FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD57 → Diamond Divers

Diamond Divers

By straightupgruntled

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall553.8121
Fun743.6021
Innovation703.7321
Theme663.8921
Graphics903.7821
Audio204.0021
Humor783.2321
Mood1453.4221

Comments

subsolar 2025-04-07 04:17

amazing game! great polish with the sound effects and graphics! very fun

sharploaded 2025-04-07 08:24

Really nice game! Simple mechanics, but has quite high skill ceiling with the cart jumping. Everything felt super polished. Great job!

singer 2025-04-07 09:19

Super fun! I don't understand how to move trolley correctly, but it creates more chaos and mood :)

baknik 2025-04-07 19:58

The sounds, art, and feel of most mechanics felt great! I had a really hard time pushing the cart around. Does it only move forward? If so how do you turn it?

straightupgruntled 2025-04-07 20:14

Seems like I should have had a section of the tutorial explain how you move the cart since a couple people had this as an issue. Friends of mine have done the same thing as well so that's on me for not making it clear design wise.

The cart moves in the direction that the player is looking. So you look in a direction, jump on the cart, and it will push it in that direction. Also you don't have to time the jump input each time you land on the cart. If you jump on something, you will automatically chain into another jump. So you can simply move and aim once you are jumping on the cart. It also takes into account a little bit of where you jump on the cart. So you will have a bit more control if you jump on the edge furthest from the direction you want to move in. Hope that helps for anybody else trying it!

frib 2025-04-07 20:35

I figured out how to aim the cart when it got stuck in a corner in the tutorial level, but controlling the cart is the weakest part of the game imo. It felt tedious and annoying, I'd rather just push it directly lol

On the contrary, I love the boomerang axes, they're really fun to use :D

straightupgruntled 2025-04-08 03:11

@frib Thank you for this feedback, I really appreciate it. I was torn at first because I really enjoy the jump mechanic, but I realize now that it can sometimes make it tricky to simply move around. That was originally the design intention, but I realize it's not great when it's the only way for you to get around. I'm currently working on different movement control styles, and I'm thinking about incorporating both. You can stomp on the cart to move it like the game is now for small adjustments, but you'll also be able to interact with the back of it to change to a move mode that's more vehicle push like.

adam-gallina 2025-04-08 03:17

I really liked the concept of the game, but seconding that moving the minecart made it feel kind of tedious. The effect was really cool, and I think it would be an effective mechanic for smth you do less often (maybe once the minecart is 'full' it's too heavy to move and you have to kick it to the center), but even so I still had enough fun to play till the end :) I did really like the combat combined with the audio, that part did work great

straightupgruntled 2025-04-08 03:45

@adam-gallina Thanks for playing! I really like that idea actually. And I'm thinking that maybe jumping on the cart is something the player can always do, but it doesn't decrease in speed. So you can jump on the cart full, and it will push just as much as empty. Then the player can push from behind in a vehicle control way as the main mode of movement, and then jump on it when it starts to get full.

I also discovered a cool thing. If the player pushes the cart in a vehicle mode, they control both the player and cart at the same time, meaning they could jump with the cart over pits until it gets too full and they can't make the jump.

Thank you again for your feedback from both of you. It's incredibly helpful and opening up the concept for more directions to develop in post jam!

[An idea I'm playing with is adding various attachments to the cart, stuff like saws, shields, diamond magnets, etc. Then the jumping on the cart to make small adjustments has even more purpose because you can rotate the cart to angle certain attachments towards certain things.]

adam-gallina 2025-04-08 03:54

@straightupgruntled I would have definitely enjoyed the attachments, there were a few moments where I'd pushed the cart into enemies where I felt it would have been cool to damage them, so it would add an interesting layer to the game Also the cart jumps sound really cool, great bug turned feature lol

xorfe 2025-04-09 04:17

The SFX and the interaction feel were great. Although the graphics are quite simple, the color choices are excellent. Even though it's hard to notice things like jumping on and pushing objects, the game design part is also quite successful.

bigwhiteshogun 2025-04-09 07:12

thx for playing our game, I really liked what you've done it is unique and cool, with some more power ups and maybe variety in turret enemies this can be really really great!

stingdragon 2025-04-09 18:27

I love the bouncing pickaxes! That was the best part! The jumping on the cart was easy to figure out but clunky in practice. I would love a magnet function for the diamonds too.

straightupgruntled 2025-04-09 21:53

Thank you all so much for the fantastic feedback so far on the game! I've been working on the game over the last couple of days post-jam, and I'll post a link to it at the end of the rating period of the jam for anybody interested in checking it out.

bridgeonastick 2025-04-10 17:44

Really interesting, the mechanic to push the cart with a jump is different, but it works really well! The jump itself is fun to use, bouncing on enemies and rocks and turrets alike feels good. Maybe a reward for successful consecutive bounces would spice up the gameplay even more.

chuckiee 2025-04-10 17:51

This could be a flash game that had 100 levels back in the days. Such polish and super nice game idea with great execution :clap: I've also failed to figure out the cart, thankfully I saw the NOTE. Well made :100:

eugenik 2025-04-14 09:17

Very fun game!!

infernaton 2025-04-17 19:13

Really cool game, I'm amaze to see something like that on only 48h! And like a lot of people here, I don't understand how to push minecart until I saw your comment. Some proposition for an upgraded version: I don't know if it's really necessary to push the minecart by ourself, maybe the ressource can be collected automatically to focus the gameplay on launching the pickaxes, or maybe setting npc that will gather the fallen diamond and the player need to protect them. But besides that, that's really good!

kroltan 2025-04-18 20:04

I got the cart stuck in the top left of the tutorial level twice in a row :/ Besides that, really nice juiced up entry!

bloodbane 2025-04-19 14:07

Nice work with this entry. Too bad the way how core mechanic is supposed to be performed which is pushing cart isn't fun at all. Added with collected diamonds could expire, the game become harder than it should be. This game could be better if pushing cart could be done by shooting the cart or just pushing it. Stomping to push cart should be coded as bonus which is stomped cart will yield 2x diamonds. This will give risk n reward to choose from.