanic was a little shallow and I wish it was a bit more complex. The mechanic boils down to scan for the bad tile, and don't go there. Maybe adding a moving bomb element or a deeper puzzle element would help fix this. Overall I thought the game was well done, just missing a hooking gameplay loop.

versatilesponge 2021-04-27 01:09

Great game ! very polished. Not very original but I liked the overal mood a lot, with nice graphics, music and loved the voice acting. Couldn't find how to jump, is that on purpose ? also, keyboard controls were not pratical with a QWERTY keyboard.

joselor 2021-04-27 01:14

Really good game, i especially liked the scanner mechanic, that has lots of advantages but also disadvantages to the player, but the art, the voice acting, the music and the humor are all also excellent. Really polished game with a great interpretation of the theme ! The setting makes also the game feel alive and interesting

woodspixl 2021-04-27 01:17

Thank you to everyone who has played, commented and reviewed! I just to answer the question of "is there a Jump or not?" short answer- no. Keeping the player only going down was intentional and purposely done. Good eye Mahalis! :thumbsup:

2021-04-27 02:34

Really fun game and the music was fantastic! I found myself playing it over and over again trying to beat my last high score

kylethecoder 2021-04-27 02:56

The breaking stuff was so smooth, I really enjoyed it. I couldn't quite tell if the mines were doing anything to me, but overall it is an impressive game for such a short period of time. Agree with the above re: voice acting, super good.

itsboats 2021-04-27 03:35

This is an amazing entry! There's so much polish in almost every aspect. The voice acting really sells the mood (the enthusiasm and corporate level of emotional detachment give me Cave Johnson vibes from Portal 2). I liked the idea for the scanner that it also makes the bombs explode. Using it is a double edged sword and you're forced to run sometimes. I agree with one of the other users though that the main mechanic is a little lacking, but I really hope your team plans on developing this further

jeremy-scott-olsen 2021-04-27 04:39

Thank you thank you thank you everyone for playing and commenting and rating! We had SO much fun making this, it's always great to see people enjoying it!

microchasm 2021-04-27 05:03

Very well polished. It feels hectic, and I kept wanting to play again when I died. Graphics are very nice. I would love to see more particles, and have the laser feel like it is really connecting with the blocks. Also maybe more visual or auditory rewards for getting higher-tier loot. These are nit-picks for the purpose of providing helpful feedback though, overall the game is awesome.

sageware 2021-04-27 06:18

This is such a polished game it is impressive. Reminds me of a new take on Minesweeper. My favorite game of the jam so far.

dagostino-audio 2021-04-27 06:23

@sageware What an honour! We had so much fun making this game and love that it is resonating with people!

teenythanos 2021-04-27 06:30

@niksg @phantom49 @mahalis @enderbit @versatilesponge @link2213 @kylethecoder @itsboats Voice actress and half the composer team here--thank you bunches for playing, commenting, and not skipping the dialogue! :blush: This jam has been SO amazing! I so appreciate all your feedback. :heart:

william-chan 2021-04-27 06:41

I really liked the graphics and the mechanic with sonar was really cool. Was very well polished, the movement was snappy and was fun to play.

xiahouheshuo 2021-04-27 06:44

Really good game!I like this voice.

otresnjak 2021-04-27 07:15

Really impressive game, everything about it oozes quality. So rare to have voice acting in an LD game too (especially GOOD voice acting lol) and the music is sooo good. Amazing work!

omich 2021-04-27 07:17

Wow! Amazing graphics. Well done!

rawrasaur 2021-04-27 07:27

This was fun! I also had some funny clippy issues with the sound, mainly toward the end. The voice telling me to keep digging was very funny. Also amazing dirt breaking animations.

bigbadbison 2021-04-27 07:30

Love the art/soundtrack!

tim77 2021-04-27 07:30

I liked: - Rad blackhole image. - Nice play on words in the game title! - Voice acting was great! Funny! - The art style was great and the character movement felt good. - The filtering / volume change in the music track at the start was a nice touch. It felt great as it became more present when actually starting the game following the intro.

Suggestions: - What is the point of the sonar mechanic? I understand that you need it to find objects, but why hide a sense (vision) behind a key press? The ability to use sonar is infinitely available anyway, so I wondered why I needed to keep pressing a button to see my environment. - I found the bomb behavior hard to predict. Some bombs seemed to go off randomly for no reason and others did not detonate. This apparent randomness had the effect of me feeling not in control of what was happening.

All up - a great effort! Well done! :)

quite-good 2021-04-27 07:31

Such an incredible game! I really love the polish with the visuals and the stellar voice acting. Great job!

adam-k 2021-04-27 07:33

Super well polished game. The rock destruction feels really good. Voice acting definitely sets this one a step above the rest. Aesthetic is really great - menus, opening cutscene, player model, everything!

