Financial Burden by FalseIncarnate
"Financial Burden"
FalseIncarnate's Ludum Dare 40 Compo entry!
The theme was "The more you have, the worse it is", which I explored in a 2D exploration and collection game.
As the player explores a procedural generated world, they will quickly learn that financial burden isn't just expenses! With each collected coin, the player will literally be weighed down by their greed, until their speed is reduced to an almost insufferable crawl. Additionally, the player can only carry a single held object at a time, so you'll need to manage your priorities and finances well if you wish to get far!
However, scattered through the world are a number of shops which gladly lighten your load, offering not only items for sale but also handy Piggy Banks which will deposit your carried coins into a shared bank account.
In the shops you can purchase items such as keys to open challenge doors, planks to bridge chasms, a gun that literally fires coins from your pockets, or items such as a coin purse or winged boots to support your growing greed with a permanent speed increase. The shop at the world start will always offer one of each key at a set price while restocking after each purchase, or you can try your luck with the shops you can randomly discover during exploration which offer a random selection at random prices, though once you purchase an item from that shop it won't be restocked!
Additionally, during your travels you will find locked doors requiring specific keys or coins to open. Successfully unlocking one of these doors will open a new path of rooms which may contain even greater amounts of coins, a challenge to overcome, or perhaps a dead end. Some rooms might even contain a standing target which you can crack open with a well-placed shot to reveal a prize!
Financial Burden was created by FalseIncarnate during Ludum Dare 40 for the Compo, meaning the game was completely created from scratch and developed solo within 48 hours. For the game engine, I used Unity (2D) and C# for the scripting. For the sprite work, I managed to scrape together some workable programmer art using GIMP 2 (though it is very clearly programmer art). I opted to not include audio since I don't have any experience with audio-editing, though I plan to try and add some later (post-LD).
This is my first time participating in Ludum Dare, and it has been an absolute blast! Thanks for checking my submission out!
Ratings
| Given | 8🗳️ | 5🗨️ |
The game didn't appear to have any serious bugs, but needs a lot of tuning. The world needn't to be as big.
As for concerns about game play, there is currently no goal. There is no back story or win/lose condition since I didn't have time for those prior to submission, though I do want to add them in the future. Automatic coin collection was deliberately cut since the coins are a major trade-off, so it felt like it would punish the player for not avoiding them rather than punish them for hoarding them as I envisioned. Auto-exploration/fast travel were likewise not included because the game was about the player balancing their choices according to their situation. Do you continue along the same path in hopes of a new store nearby or turn back to one you know exists? Do you carry the coins and waste your time trudging slowly through many rooms, or press on knowing you can come back for them later? Adding ways to essentially bypass these choices means the player is less a player and more an audience. Though providing the user a one-way "fast recall" to the starting room via a one use item could be a reasonable future addition
The rooms are randomly generated, with various chances of containing things like coins, targets, shops, challenge doors, etc. A challenge door (door going up from main path) will lead to a path of variable length with higher chances to include rooms with more coins or challenges to overcome, but still has the chance for a room to be empty and/or a dead end. The rates of things being included likely needs tweaking in the future, but part of the issue again falls back to things that I had to cut for time.
A bug with movement throwing you off center was something I rarely experienced in testing and development (would sometimes inconsistently occur with coins in front of doors), if you could post an issue report on the github on how to reproduce that (if possible) I would very much appreciate it @zinkler
That said, you've got the basics of a Binding of Isaac/Zelda-type adventuring game down. The coin mechanic just isn't very rewarding. Maybe by removing most of the backtracking and putting a lower limit on the speed decrease would improve things. Also something like teleporting back to shops (for a cost) would be nice. Like for example Dark Souls bonfire mechanic.
Currently, there really isn't much "skill" to the game. It's a pretty simple collection and exploration game in its current state. The slowdown doesn't feel as dire since there is no threat to the player that the slowdown would amplify (enemies, a time limit, etc) currently. I wanted to add enemies which the player would need to avoid or kill in order to continue playing, which the slowdown would definitely add to the difficulty of doing, but had to cut them for time since I got hung up on some pretty major issues with the coin gun that ate more time than expected. They are still something I'd like to add post-voting.
A shop recall is starting to seem more reasonable (and requested) as long as there is a cost and limit on it... starting to think that you'd need to "pre-purchase" recalls from stores (or find them via loot in challenge rooms and such) which function much like the fast travel resource in Horizon: Zero Dawn (you need an item to fast travel, consuming them each time you do so until you get the infinite version of the item in the later game). This is likely going to be added in post-voting for sure.
Other post-voting goals: more room variety, more items, more challenge mechanics, and perhaps a "win" condition for the game as a whole so it isn't infinite exploration...