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Dungeon Explorer's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Adheres to jam theme | #54 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Overall | #148 | 3.319 | 3.319 |
| Concept (gameplay) | #200 | 2.957 | 2.957 |
| Presentation (visuals) | #235 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
Ranked from 23 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
Nice game :) i didn't make it :(
Fun concept! I like the slowly encroaching darkness and the way you can use the beacons to help combat that. The only feedback I would give is that it looked like there was some UI element listed under the score which made the score look a bit off. Also, had trouble starting the game by clicking on the play button in the mini-player. I mashed the e and space buttons too and it eventually started though so I was able to get around that.
Thank you for playing and for the feedback! I'm not sure about the UI element under the score that you mentioned, is it something that you can see in the screenshots in the game page? If not, do you mind sharing what system you're playing on so that I can try and reproduce the problem?
About the play button not working, that's because the game is downloading the assets needed for the level but I didn't put any loading indicator so it looks "stuck", will try to have a more robust system in place for next time!
That makes a lot of sense for why it appeared stuck, definitely makes sense not to prioritize having a loading icon in such a short timeframe. I tried to recreate the issue from the other night but so far I can't. What it looked like was that the Score still showed '0' but had the real score posted over it. That was the full screened WebGL version, using Firefox on Windows 10. It's worth noting I've been playing it on hotel wi-fi and I'm getting better speeds today, so that may be a factor too.
Great game! Fun how the screen slowly sinks into darkness. I like how responsive the character is.
Thank you for playing, glad you liked those little details!
I liked the camera movement but the character was jittery. Coins feel hard to get but the main premise is fun and could be expanded upon.
Thank you for playing! The jittery unfortunately was due to my wrong implementation of the update/fixedUpdate loops in my custom engine but I had absolutely not enough time to address the problem in the jam :( Will try to get it fixed in the next few days! Agreed with the coins being difficult to get, collecting them automatically on touch would be a better way to do this I think
Really smart way of implementing the exploration theme!
Thank you for playing!
I like the idea of exploring the dungeon while laying the different beacons and then escaping as quickly as possible while the dungeon collapses. The map is just too big imo, maybe implement levels and start with smaller dungeons so the player can get a feel for the mechanics and come up with strategies so when they get to the large dungeon they're not a fish out of water.
Thank you for playing and for the feedback! I completely agree, and it shouldn't be to hard to add scaling to the levels so it's probably something I'll try to add after the jam
I like the movement, how it feels.
But i think that it turns some monotonous.
Sorry if i have grammatical mistakes, i´m upgrading my english (if u want to give me some feedback i am gonna to be grateful)-Kaximau
Thank you for playing!
Nice game, it fit really well on the theme! Loved the beacon mechanic. Well made!
Thank you for playing, glad you enjoyed it!
Nice game, a great fit with the theme!
Thanks for playing!
I liked this a lot, and the concept of the dungeon collapse. I’m not sure what the safety meter was for, I didn’t seem to encounter any danger, and it seems like you can take as much time as you want before getting the key to collect things, so it might be good to have a timer for the entire game that accelerates after getting the key? Great game!
Thanks for playing and for the feedback! The safety meter is actually the countdown to collapse, it's just phrased horribly because I had in mind another system and switched last minute. A collapse countdown would make much more sense indeed. There's a secondary timer that will start the collapse if you don't collect the key after 2 minutes but I still wanted to give the player some time to get their bearings, the maze generation algorithm is quite inconsistent and occasionally you get crazy complex dungeons (I should probably work on fixing that :D )
Ah, that makes a lot of sense, mostly I’d just say you need to tweak the presentation then to give it that sense of urgency!
Enjoyed playing the game :D
though in the main menu scene, i pressed Play a lot before the game start, took a while to start :o
i found the key B) but not the door xd
Overall, great game !
Thanks for playing! I think it takes a while to load because of the music file size, unfortunately I'm using my custom engine to develop games and I never went around creating a system for measuring loading progress, so no loading bars (yet!)
Decent Game, enjoyed playing it. Main downside for me is time. Maybe it would be better if it started from beginning. But that is just my subjective opinion. Also indicator of time limit, safety bar stops on half way. Good luck in your next projects!
Thanks for playing! I thought about making the time start from the beginning (in a hidden way it still does, the countdown starts after 2 min even if you don't get the key). Maybe that was a better idea, but I wanted to give the player some time to explore without worries and maybe position some beacons strategically. I should probably iterate on the gameplay :)
Not sure what went wrong with the safety bar, sounds like a bug :(
Interesting idea. Kept loosing and clear why. The safety bar doesn't seem to move. First couldn't find an exit, so I didn't use the key. Second time I've opened and started to look for an exit, and died again. So it is unclear what kills me and if I have some time limit or something it should be indicated. Also, the level loads quite long, after you press "Play"
But still - Good job! :)
Thanks for playing! I didn't manage to include an in-game tutorial so I had to write the instruction in the game page, without that it can be quite confusing. The (poorly named) safety bar represent the dungeon stability, it will start depleting once you collect the key (or if enough time passes). Once it reaches zero it's game over, the dungeon collapses.The idea is to explore in the first 2 minutes and to plan an escape route using the beacons once you find the key and the exit.
If the bar was stuck and you died with a full bar it seems like you encountered a weird bug, unfortunately I can't seem to reproduce it :(
game plays solid. Wish there were more visual feedback.
Thanks for playing! I agree, that (and an in-game tutorial) is something I feel is missing too, I was a bit rushed by the end, but who wasn't? :D
I think this concept is pretty great, the beacon system is a really smart way to handle the exploration / navigation aspects however I think that it might need to be paired with some kind of map overview system to be more useful, seeing the beacons in a map would be really handy!
Reminded me of my fun (and sometimes painful) adventures in minecraft’s cave systems haha.
The gameplay is a bit tricky, I think coins and gems would be better if they were auto collected and had larger hitboxes but generally a really solid concept! :]
Thanks for playing and for the detailed feedback! All valid points, and if I had a bit more time I would've switched to autocollection for coins and gems, it's quite frustrating to deploy a beacon when the time is running out and you just wanted to get that gem on the way.
Interensting game, cool mechanich for the beacon. Music feels off sometimes, but overall a great entry!
Thanks for playing! Glad you enjoyed the beacon mechanic!
A bit on the hard side to be honest. Some hallways are very long and once the time starts ticking it's a bit frustrating to have to plan half the time to run through the extra long escape corridors. Apart from that, nice take on the theme.
Thank you for playing and for the feedback!
The beacon system should help with the difficulty a bit if you use it to mark the dead-end hallways and the path from the key to the exit. That's basically the main mechanic but it's not very apparent from a first playthrough, I really wanted to include an in-game tutorial but couldn't find the time.
Also the maze generation can be a bit hit-or-miss and it's something I wanted to work on, occasionally you get really complex maps.
It reminds me to bomber man :)
Enjoyed this! Like the beacon system, managed to make good use ofthat on my second playthrough
Thank you for playing! The beacon system is my take on the exploration theme so I'm glad you managed to use it successfully
That was a fun little maze game. It kept me quite engaged, I did find it quite difficult but I think that is the point.
Thanks for playing! I realized with this game that it's hard to walk the line between difficult and frustrating :)