The mine collision seemed a bit inconsistent at times, but maybe that was just me not fully understanding something.

martynas 2021-04-27 07:33

Amazing voice acting and graphics. Very intuitive intro and the game feels alive, great job!

andykswong 2021-04-27 07:44

Love the voice acting and pixel art style. The gameplay is very polished.

lunavenator 2021-04-27 08:12

Cute graphics and nice sounds. Well done!

sarafilipa 2021-04-27 08:15

Wow, just wow. Looks like a game that took a lot longer to make, it's so polished!! Everything from the art to the audio to the voice acting... Incredible game! :D Also really enjoyed the small tutorial in the beginning. Impressive!

zolar 2021-04-27 08:49

This is an excellent game! The voice acting is great :) And the title's black hole looks rad. I'd love to have a jump though...

sadsmile 2021-04-27 09:16

I pretty much agree with all of the things the others have said so far

rendow 2021-04-27 09:57

Hilarious game with amazing audio and visuals. Love the look of the intro screen and the tutorial. Great job on finishing the game!

woodspixl 2021-04-27 09:58

Seeing everyone's comments about how they love the graphic's and everything else fills me with such joy!

I am the solo pixel artist who worked on all the graphics, animations and overall direction of the game. :blush: it was honestly so much fun being able to lead a team to the finish line-

I also included the teams social links on the itch page but if you want to check out my work, please take a peak at my twitter https://twitter.com/Woodspixl_ and even watch me live on my twitch https://www.twitch.tv/woodspixl

As for now I hope you guys keep digging- I mean playing!

rouge-dragon 2021-04-27 10:18

Good game! I love the art!

ev3r4 2021-04-27 10:34

Cool game, I like the art, music, humor and the voice lines (that make it a lot funnier). Good job!

2021-04-27 11:11

Amazing game! Art is pro level and the gameplay is excellent... im bad at it though haha. 10/10

3079 2021-04-27 12:01

The art is great as well as the music and voice lines but I found 120 seconds to be a bit too much and the gameplay lacking the engagement aspect from time to time in. I believe there could be a bit more mines since I found the moments when while running from one mine I have stumbled upon the other and had to consecutively dodge 3-4 mines. Also the Dig Deep Inc would probably greatly benefit from teaching their archeologists how to jump (they'd cut a ton on stuff turnover). Overall a very solid entry

michael-harris 2021-04-27 12:52

This was a lot of fun! All of the audio and voice lines are great. The art is great as well. The gameplay was pretty fun. I really liked the overall direction of this game. Really great job!

themoonrise 2021-04-27 12:54

Great game, well done. The look is lovely. Especially of the menu. Also the voice over makes the game lively, something that is really rare in game jam games. My biggest issue are the controls. It feels a bit weird, that I have to turn using the keyboard while controling the drill with the mouse. Still, great work.

2021-04-27 12:59

This is a very nicely made game. The laser digging feels responsive, and the bombs are just deadly enough to make you really pay attention. The artwork, sound, and voiceover all take it up a notch from a quick repeatable/roguelike browser game. I had a lot of fun!

youthfulidealism 2021-04-27 13:53

Fun! I particularly enjoyed the cheerful audio and overly-positive-corporatepunk voiceover. I got some vaguely portal vibes from that. Trying to make do without jumping was an interesting challenge, it meant that the strategy was to avoid getting boxed in somewhere you can't get away from the mines.

magnie 2021-04-27 15:18

The soundtrack and the voice acting are a really nice touch! The visuals look so adorable and the controls menu and interface is so finished its almost like this isnt a jam game. Fantastic! Thank you for the experiance!

bangkerpow 2021-04-27 15:36

Great fun little experience. The polish was really great.

dagostino-audio 2021-04-27 15:40

@magnie Our wonderful pixel artist @woodspixl is a magically talented being!

diringer-leo 2021-04-27 15:45

Very polished experience ! impressive even ! it lacks a bit of feedback as why you die/a clear range for the bombs, but overall very very good!

chalivat-quentin 2021-04-27 15:47

Such a great game ! Sounds, music and graphics are awesome ! A bit difficult to understand how mine worked, and death animation does not trigger all the time so it's really confusing when you are still walking when your dead.

Overall, it's rare to see such a professional quality on a jam game ! Special mention to the intro that really is a hook.

bernard-bumblebutt 2021-04-27 16:02

Great game! I loved the attention to detail you put into the intro, I always love when people include voice over work! And the camera pans to different game states was great as well.

I did find it a little too difficult at first. I died twice right off the bat before I understood what I was doing which made it a little frustration since I couldn't get back to playing immediately from all the transitions and button clicks.

Also, the sonar mechanic I could use constantly. It would have been more interesting if there was a way I could gain charges or if there was a cooldown to it.

