Ludum Dare #53compo

Cave Couriers

by wevel

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.54

Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.98

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.37

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.74

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★4.02

Audio★★★★★★★★★★2.96

Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.52

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.70

What happens when an adventure runs out of potions while deep in a dungeon?

They call on the Cave Couriers of course!

A rouge like(ish) where you have to explore a randomly generated dungeon to bring items ordered by adventures. Play as a goblin trying to navigate through a maze of rooms and corridors to each adventurer, but make sure you get to them in good time else you won't be paid, and worse you could lose your job. After each contract you will be able to pick a new one, potentially delving deeper into the dungeon for higher paying jobs.

How much can you earn and what floor can you get to before you get fired for failing too many jobs.

#### Tiles:
- @ You the player
- \# That's a wall
- . Just plane ground
- v Downward stairs, looks dangerous down there
- \* A local adventurer in need of supplies

When an order has been accepted, its location will be highlighted, if its on the next floor, stairs will be highlighted instead. Each order has a time limit, but the deeper you go the more urgent the deliveries are so you will have less time. If you fulfil an order in time you will be paid, but failing to make the delivery will lose you a life, making you closer to being fired.

#### Controls:
- WASD/Arrow/D-Pad keys for movement and menu navigation
- Enter/Controller A for selection
- Escape/Controller B for menu
- F1 toggle map visability in menu or game over screen
- F2 toggle ui visability

This has been tested with an Xbox controller, but PlayStation controllers are weird (thanks Unity) so they are a bit messed up.

#### Known Bugs:
- If you have issues with lag on the WebGL build, try one of the standalone builds instead.
- If a stair (v) and an adventurer (*) are highlighted go to the stair, not the adventurer.
- WebGL might not load in Safari, try Firefox or Chrome
- Mac build not able to open on M2 Mac book
- WebGL build contains audio glitch (sorry :( its fine in standalone builds)

#### Made using:
- Unity 2022.2.17
- VSCode
- Beepbox
- BFXR

Tools: BeepBox, Bfxr

Comments22

burnedkirby1 May 2023, 02:25

Feels like a chill dungeon delivery service game. Sometimes the audio has this loud "snapping" sound that hurts my ears a little bit. The visuals are a neat way to show the map as if I was looking at a CRT screen. Good work!

TasakaSama1 May 2023, 17:23

The art is very cool, and the gameplay is interesting but I'm having a little more trouble with the theme for now, maybe a little more explanation of what ingame did would be interesting :)

LDJam user 2997571 May 2023, 17:47

I like the art style, and I found it really fun to explore the map! Good game!

BridgeOnAStick1 May 2023, 18:42

I like the aesthetics, don't really know how the points work. The time remaining sometimes goes up or down but don't know the reason behind it. The way the map opens up while you're exploring is really cool. Nice work!

Max Amaden1 May 2023, 19:16

Fun!! I scored up to about $1500 before quitting out. Always taking the least rewarding delivery seems to consistently keep you alive with an easy-ish route. Love the ASCII graphics, the post-processing and little jiggle animations really make the visuals pop despite their simplicity! I'm eager to see you make a game in this style but with more mechanics!! c:

candlesan2 May 2023, 04:09

I think it is absolutely amazing that you put so much love and care into re-creating the aesthetic of playing on an old CRT monochromatic monitor (which wasn't technically monochromatic but it doesn't matter it had the nostalgia of one!)

Love that you put in some effects to get that old-school look - even curving the edges the simulate the curve of a monitor, as well as the glows and the flicker. But even with those touches you took the artistic liberties to incorporate some color and also jiggle some of the symbols which wouldn't have been possible on those old devices but made it fresh for a modern feel. Fantastic!

Also, good job on the random level generation - I bet that was fun to write :)

sdelay3 May 2023, 09:52

Good game : without a lot of graphics you created an atmosphere. I love the old-computer-ish design. Also I love the view management, as the labrynth appears as you go.

Kentin_BK3 May 2023, 12:28

Very cool mood for this game!
Like the map exploration and the old rpg vibe.
Music is cool too, but there is an horrible scratchy sound effect that made my ears bleeding.

osullivp3 May 2023, 12:37

Love the art style and game design. Love the little details like the slightly vertically offset text and CRT type effects.

Likirus3 May 2023, 12:44

If an ASCII game and Unreal Engine 5 had a baby, this would probably be it ;) Love the art style, but the gameplay might be a bit repetitive. At first I thought I had to pick items on what seemed useful, like getting a sword, some armor, and food to gear up and prepare for some fights. It took me a bit to figure out that I only had to deliver the items.

MoebiusMeow3 May 2023, 13:34

The ASCII interface is really cool and the concept is novel.
Though the content of this game is not as rich as those old ASCII games. I did expect more content than just wandering in deep mazes. Yet what it has is enough for a compo game, considering the time limit. Nice work after all.

theguy3 May 2023, 15:37

Got $957!
The ascii graphics are nice. They work really well here.
The only two things I can slighty criticize are the chosen colors. It is really, really difficult to see the waiting adventurer (orange) on the already open map (yellow/green) if you have even a slight red-green-weakness. Also it feels a bit unfair at the end if you don't see the path, but are step limited. So if you don't immediately choose the right direction you won't make it. But if the game stays at the same difficulty, it would never end. So that's a good way to cap it.

Besides my nitpicking, very nice game!

Wevelauthor3 May 2023, 16:15

@theguy Sorry about the colours, I should have thought a bit more about that. I had been thinking about a version with an alternate colour scheme, but didn't have time for it.

theguy3 May 2023, 16:21

@wevel no worries! It's only a game jam game so there is really no need to think about something like that!

baknik4 May 2023, 17:45

The ASCII style is very well done. I did have trouble figuring out my goal.

Phlip454 May 2023, 18:31

Really love the style. Reminds me of Caves of Qud quite a bit which is one of the most beautiful traditional roguelikes in my opinion. I stopped at floor 13 with $1062.

The music was good but there are certain parts in it that were causing clipping or a scratchy noise. I played on the LDJam page so maybe it is a web only issue. Typically shouldn't be an issue when using beepbox so not gonna reflect that in the rating.

I really liked it a lot, thanks for making it and have fun out there!

sebbot4 May 2023, 22:14

LIVE AND DRINK

TechnoPorg5 May 2023, 00:44

This was great! Thanks for adding controller support - this was the first game I played which had that.
My criticisms/suggestions would be that the music got a bit repetitive after the umpteenth time, and that some weirder things could have been requested, to add to the humor :)
Overall great job, though! You did a lot with what is, on the surface, very little.

xfinktion5 May 2023, 17:10

I loved the aesthetic on this! If you take this further in the future, I think it may be cool to have monsters in some rooms that need to be avoided. Good work! :D

neonlare14 May 2023, 04:10

Cool aesthetics in this! Definitely a lil blury and difficult to see what you're doing initially, but after a while you get the hang of things. Feels like some monsters might help this if it's revisited at a later date! Cheers for the game!