Slay the Dungeon

by jharler

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.67

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.71

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.14

Theme★★★★★★★★★★2.96

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.87

Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.31

Humor★★★★★★★★★★3.46

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.22

What do you get when you combine Slay the Spire with the Binding of Isaac? Find out in SLAY THE DUNGEON.

Battle your way through a dungeon filled with monsters. Build a deck of cards that will help you along your way. Choose wisely, as your cards will decide your fate. Can you make your way to the end and defeat the dungeon master?

Controls:

WASD/Arrows - Move the character

Mouse - Move to aim, click to shoot

Software Used:

Unity, ZBrush, Blender, Substance Painter, Audacity, FL Studio, Photoshop

Notes:

This is a Jam entry, but all game code, visual and audio assets were created by me in the 72 hour period.

When the theme was announced, I wasn't pleased. Not that that's anything new, I usually don't like the theme. It took me a couple hours to come up with an idea I liked. I'm very proud of the game I've created and think it's a lot of fun. The deck building aspect gives it some replayability too. I hope you enjoy it and thanks for trying it out! Please leave a comment with your rating and I will check out your game!

The boss was a last minute addition (literally I finished coding it 10 minutes before the deadline), so I'm sure there are some bugs with it. Please report any issues you have to me in the comments below or email me at [email protected]. Thanks!

Known Bugs:

- The music doubles up after losing and returning to the title screen. You need to refresh/restart to clear it up.
- The physics sometimes causes enemies to be positioned where they can't be killed. This also requires a restart.
- The WebGL version is a bit darker than the Windows version. If you are having a hard time seeing things, try the download.

THANKS FOR PLAYING!

Tags: #dungeon crawler, #unity

Genres: card game

Tools: Audacity, Blender, FL Studio, Unity

Comments35

Dawiss7 Oct 2019, 22:43

Nice one :D i love those sounds effects hahah

Hi Im Greg8 Oct 2019, 10:14

We also did a card game!

I enjoyed this a lot, does it have a final boss? I played for quite a while before I eventually quit. I loved how strong I ended up feeling after a few upgrades. Could easily see this being turned into a full game. The sound effecs cracked me up. Very impressive for a solo submission.

jharlerauthor8 Oct 2019, 15:33

@hi-im-greg Yes, there is a final boss. It takes a while to get to it (there's 26 different levels I think) and unfortunately I didn't have much time to make him very interesting or challenging. Typically when you get to him you're so strong you kill him pretty easily (once you figure out how to do it). I'm glad you enjoyed my sound effects. They were fun to make!

Narffy8 Oct 2019, 16:05

Very nice theme interpretation. Its a great game. Good job !

Shigor8 Oct 2019, 16:57

One more level... let's play one more level... excellent work. I'll have to try it again later, but I already spent more time on your game than most others I've tried combined.

Excy8 Oct 2019, 19:11

Actually played this game for way too long haha. I feel like permanent upgrades were an auto pick over current room ones. If the current room ones were less stat modifiers and more like room modifiers like spawn bombs randomly or summon minions to help you and stuff like that, it would be great. I'd actually really love to see this developed into a full game, would be a purchase from me on steam with a bit of polish!

Also holy fuck that demon bomb animation + sound effect rofl, that got me.

jharlerauthor8 Oct 2019, 19:16

@shigor Thanks! I'm glad you like it enough to want to come back for more. My hope was that the game would have some replay value.

@excy Awesome! I agree that the temporary room cards are less desirable. I think some cost tweaking might make it more of a difficult decision. I didn't spend a whole lot of time on balance. I've been having a lot of ideas for cards and effects that would make the game even better. I think I will need to develop this into a full game. I think it has a ton of potential. The bomb pooper (which is what I referred to him in the code) is my favorite enemy. The animation and sound effects were a lot of fun to make. I cracked up laughing the first time I saw him all together.

Digital_Pie8 Oct 2019, 19:27

I really like the idea and visual design you did for this, I fealt like there should be some indication there is a boss fight at the end and how far through you are as well as maybe drawing more than 1 card each room but it was a lot of fun

cax8 Oct 2019, 19:40

The idea to combine games is great. Well done, guys!

jharlerauthor8 Oct 2019, 20:06

@digital-pie Thanks! I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to even get the boss in the game. An hour before deadline I had to rig, animate and code him in. I barely made it. I do agree though that some kind of progress indication would be useful.

