Card Cave Adventures

i like the innovation and genre mixing on this, i feel the game overall it's a bit slow, a lot of time it's spent shuffling cards just to move towards the exit/enemies, good entry overall could use more balance

Definitely an endearing one, and so far one of my favorites. Theme was very well implemented and the conflict between the genres were played out extremely well creating a newfound play strategy. Very easy to make this into a casual mobile game for instance. This could definitely with a polished level design be something very addictive.

Really enjoyed the mechanics here! Very cool take on the theme. (Also, those screen transitions + sound effects are so satisfying).
I appreciated that shuffling the cards is not punishing to you. If there's anything I'd polish on future versions (hope you do a post LD version of this!), it would be the chances of getting card moves that allow you to do stuff instead of having to Shuffle 3 or 4 times before being able to perform your turn. I do like the system though, and the option of shuffling creates some interesting choices and situations further down the line when enemies/traps start to haunt the caves. :) Good stuff overall!

@Andreadbx totally agree! It would be a good idea to "cheat" the card drawing a little by not making it completely random. If the players goal is to its left, the chances for getting a left move card should be increased. Same goes for enemies, if there are no more enemies no attack card should be given. Thanks for your feedback!

@Aarre Entertainment hey Aarre, thanks for your comment and feedback! Making it a mobile game does sound interesting!

@sndr joker cards would be nice. I can see move card that allow you to choose direction be a good addition! Also cards that would allow you to pick any card would be nice. Maybe there should be a deck management system where the player can choose which cards he wants in his deck, so that it is not completely random. Thanks for your feedback and review!

I really enjoyed it until I got stuck. I think it might have happened because I dragged a card to the activation slot during the enemy phase.

This bit especially was very clever, teaching the player about the new tile without the need for any words.

The gameplay was very slow. So much shuffling or just using dummy cards (like moving against the wall) not to waste needed attack cards over and over again while waiting for the right directions. Like the first few levels didn't require half of the cards at all and it of course just kept giving me those. My biggest issue with the game was card UI. You could have made the active cards are smaller and hand area bigger (so the cards in hand wouldn't overlap). The movement cards were still kinda hard to distinguish from each other because they all looked so similar. Maybe having an arrow instead of the running dude would help make them stand out with a quick glance. Also having the direction on top and stamina on bottom forces the player to pretty much read the whole card. The middle text bit was unnecessary since half of the time it was masked by another card.

Also wasn't a huge fan of cards always returning to the top of the stack instead of where they came from. It made it harder to keep track of what card is what (probably in part of because they all look alike). At first I thought it was a bug giving me free shuffles of just one card 😜

Another thing that kind bugged me was the constant need to move the cursor from left side to right side just to press the end button. Adding a hotkey for the button and maybe allowing just clicking on cards to send them back and forth between hand and play area would reduce the mileage of required cursor movement.

All in all, good job! I thoroughly enjoyed it as long as it lasted (but not enough to slog through the beginning levels again)...

Oh, one more thing... I tried to randomly mash buttons to see if I could get myself unstuck with no luck really but I discovered maybe some kind of debug key that still works (that being A).

@Antti Haavikko Thanks for your amazing in-depth comment!

### Getting stuck
Getting stuck in the enemy phase is certainly a bug. Sadly I don't know what causes it, nor did I have time to fix it. I think it can happen sometimes when an enemy dies in the enemy phase.

Edit: I found the bug! It happens when an enemy dies in the enemy phase and because the list is modified it crashes...

### Teaching without words
Learned that trick from the game '[Shovel Knight](http://yachtclubgames.com/shovel-knight/)'. They learn the player new mechanics this way, which is amazing!

### Slow gameplay
I am aware of this. Dealing with the card RNG is a really big design challenge, which I had no more time to tackle.

### Card UI
I postponed a lot of these issues to the end of the compo, which resulted in me not fixing them... This probably wasn't a good idea. Thanks for your suggestions on this subject!

### Debug button
Ouch, that hurts :joy: .
Can't believe I left that in :see_no_evil: .

### End note
Thanks for the honest and in-depth comment, helps me out! I might do some quick fixes and upload that.

Heh, I usually add `Application.isEditor` to my debug button checks, it's way too easy to forget to take them off in the end.

@Antti Haavikko Good one, will do that next time. Also managed to fix a few points (and bugs!) you addressed, so I hope new people playing won't be stuck. The original COMPO version is still available on itch.io of course.

