FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD48 → Dwarven Surveyor

Dwarven Surveyor

By jimbly

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall1243.8934
Fun1313.8534
Innovation1203.8934
Theme354.3434
Graphics3143.6534
Audio2213.5634
Humor3642.6725
Mood2503.6031

Comments

pe7e 2021-04-26 12:09

Nice one, like the minesweeperesque clues to find the gems.

abrds 2021-04-26 14:24

I actually really enjoyed this, sense of discovery was fun. Good job!

jimbly 2021-04-26 17:08

@pe7e Thanks! Yeah, when I was working on this, for the first half of the project I was not convinced it was going to be anything good, was just too random, but it started to click when I added that, and so added the ore vein sparkly indicator after that as well for just a little more information revealed.

@abrds Thanks! I like games with a sense of discovery, and procedurally generated games are great for that because even I can discover things while making it ^_^.

lsk 2021-04-26 19:21

I really enjoyed this, especially the ability to peek onto the floor below to decide where to jump down! My one complaint would be, I felt it was a bit easy to accidentally drill when I was moving around.

gnaro 2021-04-26 19:26

Interesting idea, nice entry! However, I do feel a lack of information while deciding where to use my resources, so as mistakes pile up I end up feeling a bit os frustation.

uzpykes 2021-04-26 19:27

I have to say, uncovering large areas of the map with a single drill use is quite satisfying! Great game, well done :)

kraemahz 2021-04-26 19:34

Screenshot from 2021-04-26 12-31-41.png

Got trapped on an island digging down with no drills left. Pretty fun!

esosek 2021-04-26 19:38

Awesome original game. It took me a while to understand all the mechanics properly but once I got it it started to make sense :) I like how it drills indefinitely if it hits rock.

milestone-games 2021-04-26 19:40

I really liked the mood of this game. The way random music notes played and particle effects while digging was such a nice touch. I got to level 4 and 60-ish gems before using up all my tools. The fact that there's a highscore list makes me want to try again! Great job!

jason-wilson 2021-04-26 19:40

I had a lot of fun with this game and could see myself coming back to it to play again. Graphics and audio were great. The cracks on the rocks do lend a big help in directing you where to go, but I didn't quite understand how close a rock had to be to a gem to sparkle.

pincushion 2021-04-26 19:43

Fun game. It was a good take on the minesweeper style. I appreciate the scoreboard too!

venezia 2021-04-26 19:58

Enjoyed this quite a bit, thought it was quite fun. I really neat looking ahead and planning a route. Great job!

jimbly 2021-04-26 22:58

@lsk Glad you enjoyed it! Yeah, I think I perhaps set the timer for drilling a little too low, have to be really on your toes to not drill accidentally.

@gnaro You can definitely have a lack of information, but usually a few well-placed shovels on the previous level would help a lot. But sometimes the level is just unlucky and you're faced with the decision of saving your resources for the next level, or taking a gamble. Sorry that it made you feel frustrated! Unless it was a *good*, "let's try that one more time" kind of frustration...

@uzpykes Yeah, I really like that too... my one playtester originally said the drill felt overpowered, but I really like the feeling of getting lucky and exploring what I open up =).

@kraemahz Aww! You had 6 unused shovels, next time, look before you leap? :D I did notice that spot while testing the seed used, and was worried people would be annoyed there's 4 gems they couldn't get to, but, at least someone managed to get those 4 gems!

@jason-wilson The gem sparkles are just a hint, no hard rule - the rule is actually that the level generates the sparkle veins, and then only places gems within those veins, so it's still possible to be a long ways away from an actual gem, but the continuous flow of them might help tell where gems might be. The sparkle veins are also fairly coherent from level to level (not sure anyone will possibly notice that ^_^), so can be used a bit to guess where gems might be on the next level too.

@esosek @milestone-games @pincushion @venezia Thanks for playing, glad you enjoyed it!

sinusquell 2021-04-27 17:57

Very cool game! I loved the sound effects and music especially. It just felt kind of fitting! At first I didn't realize I could dig a hole on the spot when I run out of drills, but I got it quickly it

Also pretty cool that you included an online leaderboard! That actually made me try again. Got to 98 Score :)

jimbly 2021-04-27 18:26

@sinusquell Thanks for playing and glad you enjoyed it! I'm pretty happy with how the music and musical sound effects turned out. I love leaderboards, both as a player, and as a developer so I can see how far people are getting =).

a0m1n3zone 2021-04-27 20:02

I like the sound and the SFX, you did a great job with them. Very chill game, good job

solah 2021-04-28 05:17

Oups ^^ That was fun to play! The music and art are cool and the machanics are totally drwarfy (I don't know if that word exists xD). Very good compo entry, well done! I will try to get a better score ^^

Capture4.PNG

jimbly 2021-04-28 13:35

@solah Sorry you got stuck, but also kind of happy that it procedurally generated such a tempting trap - you had some unused shovels so could have looked a bit more before jumping down ^_^. Glad you enjoyed it though, and that it felt appropriately dwarfy =).

darkshadow 2021-04-28 17:37

103/155 :smiley:

This is the favourite game I've played yet. Like the minesweeper mechanic but the level peeking is what makes it!

jimbly 2021-04-28 18:43

@darkshadow Glad you enjoyed it, and that's a pretty good score! Best of any other Ludum Dare player - the other higher scores are all my friends who sometimes get competitive. Strangely, I don't see your score on the high score list... does it show up for you if you go back to the game and click "high scores"? Might be I have a bug there, what browser are you using?

