GroundBreaker by Figglewatts

[raw]
made by Figglewatts for LD29 (COMPO)
You are a small robot sent to mine out an asteroid in deep space!
Venture beneath the surface of the asteroid in search of revered and precious materials, but be careful you don't damage yourself or run out of fuel!
Be sure to upgrade yourself so you can be more efficient at tearing this asteroid apart.

This is a procedurally generated 2D mining game. The deeper you go, the more money you make.
The more money you make, the better equipped you can be to make more money.

Ratings

Coolness 88% 2
Overall 3.56 221
Audio 3.31 228
Fun 3.42 248
Graphics 3.27 482
Humor 2.25 691
Innovation 2.73 797
Mood 3.20 367
Theme 3.60 269

Feedback

x1212
28. Apr 2014 · 08:57 UTC
Nice game!
micdoodle8
28. Apr 2014 · 19:35 UTC
Nice job :) Dug straight down and wasn't able to fly back up. Next play I had to strategically dig so that wouldn't happen.
FyberOptic
28. Apr 2014 · 19:41 UTC
You made a lot of progress on this, it turned out pretty well. I always like a game like this where you can upgrade as you progress. It's a bit difficult in the sense that the limited thrust can make it hard to get the miner back to the base, but it's probably nothing that a bit more planning ahead of time in regards to where you dig wouldn't solve. Graphics and audio are nice, and the caves being procedurally generated is a plus. Good job overall!
morganbengtsson
28. Apr 2014 · 19:41 UTC
Nicely done! Good game play. You really want to keep going down. Though, not shure why I died.
Gins
28. Apr 2014 · 19:41 UTC
Wow, pretty well done for such a short time :o
Had a lot of fun exploring this world, the controls feel very natural to me.
colludium
28. Apr 2014 · 19:44 UTC
Like it. There's a bit of balderdash in there somewhere..
Katamori
28. Apr 2014 · 20:03 UTC
Addictive! Control is a little bit slow, but that's the biggest problem.

Absolute 5, even if not outstanding.
CupcakeMedia
28. Apr 2014 · 20:25 UTC
I think we all had the idea to first make this kind of game when we found out about the theme. :) You did pretty well. It's challenging, but rewarding enough for me to want to keep playing. The shop UI is a bit of a mess, but that can't be helped frankly. UI is always fucking hard to make. Well done!
DragonXVI
28. Apr 2014 · 21:31 UTC
Competent little minin' game! Did somethin' quite similar! :D Decent progression, looks great and good sound 'n music too!
friken
28. Apr 2014 · 21:32 UTC
dig dig dig... love digging games. Fits theme well
bakpakin
28. Apr 2014 · 21:34 UTC
Nice game, reminded me of Motherload and other digger games. Sounds were a bit harsh, and nobody likes playing on small screens. Felt pretty complete though. First time through, I fell and couldn't get back up.
Ellian
28. Apr 2014 · 21:36 UTC
Very nice! Sadly I couldn't go back to the shop because I couldn't fly high enough... but this is very, very well done. Kudos!
maffydub
28. Apr 2014 · 22:29 UTC
Really nice! There's a good strategy element - if you dig too directly early on, you'll find it hard to return to your base later on. Good graphics and music too!
delfino
29. Apr 2014 · 09:34 UTC
Nice! I see a lot of the digging type game which make sense given the theme, this one is well executed
blockbot
29. Apr 2014 · 17:02 UTC
Felt really good, I think this game could cross over into awesome with more objectives. Nice job!
Brodenino
29. Apr 2014 · 17:10 UTC
The music style reminds me of games from the Sega MegaDrive (that classical drum sound). A bit difficult at first, since I made several mistakes underestimating my available fuel. Nice to see some procedural level generation as well :)
Zephyr
29. Apr 2014 · 17:18 UTC
Wow, great game. The only problems I had was sometimes it would generate a world where I couldn't get back up to the shop since there was just a large air pocket below the entrance. The digging sounds were also very loud and harsh compared to the music. But it looked great, the music was awesome and it was fun and addictive. Awesome job!
Jaenis
29. Apr 2014 · 17:18 UTC
Great game!
TomboFry
29. Apr 2014 · 17:23 UTC
Do you know what really annoyed me about this game?
The fact that I played it for an hour without realising! This awesome game is incredibly addicting, and I only lost because I got a bit cocky and tried to collect too many ores before returning to the surface
igwb
29. Apr 2014 · 18:24 UTC
I am a big fan of digging games.
However I had some troubles playing those one.
I think that the way you implementet the jet thing is fairly good and quite special. However, in my oppinion, there are two flaws with it:
1. I spent a lot of time just waiting for it to recharge.
2. On some maps, even before you dig anything, you can not get back into the shop because your jet runs out before your're in it. I found that very frustrating and was quite the game breaker for me.

Another thing I find worthy re-thinking are the controls. Is there realy a need to move with WASD and dig with the arrow keys? Why not put both on WASD? I'm not sure, just a suggestion. However I like the arrows that show up in the top-right corner of the screen to indicate where you can dig to. (Without those I probably wouldn't have figured out how to dig at all.)

Overall, I grant you a 4/5. I think that you have created a solid game here that's lots of fun to play (if you aren't stuck outside of the shop).
Ragzouken
01. May 2014 · 15:08 UTC
got all the upgrades and went to the bottom, the hull damage didn't seem to matter that much - would've been nice to have some kind of ending
StudioWolfox
01. May 2014 · 16:29 UTC
Nice little game! Got quite far but then I died while flying into my base, because I didn't have enough fuel to land in it xD UI is clear, was easy to understand. Although I wasted 280$ on refuel but I didnt know that a fuel tank upgrade of 100$ would also refuel :P
Knowledge
02. May 2014 · 16:49 UTC
Probably best Ludum Dare game for me(except maybe Wriggle Worm)!
Please play and rate my game again(I fix the isue)!
otato
02. May 2014 · 23:32 UTC
Solid game all around. Had issues getting back into the shop a lot of the time though :(
LemmingSurvivor
02. May 2014 · 23:58 UTC
Neat idea.

Considering how often you need to go back to base, the rate at which collision damage rises makes it a tedious chore. Was starting to get the hang of it, but then I crashed into a one-width hole in the floor while speeding horizontally back to base. Hit for about 60% damage. Left a sour aftertaste.

Visual-wise, it's clean. Everything's easy to spot and intuitive. Collision issue aside, it's quite enjoyable. Good work.
Spaceoff
03. May 2014 · 11:57 UTC
That was absolutely brilliant! Seriously addicting, loving the artwork, and the music loop fits really well too.
pinkmonkeyhead
05. May 2014 · 02:14 UTC
I rage quitted once i got many diamonds and the fuel went empty when i was like 10 meters from the shop e_e
Awesome game
rincewind_cz
08. May 2014 · 13:36 UTC
First game I never made it back, second and third I actually did, but I wasn't able to collect proper amount of resources to refuel and upgrade myself.. I think that I would be pretty bad director of asteroid mining company with that results... :D Overall nice entry
KeyMaster
15. May 2014 · 21:57 UTC
Really good job! Had me playing for at least 15 minutes just because it was interesting to go deeper, earn more money and upgrade. Art and music were both good and the controls feeled good.
Bug-wise I only noticed a bit of tearing between the tiles, I guess that's because of gaps between the tiles (flooring tile coordinates normally helps)
Really nice and small game well executed :)
Nanolotl
17. May 2014 · 05:48 UTC
Really addictive. I ended up playing until I had maxed out every upgrade and had found every resource type, including the '?' one. Great job.