Ludum Dare #57compo

Fathom

by tristam-macdonald

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.24

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.21

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.69

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.55

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.64

Humor★★★★★★★★★★1.66

Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.90

Take a retro-fueled trip in a rocket ship down an abandoned mine shaft. Try not to crash! How far down can you go?

Gameplay is something like asteroids/lunar lander in a procedurally-generated mine shaft. WASD or cursor keys to control the rocket (no touch input on mobile, sorry!) You have 5 health, temporary invulnerability whenever you take damage, and a depth counter for score.

Written in Rust and compiled to WASM. Everything is rendered in plain-old WebGL2. Apart from the font file, everything you see is drawn in code (and even the font is rasterised directly on the GPU).

Comments14

BadPinkChicken7 Apr 2025, 09:39

Simple but efficient! Not really getting the depth vibe tho

Placeholders7 Apr 2025, 10:09

very cute, with a bit more feel and level design it can be a really nice little game!
great job and good luck!

jk50007 Apr 2025, 10:09

I like the simple visuels. The gameplay is pretty fun. It could perhaps have used a bit more gameplay, but it's okay for a compo game. Overall a fine little jam game. Well done.

LDJam user 3719967 Apr 2025, 10:13

The nostalgic scene is impressive, and I love that.

I found that I can gain high scores if I fall as slowly as possible and try my best to keep balance.

meskaline7 Apr 2025, 10:44

Nice take on the asteroids game. The graphics and mood are great and would have been even better with some chill sound, would have played for hours if it had a nice moody music. Nice entry overall, looks good.
1000 high score. yey. But got into a bug one run when the score froze at 3 m after a collision.

Follusior7 Apr 2025, 14:24

Nice graphics and efficient controls. Matching the theme. There are not enough sounds, or there are none

SYPIAC7 Apr 2025, 14:39

I accidentally flew up for a couple minutes instead of down :p. Looks good though. Got blown up by a very narrow corridor, don't think I could've possibly fit in it. Oh well.

ImmortalFox7 Apr 2025, 16:22

A bit complex game for me, but visuals are good! Well played.. Oops. Well developed! :)

leparlon7 Apr 2025, 16:56

I liked it! I usually enjoy this type of control, but the ship turns a bit too slowly for my taste, so after a while the game started to feel a bit repetitive. Still, it’s a solid base with good potential. Also, put me in the group of people who flew up for a while before realizing I had to go down — it was actually my daughter who pointed it out. I probably wouldn’t have figured it out on my own :laughing:

argensis7 Apr 2025, 17:18

I liked the scan line and retro vector art aesthetic!

I think since the gameplay and graphics are very simple, some 8-bit style sfx would have gone a long way too.

ShadyShade7 Apr 2025, 19:14

Very nice little challenging game!
Something around 4000 was my high score :eyes:

Rustywolf7 Apr 2025, 19:36

Started going up and wondered why the meters wasnt increasing :face_palm: Some of the geometry doesnt seem to line up, but its a really solid game regardless

OnnGD7 Apr 2025, 19:48

addictive, good job

LanaLux8 Apr 2025, 01:44

that was fun! cool perspective effect on it as well.