Loot Goblin

dock-frankenstein 2023-10-02 20:12

Congratulations on switching engines, I also went the open source route, but 10 times more painful.

As for the game: gameplay misses a purpose. There is no risk and reward, as you can just keep going for expeditions over and over again to get as much gold as you can. After a while the game became a button clicking simulator. I can't think of a simple solution for this, but I don't think you will want to turn this into the next AAA steam release anyway.

Also, I found a bug: after an expedition text seems to be covering the button, so you have to press around it for the click to register

Good luck with the new engine

tudvari 2023-10-02 21:03

@dock-frankenstein Thanks for the feedback, it's really valuable! :) The text glitch was now quickly fixed while I fixed a crash. Sorry to hear that, why was the switch 10 times more painful? :O

And yes, you are so right about the issue that a player could just grind the lowest level till they have their slots full of the best potions. And then easily finish the game. Players will always find the least resistant path for sure, and optimize the fun out the game. :smile:

But now that I think about it... you can do this in ARPG-s and in lots of other games as well, right? You can always fight bit underlevelled monsters to grind XP. It's slower, more tidious, less fun, boring, but you can easily and very safely beat the final boss after that grind. Hmm, now I can't stop thinking about, thanks! :smiley: And thanks again for playing my game, can't wait to try yours. :)

xwilarg 2023-10-02 21:36

Looks like an interesting game (I like the mood) but I'm not sure I really get what the gameplay is about

jimworks 2023-10-02 21:40

I quite liked this one. It was fun, and I really enjoyed the style you went for. For me, I feel the game was a bit easy. Maybe it could be improved if you limited the slots/carry weight more and didn't let people go back to lower levels? Not sure on that, but the concept is really great.

markus-sihler 2023-10-02 21:41

Interesting concept, but I felt like it lacked some depth as the gameloop kept staying the same. Maybe add cursed items or traps the next time to liven up the experience? On the other hand the Art and Music were fantastic.

alexclay 2023-10-02 21:50

I found the game addicting despite me cheesing through it (sometimes taking items without reading the values). It reminded me a lot of the Elder Scrolls of all things.

Good job releasing a game while learning a new engine! P.S. Why is the game 100mb?

berin 2023-10-02 21:58

This game is very charming! You clearly put a lot of love into the presentation; the visuals are consistent and immersive, and the music is great! The gameplay idea is interesting, but in its current form it get's a little repetitive soon. I just ended up filling the inventory to the max at the start of a run and then just switched out one item when it seemed to be a better deal without much thinking. I would love to play it again with the features that didn't make it!

tudvari 2023-10-03 07:09

@xwilarg Thanks that it at least looks interesting :laughing:. Could you elaborate on what do you mean by "what the gameplay is about?" :) Thanks in advance!

xwilarg 2023-10-03 07:21

@tudvari Like I was a bit confused by how to play and stuff like the weight system, is the goal to take the best potions and get the items with the most gold or is there something else I'm missing?

tudvari 2023-10-03 07:28

@jimworks Well, I would have aimed for a better style, but this is what time enabled I guess :laughing: I always struggle with balance because I either make it good enough for me, thus hard for everyone, or I make it too easy. But I guess being too easy is better than being too hard. Thanks for the feedback! :)

@markus-sihler Thanks for the kind words! Yes, I could implement only the bare minimum sadly. If it would have a grid/tetris inventory and/or some small objectives, it would be more fun I guess! Thanks for the feedback. :slight_smile:

@alexclay Thanks, good to hear! :) I didn't look at ES things during the jam, but now that you mentioned it, it resembles a bit Morrowind. But maybe just due to the art. Hmm... Yeah, about that: There are 2 ambience tracks, one has 2 versions in the project, the other one 3. They end up taking 60 MB. :D

@berin Well, you don't have to be so nice, the visuals aren't really immersive for sure! :D I mean I even forgot to at least make the background of the dungeon scene at least a *bit* darker. :smile: Yep, that's what I figured out sadly too late: you don't have to check the items until your inventory is full. I would live to try the planned version as well, to see if it's worth working on it more. Maybe I will work on it a bit more. But I feel like the game's idea is maybe too risky to work on it for months and be released publicly. But who knows. Thanks for the great feedback, cheer! :smile:

