Adventures of Cactusman by CliffracerX

[raw]
made by CliffracerX for LD32 (JAM)
You ARE the weapon. Made in 72 hours for Ludum Dare 32 (April 2015), this is a weird roguelike about being a cactus in a dungeon.

Try to find the exit (follow the music), and go as deep into the dungeon as you can possibly go! Take the absurd random weapons from chests, buy stuff at the Swap Shop, and so on!

Controls:

* WASD to move
* RMB to fire a cactus spine at where your mouse is pointing (requires 1 SP)
* Space to do a quick-heal, with strength equal to your level (requires 2 SP)

You can walk over a chest to open it, then take whatever item is inside with the button in the lower left. Swap Shops are like chests, except they have 3 possible item choices instead of one.

See how long you can survive!

For those wanting a web release: Apologies! The webplayer version of this I built is REALLY BUGGY and unplayable.

If the downloads are down, it's something on Github's side (or I did a dumb and deleted the release by accident)

Ratings

Coolness 44% 1566
Overall(Jam) 3.00 697
Audio(Jam) 2.91 457
Fun(Jam) 2.92 612
Graphics(Jam) 2.70 793
Humor(Jam) 2.77 557
Innovation(Jam) 2.63 776
Mood(Jam) 2.76 722
Theme(Jam) 3.04 735

Feedback

HotBoxGames
21. Apr 2015 路 16:30 UTC
Cool game! I liked the weapon names
Gipzo
21. Apr 2015 路 16:59 UTC
In the first run I got the broom from a stash. Then a fell off the edge of the level.
In the second run I found the radio, but got thrown away from the edge of the level by some odd flower or something.
Finally, in the third run I got through to the srcond level. There I understood, that on the first level i had god mode on for some reason, thus I died pretty quick.
So I can conclude, that this game needs, at least, some ballance.
馃帳 CliffracerX
21. Apr 2015 路 17:12 UTC
The flowers are called Brompis (Brompii possibly), and they have incredibly powerful fireballs.

I ran really low on time to work on balance, but I might take a whack at fixing the first level being god-mode-y because that is an honest bug that shouldn't have been there.

The weapons are randomly generated (Madlibs style), and there's over 136 million possible name and appearance combos alone. This isn't even counting the theoretically infinite possible stat buffs (the stats are based on your level, and you can go infinitely far into the dungeon and have an infinitely high level), so...yeah.

There's a lot of weapons.
RyanNielson
22. Apr 2015 路 01:39 UTC
Sorry, but I wasn't really a fan of this game. I wasn't sure what exactly to do, and I kept either walking off of the level or getting through dozens of meters across the level and falling of the edge that way. I did like the strange crab looking creatures holdings weapons though.
馃帳 CliffracerX
22. Apr 2015 路 01:43 UTC
The point of the game is to follow the radio and reach the exit. It's a dungeon crawler.

The crab thingies with knives that shoot fireballs at you are called Brompis.
sP0CkEr2
22. Apr 2015 路 02:56 UTC
nice use of theme, like the 2d/3d things - nice game
ianb96
22. Apr 2015 路 02:59 UTC
Very satisfying! But it is not clear what sp does.
馃帳 CliffracerX
22. Apr 2015 路 03:05 UTC
SP is for Special Powers (healing and spikes), read the description for the controls.
dylanwolf
22. Apr 2015 路 03:11 UTC
I like using the music as a guide for the level, and the randomly generated weapon names.
dcRfj15
22. Apr 2015 路 03:36 UTC
This was a interesting game, I liked the really happy music in the background, yet that it was in a really dark and scary dungeon, this made a really interesting mood.
I got to floor 11 but then I fell off the map. It would be nice to see a wall surrounding the entire dungeon, so that you cannot accidentally fall out of the dungeon while you are exploring. The dark clone boss on floor 10 was pretty easy to beat, I killed it in about 10 seconds. I think that it should be a little more powerful.

One of the most intriguing moments for me was when I was wandering the dungeon on floor 5, then some really creepy music came on, and right after that I was killed by a Brompis as I was exploring (I couldn't tell whether that was intentional or coincidental, but either way it was really cool).

I liked the 2D characters in a 3D dungeon, it made a really cool effect.
taviandir
25. Apr 2015 路 14:56 UTC
I had a very quick health regen which was a bit overpowered, but besides that a funny little game! :)
馃帳 CliffracerX
25. Apr 2015 路 15:25 UTC
For a while, the healthregen was about one point every four seconds which kind of sucks in later levels. The reason it's so high now is simply so that later levels remain possible to beat.
Langouste
28. Apr 2015 路 15:58 UTC
Super game! I love it, thanks ;)
elefantopia
02. May 2015 路 18:44 UTC
Weird but cool graphics. Interesting game. Thanks!
pikkpoiss
07. May 2015 路 15:44 UTC
I didn't realize what the mechanic was at first, but once I noticed the stereo effect it was really cool and worked surprisingly well. I found it fun to run around and try to find the right path.

Small nit: camera was a little close and close walls kept clipping weird. Would feel a little better if it was a bit higher and further away (although your sprites may not show up as well that way so I dunno)