@cax Just one guy, but thanks! I'm glad you like it.

pokenoufl9 Oct 2019, 00:08

Got an unkillable enemy but I had fun beforehand. Cool cards and things work well in general. Enemies are a bit too bullet spongey at the start imo

Stefanie Leitch9 Oct 2019, 00:18

Great graphics and original concept. Couldn't figure out how to open chests if I'm honest, but the demon that pooped bombs was 5/5. Movement could have been quicker to make the game flow better -- movement was painful.

T-Bo9 Oct 2019, 07:33

Fun 3D game ! I love the cards mechanic ! Good work on graphics and sounds ! Amazing ! :thumbsup:

mattdotam9 Oct 2019, 13:20

I enjoyed your Binding of Spires! Your voice acting was very funny for the characters. Solid enemy designs, I felt bad killing the slugs, they couldn't hurt a fly. Cool concept, nice blend of some fun titles. Great job!

Leonard Graf9 Oct 2019, 14:09

I made it to the end! Was so overpowered by then, that I just stayed in the corner and hammered at the boss :) Cool game though.

reheated9 Oct 2019, 14:17

Overall: Wonderful, a truly fun action game and well presented.

Fun: This is really enjoyable! I played through to the end and legitly forgot I was playing an LD game. Great job. I only have two tiny criticisms: (i) it's a little on the easy side (or maybe I just got good cards); (ii) it would help to indicate how far through the game we are - for a while I thought it was endless, and that I'd seen everything, and that it was nearly time to quit.

Innovation: The idea to combine a card game with an action game has been done before... but there are lots of possibilities and you came up with a really nice one.

Theme: Hmm, well, you give us a bunch of stuff in the first room but TECHNICALLY we start with nothing, so I'll pay it.

Graphics: Gorgeous. I love the monsters.

Audio: Great. I laughed at the sounds.

Humor: See audio.

Mood: Good, it's a dungeon game but a light hearted one and the visuals and sounds present that nicely.

Drjeebus9 Oct 2019, 14:21

Slug closest to exit in first level bugged for me and couldn't be hit so could not progress. Really cool concept and well made for a Jam, even if it doesn't go with the theme. Good job.

Asterisk9 Oct 2019, 19:39

It's a fun game, love how the cards interacts with the gameplay! I have to say that I really liked the overall experience, but I think there are some things that would make the experience even better:
Movement was painfully slow.
Enemies may need a health bar (This is something I also hate from The binding of Isaac).
You cannot really start with nothing. Just let the player start without any heart and instantly die, that’d be hilarious.

jharlerauthor9 Oct 2019, 20:09

@pokenoufl Glad you enjoyed it and sorry about that bug! Physics can be wonky sometimes. I had to make the enemies strong at the start so they wouldn't be too wimpy once you've gotten a few upgrades. It was tough to balance that.

@stefanie-leitch Thanks! You need to have a key to open a chest. Glad you liked the bomb pooper! He's my favorite. I made all stats a bit low at start so you had to choose which stats you wanted to enhance through cards.

@t-bo Thanks! I'm glad you liked it.

@mattdotam If it makes you feel any better, those slugs smell really, really bad. They burn your nose. :)

@leonard-graf Thanks for playing it to the end!

@reheated Thanks for the detailed comment. I agree with your criticism. It could use a lot of balancing and a progress indicator. I just ran out of time. I'm considering fleshing this out into a full game, so we'll see how that goes.

@drjeebus Yeah, the physics causes them to do that sometimes. I probably could've fixed it by tweaking the bounding boxes, but I didn't encounter that bug myself until after submission.

@asterisk Thanks for your input. I made movement slow on purpose, but maybe I went a little too far with it. I wanted it to be a hard choice for you to decide which stats you wanted to upgrade. A healthbar would be nice, and I agree, I just didn't have time for anything like that.

blitzcloud9 Oct 2019, 21:18

yes, I got the same feeling with the movement like asterisk. Maybe amping up both enemies and your speed would still give the same balance but with faster gameplay overall. I was in fact the one who sent the link of the game to asterisk. I really liked the concept and humor.

