Down by Skyeward

[raw]
made by Skyeward for Ludum Dare 57 (JAM)

Choose which route to take on your adventure down into the depths... 1.png You'll have to fight enemies as you go! 2.png Carefully select where you will go next... 3.png Find items that will help you on your way! 4.png Onwards and downwards... 5.png

Controls: 6.png

Embedded game is not showing the full screen, but if you scroll to the bottom right of the box and play full screen you should be able to see it properly.

Ratings

Given 35🗳️ 28🗨️

Feedback

JumbocactuarX27
08. Apr 2025 · 00:43 UTC
A good, simple formula is hard to mess up and lets you shine in other areas. I liked the amount of interaction you put in between different rooms and the inventory. There was a lot of random chance to each room selection, which made it hard to leverage knowledge from previous runs; even when I knew what was behind each door I couldn't always capitalize on it.
gamesplusjames
08. Apr 2025 · 00:45 UTC
This was a fun idea with some nice simple interactions! Going into the portals got a chuckle from me :) Great work!
Elian Geser
08. Apr 2025 · 01:04 UTC
I like the artwork! Nice and simple Game. Good job on completing the game jam!
outstar
08. Apr 2025 · 19:44 UTC
That was super cute and fun, you're getting big thumbs up for humor at the ending :D
Some feedback!

- Really loved the cute art, especially in combat (I wish some monsters were cuter, make that snek lovely!)
- Good use of the theme and choose your own adventure format, that was very quick to grasp!
- I found a bug where animated text was pushing a word to the next line, making it hard to read (I believe it was right before the wolf combat),
- Animated text was hard to read, but looked really cute in logo - maybe there's a way to mix and match and do static for longer texts?

Thanks for the fun!
Zigtalk
12. Apr 2025 · 20:46 UTC
This game is super cute, it feels like a story book more than a game. I like the hand drawn graphics, though the animated text in the intro screen was a little hard to read. I didn't quite understand if there were goals as I went into different holes, and I liked the Portal reference!
Justine D
12. Apr 2025 · 20:49 UTC
Don't go to the deepest depth! There is something truly horrifying down there. It's going to haunt me for years to come...
Nice entry, really liked it. The text was kinda hard to read though, maybe it moves too much, not sure.
I really enjoyed the references, I'm going to try again and see what that wizard wants with a magic star, brb
LDJam user 383241
12. Apr 2025 · 21:02 UTC
This was really interesting! Reminds me of a choose your own adventure style book from years back. Nicely done. I'd be curious to see what else you can do with the combat system to be more interactable. Overall, this was really fun to experience.
AdamsMcCall
12. Apr 2025 · 21:08 UTC
What a lovely little game, i had a lot of fun ! I like the animated text idea but it makes it really hard to read sometimes.
5huNo.3
12. Apr 2025 · 21:24 UTC
Fun short game that can be played multiple times. Made it to the bottom. Sometimes the animated text makes it hard to read, because the size changes to the point that it changes its placement on the screen. Really like the art and how the gameplay reflects the theme. Great work!
toreskovic
12. Apr 2025 · 22:27 UTC
Neat! Adding inventory, equipment, and combat to a "choose your own adventure" style game is definitely interesting, you might be on to something.
Zshandi Krahn
13. Apr 2025 · 05:23 UTC
Really well done nice little game. As someone else mentioned, I found some of the texts hard to read with it changing which line the words were on (perhaps a fix would be to ensure the characters are all the same width as their replacements). I also found an exploit bug, where if you were to give / trade an item, you could actually use up the item before choosing the option, which I used a couple times with medicine to get free stuff.

Also, I get the feeling the cooked meat isn't supposed to be a pink square:
![screenshot2.png](///raw/8b5/36/z/6c1cb.png)
vidarn
13. Apr 2025 · 07:58 UTC
Very fun to play! I liked the variety of rooms and how you learned more and more about the interactions as you played. There's a lot of content int the game and I found the writing very funny.

