Back From Abyss by resty 2025-04-10T10:57:30Z
Fun platformer with a very clever tourch mechanic! Controls felt pretty good overall, but I think having some control of the jump height would be nice.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → bene-labs
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 57 | Depths | 👥 | You Gnome the Drill! | jam | 487 | 3.48 | 3.25 | 3.30 | 4.06 | 3.65 | 3.69 | 2.87 | 3.41 |
Fun platformer with a very clever tourch mechanic! Controls felt pretty good overall, but I think having some control of the jump height would be nice.
Super funny and charming game, great job!
Having to always remove the limbs manually was a bit cumbersome tough, I think it would be better if the limb that has been out the longest would be used when all four limbs are out. I also got a "uh oh" screen when trying to get past the mushroom. Are you not allowed to touch it or is that a bug?
Very fun game with cool retro graphics and a great psychedelic atmosphere! The sound effects got a bit grating after a while tough and the invisible wall was a bit annoying.
Super cool and engaging game with an amazing athomsphere! I think a version were the levels were randomized each day would be awesome but getting farther into the same house was great too.
I think balance wise there need to be more of a benefit to having more characters, the all had very similar stats and energy would refill anyways so it seemed more like a way to get more hp in the current version.
Simple but fun game with a funny setting. Well done!
I'm suprised you opted out of humor, I think you would have gotten a really good rating for it
The most fun game I played on the jam so far, controls were good and the way everything sync with the (great) music felt amazing! I need an endless mode :D
Short but sweet little game! I really enjoyed the graphics and music, and the game play was fun too. I think the game would be more fun for me if there was more of a consequence for touching sharks, but I can see the benefits of the more casual approach you took as well.
Fun game with a nice game loop!
I think displaying a high-score of the most enemies you killed in one run would go a long way, but buying upgrades was fun regardless
Super creative and cool idea but I sadly couldn't get past the first puzzle despite trying for quite some time - everything looked correct but it didn't seem to count. Probably a bug, as two of the screens borders got stuck being complely green while the other borders were stuck being gray after a while. I hope you can fix it as I really want to give it another try but it was still a cool experience already
Awesome art and fun guitar-hero gameplay!
The story seems really interesting too, but I got stuck on the second clean-up puzzle unfortunately. There wasn't any feedback whether something was placed or placed correctly so I couldn't figure it out. I also thing there might be an issue were you can't move incorrect items anymore. I'll be back to try it again tough as I really want to see the rest of the story :smile:
Great concept and style, an awesome game overall! The wave starts off a bit too quick in my opions which leave you no choice but to build turrets and the beginning. I managed to stabilize afterwards tough and made a good mix of energy and turrets - the walls seemed pretty useless tough. I made it all the way to the end and had a good time :)
Very funny and charming RPG with great graphics and music as well a good gameplay variety. Both the slide puzzles and music segments were quite fun, and I loved the dialogue sprites in particular.
The real-world political references felt a bit jarring at times and slightly took me out of the otherwise fun and whimsical setting but other that I liked the story.
This was great! Cleaning up the room and discovering so many different objects was very satisfying and I got pretty invested in the story. Made me a bit emotional to be honest. :sweat_smile:
The "clean up the trash" segments were a little tedious for me and there were a few typos but nothing to get me out of it.
Awesome work!
Very funny idea, I did not expect to see a cooking mama style game about smoking weed. XD Rolling the joint took way too long but still very enjoyable overall!
Super fun and addictive game, great job! Game feel was really on point!
All the upgrade were great, with the exception of the drill upgrade: imo it was super strong but made the gameplay way less fun as it removed the excitment of seeing the balls bounce around. I think you could expand the game really well with a couple more upgrades. On suggestion: I think it would be coool if you could get the "the xth ball get an ability" upgrades multiple times but with a different ball affected each time. Having them all just for a specific ball felt a bit strange
Here's my highscore: Screenshot 2025-04-10 163220.png
@senso The "explosion on high speed" upgrade is pretty op when combined with the "click to move" upgrade. I got an explosion on every bounce by always clicking on the ball's highest point :D
Really nice retro asthetic and atmoshphere. Figuring out the different abilities was a lot of fun even tough I got lost quite a bit within the maze
Fun and relaxing game with incredible sound design! I would have prefered if you would have to avoid the planets but the zen-like experience without the extra challenge was fun too
Awesome concept and super polished aswell, great job! ^^
Super tricky but really fun and unique game, great job!
