LudumData

Adventure Watch by blearn

[raw]
made by blearn for Ludum Dare 46 (COMPO)

ld46_wip2.gif

Adventure Watch is a small game inspired by Tamagotchi gameplay but with a twist. Instead of a pet, you must keep an adventurer alive while she fights monsters and collects loot.

The adventurer performs actions herself. As she adventures she will gain gold, which the player can use. However performing actions deplete her resources: HP and hunger. If either resource is completely depleted the adventurer will die ☠.

You can replenish her resources by spending gold to play a timed mini-game. You replenish more resources the better you perform in the mini-game.

Controls

| | Movement | Action | | -------- | -------- | ------- | | Keyboard | WASD | Spacebar | | Gamepad | Left Joystick | A |

ld46_ss2.png

Tools

Everything was made using the Pixelbox.js game engine.

Youtube https://github.com/learnb/ld46
Youtube https://blearn.itch.io/adventure-watch
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/adventure-watch

Ratings

Overall 521th 3.429⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Fun 796th 2.929⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 186th 3.762⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Theme 392th 3.81⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 385th 3.643⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Audio 452th 3.167⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Humor 603th 2.556⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Mood 681th 3⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Given 21🗳️ 6🗨️

Feedback

plantleaf
19. Apr 2020 · 12:31 UTC
I never got very far in the game. With that being said though, I liked the art and sound effects a lot so overall I think it's a good game.
🎤 blearn
19. Apr 2020 · 16:48 UTC
Thanks for playing @plantleaf

The game needs more balancing but that's all I had time for this jam. In play testing I usually died after ~500 gold. A few times I had it past 1k gold.
TheGameGoyal
20. Apr 2020 · 03:24 UTC
Genuinely really great game. Really nice take on the theme and the graphics and audio really do bring out the retro feel. The controls worked really nicely and the mechanics were really well done. Overall really great game.
Brandon JS Lea
20. Apr 2020 · 03:55 UTC
Feels very RNG based right now, although I might just be missing something. EG I'm not sure weather the grey things do anything other than ending the minigame, like if they effect the top game. Plus I was never not playing the minigame, which i guess makes sense, but the pay to play thing seems odd in this case.
Overall though it's a cool concept and I did have fun figuring out what to prioritize on a moments notice.
sanjuro
23. Apr 2020 · 20:05 UTC
It took me some time to understand it, and sometimes the objects were overlapping a bit too much, but overall the fact that you could intentionally hit the spike-things to deplete the timer was a nice thing. The art gets the job done well and is very consistent, and the sounds are used very well too. Good job!
Zanthous
24. Apr 2020 · 01:22 UTC
I think there is an issue where the character on the top screen can go a lot faster potentially related to fps or monitor refresh rate, at least compared to the gif the game plays extremely fast and the game is over in 5-10 seconds. Seems like a neat concept if you can make it strategic and change up the minigame according to levels.
morcado
24. Apr 2020 · 01:28 UTC
It's very fast, and easy, first I did not know that I had to press the action key to start. And the objects below are a little close to each other. I found that you can "grind" for hp and hunger: you start the minigame and pick what you need and then you go to the spikes to die, that way you can start another minigame to get fast another thing. You did a good job! keep it up
James Beninger
24. Apr 2020 · 01:36 UTC
Great little game. The graphics really set the mood well. My one complaint is the minigame continued after I'd gotten all the items, so I was stuck waiting until the minigame was over.
🎤 blearn
24. Apr 2020 · 01:37 UTC
@zanthous thanks for letting me know. That must be a bug if the character on the top screen is moving faster. I haven't seen that happen yet. Could you let me know what browser you were using?
Michael Fritz
24. Apr 2020 · 01:41 UTC
The idea is creative and fits the theme very well. I really like the idea of playing the pet and keeping the adventurer alive. The art is clear and I understood how to play the game with very little explanation.
The keyboard was a bit frustrating to play with because the game moves so fast. It would have been nice to add acceleration to the character to allow finer-grain control.
Zanthous
24. Apr 2020 · 01:41 UTC
@blearn chrome
aplite
24. Apr 2020 · 01:58 UTC
Really enjoyed this game. The artwork is fantastic. Initially I had a difficult time understanding the minigame in the bottom half of the screen, but after a couple tries it finally clicked in my head. Great work!
loveapplegames
26. Apr 2020 · 08:46 UTC
Cute game, charming graphics! Interesting game mechanic. Simple, but there quite a bit of strategy involved. I must say, I was never really looking at what the adventurer was doing, just the red and green bar. Maybe it would be good if there is a significnt reason to do so, so you have to look at two places at once?
mikouaji
03. May 2020 · 17:23 UTC
Very fun and addictive, great pixelart and music :D Very cool!
Josh Riley
03. May 2020 · 22:24 UTC
This is a really, really good idea, and I like the sound and art a lot. The only issue I had was how short the minigame was.

I peeked at your source code, and while I don't know javascript, it looks like maybe your "gameTimer" is going down per frame, regardless of how fast those frames are rendered? If so, the game will play very different from PC to PC.
domrein
04. May 2020 · 17:04 UTC
Fun! This is a pretty fun complete little package. Good job on pulling it all together. I wish the adventurer moved a little slower so I could focus on whether to collect apples or mana potions.
waynetron
05. May 2020 · 02:22 UTC
Wonderful concept, cute visuals.
I think the game would be stronger if my actions in the mini game have more meaningful impact on the adventurer game. Right now I see no reason to pay attention to what is happening the adventurer. Instead I can play by just focusing on the UI and the mini game.
🎤 blearn
05. May 2020 · 17:01 UTC
@josh-riley thanks for looking into that issue. I had reports of it running way too fast for some users. The game engine attempts to lock the frame-rate at 30. It seems that doesn't work in some scenarios.
🎤 blearn
05. May 2020 · 17:21 UTC
I appreciate everyone's feedback! There is a lot of good ideas here that I'll be considering for the post-jam version of the game. I decided to port this to Pico-8 for future iterations. (FYI [Pixelbox](https://pixwlk.itch.io/pixelbox) is a great "soft" introduction to the Pico-8 environment) Soon I will be adding several new features and fixing all the balancing problems the jam version has.
cheesepencil
07. May 2020 · 02:41 UTC
It's got everything, action, suspense, and loot collection. I thought the sprites were cute and effective even if the game was too difficult for me. I played with a gamepad and the gamepad worked perfectly!