Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD57 → Dwarvenshaft
By mateusboga
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 209 | 3.83 | 39 | |
| Fun | 307 | 3.56 | 39 | |
| Innovation | 360 | 3.36 | 38 | |
| Theme | 227 | 4.01 | 39 | |
| Graphics | 238 | 4.06 | 40 | |
| Audio | 40 | 4.16 | 39 | |
| Humor | 265 | 3.26 | 34 | |
| Mood | 289 | 3.81 | 37 |
I feel you could have added a zoom out and made the game more satisfying giving the player the power to watch their dwarves work. The sounds are perfect and the music fits. The art style is well done being very clean and the controls are a bit confusing for an RTS style game.
love the art and the way to control the paths of the dwarfs is very smart !
Great song, I laughed when it booted up! Great time playing, I especially like the random dwarfs!
Hey @mateusboga nice to see you do it again! Loved this entry and it is very satisfying to watch your dwarves mining through the block, well done ! :)
I have noted some little things: - When a dwarve is far from a block, even in auto mode he stay idle - popping a dwarve needs you to go back to spawning point, its a bit tedious especially when you are far down and cannot scroll the screen faster - I mined everything! But didn't see any engame ?
Well done on your work ! Music and sounds effects were cool and chill !
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This was a lot of fun! Fantastic art and sound design as always. Unfortunately I did get softlocked right before what I assume was the ending, there wasn't enough iron in the world for the necessary drills. But despite that I still had a very good time.
https://youtu.be/ebiwQlSZk9w
@mathstr0fficial Thanks so much for the feedback and the gameplay video! So: using the drill on minerals severely ruins their yield right now, so you're supposed to save them for digging down to the next layer only. That was something that wasn't very obvious. But regardless, the game softlocks after a while because the iron generation is about the same every layer but the cost of a drill is exponential and your yield upgrades only give +1 iron every hit, so yea. I need to rethink the design if I want to make the game endless. And no, the game doesn't end in Layer 8. Thanks for playing!
@corbak Thanks for the feedback! You were supposed to buy a drill and dig straight down to get to the next layer. The game doesn't have an end, though as I mentioned to Abi above there is an inevitable softlock once you run out of iron which I guess can be considered an "ending" xD. Thanks for playing!
@wetburritosupreme @bslrqs Thanks! ^^
@timelost Thank you! You can change the scale of the game by going in the settings and changing "upscale", if that helps. Sorry the controls are confusing, I'll have to work on them more once the jam is over. Thanks for playing!
Fun! It started out a little slow with my single guy, but once I got several guys going, and especially when they were upgraded with drills, things started going really fast! So fast I literally mined out the whole map lol, nothing was left.
Loved the pixel art, the chanting song in the background, and the little dudes running around on auto mining as fast as they could with drills.
One small feedback I'd have is it would be nice to be able to scroll faster around the map. I know you could click on their portrait in the market screen to jump to a spot, but I also wanted to just pan around and watch the mayhem.
Nice work, really enjoyed this.
really smooth how you can set the dwarfs to auto collect but still click on ores you want and have them prioritize those and then continue on auto. Feels nicely polished. I like the variety of dwarves, too. Wish I could pan the camera with WASD as well as mouse being near edge though
Yeah, it's somehow interesting to just dig and dig and dig... But controls could be much more better tbh. Otherwise, I enjoyed it until it became too tedious(due to controls mostly) to grind iron. Good job!
The dwarves dug too greedily and too deep, it would be cool to be able to zoom in and out and also to be able to switch between dwarves easily... this kind of game is my jam
The art and sound were well done and made me feel like I was running a colony of dwarves, especially once you got a few dwarves going. I like that there was some variety in the dwarf sprites too. The AI for pathing and digging seemed to work well too, which was impressive.
One change that I think would improve the game is a way to locate your dwarves, as they would spread out and become difficult to find on occasion.
@tobius @piero-pbes-studio @sami822 @amberfall92 @pro4 Thanks so much for playing and for your feedback! ^^
@tobius A way to locate dwarves is to use the Market tab and click on them one by one, but I do understand there should be a better/easier shortcut.
Great game, I had fun clearing all the blocks. Sometimes the dwarves would get lost when there was nothing near them, but then you just send them back to a place where there is something.
Soundtrack is also very fabulous, and the pixelart is stellar.
Hey, that's a really nice game, and made everything by you? nice job man! It is more of a base for something bigger, but like others have said the loop of digging->get resources->buy upgrades->descend->repeat is fun enough! I would encourage to keed developing this idea!. Did you develop the "auto" pathfinding or is it some kind of add-on library? i love to program this kind of things but the limited time oftens leads to me avoiding this kind of things.
Others have said pretty much the same, zooming out would be cool. I would suggest iterating through the different dwarfs with the tab key or something. ALSO, i didn't know how to go to the next floor. I know i might be kinda dumb but the button HIDES when the dwarf is set to auto, so i thought that maybe i had to clear the floor but obviusly i didn't(?).
Anyways, nice job!