Overall great work!

gibss 2021-04-27 16:10

I really like the presentation and the voice acting. The things I would improve are the repetitiveness and the overall goal: I don't quite grasp what I'm aiming to do on each run aside from getting more loot. Somewhere to spend the resources to make the game a complete loop or just an indication that I win the game if I get enough resources would be good in my opinion. But massive props on the UI, really polished for a jam game!

omg-blackbeard 2021-04-27 16:14

Very nice voiceover. Funny intro. Decent music. Overall enjoyable game

Great job teenythanos (@teenythanos) , zlan100 (@zlan100) , Dagostino Audio (@dagostino-audio) , Woodspixl (@woodspixl) , Jeremy Scott Olsen (@jeremy-scott-olsen) , ohsnapitzsean (@ohsnapitzsean) , and Crychair (@crychair)

valky 2021-04-27 16:22

Voice acting is great and very fun. The music is good and not boring. The polish is realy good Great work

anshul-k 2021-04-27 16:33

Cool gameplay! Really nice graphics. I also really liked the voice of the computer. I later figured out that you have to send the sonar to find bombs/mines/valuable_materials :)

dagostino-audio 2021-04-27 16:37

@omg-blackbeard Thank you! Really enjoyed your game as well!

fledgeling93 2021-04-27 16:48

The polish here is superb! The artstyle, the music and sound design, the voiceover - everthing's great. Main mechanic is catchy enough to spend some time playing, although I maybe felt like I've seen everything after a couple of tries. What I'm trying to say is you left me wanting more haha!

dagostino-audio 2021-04-27 16:55

@fledgeling93 1 part of the sound design team here! Thanks so much for the review and the kind words! We all really appreciate it!

chrissx2 2021-04-27 18:11

Loved it. Donno what else to say!

pierrens 2021-04-27 18:17

Love the art! Audio was a bit glitchy, made it a bit hard to play :)

teenythanos 2021-04-27 18:40

Hi @PierreNS! Thanks for letting us know. If you’d like to experience the audio best, please try our download! Thanks for playing! :)

henriquecanella 2021-04-27 18:41

Well done, first game in the jam with voice acting that i've seen, good job =D

woodspixl 2021-04-27 18:41

@pierrens I think you played the WebGL version? it plays the game perfectly fine except it starts to suffer when there is a lot of audio going off for example bombs,music,drilling etc at once.

pink-spaceman 2021-04-27 20:32

This game is amazing in so many ways, that i can't list them all here, first of all, the voice actor is realy good, the soundtrack is amazing, the artstyle give me chills, the storytelling is good too, and gameplay super fun, i love the game, amazing job

nyanpierre 2021-04-27 22:25

The menu is insane ! great idea gg .

jvdwijk 2021-04-27 22:30

I loved all the random lines! The game was very fun to try and get a highscore in!

jvolonte 2021-04-27 22:44

Very visually pleasing. The voice acting just sells it for me. Great work! I enjoyed it ^^

chrisap 2021-04-27 23:56

I am truly impressed with the result of what you all made in only 72 hours. There is so much polish into every aspect of the game, the sprite work, the menu art, the music, the voice over, the humor, even the simple yet DEEP gameplay mechanics. Simply by adding some sort of progression system I could easily see this game on any game store. As a fan of drilling mechanics, you really pulled off a satisfying game feel. <3 <3

dagostino-audio 2021-04-28 00:03

@chrisap OMG Thank you for the review! Loved watching you enjoy the game!!

almighty-games 2021-04-28 00:20

I think you're going to do well in this game jam. congrats on a good solid entry.

teenythanos 2021-04-28 00:25

@chrisap Thank you so much for your review and your stream!! I loved watching your stream!! :heart:

teenythanos 2021-04-28 00:26

@almighty-games Thank you so much for your stream and your review! We really appreciate it. :heart:

ricna 2021-04-28 01:26

Pretty nice game! Well done guys! :clap: :clap: :clap:

billnotic 2021-04-28 01:50

Audio on WebGL is scuffed as hell, but you already seem aware of this. I liked the voice acting a lot, good game!

xpoho 2021-04-28 01:54

Оказалось, что гораздо безопаснее копать в полном неведении, чем постоянно сканировать область. Так гораздо меньше шансов задеть бомбу. Сочувствую космонавту, работает на капиталистов! Спасибо за игру, было интересно ^_^

turtle-games 2021-04-28 02:16

I loved your game!!!

teenythanos 2021-04-28 02:50

@xpoho Спасибо, что играете в нашу игру! Так рада, что тебе понравилось. Хорошая идея с эхолотом! Я не знаю русского, поэтому использую гугл-переводчик, извините, если это плохой перевод.

2bitcrook 2021-04-28 02:56

Very charming game! The amount of polish you managed to squeeze into the game in short amount of time is so admirable. I love the voice acting in the game it adds a lot to the mood and atmosphere.

Pixel art is nice and crisp and readable. I think a full fledged game could see being a rogue like perhaps or maybe a mission based thing of making enough money/collecting a certain amount of things in the time. Either way great stuff, your team of 6 North Americans and 1 European did swell!

ishmandoo 2021-04-28 03:07

A little buggy but really well done!

loginaut 2021-04-28 03:15

The voice acting absolutely made this game for me! Unfortunately when I downloaded the windows build I was stuck with a teeny-tiny window that I couldn't change on my 2017 surface, so I opted for the web build.

From the "don't give up" flavor text I was hoping for some kind of easter egg if I dug down far enough, but all I did was make profit for the corporation! It was actually very easy to dig straight down and just move left/right a little when I hit a landmine or wall, and I ended up getting a super high score. I would hazard a guess that your goodies might be uniformly distributed, and so digging the optimal strategy is to just blindly harvest as many blocks as possible. Since down is the fastest way to travel, it would yield the highest expected score. You might be able to work around this by having them spawn in clumps/veins instead that need to be explored with the sonar.

