SPELUNK! by gil_villarreal

[raw]
made by gil_villarreal for LD32 (JAM)
SPELUNK!

A futuristic adventuress/spelunker sets out with her faithful companion 'Spelo-Bot', and her trusty plasma cutter (an unconventional weapon indeed!) to dig deeper and deeper into the earth in search of gems and other artifacts! See how deep you can go but be careful, who knows what waits for you deep underground!


CONTROLS

Arrow Keys - move the heroine
1 - deploy plasma cutter
Ctrl - charge and use your plasma cutter
Q - Quit


PLAYING

Use your plasma cutter to begin digging into the map. Look for crystals to increase your score and feed SpeloBot. Watch your HUD for feedback on your plasma cutter fuel cell levels, if it runs out your stuck! Pickup the Fuel Cells (grey box with purple energy accent) to replenish you cutter.

You will get hungry as the game progresses and as shown by your Food meter. Find a deluxe chicken meal to replenish your strength.

How deep can you get? The Depth gauge is scaled to the height of the player (6ft), so a mile down is relative to her size (1 mile = 5280ft).


KNOWN ISSUES

The jumping is a bit touchy and stunted. We wanted her to be able to jump further and in a nice arc, but that was not tuned in time for release. The grappling/cable gun that was planned and is available in the inventory, was never implemented. This would have allowed the heroine the ability to backtrack and climb upwards to visit areas that she passed going down.


CREDITS

Gil Villarreal - Engine / Game Programming / Game Design
ShroomArts - Pixel Art / Animation / Game Design / Splash Screen
W. Gregory Turner - Music
Nicholas Villarreal - Game Design / Mac conversion


POST-MORTEM

Check out our post-mortem at the link below.

Ratings

Coolness 41% 1634
Overall(Jam) 2.70 919
Fun(Jam) 2.27 984
Graphics(Jam) 3.75 286
Humor(Jam) 2.13 843
Innovation(Jam) 2.14 971
Mood(Jam) 2.91 627
Theme(Jam) 2.70 882

Feedback

ArcturusDeluxe
23. Apr 2015 路 17:22 UTC
Cool game! Nice presentation, I'm particularly liking the pixel art graphics and the ambient music. Found the jumping control to be a bit fiddly. Good stuff overall though.
馃帳 gil_villarreal
23. Apr 2015 路 18:19 UTC
Thanks Arcturus! Appreciate your comment. Yes, the jump is definitely fiddly and was high on my tuning list on the last day...and of course I never got to it! Thanks for your positive feedback on the other aspects. Cheers.
molecats
23. Apr 2015 路 21:03 UTC
<3 for female protagonist!
馃帳 gil_villarreal
24. Apr 2015 路 02:01 UTC
Thanks molecats! We like our heroine too!
RockhopperGames
24. Apr 2015 路 12:24 UTC
It's clear you really overreached with this one, which is a shame, since what you do have is pretty neat. The sprite work is top-notch, and the music is pretty atmospheric too. Procedurally generating a map like that takes a lot of work, and it looks like you used your own engine for it too!

You had a lot of good stuff going here, it's just a shame so little of it got finished. Good luck in your future jams though, I'm sure you learnt a lot from this!
馃帳 gil_villarreal
24. Apr 2015 路 13:38 UTC
Thanks RockHopper! Really appreciate the feedback. Everything you said is true. We have learned a lot from our 1st LD and we look forward to the next one. Cheers!
abcdef65g
24. Apr 2015 路 20:57 UTC
You guys did quite an amazing job for a first Jam, I really like the female protagonist, the sprite art is indeed top knotch, and the mechanics really suggest this game is a good candidate for a post jam work to turn it into a commercial title!
DKoding
24. Apr 2015 路 20:59 UTC
Tried to hit one but hit q several times and quit the game instead. What was the point? I could drill down and down but nothing really happened. Should have removed the grappling hook if it could not be used. Unable to pick up anything. Unable to jump, what is the jump button? Looked good though and I liked the infinite cave.
KhaoTom
24. Apr 2015 路 21:06 UTC
Great visuals. The music lends a nice mood. If only the game were playable. This was definitely an ambitious attempt, and kudos for the cavern generation. I hope you all get something more playable next time! See ya then!
SmallPhil
24. Apr 2015 路 21:08 UTC
The game has a lot of potential, but it's a bit too buggy for now :P The music is awesome though !
Prowler
24. Apr 2015 路 21:17 UTC
I hope you'll develope this further! The concept, graphics and sound are just great and the gameplay is addictive. Please finish this and send me a message :D
NoWandStudios
03. May 2015 路 14:40 UTC
I liked the idea but the actual gameplay is quite boring for me. On the other hand, the graphics are so cool!
sP0CkEr2
06. May 2015 路 03:30 UTC
graphics and music were great - controls need work
01101101
06. May 2015 路 15:24 UTC
Cool art and mood, but gameplay is a bit poor, and as mentioned above, jumping is not really an option ^^
I only tried the jam version, might try the indiecade one later, as this has potential.
馃帳 gil_villarreal
11. May 2015 路 19:44 UTC
Thanks to all of you that played and critiqued our game. We received a lot of good feedback and I think the bottom line was the hero controls were the stumbling block while the visuals and audio were appreciated all around. We will learn from this first attempt and our next LD offering will certainly reflect our commitment to developing fun, intuitive, and aesthetically appealing entertainment software. Cheers!