I'm such a sucker for mining games (Motherload was my /jam/), and you scratched that itch for me! I enjoyed maneuvering around my guys and watching them zoom as I gifted them with powerups. If you want to continue with this, I could see it going some really cool places- if not, it's totally enjoyable as is! The BGM alone is already stuck in my mind. Great work!!
Bem....
Mateusboga só pode ser nick de brasileiro. :D
parabéns pelo jogo mano! Arte e música muito boas. Eu e meus amigos anões acabamos com tudo. Esse jogo com objetivos vai ser show!
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Nós acabamos com tudo irmão.
The pixel art is top notch :) And the music is very dwarfy! Super cool entry!
@drsmey @chispalbc @allie-vera @euler-moises @anton-florey Thank you all so much for your feedback!
@chispalbc Yes I did everything, except some SFX ^^ The auto pathfinding was using the A* (A Star) pathfinding algorythm that you can find versions of online, modified by me so that it randomly looks around the dwarf with larger and larger radius. I admit the code for this is very crunchy, but I suppose that's normal for a jam game. I should make a post-mortem for this soon. The dig button hides in auto for code reasons as well xD Thanks!
@euler-moises Quase! Sou de Portugal ^^ muito obrigado!
I love how chaotic this gets when you have lots of dwarves running around super fast. It's fun just to watch them go!
I did think the gameplay was a little bland. There's not a lot to do other than click on dwarves, watch them mine resources you can use to make them mine faster, repeat. I like the decision between using drills to mine resources vs. dig to new layers, but there's not much reason to do the former unless you're really lacking in resources, which is rare. In general there's just not a lot of strategy at the moment.
The interface is also a little frustrating - the maps are huge with no landmarks, and it takes ages to scroll around them. I know you can use the menu to hop between dwarves, but that's pretty disorienting. It's also kind of annoying having to move all your dwarves down into the next layer every time.
Overall, great work. The dwarves are super charming and it's great fun to watch them work. Gameplay-wise, there are the bones of something fun and strategic here, but I think it needs some more depth to really shine.
I just love the music and the art! Great job man.
The music and audio is awesome and the visual style is really fitting. I also like the idea of being able to drill to a next layer, more free satisfaction! Really like the concept as a whole. Good job and thank you for your submission!!
This was a fun little idle game/manager sim. :slight_smile:
I love the personality of the little dwarves and their grunts. Really well put together!
Reached layer 7 and then I couldn't find iron to progress further. After a while I figured out that it's best to place holes to the next layer next to each other and somewhere near the level bounds to make them easier to find, otherwise it's a bit frustrating for newly recruited dwarves to reach the current deepest layer. Music, art are perfectly in-sync with the game mood. The game started to get boring after some time, but still for a gamejam entry it's really remarkable what you've managed to build.
I really like the music and the visuals. The sound of the blocks breaking was also really satisfying. I think you need to slow the pace of the game down a lot. it was really cool but I progressed really fast and mined the whole map in a few minutes
Awesome game! I'm hooked! 😄 The background melody slowly seeps into your brain, and I instinctively started humming along with the gnomes. 😄 Super cool! Good luck!!!
Rock and Stone! :pick: Nice job! :thumbsup_tone1:
@sam-gorman @eugenik @gerswick @coleslaughter @sztobar @braeden @ammonit @shadyshade Thank you all so much for playing and for your feedback!
@braeden Thanks for mentioning that, I believe the issue is that the pace of the game is dependant on machine performance, so if you try on mobile for example they should be much slower. I need to normalize it so that dwarves progress at a fixed rate regardless of the machine.
Very well done entry. I managed to clear out the entire shaft and all my 8 miners were left with nothing to pickaxe / drill on :laughing:
Love the soundtrack!
~Xp
Great job, love the vibe. No much more to add than what others said, a bit more usability like a zoom-out, better auto-mining or hotkeys like escape to deselect dwarves or a drag-system to highlight multiple dwarves. But then again time is limited and I think you focused on the right things. Oh, one last thing the pixel font was a bit hard to read. Great job :)
@mateusboga ohh that makes sense lol! My dwarves were moving way faster than in the video :sweat_smile:
That was a fun experience, enjoyed digging and collecting resources! I think I completed the game (screenshot below) because it didn't seem like there were any blocks left but not sure 100%! I think some objective or goal would have been nice to know we won / lost - but otherwise a fun chill game. Graphics are great. I think someone mentioned already but having a zoom out would be helpful as I often lost my miners and had no idea where they were. Well done on your entry! :smile:
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I really enjoyed this one! the song cracked me up, and I found myself playing for way too long haha Well Done!
Hey @mateusboga , I just drilled the entire screen :smile: !
Music is just epic! Drilling is sweet, pixel-art animations are just superb. Good job on all of that! AND the *save* feature is a HUGE plus!
Now, for the feedback part, I reaaaally *almost* missed that there is a point to the game (from just playing the game!) - until I saw the video of the guy who actually reaches further layers?! Why wasn't I able to reach the next layer? Maybe I am missing sth... :sweat_smile: ! Not sure what but I recall in your PostMortem mentioning Lemmings! Maybe a visual hint from the start to what we need to reach?