tudvari 2023-10-03 07:35

@xwilarg Well the goal is to finish the final level, and then optionally aim for a higher and higher score. Hmm, maybe I forgot to mention that your gold is your score (Gold you have + inventory value). And you have to keep in the mind the values and weights because your inventory is limited, so you want the items whose value per weight ratio is relatively not bad. The core gameplay is basically: you just go down, get items, sell items, get better potions, go deeper, get better items, get more gold, get even better potions, and repeat this until you finish the final level. Hope I could clear it up, sorry for not being clearer. :\ Thanks for the feedback, I'll edit the description a bit! :)

xwilarg 2023-10-03 07:56

I'll try the game again tonight with these new explanation, thanks :)

tudvari 2023-10-03 08:30

@xwilarg thanks for giving another chance, appreciate it! :)

incd021 2023-10-03 10:33

I did it. :D [loot-goblin.png](///raw/5c7/2/z/5f2ab.png)

Started out being a bit confused about mu health only being the potions. But nice text telling me "you are not going without a health potion are you?" guided me in the right direction.

Very nice graphics, and color picking ;) Moody music. All round a very nice work :thumbsup:

Got to the end on my forth try. As soon as you figure out what's going on, it gets a lot easier :)

Nice job :thumbsup:

tudvari 2023-10-03 11:43

@incd021 Thanks for playing! Yeah, I always forgot how straightforward the game is for the one who developed it. :smile: Thanks for the feedback and the kind words, cheers! :)

dsfan 2023-10-03 16:13

Was a bit confused about where is my health bar but noticed how my potions were ending :D. Liked the overall gameplay although it was pretty simple and not as challenging as I would expect. With a concept like that I think there's a lot of room for improvement, and for a compo I think it's decent result.

tudvari 2023-10-03 17:28

@dsfan Thanks for the feedback and the kind words! :) Yep, I had to decrease my scope as the deadline approached, and it seems that I cut the wrong things and made it so simple that it lacks challenge. I guess instead of the save system it would have been better to implement a Diablo like grid inventory and/or tasks from the merchant. :smile: I guess hopefully next time I'll know better. Have a nice day, cheers!

jiri-hysek 2023-10-03 18:08

A golden gnome! That was the last thing I missed in my garden, thank you! :D Although it's basically just user interface so it could be almost counted as a text game, but you managed to reach dark dungeon mood! And visuals somehow reminds me Minecraft (at least it's user interface ;) I was never sure when I leave dungeon, I tried to be as close to the weight limit, but I think I don't need to have exact 500 kg, there is some range, right? Cool entry!

tudvari 2023-10-03 20:13

@jiri-hysek Thanks for playing, Jiri, and congrats! :) Well, if I would have made the dungeon scene at least different colored to indicate that now you are underground or something... that would have been great! :D

You leave the dungeon when there are no more items on the level, so it's indicated by the "X loot in front of you" text. I tried telling this by this text: "But across all that loot, there is a ladder."

Regarding the weight limit: it's a just a limit. There isn't a rule that you should have x kg of items in your inventory. You just *should have** because why waste the space when it's limited? I mean there could be loot there! :D Thanks for the feedback, cheers! :)

qaolin 2023-10-04 15:01

Hm, i downloaded the game but i have no exe file :D how do i play it?

tudvari 2023-10-04 15:56

@qaolin Hmm, are you sure you downloaded the Windows one? I've just downloaded it, and the exe is there. Or maybe your antivirus quarantined it? :O

coffeup-studios 2023-10-04 16:27

Incredible work! I made my way trought the leaderboard, and bought that gnome! :sunglasses: feeling like a badass goblin now

im-not-a-robot 2023-10-04 16:44

Great idea, I really liked it! I thought it was cool that you didn't fight anything, so you didn't have to worry about dealing damage or anything :) I'd love to see this with some more effects that can happen to you, like maybe slowness, poison or similar stuff that affects the looting. Maybe luck potions?

The music was very chill and fitting and I liked the simple artstyle.

Also it was nice, that you prevented the player from going into the dungeon without purchasing anything at first.

LootGoblin_Q1okYAcTTa.png

Overall very nice entry, I enjoyed it a lot. Hope you had fun during the jam and maybe give my game a try if you haven't yet. I haven't made it to 20 votes yet either <3

tudvari 2023-10-04 19:40

@coffeup-studios Thank you so much, for playing, and glad to hear that you finished it! :)

@im-not-a-robot Woah, that's a lot of praise, undeserved for sure, but thanks! :) Yep, I planned to have some other, special effect potions, which could be bought before the adventure, or found during one. Thanks for playing and glad to hear that you finished it! :) Sure, I'll give it a go! :)

henk 2023-10-07 14:30

I liked the calm atmosphere: the soft colors, gentle music, and self-paced gameplay. The art was very clean.

