In Exchange For My life by Fahim Faysal
You play as a nameless mage who has sacrificed his life to the devil for power. He must adapt to his newfound powers to traverse a dungeon that only has one floor for some reason.

The only true currency here is health. Casting a spell means wagering a portion of you health bar to the devil(the blue part of the bar in the gif). You'll need to keep your wager by dodging the incoming enemy attacks. Get hit once and you'll lose all of the HP you've wagered.
To keep things fair, the devil has thrown in a special artifact, a lifegem. This rare gem will slowly restore your Health and even bring you back to life a couple of times too. But don't rely on it too much.
There are also powerups to keep things fun. Every powerup will decrease your max HP. So pick and choose the ones you like best.
Controls:
WASD to move.
Left click to melee attack.(Hold to charge)
Right click to cast spells.
Left Shift to dash (Once dash is unlocked)
Credits:
The art for the game was done by Cardwise
The explosion asset was made by Sinestesia from OGA
I handled all of the code.
NOTE: In the older version there is bug that spawns enemies outside of the room and thus blocks your progress. you can try the fixed version(which has minimal changes outside of a small fix) or try to attack the enemies outside of the room with ranged attacks.
| HTML5 (web) | https://czerkas.itch.io/in-exchange-for-my-life |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/in-exchange-for-my-life |
Ratings
| Given | 38🗳️ | 60🗨️ |
Thanks for the kind words.You should reach a thank you screen at the end. Did you get the third spell? The room after that is the final one. If the issue is what I think it is then I probably didn't include the final screen in the build. I'll investigate as soon as I get home. I have finish some university paperwork first.
I found the bug. There's now a fixed version on the link. The game should still be beatable if you look around the room for an eenmy that spawned outside.
The game gets much easier as you progress since the upgrades are not balanced either the later spells can one shot enemies if aimed correctly
I would have liked to add a final boss. My plan was to make it another mage who went the same path as you did. So you could also abuse how magic works to deal tons of damage to him. But I had to give up due to time constraints. I ended up publishing an hour before the final mark.
Two things which I would like to see are an option for windowed mode and a possibility to restart when the game is completed. But maybe I just didn't see them.
I had to leave out a pause menu/ title menu due to time constraints.
As for the windowed mode option, unity should've handled that automatically. My last ludum dare entry was also made in unity and the build had a window and graphics option by default. I'm not sure why there isn't one in this build.
good job
@zax Thanks. I tried out your game too. It's always interesting to to how similar but slightly different interpretations can create different games.
@max-torn Yeah I agree about the speed. I think it is a combination of the the huge sprite size, the small viewing area and the large rooms. I don't know if I'm going to rework the game later but those are the first things I'd change. In my opinion Enter the Gungeon had perfect room size So I think I'm gonna replay that to get a better feel. The spell icons are indeed too large and do not fit the game.
@boxedmeatrevolution @john-snyder Thanks. yeah the melee combat needs some serious rework. It's actually pretty OP since you can stunlock an enemy once you get close. But right now it lacks visual punch. The same goes for charge attacks. I should've at least put some particle effects there.
@sleepqt Thanks. I added the sound at the last moment and I only had enough time for one. I'm glad that you like it.
@balance686 Can't believe I didn't notice that about the webgl build. I'l fix it ASAP. Thanks.
A lot of people will only play browser bases games, either because they don't have Windows (like me), or they don't feel comfortable downloading so many apps. I highly suggest showing that you have an HTML5 version on this play to modivate more people to play.
I noticed you used stock door open/close effects, was it the only AOL sound library? Anyway, unless you recorded those yourself, you should opt out on "Audio" voting. Some sounds for attacks/hits would have been great too.
It looks like you just put a semi-transparent black layer over the floor to make the walls? That's a clever time-saving way to make the barriers clear while still using a good texture. I did notice you kept the skybox on for some reason, I think a solid black background would be better.
I love the way the sprites looks, though the animations aren't great (the melee attack sort of looks like humping). I'd like to see more sprite art like that.
As for the theme, I'm seeing a log of ones that interpret it like this. "Your life is currency" implies you're using your life to purchase goods and services, these seem more like your powers/abilities hurt you that and sort of exchange of wealth.
One last thing, I like how you controlled the flow of the game with the doors locking/unlocking.
@shaolin-dave Good point, I uploaded the webgl version recently, So forgot to mention it. I'll fix the desc ASAP.
I did use an external sound effect that didn't require credit. I didn't actually realize that you could opt out of categories at first. When I did realize it, I couldn't remove the category. maybe it's because some people had already voted on it. If there is any way to fix that, please let me know.
Yes, the borders are a hack. My artist only had time for one tile. So I recolored it. I don't think anyone except you even commented on it. The sky box was an oversight on my part.
Yeah sacrificing health for power is quite common this time. i still think wagering with the devil is pretty fun. I don't think there's any other game with that mechanic. It's a pity, I'd have like to see a gambling game where you bet your life to play poker with the devil.
You got a typo in "Double number of Projectiles for advanced spelss" :)
The game is well made, and the graphics are good.
Well done.
@notekri Thank you!
Here is my playthrough:
https://youtu.be/X1MLeQIql9E
Once again a huge thank you for doing this. I really appreciate it.
@frog5tar Thank you. I appreciate the feedback on the UI. I agree that it was needlesly confusing and a simple checkbox would've been better. A directional indicator to the next door is also a very good idea.
@douglima Thank you. I'll try to add some fitting sfx on the postjam version.
@wolf-flare Thank you. The art was done by someone else but I'm happy that you like it.
- The melee attack is very lackluster. Its animation is too clunky, it doesn't indicates the range of the attack very well, and if I was walking to the left and attacking to the right, it continued to attack to the left. I don't know if it was inteded or not, but anyways, it's confusing. I only used spells for the entire game.
- Sometimes the red monsters don't blink when taking damage.
- Very easy: the life is currency theme didn't even offer any difficulty, I just spammed spells and my life would be regenerated on the next update room.
- Unbalanced: the dash and the other spells are overpowered and it costs just a little health.
- It ends too abruptly. I think if it had just one more room with a very strong boss would make it more rewarding and less sudden.
Things I liked:
- The animations of the spells are very good. It was very satisfying to use them.
- The sprites are very beautiful!