For the too-fast-drilling.. I actually kind of liked that a lot! It was fun to see those guys buzzing around like hell :D (btw I can confirm this is not a *machine performance* issue - it is a display refresh rate issue - and here is your super-simple solution - Fixed Time Step to 60: https://github.com/AweSkyBear/ld57-The-7-Questions/blob/ld57/src/scenes/Game.ts#L78) - I confirmed this via setting my monitor from 144hz to 60hz and confirm there is difference. **EDIT**: strangely, now it runs "slowlly" at 144hz? There is a small bug here ; )
My other feedback is what others have mentioned: I need some zoom to keep track of my mongers. Also some way to pan FAST around the screen, really. And, since it felt like an RTS a bit... way to select multiple mongers via drag-select or sth ;) (I think this could improve the game greatly, since as you mentioned there is an issue where the guys just stop with "auto" option.
Overall, I bow down before very complex efforts, because this all is NOT easy to code!!! Let alone in 2-3 days! Great effort and a great concept that just needs some polishing!
@empyreans @kujoen @clymm @yoav-kagan @aweskybear Thanks so much for the feedback! :D
Guys, you can **DRILL DOWN!** You missed 80% of the game and the precious minerals T_T you just have to stop auto-mining and click "Dig Down" (and have coal to do so). I really need to rethink the game design since this is apparently not obvious at all and a lot of people missed it...
@aweskybear I know what the issue is, I had the same issue with my previous LD entry, which in that case was actually game-breaking since you can collide into things. The fix is really simple, just have the game loop happen at a fixed rate, like you said, while all the visual stuff can stay on the frame refresh function. Still, thanks for taking the time to show me a way to do it! (the reason you probably get a slower game in 144hz is because maybe you're in fullscreen? I know that also affect the framerate and speed of the game a lot)
@mateusboga big fat **LOL** !!! XD **YOU CAN DRILL DOWN LIKE THIS ?!?!?!** Things just got A LOT more interesting!!
UX rule (for building UIs) number one - if there is an important feature that you don't want your users to miss - put it in front of them ! ! ! And don't base its appearance on a condition! LMAO !
I will have to start playing again hahaha! :smile:
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About the speed of the game, LoL yes.. fullscreen somehow affects that. XD
@mateusboga Ok, I got down to playing again. I now see how you can move between layers. *But*.. I got confused a few more times, to be honest. Here is how: - when I send my member down the hole (this really doesn't sound right XD) it automatically switches to that layer. But then if I create a dwarf he is spawned at the top layer (not super convenient) - on that part - I did not realize that clicking the hole / ladder brings you up/down - I found that out kind of by chance :/ - I think I hit some bug (or is this a feature?) where the drill is not getting equipped properly (getting unequipped immediately); then it somehow fixed itself - playing the game more, it didn't feel too useful to manage multiple dwarfs but rather just play with the one yielding the drill, since its a much faster action - due to the navigation and lack of zoom, sometimes I get lost and don't know where my hole/ladder is
Overall, the drilling is quite satisfactory, as already mentioned, but those navigation (UX?) issues are kind of a put off for playing longer unfortunately :/ These are the risks with a complex multi-faceted game like the one you've created (it has many edge cases). Maybe keeping the scope smaller would allow for polishing out the experience next time. Still, thank you for the experience! It is a feat to have this in just 3 days! And I hope you find the feedback useful. Peace!
@aweskybear Thanks for your dedication to play the game again and give detailed feedback! It's much appreciated :) yea I definitely overscoped as usual xD
It took me a *very* long time, even with reading the messages here, to figure out how you "dig down". Apparently you have to also first move your dwarfs *up* to not be at the bottom of the map (they ended up there because I figured that's how you "dig down" :laughing:).
The controls for moving the map around are too hard for me, I really need keyboard or something to scroll, and I try to move the mouse to the edge of the screen and it leaves the window and then stops scrolling (continuing scrolling in that case would also work). It's also really hard to find the hole down I dug to actually get all my dwarves down there.
Music was nice, and I did really enjoy watching my dwarves mine until I lost track of them :laughing:.
It starts off slow but once you get a few of the wee lil' dwarves going, it start becoming frantic and I loved watching them all mine. Buying/upgrades were all very satisfying. I wouldn't of known to dig down if I didn't read your previous comment, I'm glad I did otherwise I would of most likely been stuck, but other than that small nit-pick a highly polished fun little time waster. Great work.
(Plus the audio was amazing, I loved that!)
You made an acapella track!!!!!!!!! YES!!!!!!!!!!!! 10/10
So it took me forever to figure out that the guy needed to not be on auto in order to drill downwards. Other than that, I had a great time!
Here's my video to provide more feedback!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cy0bQOALFus
@100th-coin @sinclairstrange @jimbly Thank you so much for your feedback and sorry for the controls being so weird :D