Fantascope Chasm

co-authored: @annearkey
Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.19
Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.05
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.20
Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.69
Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.16
Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.16
Since during the Jam we never implemented settings, credits, or how to play, here's how to play:

- Mouse to aim
- W to move towards mouse
- S to move away from mouse
- Left mouse for melee attack
- There is a short cooldown on melee attacks
- Right mouse to launch a fireball
- Each fireball costs 100 mana from your total of 300
- Mana regenerates over time

Update 4/9/25: 8:02pm CDT:
Finished second massive bugfix round. I think I'm done after this, as everything that was broken for what we got submitted to the jam now SEEMS to be working as intended.

- HTML5 export seems to be displaying correctly now (no more spinny boxes, YAY!)
- gate opening sound no longer plays upon entering boss arena
- spiders SHOULD no longer spawn extremely close to the player
- spiders correctly move slower when stunned
- when nudging player to unstick them from terrain, the game tries to find a spawn point NOT directly next to an enemy
- nudging ALSO tries to avoid putting player directly on the gate
- Number of spodes to be spawned by the boss are now limited correctly, so the boss doesn't just infinitely spawn additional enemies to fight
- spode collision correctly disabled after hitting boss so the player doesn't get stuck to or get bitten by small spodes during knockback animation
- corrected mana regen rate to non-debug value (0.75 instead of 0.6)
- boss hitbox and z-index corrected
- moved HP/Mana indicator updates to _process() from _physics_process() as they were freezing during tweens
- fixed exiting the depths to work as intended
- removed multiple extraneous debug prints and unused, commented out code sections
- fixed exit_depths animation upon defeating the boss (if you manage to beat him, he's kinda tough!)

Update 4/8/25 3:46am CDT:
Added HTML5 Export as well as Windows, along with bugfixed Linux version

The HTML5 Export looks strange, as the window size was only 512x512 in the game, and the embed size is larger, so you
can see outside what SHOULD be the visible area. However the world borders are still in place and keep you from exiting. Just ignore the spinny boxes :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Pressing "Quit" on the HTML5 menu screen freezes the game (So don't do that!)

Finished massive bugfix session. The main culprit was the health restoration hearts were being spawned on an incorrect parent node causing, but not limited to:
- Random crashes
- Index out of bounds
- Layers that should stop spinning to keep spinning
- Gates to next depth layer not opening when triggered
- Final boss to not spawn
- Other misc issues and corrections

When moving down layers, you will sometimes YEET across the screen, this is due to the game deciding that you were in an unwalkable area and relocating you (sometimes violently) to a walkable area.

Credits:
AnneArkey: for creating/modifying miscellaneous graphics to fit the theme we were going for, as well as creating/sourcing all the sound and music for the game.

RubixNoob13: The BIGGEST ball of spaghetti code I've made in a while, however it somehow (mostly) works

- Graphics -
Public Domain: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

Bat sprites by awesomeduck
https://opengameart.org/content/flying-monster-frames-16x16

Stairs tile by Oiboo
https://opengameart.org/content/stairs-2

Spider sprites by camacebra
https://twitter.com/camacebra
https://camacebra.itch.io/spider-pixel-art-pack-16x16

CC-BY 3.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Grass & Rock tiles by Buch
https://opengameart.org/content/outdoor-tiles-again

Magic Pixel Art by peony
https://opengameart.org/content/magic-pixel-art

Unknown attribution:
Rock tile set on Pixilart
https://www.pixilart.com/draw/cave-tileset-cea01fd577b0c69

All other art was made or edited in Aesprite:
https://www.aseprite.org/

Audio

CC-BY 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Throne Room by Visager
https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Visager/Songs_From_An_Unmade_World_2/Visager_-_Songs_From_An_Unmade_World_2_-_19_Throne_Room_-Loop-/

Eerie Mausoleum by Visager
https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Visager/Songs_From_An_Unmade_World_2/Visager_-_Songs_From_An_Unmade_World_2_-_29_Eerie_Mausoleum_-Loop-/

Inside the Tower by Visager
https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Visager/Songs_From_An_Unmade_World_2/Visager_-_Songs_From_An_Unmade_World_2_-_30_Inside_the_Tower_-Loop-/

All other sound effects were created in BFXR
https://www.bfxr.net/

Comments2

LDJam user 27949713 Apr 2025, 00:00
Neat game! I really liked the effect where you saw the next stages in the central pit, very cool way to show the depth and to show how close to the end stage you are! I couldn't figure out how to damage the boss spider, but it was fun nonetheless. Nice work!
LDJam user 28742423 Apr 2025, 13:46
Interesting entry. The controls were unique. I'm mixed on how I feel about them. They work, but having the mouse be both aim and movement direction can create conflicts when I want to aim and walk in different directions. For the scope of a jam game I was okay with the controls, but on a full game I think I might get frustrated with it eventually. I also would have liked to see some knock back on the melee attack to give it a little more oomph and prevent the need to backpeddle while fighting. My favourite part of the game was the central pit. I liked the visuals of it and that you could see the upcoming levels below you. It did mean that a large part of the playing area was mostly unusable, but again, in the context of a jam game I think it was fine, and it did give the game a distinct look. Very theme appropriate. Awesome work!

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