How to please a Dragon by Kruemelkatze

[raw]
made by Kruemelkatze for LD 42 (JAM)

Shovel for your life! The dragon loots like a pro and fills its cave. Steal trinkets to upgrade shovels and coin containers but be careful not to enrage the dragon!

How long will you last until you run out of space?

1_game.png

Ratings

Overall 583th 3.395⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Fun 917th 2.895⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 767th 3⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Theme 545th 3.553⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 291th 3.895⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Audio 363th 3.306⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Humor 245th 3.316⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Mood 634th 3.079⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Given 12🗳️ 10🗨️

Feedback

merdeboi
14. Aug 2018 · 17:42 UTC
Nice shoveling game, I kinda ran out of space in all of the chambers. Not sure what I'm meant to do after that. Great choice mechanics on the items, that kinda lowered one of the chambers, but I died.
m.dam
14. Aug 2018 · 17:54 UTC
Enjoyed the humor in this one! But after filling all the storage I had no idea what to do and died.
🎤 Kruemelkatze
14. Aug 2018 · 18:08 UTC
Thanks for playing! Apart from shoveling, you have to strike a balance between looting stuff (which enrages the dragon) and not taking it. The dragon has an "Rage-o-Meter" (different Icons for an angry, balanced or friendly mood), which causes him to eat you, if you steal too much stuff from its pile.

On the other hand, you have to loot bigger shelves in order not to run out of space for gold. But one time or another, you'll run out of space. :)

We should have made these mechanics clearer in the game.
AdonisDevs
18. Aug 2018 · 20:00 UTC
After a few tries, I scored 19720! I'm going to continue playing this game, because it has interesting mechanics that I still need to learn, and maybe I can increase my score. Cool entry, great audio and art :)
Corqi
18. Aug 2018 · 20:01 UTC
I really liked the conversation aspect of this game, but when I filled up all of the 4 shelves there was nothing to do rather than just waiting till my death. Besides that You have made beautiful graphics and nice audio.
Astralore
18. Aug 2018 · 20:04 UTC
I played through this several times, but I found that every time I started over, the game got more and more laggy. The dragon's expression icons being a little clearer might be nice also! (I couldn't even tell they were changing at first, haha.)
farfadet46
18. Aug 2018 · 20:11 UTC
ovely :) thanks for this game :)
Marcenat
18. Aug 2018 · 20:13 UTC
Nice idea, but a few things get in the way of the fun:
* The rage-o-meter should be on the UI, the player is quite lost when he has to make a choice, as he doesn't know if he is going to get eaten by the dragon or not
* The moment the choices appear seems to be random, so I was founding myself waiting for it when all my containers were full
* In the end the player just spam space and wait for a choice

However:
* Graphics are stunning (though the player animation could be less stiff
* Audio doesn't get annoying even after a while, and the coin sound is very realistic
* The theme is well-used, the dragon cavern stuff fits perfectly
* Humour is on the spot, the dragon dialogue are very funny (especially the never gonna give you up ^^)
Keep up the good job
ZozeR
25. Aug 2018 · 08:23 UTC
Really Nice, However, after filling the containers I waited and died, maybe adding an option which steals gold without noticing the dragon will make it a longer gameplay.
Andrei9
03. Sep 2018 · 11:05 UTC
I liked the Graphics, and the Gameplay was fun, Nice Game. :thumbsup:
Geckoo1337
04. Sep 2018 · 16:39 UTC
Really well done - interesting gameplay. I love main aesthetic. Good entry ++
riperieri
04. Sep 2018 · 17:27 UTC
Really nice graphics, splendid work. The story and music are pretty great too.

I don't think I was offered enough chance cards - by the end I think I was shovelling gold into a full container for 2 minutes and it wasn't offering me anything. Perhaps making them pseudorandom or fixed might keep things more balanced.

That all said, I love polished games - it's clear you put a lot of care into this.
🎤 Kruemelkatze
04. Sep 2018 · 18:30 UTC
@riperieri Thanks for the critics! As others mentioned too, the balancing was a bit off. We should have steered the balancing more to the shoveling perspective, so that the player dies more often because of shoveling too slow instead of the lack of space.

The chance for getting shelf upgrades are already pseudorandom, though. The fuller your shelves, the higher the chance. But apparently, the rate was not well fittet. ;)