thatanonoword 2021-04-27 06:21
Amazing game. Played for hours. A Tetris twist with skills and different blocks are amazing and fun. Never even thought about using Tetris to dig down instead of build up. Overall amazing game, especially for 3 days.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD48 → Excavatris Inc.
By neon-glass, Dragonayzer and Yerkwell
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 452 | 3.80 | 37 | |
| Fun | 174 | 3.97 | 37 | |
| Innovation | 712 | 3.38 | 37 | |
| Theme | 746 | 3.77 | 37 | |
| Graphics | 1057 | 3.55 | 37 | |
| Audio | 219 | 3.95 | 35 | |
| Humor | 1279 | 2.19 | 25 | |
| Mood | 978 | 3.45 | 33 |
Amazing game. Played for hours. A Tetris twist with skills and different blocks are amazing and fun. Never even thought about using Tetris to dig down instead of build up. Overall amazing game, especially for 3 days.
There are a lot of twists added to the recognizable core of tetris here, and although I enjoyed blasting blocks with my special abilities it almost feels like too much? Having to aim was enough of a distraction I forgot I could pocket pieces until well into the game. This left me wondering if perhaps pairing down some of those controls could help some of the more creative additions shine, like how satisfying it is to descend as it stops being about just clearing rows and becomes about advancing into somewhere which I found really engaging... In fact engaging enough that I should probably be asleep already but kept playing well past when I should have stopped, and will probably come back to it tomorrow to see how deep I can go.Screenshot 2021-04-27 01.52.40.png
Inconsistency of artstyle on different elements, UI placement is a little uncomfortable. Otherwise, cool game!!
Ty for the game!
It really keeps me wanting to go deeper and deeper! An interesting idea of using classical tetris, I enjoyed the process a lot. It's quite challenging but still chilly to play (if you're above 120 depth :D). I liked the graphics and SFX, but want more and better. Anyways, the idea is awesome! I hope to see you guys develop the game and make it more juicy and addictive :) P.S. One day I'll reach the bottom! (what's there?..)
My main problem with this game is - i had problems to stop playing it.
We have a really relaxed music, totally not annoying, the sounds are also matching. The graphics are decent.
Controls feel a bit overwhelming in the first few minutes, but as soon as you understand the purpose of the weapons and how to aim, that is not a problem.
I love tetris, but this took me a little time and guidance to get an understanding of what was going on. Great addition to a traditional game! Well done!
Original take on Tetris gratz
Nice take on a classic. I like that the music changes based on the depth you are at.
Hello! Your game was played on stream ( https://www.twitch.tv/ursagames/videos ) on 4/28.
You can find the timestamp of when your game was played here: https://tinyurl.com/LDJAM48-ursa
You perfectly implemented tetris, the T spin is working! Do you use a stack of pieces or is it full random?
The graphics are great and so are the sounds. That's some amazing work you did in only 48 hours.
It's kind of... addictive.
firefox_USpdbCNvtw.png
Really nice idea and smart move, when you start playing tetris its hard to stop, so deeper tetris...great job.
Cool new features added to classic Tetris. The gameplay is cool and the sound design is on point. The music is relaxing and the sounds are very satisfying. Great job
What year is it??? I'm still playing Tetris (and enjoying it).
The changing music is a nice touch, made me want to keep on playing to reach the next one. The one I got from level 51 to 80 sounded like a variation on the Mission: Impossible theme, and was very good.
Thanks for playing, everyone! We're really glad you liked our game!
For anyone wondering, the known record depth is 154 (my PB, hehe). I'd be really happy if anyone could get the crown from me, though! firefox_2021-04-29_22-07-37.png
@jeanbon We've used the default Tetris' Random Generator - bag with the whole set of different pieces, pulled in random order, before taking the next bag.
@slowfrog-again That's exactly what I said to our composer when I heard it for the first time! There is a total of 7 themes, with the last starting at depth 151!
A very neat reimagining of tetris. The lasers and bombs don’t add a layer, they interact with the known tetris layers and make for a new type of strategy. the art is nicely done, in good 0l’ tetris fashion. The music matches that style well, but is unique enough not to be a remix of the tetris sound track. Game play is smooth. I didn’t notice any bugs. Thank you so much for bringing this by my stream. Here's a link to the VOD: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1004703239?t=2h40m20s
Thanks for bringing your game by my stream for playtesting! If you’d like to revisit the play and commentary you can view the highlight at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1006134089
If you haven't already considered it, I'd love it if the bomb powerup was dropped as a block and then you could direct it with the same controls you use to move blocks, same with the laser, that way, you don't have to use Q/E at all.
@bluishgreenpro Thanks for the suggestion! We did consider it, but we didn't have time to implement that (the whole Ability system was done pretty early into the jam). We do know the game's controls are slightly skewed towards three-handed people as of now, and plan to address that in the post-jam version though!