Great work! :smile:

thinh 2021-04-28 03:17

This game was really fun to play! I loved the music, cutscene, and end report! The end report really helped conclude each run and wrap it up to detail to the player, which is really nice to see. Overall, great job!

tengusheath 2021-04-28 03:32

The art and audio are really good. Wish there was a little more to the mechanics, it felt like I could just spam the sonar and dig.

xxnolanxx 2021-04-28 03:59

I really enjoyed this! Presentation was amazing, the art was great and the voice acting really brought it to the next level. Using the sonar to see a bunch of bombs around me really made for some nice "oh shit" moments where I scrambled to get away. Made me laugh! Awesome stuff!!

enrique-romero 2021-04-28 05:41

Fantastic presentation and polish level. I love the concept and style, however, I found the general mining gameplay to be a little lackluster and repetitive after a couple attempts.

guitarbro 2021-04-28 05:43

Great art style, simple but effective. The voice acting was an excellent touch and the gameplay was solid even if the scope wasn't crazy (but hey, it's a jam game, gotta keep the scope in check).

Also great job at coordinating such a large team. We did that a while back for LD 38 and I know it's not easy.

ryanwoods 2021-04-28 05:54

This is insanely cute and super polished. I loved the voice over so much! Scoped super well for a great experience from a game jam game!

katamary 2021-04-28 08:32

I impressed by idea and production quality of this game! Good luck!

revilo 2021-04-28 08:38

I love the voice over and its little comments, I also had a little giggle at the "0 days since last accident" good job!

last-angle 2021-04-28 10:41

What a great game! I love the voice, it really adds on to the feeling of working for a big corporation, and it reminded me a bit of portal. The tutorial/start of the game was also really well done, I love how smoothly it passes over into the game. The art style is really pretty too!

mrpouletbzh 2021-04-28 11:07

The voice over is excellent, made me feel like playing in a joyfull version of Deep Rock Galactic, and globally the sound design is great (the only exception is that when there is a lot of mines, the multiples explosions makes it a bit too loud). I love the pixel art which is very cute, and the sonar mecanic works really well too, great job from all of you!

leyamez 2021-04-28 12:06

Loved the art. I started the game while in a meeting and I thought someone was talking and I got scared for a second lol! Really fun overall though!

taran-unraveler 2021-04-28 13:09

Really polished, loved it!

nectanebo 2021-04-28 13:49

I love the aesthetics and the voice overs! The death is kinda buggy in the html version but it still playable Good job!

elendow 2021-04-28 13:58

The aesthetics and the voice acting is over the top. I missed the fullscreen option on the desktop version, but thats a minor thing.

dergamer 2021-04-28 15:15

Amazing game as you mentioned on the itch.io page it is not much optimized for the web build but it worked great after i downloaded it and then everything worked completely fine. Fells like a finished game, amazing work! My favorite game so far

I got 33000 Space Dollars on my best try, I dont know if that is good just wanted to say that😂

zlan100 2021-04-28 15:29

@dergamer oh don't worry, my highest so far it's like around that point as well when we were doing some play testings, and that's the number of what most of our team members got as well. So kudos to you!

moritz-jaeger 2021-04-28 17:00

Nicely polished! Good basic game loop, just would have wished myself some upgrades to so spend money on :D But of course this being a game jam I know time is the biggest enemy :P Great job!

mdotedot 2021-04-28 17:12

Nice voice. A bit too much dig-clicking for me but very nicely made

pookipoot 2021-04-28 17:26

Aside from my review- I love the name Sleepy Donut. That basically describes my soul.

Music: SLAPS! The slight details of having it be light during the menu then really kicks in as you play the game is awesome. Great detail! Plus the variations to it with the piano trills and it muting a part of the tune when a bomb goes off makes it super enjoyable without being repetitive.

Art: Cohesive and clean. Great UI design.

Gameplay: Simple but fun gameplay. It seems like there was a promotion system possibly caked in there but cut out due to time. That would've solidified the runs. Only thing I can think of maybe adding is some sort of particle effect upon dying. Though obviously you're limited in what you can do with the time allotted.

I highly recommend playing the downloaded version instead of WebGL. Explosions don't work correctly on the WebGL version and a few other bugs.

goldenevolution 2021-04-28 17:42

Super well polished game and I definitely got some Borderlands vibes which I absolutely love! The voice over is another super cool addition and I wish we would see more of that overall haha. Amazing submission!

marcionix 2021-04-28 17:42

A nice and funny game with beaty graphics and voice acting!

matheus-madtrilhas 2021-04-28 18:09

Hey guys! I really liked the game at all! I have to say as a person in the field that the music and sfx are awesome! It's great to see fmod being used in the game as well. The voice was excellent in the gameplay. Congratulations to the team!

recursor 2021-04-28 18:13

Well done on the voice-acting, music, and the art. I wish the buttons looked a little more like buttons as it took me a few seconds when I first dies to figure out that I was supposed to click the "Replay" since it didn't give me any feedback though it seems obvious after figuring it out. A highly polished and fun experience.

skelleroznik 2021-04-28 18:15

This is one of my favourites so far. The art is amazing, THE VOICE ACTING is amazing, sounds are amazing, the gameplay is addictive...and amazing. Digging has never been so exciting. It is so highly polished. It laggs sometimes after the game over card shows up and before the replay button appears, but this is just a minor issue. And yeah, thanks for reminding me that I don't matter :')

jusw85 2021-04-28 18:18

I teleported with a score of $43,548. Great entry! The dynamic music and voice acting was a really nice touch.

