FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD48 → Caves of the Forgotten

Caves of the Forgotten

By corbeng

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall4323.4865
Fun6872.9265
Innovation7192.7265
Theme2773.8465
Graphics1843.8865
Audio6162.6661
Humor943.6164
Mood4263.2962

Comments

pvp 2021-04-26 02:37

Nice easter egg :p. Had a laugh a the ending.

twowolf 2021-04-26 02:50

Oh no you trapped me

chiyeon 2021-04-26 02:51

Graphics were super great :)

I'm sure Mike's his goal by now.

nethead 2021-04-26 03:04

Cool game, I liked the pixel art (nice palette!) and climbing mechanic. Nice tone overall.

welby 2021-04-26 04:15

the ending made me chuckle. I think it's a clever way to end a game. The art and light sound is rly good too.

sweer 2021-04-26 04:21

The art was super nice, but none of the puzzles I felt like were extremely challenging, I always knew how to get to the end, but all in all, great game

tim77 2021-04-26 04:53

Nice pixel style. A super relaxed vibe about it too which I enjoyed. It would add a lot to reduce the duration of the rope climbing animations. They currently take 6-7 seconds - a long time to wait! Great work for a short jam. Well done.

jiri-one 2021-04-26 08:25

Pretty cool art and mood, there was quite some down-time between levels, but the concept was fun and easy to expand with more puzzles. I did find one bug, where when interacting with "E" while climbing will make you move in that direction while the menu is up. Letting you do this :Untitled.png

henriquecanella 2021-04-26 13:23

Nice game man, really liked the pixel art. And F =c

cavedens 2021-04-26 14:10

Very cool game. The end actually made me laugh out loud. I love the low res art style. Enjoyable

cmdrapollo 2021-04-26 17:15

There is a bug where you climb off screen indefinitely until you close the menu, as shown by @jiri-one. Great art tho. I love it!

corbeng 2021-04-26 17:51

@jiri-one @cmdrapollo ah, thanks for catching that bug!

john-gabriel 2021-04-26 18:40

Breath of the Wild called - they want their stamina meter back!

The visuals are the best part here. I especially like the main character's walk animation - that hair bouncing and bobbing as he strolls is really cool. It's a bit light on gameplay, though.

pohko 2021-04-26 18:44

Beautiful, you're animations especially are super smooth. I too loved the 'Mike' reference, lol. It's one of the few games I think was probably better without music, super chill and I just kept exploring.

luc-creationallabs 2021-04-26 18:46

I liked the game in general. The art is beautiful, the sounds are adequate and the atmosphere when entering the cave is interesting. The problem for me is that mechanically it does not evolve, and as there is no mechanically progression in the player's actions the game ends up becoming a 'task handler', the player already knows how to solve everything, he just has to go and do it. Still, the ending is interesting.

zykra 2021-04-26 18:46

The character art is really smooth

mdotedot 2021-04-26 19:39

Very polished game. I rarely see this but this has some good level progression. And I also say very rarely that it feels kind of 'too easy'. But then again if it wasn't that accessible I would never have enjoyed all those levels you made. Good job.

brad-make-games 2021-04-26 19:57

For your first game jam this is really good! I think everyone who plays it will agree that this game has really good visuals. As for the gameplay, I think the idea was there and it all works well, I just think it was a bit sluggish and didn't quite expand on the idea enough. When it comes to sound all the sound effects fit and helped the game a lot, although I think music could have helped. Overall not a bad submission.

mkmuffi 2021-04-26 20:02

I really like the puzzle aspect of this, having to find more pieces of rope to go further down into the cave. The walking is a bit slow, and it could use some music. And the dialogue for the notes on some of the dead bodies are funny, I caught that host Mike and Tomb Raider reference. The graphics are probably the best you could make them with a canvas size for each sprite being so small. And the ending seems a bit cut off, I assume that's due to time reasons. Pretty good in general.

pookipoot 2021-04-26 21:55

The visuals were great! I liked your choice of sfx as well. Like others have mentioned if it was a little faster I think it'd be spot on but great job considering this is a compo.

icefallgames 2021-04-27 00:00

Hahaha... nice ending. And cute graphics, good job!

knipsch 2021-04-27 00:04

The waiver system and notes were quite funny; my favorite was Sarah Croft. The art style is really stylish and cohesive and the colors are great; I especially loved the main character's animations. It was sometimes difficult to discern what some things were (maybe it's just me, but I didn't figure out what the dead explorers were until the second or third one). The gameplay was a little bit slow and a little bit too easy, but I still enjoyed playing. I really appreciated the BOTW-style stamina bar, the sweat drips that come off you when you walk around, and the sound effects that matched their actions well! Really nice attention to detail. The user interface was really nice and coherent with the gameplay style; my one suggestion is that it should be able to close the notes using the "E" key that opened them, instead of having to click a button. I liked the ending a lot!

doommustard 2021-04-27 00:53

Great game, I really like how you order your levels in a way that acts like a subtle tutorial. introducing how the climbing works then that you can climb after you fall, then that you can fall from your climb etc.

youthfulidealism 2021-04-27 03:01

I ran into a game-breaking bug--I fell off when trying to climb off the top of the screen.

I enjoyed this. I have no idea why I'm trying to collect ducks, but the humor of doing so is fun.

The whole thing where you find skeletons labeled with names and ambitions spoke to me... especially since that's *not* something we often see in modern life. Survivorship bias gives us dreams that are lavish and unrealistic. It would be better if we could all see the skeletons and ambitions scattered about the place. It's unfortunate that we hide them.

