Sketchy Spelunking

by lukeoco1234

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.40

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.33

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.14

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.98

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.12

Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.31

Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.52

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.33

Risk comes with reward in this rouge like meets mining sim game. Churn your way through falling boulders in the unstable mineshaft and come out with riches beyond your belief.

Gameplay is top down. Your job involves running around mining away at boulders which drop from the sky. You need to be careful not to be crushed, whilst keeping attentive to how many boulders are fallen. Too many boulders and the mineshaft looses stability and collapses. You will need to time your expeditions well and bail at the right moment, otherwise risk forfeiting your earning.

This was my first ever Ludum Dare and on top of that, the first game I've ever made besides snake. This jam worked me raw but I'm soooo happy with how I went and if you get the time to play my game I really hope you enjoy :)

This game was made using p5.js and an addon library p5.play.js. The audio was done by my amazing brother who's music can be found on sound cloud at the link below. All pixel art was done by me, with use of reference images as inspo.

Libraries:
https://p5js.org/
https://molleindustria.github.io/p5.play/

Music:
https://soundcloud.com/rorterson

Tags: #8-bit, #top-down

Genres: action

Comments19

happ4 Oct 2021, 18:36

Nice concept!

Monado4 Oct 2021, 22:26

Pretty addicting to get as many rocks as you can while dealing with the cave collapsing around you. Great entry!

Delta Key4 Oct 2021, 22:27

Good job on your first game jam Luke! I liked the idea, having to balance the risk of mining for longer times to get better loot, and also the possibility of bailing out of the mine to get upgrades, formed a nice gameplay loop, kudos to that.
Personally, I found the controls a bit too slippery, and bailing out is kinda slow (still, those things add to the challenge I suppose).

LDJam user 2639884 Oct 2021, 22:29

I liked the game, very challenging

kbf1234 Oct 2021, 22:40

Ok, a few things:
Controls are super slippery. Makes it tough to stay still when mining.
Also I didn't know you could bail until my 3rd death. And the fact that you have to anticipate when you need to bail combined with the consequences of losing your upgrades means you have to play super defensively. (Also I had to switch browsers since I kept scrolling down when hitting spacebar)
It's a good game, especially for a first LD, but I just didn't have the best time with it for those reasons.

monkybusines4 Oct 2021, 22:41

Really fun game and idea! My only issue may be that bailing out is too slow with the rate that boulders come down at. It takes too long to bail and I couldn't get any loot back in time so I can't try any of the upgrades. Thanks for the experience otherwise! :)

Cookie_CHR4 Oct 2021, 22:42

The game itself is really nice, but, for some reason, the controls are also affecting my screen, making it go up and down. I don't know what to suggest you to fix this, sorry!

lukeoco1234author4 Oct 2021, 22:58

@cookie-chr Thanks for letting me know!! I've fixed the scrolling issue on the itch.io page. I've also tweaked the movement and bail time to make gameplay a little more enjoyable :)

LDJam user 2461285 Oct 2021, 00:32

Nice game, tho I struggled a lot with gliding. Few misses, a bit too late to bail, oops and you are dead.

Also quite fitting music.

Arttu Halonen5 Oct 2021, 13:56

The prices in the shop are a bit steep, but that's just balancing. It's really cool that you managed to create the shop on top of the mining, keep it up! The visuals and audio are nice, too!

CRUMSON6 Oct 2021, 04:32

pretty good! I loved the music. Prices were a bit steep to get the upgrades.

HCS_Hades6 Oct 2021, 04:40

Works well which is always a huge success for a jam!!

Brainloaf Studio6 Oct 2021, 05:15

I'm a sucker for mining-based and progression-based games, so this was a lot of fun! For your first game outside of snake this is really, really impressive! My only suggestions would be to lower the shop requirements and up the speed of the boulders falling, since both feel relatively slow-based. Nice job overall!

Dazzumbledor7 Oct 2021, 11:56

Great use of the theme and building it into the mechanics :pick:

Tobold H7 Oct 2021, 21:38

Great approach to the theme! After getting used to it, I actually enjoyed the slippery movement.

Isaac Winkler7 Oct 2021, 21:43

Solid concept.
- Gold didn't carry over to the shop.
- diagonal movement is faster than horizontal or vertical. I guess however you are moving the guy is combining from both axis when going diagonally.

Otherwise enjoyable little game.

lukeoco1234author7 Oct 2021, 23:32

@isaac-winkler To carry over gold you need to hit Escape and bail. The idea is that you need to decide when to exit before you risk dying. And yes, the movement is applied as dynamic forces so diagonals are speedy. Thanks for the feedback :)

leggy9 Oct 2021, 21:24

The concept is there! the game is intuitive, simple, and nicely crafted. It has a simple and direct graphic leading you to the concept of the game. The game is quite self explainatory.
What I cannot forgive you is that after the cave collapsed gold was not collected, thus I was not able to purchase stuff in the shop :(

JayJack9 Oct 2021, 21:36

I think it controlled really well and it was a good idea for the game jam! I also am glad you were able to have upgrades it makes the experience more addictive since I always want to see how the new upgrade will affect the next round. In a full release, I would have caves with different difficulties so that the upgrades can be put to the test.