Cool game with a really nice atmosphere!
Love the atmosphere and collecting all the the minerals was a lot of fun! The gun play felt great as well altough I thing you could increase the frequency of enemy spawns a bit
Very fun and polished game! The controls were smooth and the varierty of challanges was really impressive. The part with the narrow path were a fireball shoots upwards felt a bit unfair tough. I made it to 80 after around 15 attempts
Very cool and unique little game! It took me a while to understand the gameplay so some sort of in-game tutorial or a more detailed jam page would be nice. Once I finally understood what I had to do it was quite fun!
Haha true, we probably should have started the drill a bit higher. :laughing: You can always wall jump tough. ;) Thanks for playing!
Note from the devs: After checking the update guidelines we fixed a small typo in the code that caused the wrong value to be used for the progress bar. Other than that our game is still exactly the same as before the deadline.
@jamesgames1000 Thank for playing! The idea for our game was to have a risk-reward system with how deep you go into the mines as you must make it all the way back, so that aspect is by design. If you make good use of the dashes, you can get back up very quickly. We will also try to adjust some of the level designs and to make the controls less slippery after the rating period so that it becomes more manageable tough
@milq Thank you so much for the kind words! You’re right there definitely needs to be some kind of tutorial at the start. We made the classic game jam mistake of stalling on that and then ended up fixing bugs until the deadline xD
@tireks You ammo is limited and you need to pick up more in the tunnels to the side of the start rooms before the drill reaches the combat arena. Sorry about not making the initial objective clearer, I know a lot of people were confused by it :sweat_smile:
@greenradiation Thanks for the feedback! What makes the controls akward? Just the slipperiness or did anything else bother you?
@JackShadow @morepixels @mysteriousjuice @lucas-verardino @jamesgames1000 @genesis @iPhen @athospap @fungus-mundus @Bea @keith-wang @jtap @the-stewarts @johneyd
Thank you all so much for your invaluable feedback! I just uploaded a new itch build which should address a good chunk of it. (The builds on this site will remain the same of course.)
- To make the start clearer I added a text that only disappears once you enter one of the side tunnels and made the drill start much higher. I also added a rope that you can climb up to always reach the side room from the drill quickly. - To make getting back up easier I added an arrow that points to the start which appears once the drill is 2/3 to the combat room and made the drill a bit slower. - To (hopefully) make the platforming less frustrating in general I made the player much less slippery and widened a lot of the very tight passages in the rooms. I also made the mazes wider and a bit smaller on average. - To make the combat room fairer/fun I stopped the drill from draining fuel by itself but made it so that the worms don't die when they touch the drill and can damage it multiple times. I also added a mechanic were the enemies take a small amount of damage when touching the player so you can use health to make up for a small amount of missing ammo.
@jnur Thanks for the feedback! We actually planned to make all the blocks destrutible but couldn't implement it in time. Maybe they'll be another post-jam update for that. :D As for the lack of loops in the maze: that's already a setting we can toggle, I'll try out how it plays with a higher chance for loops
@t90 Thanks for playing and the great feedback!
Getting pushed into the wall is a bug, in the post jam build the flying enemies can’t push you any more to avoid it.
About the ammo issues: I made it so that enemies take a bit of damage when they touch you so you can trade health for extra attacks. I‘ll consider increase the ammo count as well.
As for getting back up: that is by design as we wanted to reflect the theme in the gameplay by having a real risk-reward factor with how deep you go in the mines. I think I will add a mini-map to make it more fair tough
@resty Thanks for playing!