I had some issue with sound effects popping with the downloaded version though.

pancelor 2021-04-28 18:39

that was fun! I would have liked a bit deeper gameplay but WOW the art and the voiceover and the menus and all of the polish/juice/etc were stellar!

taek 2021-04-28 19:20

fantastic music and voice acting, this is a really fun game!

alexsei-vasiluk 2021-04-28 19:25

good game

autogibbon 2021-04-28 20:34

Lovely lovely lovely! The music really make me bop in my chair while playing. Weird audio issues after a few scans, no idea what's going on in the background to make the performance and stability degrade so quickly.

Game has a great atmosphere, has a lot of potential.

phillip-scott 2021-04-28 20:39

Fun, love the sounds, when they work :D

realkonstantin 2021-04-28 21:31

Loved the voice lines and the voice acting, easy 5/5 for the audio! Also liked the scanner with the drawback of setting off all the mines around you. Would've liked some sort of progression in the game but I can imagine that would've blown the scope of the project. Great work overall!

fpeg 2021-04-28 21:44

Very cool game indeed! I love the voice acting and the graphics are just marvelous! Well done

ariorick 2021-04-28 22:48

Awesome entry! The only thing that separates this game from a commercial release is some upgrade system that would keep you playing after two or three digs. Also from developer to developer - did you reseive any donations on itch?

mmason 2021-04-29 00:53

Fantastic game, I played a few times, I managed to get 62,818 by digging straight down and just ignoring bombs. I did play a full round with the sonar and digging but only managed to get 7000 and something. I was really hoping that there was a secret to find if I went far enough. I would love to see this as a full game.

vknauss 2021-04-29 02:47

This was fun! The first game I've played yet with voice acting. Overall really impressed with the audio. The bombs confused me, it seemed like most of the time they would just disappear, sometimes they would blow up, sometimes I would dig directly into one and nothing would happen.

szymon-ogd 2021-04-29 03:17

Very consistant. Everyghitn has matched together like a charm. I think that the scanned items should be a little bit brighter, to be more visible. In the end it's a great game.

PS. I had some sound issues, the music was stuttering.

michaelyount 2021-04-29 03:50

Good job. Like an amped up mine sweeper. Music is a little carnival. Weird bomb actions. Thank you.

zlan100 2021-04-29 03:55

@mmason that's interesting, we'd definitely dig in a bit more the correlation with the sonar system in this game!

fyslexicduck 2021-04-29 04:50

wow a very polished feeling game! the voice acting was a really nice touch. i appreciate that you uploaded an in browser option though it kept crashing so i ended up downloading it without any regrets!

cassio-eduardo 2021-04-29 06:07

Really like the entire presentation of this game, specially the voice acting. The gameplay was bit unpolished compared to the rest, but I liked the game in general.

Great job.

hoeleboele 2021-04-29 07:07

What a great game! The sound design is great and the gameplay is pretty fun. A bit rough around the edges but in 72 hours it is a great accomplishment.

edmar-filho 2021-04-29 08:14

Gameplay was a little rough but the style is on point.

mmason 2021-04-29 10:29

@zlan100 just to clarify I did really like the sonar system, the game was definitely more fun with it. Maybe if the sonar didn't set off the bombs, but distance did or if the rock took more to dig through.

dagostino-audio 2021-04-29 13:23

@szymon-ogd Were you playing the WebGL build? If so, definitely recommend the downloaded version for better audio performance and performance all around

etrealjunior 2021-04-29 15:08

Very cute game, I missed the sounds of lightning, and rock breaks, the highlight is the voice acting and the humor they were so good that it created a problem, made the mechanics of your game seem simpler than it really is, rough see the evolution of your project in the future, a big hug to everyone, and I await your evaluations regarding my game.

youhou 2021-04-29 17:28

I liked the voice, arts and music. It's pretty simple but it's good. Sometimes I didn't understand why mines don't explode when I dig them. I didn't find any endgame, and maybe you could have made an upgrade system. Thanks for your great game :) (Give our game a try, it looks a lot similar to yours on some points)

chrisco 2021-04-29 18:14

Loved the voice acting! I liked a lot the initial presentation of the controls, very very polished game. Bravo!

paulhocker 2021-04-29 19:54

this game was off the charts. not only one of my fave games this jam, but maybe any jam. so awesome.

ancooper 2021-04-29 20:18

Hey! The bomb detonated after my teleportation, but the game was talking you died. Why?)))

amerigo-gazaway 2021-04-29 21:12

One of my favorite LD games so far. Love the humor, art style, music and sound design. The voiceovers were a great touch and hilarious as well. Also nice to see FMOD being used in an indie jam game for cool music effects. Good stuff!

preda 2021-04-29 21:56

I really like the voice lines and the mood that it gives at the start

ezgoodnight 2021-04-30 00:51

Very solid, very playable little game. There is some straight up incredible pixel art in it. The vocal is really well done also.

crychair 2021-04-30 01:01

@ezgoodnight thanks for trying our game off stream!

pedonho 2021-04-30 01:03

The art and voice acting is very dope!

ssh-randy 2021-04-30 01:04

Awesome game!

wish there were some feedback loop though, to collecting materials. also, the death felt a little unfair. sometimes bombs went off right next to me, and i lived, and sometimes bombs would go off a little far from me and i'd die? it'd be nice to have some indication of how close i'm allowed to be. wasn't sure if i had health either, or if it was a 1 hit kill kinda deal?

either way, loved how rushed you felt to dig deeper, and how frantic it'd be to avoid bombs as you tried to dig deep. great game!

deedose 2021-04-30 06:26

I loved the game . The art is great , as well as the music . Even if the idea was basic , it still feels different from the other games fo the same style I played .

alberto-cabrera 2021-04-30 08:39

This game is so fun, its reming me "Steam World Dig"

bravebanana 2021-04-30 10:12

Very good and replayable! I like it

mololo 2021-04-30 10:16

Loved the voice acting and the pixel art. The tutorial looks soo good.

The gameplay is fun and the game has potential.

I think a shop with maybe different lasers and upgrades would be cool, so you can spend your hard mined money :smile:

Overall a great game, good job.

bereg 2021-04-30 10:18

Well, we have a winner here. This game is ideal. Cute graphics and animation, wonderful music and sounds, outstanding voice acting, fun gameplay, and replayability. I loved every bit of this game. Great job!

marcmagus 2021-04-30 17:01

Thanks for bringing your excellent game by my stream for us to check out. The voice acting in particular did an excellent job of setting mood which elevated the experience from an already polished and fun game. If you'd like to watch my play and revisit the commentary you can find the highlight at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1006135462

kaminos 2021-04-30 18:39

i've enjoyed it a lot! The voice over is very helpful and humorous at the same time. It's not that much my type of game but i found myself playing much longer than i expected. I like the graphics a lot and the death animation is fantastic. The music helps quite nice to pull you inside the game..and the ctrls are just as they should. Great work guys i'm happy that i found your game :)

bluishgreenpro 2021-04-30 19:08

Unbelievable polish and excellent coordination from so many team members! All comes together remarkably well. As I mentioned on stream, you might consider the idea of the primary laser being 2x wide with a 1x laser on right-click that is a little longer so you can hit blocks further above you.

euler-moises 2021-04-30 19:36

I'm actually a good space digger. I found a lot of earplugs. A game delight. Beautiful art and very immersive music. Could you put the link to this song here, please?

Congratulations to all involved!

pandapixel 2021-04-30 19:51

Nice game! I loved it!

eduardo-yukio 2021-05-01 00:22

Perhaps the best voice acting I've ever seen in a ludum dare! The voice is extremely pleasant and it looks like its from a professional game.

The art is beautiful, everything is very well polished, full of particles and animations.

The gameplay loop is cool: use sonar, escape the mines, get the treasures. But I felt that there was a lack of purpose for all of this. If it had a ranking or a store where you could buy upgrades and the challenge would increase, maybe the game would be more interesting.

But overall, it was an amazing entry!!

dxk2294 2021-05-01 08:43

Wow, what a wonderful experience! Kudos to the voice actor for doing such a professional job. The game was beautiful, polished, and clearly well loved. I had some strange audio issues that caused the game to lag ocassionally, but aside from that it was a great time!

2021-05-01 11:22

gays, u did realy great game. Thank u!

aaants 2021-05-01 11:57

Really well presented. Nice art and animation, and the voice work was a particular highlight!

mharring 2021-05-01 12:23

Excellent job! The graphics, sound and music were all incredibly well done. The gameplay felt a little lacking, especially because I never actually saw any of the items (I fell on top of them when they spawned every time). I think it would have been interesting to find some open caves beneath the surface to add some variety to the "just dig down" gameplay. That said, this was one of the most polished and humorous games I've played so far!

c4scar 2021-05-01 13:08

Great art and audio! It felt like cutting thorough butter, very satisfying. The bomb triggers were a little weird though and I found the best strategy was to just blast past them. I think it would have been better to have them explode on dig maybe. I dont really know why they would be explode on sonar hit. That seemed a little counterintuitive.

brendev 2021-05-01 15:40

Great work! Just like others I did find that the bombs could use a bit of work, digging through them kinda defeats the purpose of them and they also seemed to blow up different amounts each time which was mildly confusing at first. The art, sounds, and humor are top notch though, great job!

vesper 2021-05-01 15:52

Haha, on my first run through I completely forgot about the spacebar = scanner option and just kept blasting through the bedrock at top speed until my eventual demise. It was somehow still fun! And even more so once I actually played it using all the available tools. :smirk:

Adored the corporate propaganda voice overs, they were a really nice touch and made it feel like there was more behind the basic gameplay (which I always enjoy). As others have said before me, it feels very polished for a Jam game, and your team did a great job on every front. Bravo!

steelax 2021-05-01 16:30

Interesting concept. the quality of the game and the opening sequence etc is great feels likea full release. Nice Job

yaen 2021-05-01 23:38

It's fascinating how a little bit of good voice acting can elevate a game to a higher level like it does here. Really makes it feel more like a complete work.