I think being able to replay the same level over and over again kind of breaks the game, since you can get an arbitrarily high score that way even when just mashing "take" and ignoring the value and weight of all the items. I didn't "get" the gameplay until after I voluntarily limited myself to one go at each level. Once I did that, it felt much more balanced.

commanderstitch 2023-10-08 01:14

I love your gamesdiedWon.png Managed to die then win. :D wweeeeeeeee

bangkerpow 2023-10-08 13:47

This was really well put together. The music and all the sounds built the mood very well. I went through three stages of learning on this one. At first I was just grabbing everything and moving on. Then I was trying to maximize gold by figuring the ratio of gold to weight. Finally, I just started skipping the first 6 loots per level because the damage penalty was very severe. I really like the idea of a dungeon crawler were you have to constantly use potions to counter many players' habit of holding onto potions until the right time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rM2FmQK-ELs

balimaarthebassfish 2023-10-09 02:22

Now this was an interesting take! I loved it. You deliver once again Tudvari!

tudvari 2023-10-09 09:14

@henk Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, I wanted to suit the game for multiple audiences by being able to grind lower levels to make higher levels easier. But that ruined the gmaeplay for non-casual players, I guess. Thanks for playing! :)

@commanderstitch Thanks, Commander! :) Thanks for playing, congrats!

@bangkerpow Thanks for the kind comments! :) Thanks for describing your learning curve, it was helpful. I guess we'll see what the ratings say about this idea, but I'm glad that at least you liked it, thanks for playing! :)

frank-gevaerts 2023-10-09 20:48

A very fun little game. It's probably not too replayable right now, but with some work it could get there!

Yes, different backgrounds in the dungeon and things like that would be good, but I didn't really miss them. Sound and graphics are perfectly nice!

tudvari 2023-10-10 12:27

@frank-gevaerts Thanks for playing, Frank! And thanks for the feedback too! :)

kirsybuu 2023-10-13 21:38

Nice game! Aesthetics were pleasing, though I wish I could see little icons for all the items. I ended up taking a pretty greedy approach to the strategy, which was to use potions to tank the extra damage from weight so I can just maximize gold/weight ratio of items. I like the idea of risk-reward idea of weight causing issues but maybe a more complex system is needed to encourage varied strategies. I only needed to replay level 3 once to get enough gold to buy the potions I needed to beat the game, so I felt like the balance was good.

prakkus 2023-10-13 22:08

I liked the concept here a lot! The look and feel were spot on too with everything feeling pretty polished for a jam game. I made it to within one item pickup of surviving to the bottom but I didn't really feel like my decisions leading up to that point had a big impact on that outcome. It might have been more interesting to skip items having weight, which came down to optimizing for small amounts of gold, and instead have the choice be about how much damage you are willing to take for each item?

tudvari 2023-10-14 08:01

@kirsybuu Well, one thing I wouldn't say is that the aesthetics were pleasing, but thank you :sweat_smile: Yep, during brainstorming I imagined everything with cool icons, but I guess art suffers first if you need more time for gameplay development. Though I realised too late that gameplay is far too simple. :smile: Thanks for the feedback!

@prakkus Thanks for the feedback! Yep, the player could have a bit more control on the outcome I guess. What do you mean by the last part? Could you elaborate a bit? Thanks in advance! :slight_smile:

sibi 2023-10-15 14:46

This game has all the foundations to become a really addicting game. I caught myself saying "just one more run" before finally going on to the final level. Very well rounded experience for a compo entry. Would just have loved some more challenge to keep going.

tudvari 2023-10-15 15:50

@sibi Thank you for the kind words, who knows, maybe I'll make a game from it, once I realise how to add some depth and challenge. :smile:

im-not-a-robot 2023-10-22 13:13

Came back to see how my favourite games from the jam did in ratings. Congrats on the great score! :)

tudvari 2023-10-24 19:25

@im-not-a-robot Thanks for coming back! :) Congrats on yours, they are much better! :) Well, I anticipated a bit better score in some of the categories, but it ain't bad I guess. My first 2 LDs were relatively pretty bad, and since then I always managed to get a persistent kind-of-good rating. Which is good but also kind of sad because it means that I'm not improving. :laughing: