Boulder-Dash by Spice Cabinet

[raw]
made by Spice Cabinet for Ludum Dare 45 (JAM)

Spice<em>Cabinet</em>Banner.png Theme: Start With Nothing

Climb the Mountains and avoid the falling boulders! Be careful though because you only start with one hit point. Collect the occasional health item to bolster your health and see how long you can survive.

Use your trusty grapple hook to help you avoid those especially quick falling boulders.

Our best so far is 1:35! How long did you make it?

If you find any bugs please let us know.

Capture.PNG

How to Move.png Adjust Grapple.png Shoot Grapple.png

Thanks for playing.

Ratings

Overall 1114th 2.421⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1052th 2.474⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1097th 2.211⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1127th 1.658⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 1008th 2.368⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Humor 825th 2.056⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Mood 1054th 2.184⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Given 19🗳️ 4🗨️

Feedback

JosephGaiser
08. Oct 2019 · 00:21 UTC
Pretty cool! Lasted a minute then let my self get smashed by a boulder. Sweet animation!
Ausstein
08. Oct 2019 · 00:22 UTC
Nice Idea, but very shallow gameplay. Very easy in the beginning you refill your lives instantly (so the start with one is kind of useless). It stay easy till like 1:25 when it gets super hard and you lose in the next 15 seconds.
🎤 Spice Cabinet
08. Oct 2019 · 00:27 UTC
Thank you @ausstein, We had some trouble balancing the speed of the game and how challenging it is to play. Thank you for your constructive criticism.
bolsi
08. Oct 2019 · 00:47 UTC
Don't known if it was something with my browser, but I could not see the timer and healthy icons.
The trusty was a nice touch! Great work!
cottontshirtz
08. Oct 2019 · 00:52 UTC
Nice premise and fluid gameplay. It appears you are missing a material for the LineRenderer that visualizes the grappling hook though.
SKDF
08. Oct 2019 · 10:15 UTC
Finally a game with a gameplay easy to grasp! I would have prefered real levels instead of an infinite runner but hey 72 hours is short for this :)

Oh and I don't know if this would have fit better, but arrows to aim is a bit slow, so maybe the mouse instead?

Great concept anyway!
🎤 Spice Cabinet
08. Oct 2019 · 22:05 UTC
Thank you @skdf, I dont know why we didnt think to use the mouse as the arrow direction control. We would have preferred to have a little more time invested in testing so that its more balanced and more enjoyable. Thank you for playing. It definitely has its issues but it was fun to make!
mathemagician
11. Oct 2019 · 17:58 UTC
The controls felt a little awkward to use, and the difficulty spike is a little bit sudden, but this is a pretty decent - if unpolished - little game.
Roka Josh
14. Oct 2019 · 10:09 UTC
A nice little arcade game, kept me entertained for a while. I would like to see this be developed further with audio and better graphics and potentially more game play facets. Good job!
paulhocker
17. Oct 2019 · 04:40 UTC
i thought the controls were a bit off -- not sure why i needed to grapple unless it was to move faster -- it was slugish -- and what were the green pills for? -- thanks for making it
🎤 Spice Cabinet
17. Oct 2019 · 19:02 UTC
The green pills where meant to be a way to recover health. They spawn a little to frequently so they seem almost pointless because of how fast the difficulty spikes. Thank you all for trying it out anyways.
Erkberg
20. Oct 2019 · 19:54 UTC
Cool game which could use a better difficulty curve. In the beginning it was very easy for quite some time and after 1:30 it quickly became impossible. Made it to 1:42 overall and enjoyed it, the controls feel pretty good, but the grappling hook aim could be faster. Because of the difficulty spike the health mechanic almost doesn't come into play at all. Some audio would've improved the experience a lot. Still, I enjoyed it and with some more polish and gameplay elements other than boulders this could become pretty awesome, good job!
Coda Highland
21. Oct 2019 · 14:52 UTC
I like it. :) It's a simple concept, pretty well executed. The graphics and the play control fit together well.

It starts off a little too slow for my tastes; maybe it might be worth considering some sort of "speed up" or "jump" command to make it scroll faster if you think you can do it safely. Maybe if you want to add a balancing mechanic, you can't steer or grapple while accelerating/jumping.

I might suggest a mouse mode for the grapple.

I think one thing that would really help with the difficulty is if you got a second or two of invulnerability after taking some damage, and have the rock knock you away, so that getting caught underneath a rock isn't effectively an immediate game-over. That would make health more meaningful, too.
someone
21. Oct 2019 · 17:50 UTC
I also suggest mouse for the grapple. The acceleration on the grapple direction controls made it tricky to use. I generally just left it pointing it to and used space as a quick escape button.
Managed 1:43 on my second attempt. That seems to be about where it suddenly gets ridiculous.