Interesting to see so many sound designers on a single game jam game! I wonder how the workload was shared there. It does have some of the typical fmod problems with loops just suddenly cutting off and glitching out but it's a minor thing here.

The art was pretty all around but I wish the mines had a bit more visual feedback like a warning range and some nicer explosion effects.

Also, did I get it right and you can actually charge the mines actively and destroy them with the laser to prevent explosions? If that's intended, it only worked sometimes for me and I'm not sure why.

I dig the music, well done to the composers!

Wish there was some sort of meta-game loop like doing something with the money whenever you survive and get teleported. Without any run-to-run progression it feels like it's lacking some depth (hehe) But it's fine though, I get it was made for a game jam so obviously resources to pull off stuff like that are quite limited.

All in all, good job, fun game!

6smith 2021-05-02 04:53

nice little game. i liked the voice acting! i did have some trouble understanding when the mines were triggered and were about to explode, some sort of indication of that would've been nice. i also felt the gravity was a bit slow. i did like the art, it was very well done. overall, good work!!

siberpunk01 2021-05-03 00:04

Overall really impressive. I really liked the voice acting and music. Character designs and other art look great too. There's a lot of digging games this jam, but the polish makes this one stand out.

zathnic 2021-05-03 02:04

Really catchy music, and in combination with the voice acting it feels very professional! The gameplay is also fun, I especially like how fast-paced it is. I'm not entirely sure about being able to spam the sonar, although adding a cooldown could also hinder the game's flow. Maybe add a secondary powerup and they each have cooldowns so you have to switch between them? Idk, just an idea.

dest-69 2021-05-03 20:02

Good promo, music, and polish mecanics, 4 star is your!

gorethumb 2021-05-04 02:13

echoing the other comments, absolutely loved this game. it's a keeper still got it on the desktop!

james-macgill 2021-05-04 02:14

Ticks all the boxes this one - humor, style, audio and great re-playability! Amazing level of polish for the time available - so nice to see well designed menus and clear instructions in game.

I appreciate how quickly you can get back into playing a level (That said, I could not bring myself to skip the voice lines!)

I'm trying to figure out the mines exactly... sometimes I have enough time to try and run away, others not so much.

Tiny bug, I once 'died on my feet'. Mine went off and I could still look around, but not move.

stone-studio 2021-05-04 02:17

Pretty good! The mechanism is very interesting. I love your pixel art!

mira 2021-05-04 08:31

it looks good and super fun. Graphics exactly to my taste, good music and speaking. The player can choose either a careful style of play or just dig as crazy and try not to activate the bomb. Overall, I rate the game very positively.

jin9310 2021-05-04 11:17

Ok, this is really nice entry! The music, voice acting, art (especially the menus and UI are superb - great job as always @woodspixl) are just amazing! Really feels so great and polished! The gameplay misses few things here and there, but nothing serious. I would just mention one thing, player is basically not forced to use the scan to get things. You can just dig down and down and down, and you will automatically get the stuff, and since you are deep, you are getting only good stuff. So the scanner can be bypassed like that and that would be shame as the scanning mechanic is great! Also I have noticed that if you are facing right and just drill down, you can even drill thru the bombs without getting any damage. I know that this is not the usual playthru you would expect from players, but it can happen. But this is barelly a complaint, I really enjoyed your game and definitelly goes to my top list from this LD. Great job everyone and thank you for such a pleasant experience!

yeomsley 2021-05-05 01:19

Awesome job! I loved the sarcastic voice telling me fun facts about the asteroids fatality rate as I dig.

noteworthy 2021-05-05 01:56

Really well done game! Cool take on the jam theme, really nice art and gameplay and a very charming voice over with great music. The digging could use a little more weight or oomph, but other than that it's a really solid game, well done!

pat-cleaver 2021-05-05 13:30

5 audio people!!!??? That's a fascinating team lineup. Really enjoyed the game, had a few laughs at some of the voice lines and writing> A great entry, congrats to all!

jakier 2021-05-05 13:34

Audio and voice over were very super refined and fun. Game looks and feels good on all accords! Wish there was some continuity between succssesful runs

fabula-rasa 2021-05-05 16:11

Extremely polished game! The voice work, music and sfx are all just great. Art is also very cool, I adore your color palette.

When I first started the game, I promptly blew myself up! I did better later (was hard to do worse :wink:). The game plays well, although I will admit that I kept pressing Space to try to jump and reach those artifacts that ended up above me just out of reach. It felt a bit sad to me when those bombs were blowing up all the nice artifacts. So at some point I just stopped using the scanner. Just dug down deep and went in lines blindly. That yielded surprisingly great results that I was in no way able to achieve with scanning (too many bombs destroying too many yummy artifacts ;)).

