LudumData

Sacred Bleorgan Artifacts by marudziik

[raw]
made by marudziik for Ludum Dare 59 (COMPO)

FOR BEST EXPERIENCE (especially on mobile), USE THE ITCH.IO LINK

There’s a post-mortem available if you want to read it (it's extremely long), along with timelapse and gameplay videos.

Sacred Bleorgan Artifacts

For whatever reason, you've been chosen to find and extract Sacred Artifacts which somehow happen to be misplaced on Earth. Those humans may be dangerous - avoid them or they'll perform their crazy experiments on you!

Hmm. The letter with the order doesn't seem totally official. Something doesn't feel right, but oh well - armed with your scanner and a shovel, you'l be sure to dig them all out.

Recording 2026-04-20 at 01.59.48.gif

Features

  • The game has a story! I hope you enjoy it!
  • There are 3 different ending messages depending on the amount of artifacts you're able to get! There's additional comment depending on how you got to the ending screen as well!

How to play

Follow the signal to find where artifacts lie. You know you're standing in the right spot when "press x to dig" prompt is visible. Avoid the humans - they are fragile and fall down on their own after a while though.

  • enter to configure controls (and to enable cheats!)
  • arrow-keys to move
  • x to dig (when prompted)
  • z (hold) to activate transporter (not in the first levels)

Hint: whenever your transporter can be activated in later levels, consider using it before the transport field shrinks completely, or you'll be stranded on Earth (which will probably result in your capture). Maybe sometimes digging up that one more artifact isn't worth it...

Tools

  • engine: PICO-8
  • graphics, audio: PICO-8
  • code: VSCode (Lua)
  • sources: available below
Link https://marudziik.itch.io/sacred-bleorgan-artifacts
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/59/sacred-bleorgan-artifacts

Ratings

Overall 138th 3.5⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Fun 160th 3.265⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 182th 3.221⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Theme 119th 3.853⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 136th 3.544⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Audio 123th 3.364⭐ 35🧑‍⚖️
Humor 52th 3.382⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Mood 153th 3.441⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Given 28🗳️ 42🗨️

Feedback

Guardaro
Apr 20th · 00:09 UTC
Super excited to try this one! Is there a way to download the Pico-8 cartridge? I'd like to give this a go on my handheld if I can. (Otherwise I will, of course, come back and try out the itch io version)
Guardaro
Apr 20th · 00:30 UTC
What a lovely game! I love the cheeky writing. The humans were super frustrating (as they often are); they were very appropriate antagonists. Sometimes the humans fell over and I wasn't quite sure why--do they fall in the holes?

Great entry!
🎤 marudziik
Apr 20th · 00:31 UTC
@guardaro The p8 file from sources bundle should load. But I also attached `cart.zip` which contains the exported cartridge. Have fun!
mdotedot
Apr 20th · 05:55 UTC
The digging is quite intersting mechanism to beat enemies. I like that idea! Lovely entry.
🎤 marudziik
Apr 20th · 07:05 UTC
@mdotedot Haha, actually they just fall down on their own after a while - you just need to avoid them. But that's a great idea to implement in a post-compo version! Thanks!
Tanjou
Apr 20th · 16:04 UTC
So charming. Very clever usage of the theme!
pres2300
Apr 20th · 20:57 UTC
Always enjoy a PICO-8 game! I loved the dialogue and gameplay. Sometimes it seemed like humans would spawn right on top of me which always resulted in damage, but other than that I really enjoyed this. Nice work!
Jesús González
Apr 21st · 23:52 UTC
Wow really feels like one of those experimental Atari 2600 era games design wise. High score in innovation from me.
AJ Atkinson
Apr 22nd · 00:46 UTC
Great little game :) good job!
FakeTrap
Apr 22nd · 05:41 UTC
Overall, the game is enjoyable, but in some places the game is unfair to the player (enemies spawn behind the map where you can’t see them, and they can also constantly spawn right on top of the treasure, forcing you to spend a long time trying to collect it). If there were just a little more content, the game would feel much better. I’d like to commend the idea for the jam theme.
PurpledArtFrog
Apr 22nd · 08:37 UTC
Are u kidding - again ... such a simple concept.. I continue to sit back and wonder why I always go the opposite way. This is top notch. I liked everything about it and it's very intuitive :thumbsup_tone1:
Left u a rating :smile:
Luka420
Apr 22nd · 14:54 UTC
I'm loving this game: the art, sound and the idea itself of course are all amazing! Also it's always cool to see PICO-8 games hehe
Muraena
Apr 22nd · 15:06 UTC
A very lovely entry! Took me some time to notice the bottom line to start digging in the right place but that’s on me😭 Charming art, lots of personality!
LDJam user 407524
Apr 23rd · 02:42 UTC
Pretty cute and funny concept
iovorobiev
Apr 23rd · 15:13 UTC
Nicely scoped entry!

