Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD48 → LD48: Down the Rabbit Hole
By lmb
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 184 | 3.77 | 29 | |
| Fun | 114 | 3.88 | 29 | |
| Innovation | 358 | 3.38 | 29 | |
| Theme | 248 | 3.88 | 29 | |
| Graphics | 632 | 3.11 | 29 | |
| Audio | 370 | 3.29 | 29 | |
| Humor | 251 | 2.98 | 27 | |
| Mood | 325 | 3.44 | 29 |
A solid core loop, I like the timer tethering you to the drill, and how you have to weigh up the risk/reward of venturing further out. I do kinda wish I'd had a direction indicator so I could tell which direction I would attack / mine. Good job :)
Pretty fun game, my main complaint is that since attack is control and you use WASD to aim, it made me press crtl-w which closes the tab in the web version so you might want to change that...
It also would be nice if your tutorial should up when you start playing since players are more likely to miss it if you have to go out of your way to open it.
A rogue-like exploration game? Sign me up! It's like [Minit](https://store.steampowered.com/app/609490/Minit/) and Minecraft had a baby. Wish it was easier to know what direction I was attacking. I like your instrucitons/tutorial page a lot! Very helpful!
@chumzy Ouch, that's the second time in a row I made a game with this Ctrl+W issue :face_palm:
You can also move with arrow keys also, anyway.
All for the risk-reward system, and I really appreciate the tutorial being inside the jam game. A fun mix of genres, too!
Ah wow I love this game. I couldn't quite figure it out the first time but after I read the instructions and everything made sense. It gets so tense tying to mine, protect your ship, return back in time to go to the next level. The upgrade system was really fun. I liked the variety in levels which made some builds more or less effective. I love the theming! I got really attached to my Armadillo. GET AWAY FROM MY ARMADILLO YOU DAMN DIRTY BUGS!!
This is an all around solid entry that brings some intense situations. There are a few things that it would benefit from. First of all, there's no need for mining and attacking to be on separate keys. I mixed them up quite a bit because the actions are so similar, unifying them as one action would be an improvement. Also, some feedback letting me know when I've been hit, just a sound effect or something, would be great. I was always surprised to see how much damage I had taken at the end of a level, when I didn't even realize I had been hit! These are minor things that are common to 48h games, though. I took the time to play the whole thing, which is a testament to how fun I found it. Great job.
This was fun. Well balanced. The ore was so worth it that I'd risk missing the drill. The timer beep saved me a few times. It's a nice touch.
Well done!
@quinn-patrick You raised some really good points here! Thanks for playing and for the feedback!
A lot of content for a compo, took me an embarrasing amount of time to learn how to play haha
@magna Honest question: did you try the "instructions" screen? Or it was so hidden you didn't saw it existed? Or it was too confusing? Or it had too much text and you you gave up reading it? Or...?
Had a lot of fun with this one! There was a good risk:reward kinda thing going on with needing to leave the ship to get resources, vs stay near to protect it. I ended up getting to level 5 before dying. It would've been nice to see some kind of indication that the player was getting hurt other than the bar going down, most the time I didn't notice - but other than that, solid entry! :smile:
Lacks visual feedback for attacks + i'd like to control my character's direction with mouse, not with wasd. Other than that really fun game, polish it a bit, add some juice like vfx and graphical assets and i would buy it on steam. Congrats.
@skoopidy Thanks for the comments! I totally agree that the game is lacking better feedback. This was on top of my TODO list at the end of the 48 hours. I added the "alarms" to tell when Armadillo is under attack and when it is about to leave, but there was a lot more I could have done to improve the situation awareness to the player.
Creating a more complete, sellable version of some game is something I want to someday. Maybe this one could be a good candidate for further development. :thinking:
@lmb good luck and keep us updated :)
Really impressed by the complexity given the time frame! I loved the humor, intuitive controls, and oil-visibility dynamic.
As far as constructive feedback goes, I also would like to have more visual/audio feedback when taking damage, audio feedback when the timer was getting low (not sure if this was in the game and I just couldn't hear it??? I played the browser version), and stats for how much I've upgraded the pick and attack strength (some way of keeping track of how much ore I've spent on each). I think the level and resource generation could be a bit more consistent for the first level, as well as the bug spawning (at least x amount within x squares of the player) for the first level.
Overall I thought it scaled well and I really liked the bartering system and trade off between having to leave the ship vulnerable to attack in order to get more resources. I thought the time dynamic helped the levels scale well. I wish the levels kept going! Great job overall! Fit the theme perfectly.
It was interesting to explore the mechanics of this rogue-like even while I was having troubles with understanding what is going on sometimes (Armadillo HP going down) and how to respond to it (there were actually bugs attacking it, so I had to protect it). But the first thing I struggled was "finding the Armadillo" :D For some reason I didn't get that yellow square you spawn on is the Armadillo :D
Read the instructions first :point_up:
Anyway, great rogue-like attempt, bring more of these!