Well done.

monkeybit29 2021-04-27 03:41

I loved it! I really liked how you progressed the mechanics and the story. Everything seemed smooth and the aesthetics were pleasing.

catomag 2021-04-27 07:22

i think i got the bad ending

noctuaris12 2021-04-27 07:41

The game has got a nice feeling to it, and is overall pretty charming !

bidentworks 2021-04-27 11:45

Enjoyed the ride! Art looks great, animations are beautiful and the zelda-like climbing is satisfying. The skeletons added a very nice touch on the mood.

I believe a background music, even a very simple one, would have complemented your art nicely!

tetrapteryx 2021-04-27 12:45

Nice art! I especially liked the color choices in the cave background, that pop of purple was a nice touch to keep it all from being brown cave walls. The humor is great, and I loved how the level design perfectly communicates what to do without any need for a tutorial.

This is a bit of a nitpick, I would have liked to be able to close the waiver popups with a key instead of the mouse just to maintain the immersion.

rhoff95 2021-04-27 21:14

Great game! Visuals were super cool. I would have liked some faster move speed, as I felt like I was waiting for all the in-between areas.

threeli 2021-04-27 21:58

Look, I too want to find the mystical land of Shambala. Excellent work, I really would love to see this developed further - there's just so many directions it could be taken.

My only minor nitpick (and it's been mentioned here) is that I wish there was some background audio. Maybe not music per se, but wind and drips etc. Anyway, brilliant work, I just need more of it!

fozzy 2021-04-28 01:14

Its think its fun to play and the programmer art is quite charming. Amazing stuff for just 48 hours.

nyanpierre 2021-04-28 03:08

Nice graphic, nice gameplay good job !

spider058 2021-04-28 10:45

super cool and funny game, love it!

itsonrandom 2021-04-28 11:53

Nice game! Good to see something thought out from start to finish even if you did trap us in there at the end! Some nice references too! Loved the art style as well. Really impressive work for 48 hours!

pquiskamp 2021-04-28 15:04

Good Job! Its fun and for a solo nice really impressive.

haivron 2021-04-28 18:28

The walk animation is super cool! I was always wondering what the next waiver would be about which was what made me keep going down. Platforming was cool but simple; would love to get introduced to just another simple mechanic that helps me move around at mid-game.

After all absolutely cool compo entry, kudos to you for creating this in 48h.

ariorick 2021-04-28 21:42

Nice end twist and easter eggs! Wish there was any chanllenge in gameplay. I think, ability to jump would open a lot of possibilities for more interesting level design. Also, I'm not an artist, but I think white outlines look weird. In pixel art language it probably means that sprite is lit from behind? Probably better to use darker color of edge of the sprite or just black

leorid 2021-04-29 04:53

Simple short and nice. Closing the Menu with "E" would be a nice addition, also I was told recently, that if it is 'Keyboard Only' (which would be the case if the Menu can be closed with a Keyboard button), Controls should be on the Arrow Keys, instead of the WASD keys. Didn't know about this myself because up to this jam I only created 3D Shooter Games. xD

I also liked the twist at the end and the easter eggs on the way, had to giggle quite a few times. :D

amerigo-gazaway 2021-04-29 21:30

Love the pixel art style, nice twist at the end as well. Could have used some cave ambience fx or music maybe. Great work!

mudlee 2021-04-30 14:18

Muhaha. I almost got too tired and quit, but I thought, let's give it one more chance and do one more level, and you trapped me. Now I can't even escape. I would have quit! :P Nice graphics and neat idea, but I'm sure I won't play it again! :P

mrawde 2021-05-01 00:03

Great job on your first jam! Art and sfx are great! Short and sweet!

ismael-rodriguez 2021-05-01 01:26

Good jam game! Good use of the jam to make something funny.

If you'd like some more critical feedback.

I liked the climbing mechanic, and wish it was somehow expanded a bit more. Maybe needing to time your climb between traps and obstacles so you can still reach your objective, or having lower stamina and needing to grab recovery McGuffins something.

I thought the gameplay loop was kind of repetitive. Would be fun to have seen a few different types of obstacles.

Still a good entry. Good job!

danvil 2021-05-01 01:37

I like your footstep sound effects and the peaceful exploration. Would have been even better with music.

pxlshk 2021-05-02 07:33

Good graphics. i should have expected the ending...

tanis 2021-05-02 16:39

I so much love the animation of the main character! That hair moving in that way, that's just awesome! :) Too bad you didn't manage to squeeze in some background music. The idea of exploring and finding out about the different characters is really nice. Nice job for your first jam!

pijamar 2021-05-03 04:35

Oh no, spelunking can be so sad :sweat_smile:

I had a lot of fun with this game, super impressive work, especially for a first jam — it's a compo entry, even!

The pixel art and animations are superb, and the references made me smile all the way into the cave. I personally like the pace of the game, the slower flow gave it a contemplative feel. Not sure if I have any criticisms, I found the game to be a very concise and complete little experience. Are you looking to add more content or expand it somehow?

super-hadoken 2021-05-17 12:55

Nice polished compo entry with attractive graphics.

nardandas 2021-05-18 06:01

The graphics and bits of story were really fun, the twist at the end was great! I found the gameplay a bit slow, I wanted a dash or something. I also kind of wanted some more puzzling. Everything I had to do was a bit too straightforward and not technically challenging, though not quite calm enough for a walking simulator.