Down - The game by zubspace
About
Down is a mix of dungeon crawler and realtime strategy game. Command your minions to the next portal, leading deeper down. Levels are procedurally generated.
Here are some ingame screenshots:

I would like to work further on this project. How can I make this game more fun? Would love to hear your input!
And a warning to all fellow game devs: This game is what happens, if you overscope a project. It was meant to be released for the Compo, but I was nowhere near playable after 24h and it therefore went to the Jam. Now, after nearly 3 weeks of laborious, long evenings, I can present you the post-jam version, showing you, how the game was meant to be. I like, how it turned out, but gee, I'm bad at time estimates...
Anyhow, have fun and thanks for playing!
Tech:
- Godot 3.3
- Aseprite, Paint.NET, Inkscape, GDX Texture Packer
- SFXR and Audacity for sound effects. Recorded on a Zoom H1n
Post-Jam changes/additions:
- Added bombs
- Added merchant
- Added final boss fight
- Improved level progression
- Self recorded sounds
- Positional audio
- Decals and particles
- Better, custom pathfinding system with AStar2D
- A ton of bugfixes
| HTML5 (Post-Jam) | https://www.zubspace.com/games/down |
| Windows (Post-Jam) | https://www.zubspace.com/user/games/down/down-ld48-post-jam-win.zip |
| Linux (Post-Jam) | https://www.zubspace.com/user/games/down/down-ld48-post-jam-linux.zip |
| Windows (Original) | https://www.zubspace.com/user/games/down/down-ld48-win.zip |
| https://github.com/ZuBsPaCe/ludum-dare-48 | |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/down-the-game |
Ratings
| Overall | 552th | 3.739⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 469th | 3.652⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 484th | 3.587⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1021th | 3.565⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 1053th | 3.565⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 643th | 3.5⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 481th | 3.25⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 632th | 3.696⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 26🗳️ | 25🗨️ |
Great work on the game! :v:
Only thing I noticed was that the minions prioritized combat over going into the portal sometimes.
@awrgamedev Thank you! You are right about the missing instructions. Will fix that. Minions won't jump into the portal if they are currently attacking someone.
@marksht Thank you! Godot is awesome :)
It was hard to realize how to kill enemies, but maybe i missed some tips.
As a result it's cool game
Good stuff :8ball:
@aprioriface Minions are a bit dumb, yes... If they are idle or digging and see an enemy, they will automatically attack. But if they stand on a rally path, they will follow it, except if they are hit a few times. Needs a bit of practice. But yes, sometimes they seem to behave like headless chicken, lol...
@oddballdave Yeah, had it crash on me a few times, too. But it's hard to reproduce. Will look into it some more. Thanks a lot for playing and the feedback!
@hunter-x Yeah, the rally tool needs some work... It's a bit complicated, because it should work even if you make shortcuts and draw through thin walls. I sample the mouse frequently and assign the current mouse position as a target to tiles, where the mouse was before. Your minions, as soon as they step on such a tile, will then try to use AStar to follow the path, but sometimes they seem to try to go through walls. The code is a total mess and I'm not very proud of hit lol... By the way: I also wanted to add a world map like in "Slay the Spire" and add different objectives like "Rescue the king", "Defend the castle" or "Protect someone"... Well, sometimes I get a bit ahead of myself and want to do too much.. Thanks for your feedback, though. Appreciate it!
The start of the game is maybe a bit slow, but once you reach the little crew, it's really enjoyable !
Love the graphic style for the characters. Music is simple but enjoyable, and do the job !
Unfortunatly I had a freeze on the second level :/
this is the kind of game i'd like to play a full version of !
Awesome game ! congratulations
great job with everything, art, graphics... I would like more types of minions, though I just made it to the 3rd level, so I'm not sure if there are more hehehehe it'd be awesome to understand a little more about each type of minions (do leaf minions prefer range?)
I got some freezes while playing, and it always is when there are many minions fighting and throwing pickaxes, could this be the reason?
btw, am I the only one that exploded my own kind twice?? xD still really fun!! amazing job!!! :trophy:
I found the controls very intuitive, I was confused when I started playing but figured it out within 10 seconds which is a sign of good design! It felt like most of the levels got a bit auto-pilot-y in the jam version of the game, but looks like you've got extra mechanics in the post-jam version which I'm sure help spice it up, I can see a lot of potential ways to expand the game. Nice work! :)