darkshadow 2021-04-28 20:42

@jimbly Firefox, I don't think the highscore table loaded, I didn't see any other scores

jimbly 2021-04-28 23:02

@darkshadow Thanks for the info. Hmm, not seeing any issue on Firefox here - what OS are you on, and what version of Firefox? If it's not too much trouble, can you go back to [the game](http://www.dashingstrike.com/LudumDare/LD48/?D=COMPO) and click on Highscores and let me know if it's still empty for ya?

harmadillo 2021-05-01 12:51

Nice game. Liked the peak into the level below. finding any resources further away(not marked by cracked rock) became guess work. Made it feel clearing a level was often down to luck.

tezza48 2021-05-01 15:23

It's a cool lil game, Nice work.

jimbly 2021-05-01 16:26

@harmadillo Glad you enjoyed it! Yeah, finding resources after you've ran out of scouted stuff is pretty random, that's where you have to decide to keep tools to get more for a future level, or do some digging to scout more and maybe get lucky and find some extra gems. Or, so my thinking goes, but I've not got the high score ^_^.

@tezza48 Glad you liked it!

someone 2021-05-02 23:49

Nice game. Very polished. Some interesting mechanics. The peek down was a cool idea, though I kept forgetting about it. The character seems to bounce back when you try to move sometimes which was weird. At first I though something was stopping you enter some tiles.

kaminos 2021-05-03 00:10

That was fun! It took me a bit to understand it.. and then it become really enjoyable. I like the idea of planning ahead and using wisely the few resources i had. The idea of looking down on the next lvl is awesome. The graphics are nice and the text humorous. Cool idea and game :)

jimbly 2021-05-03 01:41

@someone Glad you enjoyed it! Yeah, the peek down is important, but easy to forget... I added the thing that forces you to peek down at least once right at the end to hopefully help people remember/discover that mechanic, but I'm not sure if it worked. It didn't end up being as integral to the experience as I'd hoped.

The snapping back is if you're standing on a tile boundary, it moves you off of it, in a, perhaps misguided, effort to help aiming, though I ended up adding so many indicators for what's going to happen when you dig it probably isn't needed in the end ^_^.

@kaminos Glad you got into it! As for the text, maybe just the lava one was humorous? I didn't think of it at the time, but definitely could have added a bit of a similar flavor to the rest, but mostly they were just there to remind people of the mechanics that weren't obvious =).

cavedens 2021-05-04 15:30

One of the best games yet I've played. Id love to see it continued to be worked on to include possibly not ending at level 10 so that you can keep going for high score

mariszin 2021-05-04 15:41

Nice strategy game. Managed to get to the bottom on the first try.

nikolaj 2021-05-04 15:46

fun little game

meta-link 2021-05-04 15:49

Really cool game ! Interesting concept and fun to play, with good graphics and music.

Good job :slight_smile:

jimbly 2021-05-05 01:18

@cavedens Glad you liked it! There is an "endless mode" accessible from the main menu, but it's not as balanced as the score-attack, and with the bigger levels it actually just gets boring pretty quickly ^_^. There's probably some combination of endless depth and level parameters that would be good though!

@mariszin Glad you enjoyed it! Unless you get *very* unlucky, you should be able to make it to the bottom, though where your score ends up on the high score list is a different matter ^_^.

txanevk 2021-05-05 19:04

Great music and sound effects (was that a guitar and a bass?) The gameplay is nice, and i think it is a challenge to get all gems. Well done!.

jimbly 2021-05-06 00:38

@txanevk Thanks! Yeah, I'm pretty happy with how the music and sound turned out, usually that's one of the weakest points of my games ^_^. The voices used are labeled "Slow Strings" "Violin" and "Harp", but I was aiming for a plucked guitar kind of sound, and the mid range is definitely a cello range, not violin, but I didn't like the cello voice in my synthesizer :).

100th-coin 2021-05-08 18:26

Super original idea! I love the drills and stuff. The game took a little bit of time to figure out, but once I figured out what the objective was, it was smooth sailing.

Cool stuff, and nice music / sound effects!

filgru 2021-05-09 11:15

Wow! One of the coolest games I played on LD48! I finished the normal mode! I really like the music and guitar sounds, it makes really nice atmosphere. Everything works well here. I also liked the explanation texts, some of them are quite funny. Congrats! Awesome work!

jimbly 2021-05-09 19:19

@filgru Thanks for playing and glad you liked it so much! I'm pretty happy with how the music and sounds turned out, almost certainly my best audio (usually my weakest facet) I've done for a LD entry =).

kurama-youko 2021-05-12 03:18

A fun and completely functional game! I liked the small reference to minesweeper mechanics, also, graphics and audio were very good. Btw, I'm #6 in the leadebord, at least as I write :D Ah, and I noticed the small parallax effect when watching lower floors from above :)

jimbly 2021-05-12 04:10

@kurama-youko Glad you enjoyed it, and, great score! That's the highest score of any Ludum Dare player, the only people above you are my (rather competitive) IRL friends =).

Glad you noticed the parallax - I tried really hard to convey a little bit of depth with that, but in the end it's pretty hard to convey information about 3D space in this kind of 2D, but hopefully it gave a hint that there was something underneath ^_^.