You're right, there needs to be a faster way to get back up. We had some ideas for that for the jam but couldn't realize them in time. For the post jam version I added a rope you can use to climb back up super quickly :D
@tosmaster Thank you so much for the great and detailed feedback! (Also no need to apologize, there's nothing more valuable than an honest critique! ^^)
I think a lot of the platforming issues are caused because everything is velocity based and a bit hard to balance - you are slowed by a fixed break rate each frame which is much higher on the ground. Because of that you are more slippery the faster you are. I think I will just increase the break force further for now. The dash is tougher to handle because it adds a fixed velocity (in the direction of the mouse) to you current one - so if you jump and dash in the same direction at the same time you go much further. I'll have to see how i can adjust it tough I personally kinda like this "combo" potential.
The arena is walled but it goes a bit further so enemies spawn can be more randomized. As of now you can see after combat when the camera becomes unlocked. xD
Also the arrow was more of a quick fix - I'll try to add a mini-map
@sohei A bit harsh but fair. I'm glad you still had fun and can see some potential. Fully agree that the controls need more polish but I think we'll figure it out.
About the pixel art: I can see why it peeves you. We didn't really account for how big everything needed to be in game and had to re-scale most spirtes in-engine. We gonna try to plan better for the next jam, another thing learned ^^
@potatobrain Thanks! I think the idea of adding some extra tunnels is fair, I'll will give it a try
Masterpiece! The concept alone just sends me :D
The funniest game I played so far, made me audibly laugh at times! I also really like the clever "meta" puzzles and the lenght was jsut right for a jam game. Good work all around!
Really cute and funny little platformer with great visuals! Controls felt good too. My only complaint is that I wish it was longer :D
Fun game with nices sprites!
I was really missing some music and sounds tough and you should make it so that the projectiles and coins can't collide.
Super fun game with a great art style and impressive polish, one of my favourites so far!
Could use some balnace adjustment with the upgrades snowballing super fast while the quora barely rises but the feeling of getting way more powerfull with every day was great! The music only played for the first 10 seconds of each day but the rest of the sound design was good.
Here's my cash high-score: Screenshot 2025-04-08 142359.png
Very cute and funny little game!
The deaths felt a bit inconsistent for me, as the robot sometimes survived landing on its head. I also wish you had more control of how the robot turns. Other than that, it was fun!
Love the look of the game but I really stuggled with hitting the enemies (without using the button mashing method). I feel like the timing might be a bit off but maybe its just a skill issue
Very cool spin on the classic doddle jump formula!
Having to spam to button to insert fuel was a bit annoying and you could skip all the doodle-jump section after fueling the drill for the first time since standing on top of the drill while its moving gives you more than enough fuel to keep going.
Still a lot of fun tough and the satifaction of the insane drill speed and cool chaning enviroments made it worth it already!
Fun game with a very enjoyable game-play loop! Shooting multiple enemies at once with the harpon was super satisfying and the progression with the upgrades felt great!
I hope you can add some music and sound effects next time. Also make sure to enter the correct widht and height for the LD Web game: on this page the web build windows size is too small, making a lot of stuff not visible
The game also crashed for me in the on chromium after returning from the sub, but the windows version worked without problem.
That being said: awesome game with an amazing atmosphere! I think the difficulty could be increased a bit, as reaching the next checkpoint was always very easy and I barely got attacked. I really loved the upgrade system and the creepy vibe of the environment tough and that ending certainly caught me off guard :D
What an awesome idea with a great execution! I also really enjoyed the chill but sligly eerie atmosphere and the ending was really sweet! :D
My only complain is that the controls a bit stiff and a coyote timer is missing
Very interesting and unique game with a great style!
The levers on the ovens didn't seem to work for me as most of the time (even with coal in hand) interacting with them who do anything except for making me unable to move for pretty long time
Solid gameplay but really needs some sound and the ai-generated art was a bit of a turn off, especially the cover were you could clearly see all the messed up hands
Cool game with a really nice atmoshpere and great sound design! Gameplay was very enjoyable too.
I would give the obstacles a red glow, as the yellow glow made me think I had to collect them as well. Other than that, great job!