Alchemist Dungeon by hexkritor

First Ludum Dare entry
Genre: Rogue-lite
Description
You are the rogue, who found the ancient dungeon of alchemists, who turns metal to gold. However, this dungeon is danger one despite of it's emptiness. Find the gold and escape the dungeon alive.
| Windows | https://yadi.sk/d/Sgw3CUu43aBzhM |
| HTML5 (web) | https://hexkritor.github.io/Ludum-Dare-42/ |
| HTML5 (web) | https://hexkritor.github.io/Alchemist-Dungeon/ |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/alchemist-dungeon |
Ratings
| Overall | 441th | 3.527⭐ | 58🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 437th | 3.384⭐ | 58🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 767th | 3⭐ | 56🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 537th | 3.564⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 228th | 3.528⭐ | 55🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 208th | 3.615⭐ | 54🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 29🗳️ | 20🗨️ |
Since this is a pixel art game and you are using Unity, all of your imports should be on "point", and you should use TextMeshPro (which is built into the latest version of Unity, 2018.2) on all of your text to prevent the text being blurry. Also, the pixels per unit should be the same on all sprites. Otherwise, you get a scale mismatch which ruins the artistic style of your game.
In addition, the game is much too easy. The toxic gases move way too slowly, and they don't use up enough space to really go with the theme "Running out of space." Plus, why are there no enemies? Maybe some gold spirit? This game appears to be a blank canvas.
@mertios, thanks for complexed review, and I can explain what you mentioned in it.
Firstly, graphics. The game was developed on Unity 2017.3, so the text problem has a point here. And the only texture, which not using "point" filter is oxygen bar. Others are imported right.
Secondly, gameplay. True, it has problems cause of not having a game progression with increased difficulty. I'm sorry that I had not enough time to add it in 72h time limit, so wait for new version of the game
Also, I can add the source code, if you interested in. Maybe you give some tips to improve the game
@nikki93, thank you. Wait for new version with included game progression
@human-person, thanks
It's too bad that there's not much to do in this dungeon... Chasing down 40 coins and finding the exit is it. The "gas" mechanic... I'm not really sure what it does, as I've run out of that bar around me once and the game didn't end. And sometimes the gas put you in impossible positions of having to go through it to get to the exit.
Another detail worth noting is that the pixel art of the dungeon and the player are at different pixel scales and that makes the game's look less coherent. It's like the assets come from different games.
I wanted to make a procedural roguelike game too and didn't in the end because of the theme... I can definitely sympathise with how much work it takes!
The bar around player character is oxygen and whenever it depletes, you take damage every second, which increaces in time too. And the situation with gas you mentioned can happen cause of random and it's hard to avoid them completely
About art assets used in the game, it's one asset, but player and enviroment have different sprite sizes, so this happened. It will be fixed in new version too
Lovely pixel art. The music and sounds were fantastic! I didn't understand the different colors of the ground though. It would nicer to put the colors above the floor instead above the character to have a better feeling that is the floor changing. But it works though. Very fun game, well done!
Hope to see you on the next Ludum Dare!
Awesome entry!
Генерация уровней - круто
Но что это даёт? Ты просто бегаешь по уровню, собирая монетки, которых так много, что можно и не собирать. Чтобы потом просто выйти. Газ не представлял никакой угрозы, сколько раз не проходил уровень.
Не понял задумки на самом деле...
However, I felt the game was too easy. I was able to explore the entire level without losing much health. It could've been more challenging if the gas did more damage to the character. That way, players would have to choose between exploring the remaining level and escaping with what they have.
Overall, good Job!
@noah-beckman, just created the post with explanation. Link here https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/alchemist-dungeon/development-secrets-in-alchemist-dungeon-minimap
- Collecting coins is enjoyable
- slippery controls are challenging!
- All those tiles reverting to grey was a scary thing XD
- Coloring is great (cold/warm contrast is efective), coins are nicely animated. Danger indicated clearly!
- Music is nice, but I'd make it more tense (based on whats happening with the tiles)
- Maybe you need more coins for entry, to make it more difficult
- Very solid game!
If you want to make it a larger game, then you might want more levels and different goals.
The music is nice, graphics are simple but really good, the theme is well integrated and it's a clever idea :p
Great job !! :p
Maybe you could checkout our game :) there is no post-jam version for now but it's fun anyway ahah ;)
I didn't see much reason to keep collecting coins after 40, but I did it anyway and stopped at 200 :) I found that the game could be a bit harder, maybe by limiting the player's health. Otherwise I had fun discovering your level ! Is the point of gaz apparition random ?
Congratulations for this charming entry !!
Controls were great. Picking up coins worked out great. I liked choosing what to spend my money on between floors.
I never really figured out what causes the death gas, I'm wondering if there are clues as to which squares have it or if it's just randomly generated.
I think a lot of my thoughts have already been said by others but I figured I'd say everything I thought during play anyways. First off, I think the actual concept and mechanic is cool, and seeing the gas spread is really neat. Good job on that! It's a shame I didn't see it quite enough!
I think the primary flaw is how easy it is. The gas didn't appear that often, spread quite fast enough, nor did it damage you all that much when you ran out of time. As a result it didn't really ever feel like I was "Running Out of Space" although not fitting the theme has never been any kind of real flaw to me :) There were far more coins than needed for the exit so that by the time I had wandered straight up and found the exit I had already enough coins to leave (but I didn't, since I thought it was the next level and wanted to explore the whole map). I wouldn't mind having it require collecting every coin, honestly.
There also felt to be some tonal or aesthetic confusion. As others have also mentioned, the sprites have varying scales in terms of pixels per unit, so it feels like a lot of the art belong in different games from each other. The character is really nice and has a lovely animation, as does the coin, but the former has way more pixels and detail than the coin, if you see what I mean. I also really liked the music, but felt it didn't quite fit the atmosphere of a frantic dungeon, more like an epic overworld map theme, or something. Perhaps having it be faster with percussion would have helped.
Overall though, well done. It's a solid entry, and I'm sure you fixed a lot of this stuff already in the Post Jam version. Rock on!