It took me some time to get it, but when I did, I had quite a bit of fun playing it.

At first I played without sound and completely missed the signal indicator in the bottom and thought the goal of the game is maybe to evade humans and stay in the circle. Then I found the signal indicator but was thinking the circle is the zone I should stay in (you know, like in battle royal games). But then I accidentally went over it and realized it is not dangerous. After that I was able to play properly:)

I enjoyed the balance between staying on one place and become closer to the goal vs play safely but risk the timer. I like the animation of the screen of "the employer" and generally how the game looks. It is very fun to see how these annoying humans fall.

I'd love if the lives were restoring between levels, but maybe it'd make the game too easy. At the same time in this case maybe you can give less lives?
YurisCat
Apr 24th · 00:38 UTC
I love the retro style of the game, and the audio matches it perfectly — it reminds me of the Atari era! Good thing the human enemies are fragile — they keep slipping lol so I can safely dig out what I need real quick! Great game!
pkalaizich
Apr 24th · 01:09 UTC
This was really fun! :D
Stalemeat
Apr 24th · 01:28 UTC
The presentation is really nice here. Very old-school. I don't think Atari is the right word to use here of what it reminds me of but that is the closest comparison I can think of atm. The game plays well and it seems to be well balanced with good signal indication shown within the game and the humans give up at a good rate. This is a great entry!
Link270
Apr 24th · 01:42 UTC
What a solid game. Felt pretty fair and fun to play. I'm honestly just impressed you were able to keep your scope small enough to finish something and polish it this well within 48 hours. I always struggle hard with scope. haha The only minor thing with this is the text can e a little hard to read with certain letters sometimes, but given it fully matches the style of the game I'd give it a pass. Nice work!
JHax
Apr 25th · 16:19 UTC
Didn't quite get to the end of the story, but may well come back to see more of it. The bits of it I have seen were really entertaining, and do a good job of framing the game itself. The core mechanic's fun and well implemented, and I'm always impressed by anything that feels this polished in Pico-8!
Purrseus
Apr 26th · 09:15 UTC
I was too greedy and got cought in the end 🥲
Maybe I'll come back later to see where exactly my colleague is going with all the labor they extract from me 😁

I played on my phone and it worked really well! Though a digital dpad as always has the problem of missing tactile feedback. My finger slipped a few times and that's how the humans caught me. Curse you, humans! If I play again I'll do it on my laptop for that reason.

I love how you took such a simple concept and limited scope and made it so engaging. The rhythm of playing and story was great! It almost felt like I was playing a minigame to unlock more dialogue 😁 (and I mean this in the best way possible!)
Euler Moises
Apr 27th · 17:13 UTC
Damn humans!!!

They're just a nuisance...

I love Pico8 games. I really enjoyed this one. I loved the sound cues to identify where the artifacts were. Truly a masterstroke.

The story is very funny and you used time (the teleportation circle) in a very creative way. You did a great job.

And once again: Damn humans!

Congratulations!

![Sem título.png](///raw/23f/f1/z/72d1c.png)
LDJam user 243193
Apr 30th · 12:59 UTC
Good treasure hunting game using signal! I wish I could smack humans with my shovel but okay then.
Managed to get 6 orbs before failing.
OadT
Apr 30th · 15:42 UTC
Nice entry! I think not resetting the health after a level and not heving checkpoints is a bit harsh, but I liked the dialog scenes :smile:
F1Krazy
May 08th · 22:41 UTC
This is great, especially for a Compo entry. I always love seeing PICO-8 entries, and this is a doozy. There's a solid number of levels, the difficulty ramps up nicely (digging up artifacts is harder than it looks!), the animation and audio are both on point, and there's a surprisingly lengthy (and entertaining) storyline as well. Very well done!
DontGiveUpBoy
May 08th · 23:40 UTC
I really liked this game. I don't have time to write a detailed review, but I did give it a good rating. I like the plot and how much you managed to do in the game.
DontGiveUpBoy
May 09th · 04:15 UTC
I pass the game! I opened only one ending with minimum of artifacts.
It is hard to play somethimes. Especialy when artifact's near to the edge. It is scary to digging there.
But not so hard if you will trainig a bit. I loved music and minimalistic graphics of PICO-8.
Thank you for a game, i was sucked in!