TheJebForge9 Oct 2019, 21:43

Quite good graphics and fun gameplay! Liked the game!

Aj Jones10 Oct 2019, 00:41

Great execution on the merging of Issaac and Slay the Spire. Enjoyed the visuals and gameplay!

SageWare10 Oct 2019, 21:30

I seriously want more of this game. I love Slay the Spire, and I'd much rather play your game than BoI. Very addicting gameplay, simply yet catchy music, excellent character models, and smooth controls. Would like to see an increase in difficulty, I found it a bit too easy. Please continue to work on this game.

jharlerauthor11 Oct 2019, 11:20

@blitzcloud Thanks for the feedback and for sharing the game with others!

@thejebforge Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

@aj-jones Thank you!

@sageware Thank you for the kind words. I think I've decided that I am going to develop this into a full game. Follow me on twitter (https://twitter.com/jharler_dev) for updates.

BarracudaDisaster11 Oct 2019, 12:49

Very nice looking game! Cool monsters and the emissive bullets were cool. The big red bomb pooping monster was funny. Fun sound effects and nice art. I think the movement speed at the start was a bit too slow and you kinda HAD to upgrade it even if you wanted to upgrade firerate etc. But that's just a tweak. Very nice take on the theme, start with no upgrades and be a super powered monster slayer. Great work!

jharlerauthor11 Oct 2019, 19:52

@barracudadisaster Thanks for your input. It does seem to be a consensus that the starting speed was too slow. I have to agree after playing it a few times since finishing it.

someone11 Oct 2019, 23:33

I love all the monster designs and sound effects.
The bombs seem to affect much farther than the particle effect suggests. That and the guy that shoots back were the only challenging enemies, though I did not get to the end.
I like the card mechanics though it didn't feel like the upgrades were doing much.

PIXAMENTORY13 Oct 2019, 09:18

"Impressive game, Very cool concepts. I left wishing that there is more.
Had a lot of fun "

jharlerauthor14 Oct 2019, 13:31

@someone I think you're right on the bomb blast radius. It was thrown together pretty quickly and I didn't really take much time to make sure everything lined up sensibly.

@pixamentory Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it and I'm going to be developing this into a full game. Follow me on Twitter (https://twitter.com/jharler_dev) for updates.

Alexsogge14 Oct 2019, 15:03

Nice game. Loved the models and sounds. But the gameplay was a little bit slow so i just picked the speed cards to make it more interesting.

chelog14 Oct 2019, 15:04

Really funny characters, love looks and animations, haha. I think you should make everything faster, starting with move speed, it's really hard to wait while you're running across the room. Overall, much content in game, good job!

Game-mon20 Oct 2019, 18:08

This game is really cool, especially for a game made by one person (even for a jam entry). I loved the visual style, the gameplay, the cards, and the different enemies :) It was very fun to play, congrats! :D

Aozo26 Oct 2019, 13:51

Nice card game with the dungeon but tere wasn't much money to play with so half of the room I didn't see the difference

jharlerauthor28 Oct 2019, 21:58

@alexsogge I agree that the base speed should have been faster. Thanks for your input!

@chelog I'm glad you liked the characters and animation! They were a lot of fun to make. Agreed on the speed problem.

@game-mon Thank you!

@aozo Some runs are better than others when it comes to loot drops. Sorry to hear your run was on the lower end. Thanks for playing and commenting though.

Lakrits29 Oct 2019, 18:24

I like the idea here but difficulty should have increased much, much faster. I must have played almost 20 rooms before a bug forced me to quit with 8 hearts remaining.

What happened was that I used a card that spawned a bunch of extra treasure chests in the room, one of the chests went flying and knocked a slug enemy outside the wall. Then it wandered outside the screen. Since I couldn't shoot out-of-bounds it was game over. Can probably be fixed just by using much larger colliders for the walls.

Other games by @jharler

★3.98

★3.94