Yaaas, *Tetrissssss*. This is my jam! I really like the re-framing of the score system here, clearing the board being the focus rather than creating Tetris, T-spins, or combos. That subtle change really helped give the game a new spin to the old formula. That's really cool.
Aside from the 3-power-up, I didn't really take many of the power-ups' advantages. I feel like the controls and implementation of power-ups, while necessary to the game given its procedural nature, needs a little more polish. I would have also appreciated some explanation on certain elements how they behave, and what to do with them (e.g. mines, moving blocks, what blocks fall vs what doesn't when line is made, etc.)
https://youtu.be/O7jRN1j3y2A?t=5784
Excavatris
I saw this game on @omiya-games stream yesterday and seeing how it was based off actual Tetris, being a Tetris-aficionado myself, I knew I had to give it a shot as soon as possible! Starting things off the bat, I have to say that this is a really fun take on Tetris thanks to the use of some new smaller but very well thought out mechanics. The bombs and the moving blocks helped give this game a very unique and fun take on the Tetris formula. Like most people in the comments, those small additions really motivated me to keep playing for a good while! The clear graphics and the very fitting music, especially how the track changes every N-depth also keep it very fresh as it went along. :blush:
There's a few homestead quality-of-life things from the standard Tetris that I felt would have been really welcome. Being able to hold pieces and swap them was really nice, however, the thing I missed the most was the ghost piece that appears in most modern Tetris titles. Being able to see where a piece is predicted to land on with a hard-drop would have been-nice, and early on I was having a few issues placing a few pieces due to the lack of a grid or a ghost like that.
As a minor nit-pick from playing so much Tetris normally, I would have also looked a bit at the controls of some of the existing Tetris games on PC, such as the [online version](https://tetris.com/play-tetris), [jstris](https://jstris.jezevec10.com/) and [Puyo Puyo Tetris](https://store.steampowered.com/app/546050/Puyo_PuyoTetris/), which use Z/X for rotation and C for hold and that layout would have definitely been welcome here! Though again, these are just a nit-pick from me playing the original game fairly frequently! :sweat_smile: Speaking of nit-picks, the game over glitch mentioned for web happened to me in the Windows version, and there's was the occasional fake block that stayed on screen. They were no biggie though!
The power-ups were a great addition in my opinion! The earthquake one was a god-send starting in 100+ depth. The first and second power-ups were also great at removing mistakes early on, but with the speed increasing in the later-game, it became harder to have actual breathing room to use them. I feel a small SFX or a clearer indicator when a power-up can be used would have been fantastic! Same thing with the deployment arrow. It felt slightly misplaced to use it with the Q/E keys. Maybe have it target where your current piece is about to land?
Overall this is a really fun game, and I was trying my best to head for a high-score. Unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to pull it off just yet using the tiny laptop keys I'm on right now. I got extremely close at 132 though, so once I get back to my regular location with my proper keyboard I will be sure to be back here to take the crown off your hands, @dragonayzer! Look out to it! :whale:
Darn, @jorgegamedev. I just gave it a run, and only got to depth 109.
Excavatris Highscore
My job here is done, @dragonayzer (and CC @omiya-games just because). :trophy: The music for reaching Depth 151+ didn't even play to me, so I had the last 10 levels in silence. :stuck_out_tongue:
Hey matey, thanks for submitting your game to stream, I really enjoyed it! I hope my feedback helps, if you'd like you can rewatch the vod here:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1012941526
This is a pretty nice entry. It's definitely best new take on Tetris I've seen in a while. I really like the art, especially all the grass, and dirt, and rocks surrounding the Tetris board... and then the music--or at least the music that I got to hear--was pretty good too.
Unfortunately I am simply not very good at Tetris. My first game took maybe 15 minutes and I lost with the laughable score of... 1. My second game I've been playing for maybe 45 minutes and I've gotten to around depth 40. It seems like, at least with my skill level, the time it actually takes to get further down is just a bit too much. The game ends up being really slow-paced, which clashes with the sense I get from the presentation of the game that it should be more fast-paced.
I did find that as I learned to use the new abilities I was able to get farther faster. I think that the abilities are a really useful addition to the game, as they do help give it that sense of destruction and speed that might be expected from a digging game.
I do find that the way the abilities work is a little annoying--if you don't use them right away then all the lines you clear are wasted in terms of charging up abilities. Ultimately I think this is fine, as they would be way too powerful if you could, say, bank up a bunch of the explosion ability by clearing a bunch of lines, but it does feel a little bad.
I think that problem in particular could really be mitigated just by adding more juice to the ability UI. If the abilities really popped out when they were ready, so that, for example, I could use the earthquake without ever wasting any lines charging it, I think that would be better. At it stands it actually took me a long time to realize that the UI included a charging bar for each ability and that lines cleared while an ability is charged don't contribute to it.
Ultimately I think this game is still pretty incredible. Now that I understand it as a slow-paced game (at least how I play it), I think it is a pretty nice game. If I had a couple of hours to spend playing Tetris it would be a very good way to do that.