This was nice, and well paced for a game with cards - often having cards will slow the game to a crawl, but not here. Well done

@bcvery1 Thanks for your comment c:

Very smart approach! Really well done!

pros: The mechanics are very well implemented! As someonne mentioned above - this would be a nice ipad-couch-game

cons: A bit slow for my taste, but that might just be the ld fatigue =)

All in all, good work!

@MariosManiatis @nilstastic Thanks for the feedback! Maybe smaller maps with more enemies/ obstacles would make it feel faster.

Interesting idea although I found it frustrating when trying to move in a certain direction and not being able to do so until I moved in a direction i didnt want. Perhaps allowing free movement when not in battle mode would alleviate this?

Great idea for this theme. On the 3rd screen, I got past the spikes but never got an up card. Finally I had no choice but to die. I thought that the spikes were a nice touch.

I love the concept in this game. Thank you so much

very original concept. It would have been more clear if you had slightly different icons for 1 step and 2 step.

Original concept! Thank you!

Nice concept. Good job. may be slow at times but the graphics and mood helps.

@recursor That would be interesting. I think the concept in total would already benefit from a smaller playfield. Thanks for you feedback!

@coatline @EkkoEkko Thank you so much for your comments!

@bombjack That would have been better. But I think the cards need a total re-work anyway. If I do a post-jam version I will totally make the icons more clear. Thanks for you comment and feedback!

@Sandy Marcius @meskaline Thanks for your comments and feedback! I agree that the game is a bit slow, which is a huge design challenge. Glad you liked the graphics and mood though!

Nice concept! I really liked the idea of your game. The biggest flaw, in my opinion, was the card RNG (as others have pointed out). Too many times I was stuck at the top area of level 5, not getting any cards to move right but instead having lots of left movements in my hand. Shuffling is possible, of course, but even that gets frustrating when you keep shuffling until you get one right movement, and then have to shuffle again... I feel like this could be improved without messing with the RNG by introducing some kind of discard mechanic, for example being able to discard 1 card per stamina point. That way I could use a right 2 card while discarding one of those useless left movements.

Graphics-wise, the game was enjoyable. The simple graphics were enough to get the mind going and interpret the enemies and the surroundings. The screen transition when dying was a blast as well.
I also liked the music and the sound effects, they complemented the game's art style really well.

Really likes the game. For the slowness of the game: I think you managed quite well. We tried a card game jump n run and it definitely feels a lot slower than this one! There is always a bit more strategy when you pülay with cards, but it's nice how you solved that. Especially liked the way you could use the spikes and the enemy movement. ;)

Pretty enjoyable! My only complaint is I have no idea what my character is. Looks like a cookie.

@Apace Yea, the card RNG is a real problem. It actually computes your position relative to the goal, and should give you more cards that lead you to the goal. Imagine if it was completely random!
A discard mechanic is interesting, thanks for the suggestion!

Glad you enjoyed it c:.

@Ente Thanks for your comment! I will definitely check the game you guys made when I have some time.

@SeaHam Hahaha, it does look like a cookie!

It was supposed to look like a safari hat, but who would wear a safari hat in a cave? For the bat poop maybe.

Thanks for your comment!

Very cool game, interesting mechanics and nice pixelart. The game was quite self-explanatory once you got the hang of it but I didn't see the player at first, I thought the hat was a rock :grin:

The mechanics were fun to play around with and the stamina limit forced you to be strategic about how to play the cards and in what order.

Cool game and well implemented mechanics. :smiley:

@Linus Thanks for your review & feedback! I do agree that the player character is not really "clear" :p. Glad you liked the mechanics!

Really nice visuals on this, the colour palettes used worked really well and the contrast of the UI against it made it clearly known to the player what was UI and what the world space (since the Ui took up a lot of the screen, I think this was important).

The concept itself is nice, I like dungeon crawlers and the idea going deep and things getting more difficult. Lots interesting mechanics had been implemented, the turn based card system does indeed change the dungeon crawler experience, and does lead to some interesting decision making. The main gripe I had was the card generation, a few times I was left with unplayable cards and after a shuffle I still had no cards I could use and by that time the blasted bat had sank his foul teeth into the fleshy part of my supple neck....!

I'd like to see / play this again if the card draw system didn't cause some frustrating situations. Really compelte and solid effort, even moreso for 48 hours! Good job dude!

@Honest-Dan Glad you liked the visuals, I never actually do art outside of Ludum Dare. I think the concept is really expandable with more cool mechanics, but I do agree that the flaw of the card RNG has to be tackled first.

I can see some deck system being in place that allows the player to pick card before hand, so that they can adjust their deck on the next level.

Thanks for the feedback and nice comment, cya around in the upcoming streams!