Zark and Jones
Zark & Jones: The Forbidden Valley
You are an archaeologist on a dangerous expedition to collect valuable relics from an ancient lost civilization. Search for treasure and gather supplies by day, and defend your hoard by night. See how many artifacts you can collect … assuming you can survive the journey!
Description
Play as Zark, an intrepid archaeologist. Together with your trusty companion (and burden-carrier) Jones, you have five days to explore the legendary Forbidden Valley to uncover its secrets.
Each day, you can collect materials and find artifacts. At dusk, you must make camp and prepare defenses against the shadowy creatures who will come to steal your treasure. Beware, if they succeed in taking everything, they will try to carry off Jones! If you manage to fight them off, you will get a chance to examine what you collected during the day. You must reach the end of the Valley within five days, or your airship will depart and you will be lost forever!
How to play
[W,A,S,D]: To move
[Space]: to Attack
[E]: to pickup
[Q]: to place item
[1,2,3]: select towers
Credits
code: beardywombat
art: Khadia, BlushingCrow, beardywombat
writing: BlushingCrow, Khadia, beardywombat
sfx: BlushingCrow
music by Tom Hackl
Comments22
beardywombat7 Oct 2025, 08:57
Thanks for playing!
The defence phase is very under cooked, I did not get the resources hooked up or proper spawning.
As for the windowing issue, I am not sure what to change. Full screen seems to work though
The defence phase is very under cooked, I did not get the resources hooked up or proper spawning.
As for the windowing issue, I am not sure what to change. Full screen seems to work though
woona7 Oct 2025, 11:25
I like how the world looks and how goofy the characters are, including their wobbling animations. It would be a good fit for "Night is coming" theme but it works for "Collector" too.
It would be cool if there were more guidance because the game has a lot of mechanics, and goes between different modes very quickly. The day and night cycle is so fast that I just didn't feel that I have enough time to figure out things, to explore and collect stuff...
Also, it took me a lot of time to figure out that during the night, you actually have to move away from your camp site to progress. So I just stood clicking on those sheep for minutes. Maybe it's because day and dusk progress by timer but the night progresses by player action.
Anyway, that's a lot of criticism, but it comes from a desire to improve things! It's a fun game, great job!
It would be cool if there were more guidance because the game has a lot of mechanics, and goes between different modes very quickly. The day and night cycle is so fast that I just didn't feel that I have enough time to figure out things, to explore and collect stuff...
Also, it took me a lot of time to figure out that during the night, you actually have to move away from your camp site to progress. So I just stood clicking on those sheep for minutes. Maybe it's because day and dusk progress by timer but the night progresses by player action.
Anyway, that's a lot of criticism, but it comes from a desire to improve things! It's a fun game, great job!
AlwaysHungry9 Oct 2025, 11:36
I like your audio, I really felt excited when I was attacking the sheeps.
By the way, I love the way you handled Jone following Zark's movements! It is really happy to see two cute characters jump together!
By the way, I love the way you handled Jone following Zark's movements! It is really happy to see two cute characters jump together!
anima_animus0499 Oct 2025, 11:53
interesting game! the music is also good, but the font size of the dialogue is a bit small, make it a little hard to read. Still a good game!
Ciphereo9 Oct 2025, 11:53
interesting game！
Flying Dog Fish9 Oct 2025, 11:56
@accardo What's the problem? Just scroll down the frame with the game and press the blue arrows button to go fullscreen.
Flying Dog Fish9 Oct 2025, 12:06
Nice blocky game. The building stage seems to short to place all the stuff you've collected through the day. There seems to be some bugs, like the character just continuing to move in a direction without pressing any buttons and one time the night phase just didn't end. Those blah blah sounds are quite funny.
TeaRei9 Oct 2025, 12:58
It's a fun game with beautiful block visuals. I like it.
Prunus Padis9 Oct 2025, 14:29
Classic Jam game with tons of mechanics but not enough time to implement them all (happened to me many times). The vision you seem to be going for is pretty nice and cool. Whats the post box meant to be i could just get infinite resoureces from it?
The animations and art is nice. I really like you added some bird noices, really brings the feeling we are in forest! There was a bug that i could spawn infinite fires during the build phase since i did place it before build phase. Also i failed to enter the night phase 2 times, the game just went black and nothing happening, i could still hear hitting sound if i click it and othre audio, weird.
The animations and art is nice. I really like you added some bird noices, really brings the feeling we are in forest! There was a bug that i could spawn infinite fires during the build phase since i did place it before build phase. Also i failed to enter the night phase 2 times, the game just went black and nothing happening, i could still hear hitting sound if i click it and othre audio, weird.
GonulGaye9 Oct 2025, 15:04
It's nice game.
Iriska9 Oct 2025, 18:53
I really love 3d in this game!💜 ⭐ 💜
tardis2snej9 Oct 2025, 22:11
sheep as enemies is such a random idea but I like it :"D
The game is nice, I liked the audio voiceovers the most :D
The game is nice, I liked the audio voiceovers the most :D
APDT10 Oct 2025, 05:09
I like the combination of pixel art and hand-drawn graphics, it turned out very beautifully.
I don't have enough time to build any defenses. Piggy also goes somewhere on her own sometimes)
I don't have enough time to build any defenses. Piggy also goes somewhere on her own sometimes)
LDJam user 28199410 Oct 2025, 20:45
Cool style, awesome game!
Alexandra Suprunovskaya10 Oct 2025, 20:45
Cool style, awesome game!
beardywombat11 Oct 2025, 07:32
Thank you all for the feedback, we are surprised how much people like the “blah blah”.
Apologies for the bugs and the lack of time, as @prunus-padis said we tried to cram in a bit too much.
Apologies for the bugs and the lack of time, as @prunus-padis said we tried to cram in a bit too much.
thaDev11 Oct 2025, 17:15
Very nice concept! There's just a lot to unpack in a very short amount of time. I like the art a lot and the humor is perfect imo!! I'd love to see it finished!
Mackelvin13 Oct 2025, 18:35
Very nice looking game! Well Down !
WeirdBitGames17 Oct 2025, 20:00
I love the voice acting hehe!
I also really like how the walking feels, really comfy! The ambient sounds and music are really vibing with me too! This is super on theme too!
I also really like how the walking feels, really comfy! The ambient sounds and music are really vibing with me too! This is super on theme too!
ophiene22 Oct 2025, 00:45
Amazing work! It's super interesting and has a vert unique way to paraphrase the theme, good job! And welcome to give our game a try! :)
treenut24 Oct 2025, 02:13
neat start to a game, though it is on the confusing side for now. i think i got stuck in a loop defending on day two. considering this is a bit of a tower defense game, i think it would make sense to show where enemies spawn just to be able to plan for them, right now everything was a shot in the dark. also, does building cost the resources collected during the day? if yes, how much? if not, why are we collecting those other things and not just artefacts? i think you have something interesting going on so far.
On a side note, the game doesn't seem to fit with Ludum Dare site's resolution, so the top part of your game doesn't show in the window (doesn't help that ludum doesn't allow full screen...), if you have a itch.io account, maybe put it there as well and add a link?