Dwarf Dig Deep by Lintfordpickle

Background
Help your dwarfs to mine all the gold and escape the caverns at the bottom of the level.
For this Ludum Dare I again used my own engine which I build on each LD event. It uses Java and LWJGL (OpenGL / OpenAL). The inspiration for the game of course is Spelunky and PP Hammer (from the Amiga days).

Instructions
There is a help screen in the game which shows the controls, but there isn't an explanation of mechanics. Your goal is to mine 200 gold on your way down to the bottom of the level where you'll find a door to exit the level. Once you have enough gold the door will open.
Here are a few set pieces to help you:
Digging & Attack
Digging and attacking both use the same button (SHIFT).
You can dig in the direction you are facing by holding either of the shifts keys.
If you press and hold SHIFT, you can then use the A, S, D keys to change the digging direction (marked by the white box).
Gold
The goal of the game is too collect 200 gold pieces and reach the exit at the bottom of the level.
TNT
If you find digging to be too tiresome, you can either throw TNT (G key) or drop TNT at your feet (S + G keys). Be carefull, TNT has a wide blast radius!
Enemies
Spiders are a weak enemy but have a high jump range.

Goblins are strong but stupid creatures. A swift few hits with your axe should suffice to kill them.
Have fun
| Source Code | https://github.com/LintfordPickle/ld48 |
| Windows | https://lintfordpickleld.itch.io/dwarf-dig-deep |
| Timelapse (YouTube) | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtHDzjUKaTE |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/dwarf-dig-deep |
Ratings
| Overall | 394th | 3.526⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 439th | 3.342⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 708th | 2.737⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 186th | 3.974⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 109th | 4.079⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 538th | 2.921⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 646th | 2.917⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 21🗳️ | 12🗨️ |
The gameplay is definitely a lot more careful and methodical than I assumed it would be. Things like limited reach, low jumping, and dangerous fall damage mean you can't just sprint around like mad and survive it. It's actually kind of a nice change of pace versus the usual "as fast as you can go" style that platformer type games tend to have. I really like the TNT throwing mechanic which follows that same vibe, the explosion is very dangerous to you and it's hard to avoid if you aren't careful, so you can't just toss it out at random.
Given the restrictions and how punishing it can be I would probably scale the difficulty down a bit, probably by lowering the damages values quite a bit, at least on easy/normal. I still haven't actually reached the gold amount for the goal since one misstep is so often a death. That being said I do find myself getting steadily better at it every run or two as I get more used to hitting my attacks correctly and what not.
Also props for the art, the game itself has a nice art style to it, but I'm even more impressed you had time for loading and menu art during the compo. Well done!
I really like your artstyle and I also watched the timelapse video. Pretty cool. Very solid entry especially for a Compo!
I quite like the gfx!
Also I couldn't exit to menu with the button somehow.
✔️ The game was surprisingly strategic, choosing the best path to avoid enemies, making sure you don't make the hole too big with your dynamite as to take fall damage. Overall well done!
➖ The dynamite explosion radius was a bit unclear.