Screenshot_10.jpg

blackopsben 2021-05-05 23:22

The voice acting was top notch, but the sound effects and visual feedback/juice left much to be desired. That said, the graphics in general were exceptional! Well done!

pseudohausen 2021-05-06 05:36

That was really well done! I played on WebGL, and the music started clipping a lot, like the game was stuttering a bit, but when things were running smoothly it looked, felt, and sounded fantastic.

rosypenguin 2021-05-06 07:56

Wow, that was some really professional level voice acting and sound design! Lovely little game, great art and gameplay loop. I do wish there was a meta game that lets me spend the money I have collected on upgrades, such as a wider scan or faster dig tool. But even without them I still caught myself playing another run, and another, and another :) Superb work! I have to say I'm in love with the UI art and transitions.

I did run into some small bugs where the mines would disappear and not seem to affect me? (I was playing in browser if that helps).

larsdu 2021-05-07 05:02

The sound is and atmosphere is great. The game itself is a bit frustrating as its not really clear why mines explode when you scan.

pestodesign 2021-05-07 19:03

Great voice acting and with the bloody certification on the end it showed how greatly the company cares about it's employees :D Nice game, and I loved the menu UI design!

asdehielo 2021-05-07 20:44

This game is so charming, amazing pixelart, good music solid gameplay. Great voice acting aswell, it built up the world for me.

10/10 from me, congrats!

neontropics 2021-05-08 13:17

Wow you really nailed the audio on this one! Amazing fake happy robotic voice acting.

The gameplay was fun, but I usually ended up being a little too risky and exploding in the end. I enjoyed working myself to death for this space corporation and would do so again.

thegamerasd 2021-05-09 03:16

Nice job! I liked the gameplay and the artstyle.

polkoii 2021-05-09 17:25

I liked how the music reacts with what is happening with the screen and how deep you are! I really liked the little quotes from Dig Deep inc. as well! While it was a little laggy sometimes and I had a glitch where I could still move after dying (by moving while I died), this game was a great piece of work!

msipp27 2021-05-10 15:03

WOuld have been nice to know what bombs looked like.

msipp27 2021-05-10 15:04

Oh i glitched the game, i got hit by a bomb but it didn't kill me, i could still walk around

dagostino-audio 2021-05-11 00:00

@rosypenguin make sure to stay updated on our progress as we continue to improve and flesh out Asterisk!

hadesfury 2021-05-11 17:25

Great game ;) congratulation

ismael-rodriguez 2021-05-12 14:17

Very nice game! The presentation, the pixel art, and voice acting are great!

I especially like how the rocks crumble :slight_smile: The sprite jolt/jank when deploying the laser is a little jarring, could have been smoother. The arm itself is also a little weird looking for an otherwise great looking game.

The voice acting is great, and the tone and dialog remind me of the quippy Borderlands respawns.

I like the ideas of using the scanner to find loot, but it does set off the mines, but there's a weird trade that ends up making the scanner less use-able.

Overall a very good game! Good job everyone!

kleinzach 2021-05-13 02:23

I love the voice acting a lot! The gameplay loop is very fun though I wish there was a little more feedback on the mines.

locustjin 2021-05-13 10:06

Game is quite brilliant, i like voice very much :P

alprog 2021-05-14 12:12

Voice and graphic are good, yeah. Performance sometimes is struggle by the way :) The game itself have a potential. It is sad that you didn't have time to implement promotion. Meta-game is strongly recommended for this.

paul-nadan 2021-05-16 03:28

This was really neat, the voice acting was awesome! Was the audio edited to sound more tinny/robotic? The art was also very nice, especially the splash screen and the rocket ship. Great job!

hempuli 2021-05-16 17:25

Very cool! I wish jumping hand been an option, but the sonar system added a very interesting element to the gameplay, especially once I learned that the mines will explode no matter what once revealed. Managed to get a bit over $12k, I think! The art and audio was great!

jeremy-scott-olsen 2021-05-17 21:33

Asterisk logo.gif

THANK YOU, everyone! Thank you for all the love, playthroughs, ratings, reviews, and helpful feedback! If you really enjoyed Asterisk and want to play more once we've developed it further, keep in touch:

• We are https://twitter.com/PlayAsterisk on Twitter. • Follow our programmer Crychair on itch.io, and add us to a collection there.

We've already been busy debugging and working on some of your most-requested features. Can't wait to share more Asterisk with you. Cheers!

jeremy-scott-olsen 2021-05-17 21:55

@enderbit @sarafilipa @rendow @michael-harris @youthfulidealism @tengusheath @realkonstantin @vknauss @c4scar @james-macgill @jakier @fabula-rasa @neontropics @hempuli @matheus-madtrilhas @lunavenator @kythonn @chalivat-quentin @fledgeling93 @mrpouletbzh @skelleroznik @phillip-scott @hoeleboele @amerigo-gazaway @bereg @mharring @brendev @pseudohausen @rosypenguin

As a member of this audio team... THANK YOU! We're so, so glad you liked Asterisk, and proud that audio was any part of that! =)

We're continuing to develop it. If you want to follow along, and play a more polished version with more features, follow https://twitter.com/PlayAsterisk on Twitter, and on itch.io you can follow our programmer Crychair and add Asterisk to a collection so you get updates. Happy gaming!