The graphics were cute and stylish and really set the mood for the game

Didn't expect that horror at the bottom though :scream:
Ronalchue
13. Apr 2025 · 13:58 UTC
I was left with a pleasant impression, every time I wonder where I'll fall. The development of this concept can result in a big game
Tugaryn
13. Apr 2025 · 14:00 UTC
I like the art, lots of different sprites.
and a lot of content.

ui screen goes beyond my resolution a bit uncomfortable

but thanks well done!
Clear Voiz
13. Apr 2025 · 14:49 UTC
Really addicting!
I've been trying different routes and it's so fun! I just wish it lasted longer than 10 depth levels, but I understand that you probably didn't have time for more. Nevertheless the different combinations you can make with the items and routes is really satisfying and pushed me to try new things with each attempt (even if I did a safe route and won on the first run hahaha). The fact that you can end up in three different situations with the alien robots is really fun along with finally being able to kill the dragon and have loads of trade material!
The animation on the UI is also really cool and the art style matches everything else.
One of my favourites so far!!!
LLlarsO
13. Apr 2025 · 17:28 UTC
Neat interpretation of the theme.

I really like the visuals of your game. The sprites look cute and I also like this "skribbl.io" effect of the moving fonts and pictures.

Sometimes I had a little bit trouble of reading the fonts. More clarity would be good here.

I really appreciate the little sound effects you put into the game. Made it very polished. :)
SmallTalkInc
13. Apr 2025 · 17:30 UTC
I loved the little door designs, and that the movement is all dynamic, for the letters as well as the images. The little backpack with the items in them was a very cute idea, and the designs are really cute again. The audio effects were really nice as well, tho perhaps some music would have been nice? The tailored text destinations were fun and sometimes quite funny too, so that was lovely, tho at times it could feel like you weren't really going anywhere, except down of course. I liked the ending, I chuckled at that :P Very nicely done!
Potatobrain
13. Apr 2025 · 17:38 UTC
I like the UX design alot, its clean but still interesting
Borabee
14. Apr 2025 · 04:48 UTC
Very fun game with a humorous story. I love all the clever references you made, you are the coolest! Also loved all the cute art. My only nitpick is that the moving text is hard to read. Otherwise, awesome game!
Cobear25
14. Apr 2025 · 16:41 UTC
Cool game. Somehow I beat it without ever encountering an enemy. So all my trades were basically useless haha.
JHax
14. Apr 2025 · 17:21 UTC
Really charming game! I love that I left it with the sense that there were a lot of interactions that I missed that I could aim for on another pass through. The broad range of interactions you get from a really simple input from the users has a great playful fun energy to it. Ending made me smile too :smile:
bjornstenlund
14. Apr 2025 · 17:50 UTC
Nice game loop and good length - you kept me interested and longing for more when it was done and I played it three times before leaving it! It felt quite polished, I didn't encounter any bugs and I was never confused :smile:

Even though I think the length is good, I think a run could have been a little bit longer. I think maybe 10 more doors before reaching the end would be cool. I feel like the game is so close to almost have a fantasy board game kind of feel, where you stack items and get stronger, I just would have wanted a little more items, a little more fighting and some healing.

I also think it would be nice if a specific door could lead to like a category of room instead of a specific room. So I could sort of learn that the ice door leads to a "cold" room, but couldn't know exactly what would come (which obviously would need bigger scope and time that didn't we didn't have :sweat_smile:).

Finally, I thought the text jumping around was a bit annoying at times. I see what you were going for, and it felt lively and nice, but it was especially two instant I didn't like it. First was during the start when I wanted to read what to do. I think maybe you could have used a different font (not jumping) for sort of non flavour text (which maybe only was the paragraph in the game). The other time was during the wolf encounter, where to text wrapped differently between jumps. Maybe it could be avoided to changing the wrapping settings of the text.

Anyways great job!
Nekuake
16. Apr 2025 · 07:06 UTC
Really funny and cool take on the theme. I really like the handmade graphics and the references to other games, so good work on that!

![Captura de pantalla 2025-04-16 090306.png](///raw/a23/f2/z/6c3d9.png)
JAMESDEV
19. Apr 2025 · 21:17 UTC
Super charming and the interactions were great! I think I would recommend finding a different way to make wobbly text because on some dialogues the constant font changing was moving the words around too much due the to word wrapping. Apart from that good work!
block97
20. Apr 2025 · 03:54 UTC
Went down a couple of paths my first few attempts that didn't lead to any combat and was really interested to see there was so much more discover even after the third run. Really nice art had a good time playing. congrats!