LdDB
Ludum Dare #41jam

Mare Underworld

by dearcj
Overall★★★★★★★★★★4.09
Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.93
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.71
Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.86
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★4.64
Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.60
Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.90
What happens to chess figures when they are killed on the game field?
They fall into their own chess-underworld..

Play The Game

screenshot_1.jpgscreenshot_2.jpg

We were thinking about combining a classic strategy board game "Chess" with a dark-fantasy action RPG like a Dark Souls.

Knight was lost on battlefield, and now his white war-horse looking for him in dark mystic islands hovering in the middle of the abyss. This dark place guarded by undead pawns and rooks and filled with death traps.

🐴🐴🐴


Game contains 4 levels now. We had a bunch of ideas to implement but we decided to make semi-production art level for this project instead :)

Team

Yuriy Dorogoy - Programming

Alexey Chernov - 2D Artist, Animator https://www.behance.net/Akseley

Yuriy Kondrashov - 2D Artist

Stack: My game engine https://github.com/dearcj/Neu
based on PIXI.JS renderer http://www.pixijs.com/ and Tiled Editor https://www.mapeditor.org/

Read my tweets here https://twitter.com/DorogoyYuriy
Tags: #dark fantasy, #roguelike
Genres: puzzle
Tools: PixiJS, Tiled

Comments28

ragtagradical
ragtagradical23 Apr 2018, 23:19
Pretty interesting as a puzzle game! Could see it expanding quite a bit.
Markram
Markram23 Apr 2018, 23:23
Hey! i liked a lot your game! (only missed a bit some sound efects at least)

I couldnt get past the 3rd puzzle tho... enough for me to aknowledge a good game! 😁
fingolfin
fingolfin23 Apr 2018, 23:35
Wow guys, this easly could be an actual game. Graphics are really cool and moody and the game is actually really fun to play. Congrats!
Killnaprimer
Killnaprimer23 Apr 2018, 23:35
Great idea! Love the idea to use chess movement so anyone playing will easily understand it. Also, great graphics you got there
Hooraygil23 Apr 2018, 23:47
Really cool idea and game. I would love to have known where the enemys spawn, to get a better feel of the chess aspect. But the polish and execution was really nice.
Hackerham24 Apr 2018, 14:08
That's a good use of PixiJS :)
mjomble24 Apr 2018, 15:31
Very cool concept and nice visuals, would love to see this expanded into a full game!
kovareka
kovareka24 Apr 2018, 16:48
Wow, this horse is amazing!
LandoSystems
LandoSystems24 Apr 2018, 20:23
Very cool chess game, the graphics are great and the design take on the different types of chess pieces is on point. The puzzles were tricky but not impossible. Took me a while to wangle my way around to the exit on the last level but managed it eventually. Really enjoyed it, great work!
Petro Shoferystov
Petro Shoferystov25 Apr 2018, 18:36
Great puzzle game with awesome visuals. I've got most of the puzzling problems on a 4th level but managed to beat it on ~ 10th attempt :) And the rest was just a matter of time to complete. Good horse. GJ!
n.feofentov
n.feofentov25 Apr 2018, 18:46
Solid game design and great art! More levels, some supporting mechanics and it's ready for mobile. Good job!
ndry26 Apr 2018, 22:10
The last was challenging, so I kind of bruteforced it. Want more levels! :) Beautiful game!
Arden
Arden27 Apr 2018, 02:52
As @synedraacus pointed out on our entry, it looks like this competition has made "chess-souls" a new genre 😄

A decent little puzzle game you have here, with fun art and some interesting puzzling! well done!
I would have loved some audio to go with it, of course, but a weekend only provides so much time!
Also, on chrome w/ a 4k monitor, I had to go fullscreen in my browser to see the bottommost part of the screen, which made finding the button to continue after the instructions a bit confusing at first :)

Not sure if that's an issue at different resolutions/browsers or not.
paulhocker
paulhocker27 Apr 2018, 04:50
this was such a great game - should really be explored more - thanks for making it
SleepyDev28 Apr 2018, 00:05
This was so much fun and I'd love to see it expanded upon. Thanks for a great game.
Quentin Warnant
Quentin Warnant28 Apr 2018, 21:05
nice art style, I like the moodiness of the levels. Enjoyed the puzzle part of the levels mixed with surviving with enemies.
Well done!
ehtd29 Apr 2018, 03:35
Very nice, good puzzles and great mix of chess with puzzles. Loved the graphics.
MaxKlimenok
MaxKlimenok29 Apr 2018, 04:20
Cool game!
Adding some simple soundtrack and audio effects next time would be really nice.
And lastly - I want more levels and would like to see other chess monster-figures!
Synedraacus
Synedraacus29 Apr 2018, 14:44
A nice game, but I found myself jumping randomly on the last level until it finally worked. Though it tells more about my chess skills than about the game, I guess.
PeachTreeOath
PeachTreeOath6 May 2018, 05:29
Nice concept - I always like takes on "what happens when...", and the art is great! It definitely adds to the underworld feeling. The levels were challenging at first and made me want to beat them all. I was impressed by the AI but I finally conquered!
mrerdalural
mrerdalural8 May 2018, 13:18
Very cool idea! Our game plays very similar to yours which I found interesting. I really liked the level design and the challenge of the game. Having an endless run mode for this game might be very fun!

I really enjoyed playing this! Thank you!
Jiri Hysek
Jiri Hysek8 May 2018, 13:38
Stunning graphics and I really like the concept. I'm following you on itch.io and hoping more levels will come :) Too bad you didn't make an audio and some battle music tracks..
those-30-ninjas
those-30-ninjas8 May 2018, 15:06
Love the horse's animation. Nice job overall :)
Teklarit8 May 2018, 18:37
Very fun puzzle game! (I think game need more sound, figures, player progress). Good work!
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