FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD57 → Orb of the deep?

Orb of the deep?

By is-a-hatbox

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall6673.2121
Fun6143.1021
Innovation4223.2621
Theme4593.6521
Graphics1
Audio5412.5820
Humor5072.6416
Mood6783.1521

Comments

tugaryn 2025-04-08 06:31

wtf these skeletons are too fast, i cannot kill someone, anyway like action flow, like it nes styles, well done

infecsean 2025-04-08 07:05

that's actually a cool concept, surrounding the distracting the skelees, I opened the game, got stuck at the first level, closed the game, came back, looked at the gif, "OMG OK", went back and beat the first skele and got killed and gave up. Good game

popdaddygames 2025-04-08 07:14

screenshot_20250408_001343.png

I cant kill the second skeleton on this level. :(

is-a-hatbox 2025-04-08 15:57

@tugaryn @infecsean @popdaddygames Thank you so much for playing! This is the first time that I've made a game public so it means a lot to me!

Yesterday after getting all the functionality in place I realized it was way too hard. I had a really hard time trying to design the map so it's playable but each section works like a puzzle, you need to "flip" the enemy by jumping if it’s looking at a spot you need to pass through.

Also… I completely forgot to explain some pretty important mechanics

- Wall sliding silences your jump - The higher you jump, the more noise you make - Skeletons will turn and look toward the source of the sound

And restarting on each death... I should have added checkpoints :D

onhore 2025-04-08 17:00

The game looks impressive! The graphics and mechanics deserve special praise, at first, it was difficult to understand what was required, but once I figured it out, it became quite fun and engaging

helloimbenjamin 2025-04-08 17:57

I think it's a very interesting idea! I'll be honest—I struggled a bit at first because I pressed left immediately and didn’t read the first screen. But overall, it’s a super cool concept. Great job!

is-a-hatbox 2025-04-08 18:22

Thank you for playing @onhore! Can't really take credit for the graphics, I used this [asset pack](https://itchabop.itch.io/trapmoor-an-8bit-platformer-tileset), my art skills are non existent :D Really glad you liked it

pro4 2025-04-08 18:42

This was insanely difficult. I was able to get about 6 skeletons deep before it was just too difficult for me and then having to restart all over was too much for me to handle lol.

Main feedback would've been trying to slowly ramp up difficulty so the player learns certain patterns like wall sliding, or distracting with jumps, or assassinating while on wall slide. Cool concept!

braktheman 2025-04-08 18:57

It took me quite a while to make it through, but I think there are some good bones (no pun intended) on the concept for this one!

The level design was pretty good. When I saw the look I was expecting an action platformer and was pretty surprised to find out its more of a puzzle game.

Don't think I can add any new feedback to the comments. Finding a way to teach the mechanics one by one would probably be a great route to go. There was something fun about being thrown in the deep end and just figuring it out though.

Great job and congrats on finishing!

is-a-hatbox 2025-04-09 09:14

@helloimbenjamin @braktheman I'm so glad you played it! @pro4 six skeletons is wild tbh, thank you for the effort and sorry for sending you to the beginning of the level after all of that.

Imagine that I had to delete the first version of enemy detection because instead of just checking horizontally I was checking in 360 degrees when you made a sound, designing a playable level was impossible in that version.

Thank you so much for the valuable feedback and nice comments! I will for sure give more attention to introducing the player to all the mechanics in future projects.

piero-pbes-studio 2025-04-09 21:51

Graphically it's magnificent... I love this pixel art but damn it's difficult... maybe a little help for the player to progress would be nice

marudziik 2025-04-09 22:47

Okay, it's a first Pygame-CE I played in the browser I think, I wasn't aware that you could do that, so there - I learned something new, thanks. I like the look and feel of the game, and the fact that it's basically a puzzle game. The restart is pretty brutal, and the game could use some basic tutorial (I also spent quite some time on figuring out the wall slide), but yeah, feels pretty complete and a great entry overall! Congrats!

hinamarina 2025-04-10 02:04

Is an interesting game, feels a lot like a puzzle. It took me quite some time to pass through the second skeleton, since i wasn't sure how to fall slowly. Is really brutal when you got back to the beginning all again, cause the stealth kind of gameplay makes it a little slow to pass through. All that said, I really liked your take in the genre. It feels really interesting and the controls are quite curious. The pixel art is super cute too, and as someone who really likes hard games, it feels super challenging to pass through :) good work!

is-a-hatbox 2025-04-10 17:39

@piero-pbes-studio @marudziik @hinamarina thank you for playing and for the nice comments! I was originally planning for a challenging experience but I agree that the combination of these issues was way too much!

@marudziik I used this [Pygbag](https://github.com/pygame-web/pygbag) to build a web version of the game with minimal changes to the code. If I can recommend one thing is to add it to the project since the beginning, debugging issues can be hard, did not figure out a way to have logs.

I also loved the pixel art XD, you can find it here [assets](https://itchabop.itch.io/trapmoor-an-8bit-platformer-tileset)

jb-rock 2025-04-11 02:54

I liked the mechanic of redirecting the enemies with the noise. Was a bit confused on this at first, but after figuring it out it was a fun challenge.

euler-moises 2025-04-12 14:34

I really liked the idea. The graphics are very pretty (pixel art, just the way I like it). The music is really lacking, isn't it? The gameplay needs a good polish. The "walljumps" are a big problem. I managed to get the treasure at the bottom but I couldn't get back up. It was mostly due to my lack of skill. I'm sure this little spark of a game idea could become something big in the future.

Great entry. Congratulations!

PS:

1 - I just found out he has a big jump. I'll try again.

2 - I fell out of the dungeon :) cai.png

is-a-hatbox 2025-04-13 19:55

@euler-moises thank you for reaching the orb! I'm happy someone saw that :D

Totally understand the frustration with the walljump, my least favorite part of the game is exactly that, seeing the skeleton weirdly jump between the too walls as if it had an infinite jump. I spent a lot of time on that and when I had a "good enough" version I then had to increase the size of the characters leaving it interacting weirdly with the little passageways. Seeing the final result after so much time spent on that mechanic was not great, but I'm proud I moved on and released it instead of focusing more on that.

Regarding 1 and 2, I laughed so hard with this, I see you used the big jump.

Thank you so much for the feedback!

eugenik 2025-04-14 08:03

I only wish the game was longer :(.

jhax 2025-04-17 21:28

Really cool once you get the mechanics of drawing the skeleton's attention and doing silent landings! I don't think I've quite got the chops to get all the way through, but if it gets a checkpoint mechanic at some point, I'd love to give it another go!

0x-void-x0 2025-04-18 13:24

I would like to help you reach 20 ratings but the game won't start for some reason? All I'm getting is this: t.PNG

Is there a windows build I can try?