Things I liked: - really neat core mechanic that works well with the theme. I really like the 'catch the elevator' time mechanic - I liked the upgrade system - generally a fun game with a lot of potential for further development
Suggestions/Improvements: - polish the art so that the upgrade menu matches the art style of the game - have a scoreboard for the player to compete with themselves so that they will try to go back and go deeper each time
Bugs: - I didn't encounter any
@alessandra Thanks for playing! Visual and audio feedback is my most received (and well deserved!) complaint -- thanks for bringing some different kinds of feedback I could add! I also appreciate the comments about the level generation!
@agrdev Thanks for the comments! I've been trying to make my Ludum Dare games easier to understand. One thing I never tried was to add an in-game tutorial (like, playing hints while playing, instructions on demand...) Maybe it's about time to try something like this. Would probably help you and other players (like me) who prefer not to read instructions :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
Cool concept. I died a few times before I realized I had to go back to the yellow square in the middle before the time ran out but once I figured that out it was a fun and engaging game. I really liked the audio, especially the beeping when the time was about to run out...it saved me many times!
Really cool game. I found it a bit too easy, but it was fun.
Cool game ! The upgrade menu lacks a speed upgrade, that's the only big complaint I have. Other than that, it was very fun to go through and kill the bugs ! Well done !
Integrated tutorial level is a amazing idea. I liked the core gameplay weighing multiple choices is always a solid idea. One thing that I found missing was lack of visual/audio feedback on attacks, both player atacking bugs and bugs attacking player. Sometimes it was hard to track whenever the attacks were actually doing anything. Good job nonetheless
Amazing Compo Game. It was incredibly fun to play!
I like this game and there's sooo much that I'd love to see added. I played for about 10 minutes before putting the game down. It reminds me a bit of a 2D top view version of Deep Rock Galactic. :D
Feedback on the basic: - The combat system and mining system are too similar and could probably be merged. Upgrading damage and mining rate separately is still a good ideas. - The enemies need health bars <3 - The animations for hitting enemies need to be juicy so they feel rewarding. - Walking around could feel a bit blocky... this game could really benefit from not binding the player and enemies to the grid system. - I felt like I had so much oil that it was not a challenge. The oil mechanic therefore became uninteresting since I totally forgot about it. I was picking up oil at random and didn't feel like I had to choose between oil and ore. - There didn't seem to be a good reason to travel far from the home base (e.g. no bigger rewards further away).
Feedback to go from good to GREAT: - Currently, the game doesn't present a goal for player excellence. My only option is to protect my mining rig, kill some bugs, and make sure I have a bit of ore to heal from time to time. The objective feels like a survival mission more than a quest for thriving. The player needs goals! The goal could be to discover cooler enemies, cooler loot, ancient relics, more powerful upgrades, etc. As it stands, the player's incentive to continue ends after 5 minutes since there is no goal to build to. - The upgrade screen is an absolute tease and there is SO much more you could add to it: Automated healing of the home base, Turrets to defend the home base, A minimap for when you get lost, cooling weapons, faster move speed, ability to end the mining mission early, teleport back to home base to defend or to leave.
Overall, a great concept and a strong first pass at execution!
@the-neon-shark Wow, this is some first-class feedback! Thank you *so* much! I am getting more and more inclined to work on a post-compo version of this game, so I've been thinking in ways to improve it. Your suggestions are overall aligned with my own ideas, which probably signs a good way to go on the next iteration. But you sure mentioned a thing or two that didn't think of! Super useful comment!
In the name good discussion, I'll mention the one point I very much intend to diverge from your suggestions: the mini-map. I was intentionally trying to create a feeling of "I must take care to not get lost". I think this can play well with the tension between exploring but needing to back to the driller before it departs. I actually added one subtler cue about Armadillo's location: the game sound is spatial, so can actually (er, sorta) hear where Armadillo is. Admittedly, this spatial sound didn't work very well, but I'd like to pursuit this route of keeping the player worried about remembering the way back. (But if this fails, I agree the mini-map would be a nice addition).
Such a fun game! I meant to just give it a peek, but it got away from me and I ended up playing for quite a while. Really satisfying!
Actually really fun game! Managed to snatch a mug for myself :) The powerful drill as a wobbling box was adorable. Music fit very well too! Overall there didn't seem to be much use for oil. Maybe it should have been running out faster, but I wonder if that would have made the game a bit too difficult/frustrating. Anyway, it was a very pleasant playing experience. Everything was very smooth and the game goal was clear and relatable. Level generation felt a little random in regards to difficulty. Sometimes you'd have the easiest time gathering things with few bugs attacking, and others they'd swarm you from the start. Really nice immersion as I actually felt an endearing attachment to the drill and the mission <3