nice!

that was fun, I had to use the manual though

I love cryptic games where you need a manual by your side to play, so this was an extremely fun experience.

Loved the style, the gameplay was fun, I would have made it a bit easier to get coins, because running out of them is why I died almost every time. But other than that, an amazingly solid experience. Would love to see more from this game.

As recommended, I played once before reading the manual to try figuring out the game, and a second time after looking through the manual. I actually think I appreciated the game much more after looking at the manual, at the very least I understood the enemies a lot more.

I really like the game. It's very board game like, reminding me a little of forbidden island for some reason. Actually would love to see this as a board game with multiple players. The only difficult I could see is implementing the random teleport, but otherwise, it feels like a good fit.

While I like the game a lot, there were two things that were annoying:
1. The controls were a bit annoying. I understand you were using the theme two buttons, and it works, but I moved the wrong way several times due to the mechanic, and just wanted to use arrow keys to navigate.
2. The symbology used was odd. Specifically, several of the symbols look like they would be more appropriate for other actions. For example, the bomb or teleports looks like it would be better for laser, and the +3 coins would look better for the bomb.

Thanks guys!

@dalbinblue I agree with what you said about manual use and changed the description. I hope to add more to this game in the future and make the movement use the arrow keys. I was just reeeeeally stubborn with the theme.

@Reggianito yeah coins can be a sad death. Move 4 and coin up are great for replenishing them though!

Really great game. I did try at least a little while without the manual, but yeah, I had to use it :). Very cool, well done!

This reminds me alot of my dwarf fortress days. No idea what that thing does, oh, it kills me. there goes 4 hours of gameplay. just condensed really small.

This would be awesome on a tablet or phone I think. The manual made it more fun for me :) I'm trying to think of a way to make it easier for mere mortals without the manual, but maybe that would ruin the fun. Smaller starting levels and you have to unlock harder items?

@ORECROS Yep! That's the idea. I'm not a huge fan of trial and error stuff but I think it works well here because of how quickly your runs usually end, so there isn't too much punishment.

@bushmango Yeah I want to work on this more at some point, and maybe work towards other platforms like mobile. I think having the item symbols correlate more towards what they do would help a lot, but at the same time I don't want to make everything really obvious, because that's a lot of the fun.

I do hope you re-release with a better control scheme after the competition

@ORECROS Yeah totally! I already have ideas for it.

Wonderful game, though the graphics were almost too cryptic. I kept thinking that one power up was the laser. Very difficult, but part of the game. Really well made!!

Awesome! I love this game :D well done!

Had a weird feeling of exploration and discovery while playing. It was pretty good. The sound effects without ambiant music were a bit harsh on me. Liked it overall.

@Everyone above this comment Thanks! Yeah the main thing I was going for is making it as cryptic as possible while still being possible to understand without the manual. Exploration definitely goes into that. Sorry about sound being loud :(

This is really awesome I have to say, it is amazing how many different functions you got into the game in the time period. I really liked the manual as I would have no idea what to do if it weren't for that thing to help me out. That being said, the fact that you needed a manual is pretty cool because it means that the game is very complex. The other thing I liked was that I could see this being very addicting in terms of trying to get to a higher score, mainly because there are so many different things at play that are trying to kill you that if you don't know what you are doing you can slip up very easily. Overall this is great.

@thejimster82 Thanks! Highscores are definitely something I love in games. One thing that I'm really happy with is that I still don't really know the best way to play the game. Even when you know everything about the game, I don't know what combos are actually the best for getting far and getting lots of kills. The second screenshot is my current highscore, and I don't really know how I even pulled it off. After ratings come in I hope to work on the game some more and maybe have global leaderboards and seeded runs etc.

This gets the perfect score from me. I like bold games, with innovative gameplay ideas and a strong game design philosophy. This game is not only cryptic, but it is also solid on its reflexion on the genre that it's borrowing from, the art-style that it employs as well as the theme from this LD edition.

One of my personal favorites so far.

Thanks alvarop, glad you liked it so much.

I was surprised I could figured any of the items out. I think a tutorial would improve the game dramatically. However, the strategy was appealing and seemed pretty deep.

Man, I really love this game, it's one of those awesome rouge-likes where every turn, every step you take matters and makes you think. Reading the manual just makes it so much better. Just some things could be better 'readable' (e.g. the blinking void space looks so innocuous, and one can't see bombs that are below enemies).

@klianc09 oo, I thought I made it so enemies wouldn't step over bombs. Maybe they're spawning on top of them?? I'll fix that in the post-jam version (which will exist!)

Played a few times without the manual as suggested. As other people have pointed out, I don't think it's realistic to expect anyone to figure out the complex rule without it. The game itself was pretty fun and addictive. Good job!

@euske glad you liked it! Yeah I'm currently working on a post jam version which shows the name of the item (which is self-descriptive) at the bottom of the screen when you hover over it in the item panel. I also am adding a tutorial, fixing up the controls, adding new items, fixing bugs, and adding some secrets and an ending. It should make the game better in pretty much every way, and I'm really liking how its coming. I'll post about it and soon.

Very innovative!