LudumData

Trapdoor in the Garden by InitialPosition

[raw]
made by InitialPosition for Ludum Dare 48 (COMPO)

Explore the mysterious world that hides beneath the trapdoor inside your garden. Fight your way through deeper and deeper layers, encounter monsters, collect gold, level up, win the game!

Features:

  • a fast paced roguelite
  • upgrade your player in random shops
  • different environments

Controls:

(A more detailed tutorial exists in the game) - Arrow Keys / WASD: Move - X key / Enter: Attack / Interact

Screenshots:

screenshot_mainMenu.png

screenshot_level.png

screenshot_shop.png

Notes

  • The bat can't be killed, only pushed back.
  • Knights can not be counter-attacked while charging.

Changelog:

(to keep this short, only the most recent changes will be highlighted)

  • fixed a bug where wrong enemies would spawn in certain rooms
  • fixed a bug where shops would sometimes stop spawning
  • fixed a visual bug where the player would clip behind the trapdoor
  • added second control scheme

1.1.1

  • fixed a rare bug where shops would give away all items for free

Note!

If you're on Windows, I strongly recommend the Windows build over HTML5. It has better particle support and screen resolution options.

A post jam update is also available down below. It changes gameplay and balancing a lot and fixes the complaints people had. The full changelog for that version can be found here.

Link https://github.com/InitialPosition/LDJAM48
Link https://initialposition.net/LD/48/TrapdoorInTheGarden_WIN.zip
Link https://initialposition.net/LD/48/TrapdoorInTheGarden_LNX.zip
Link https://initialposition.net/LD/48/web/
Newgrounds Mirror https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/790848
WINDOWS (POST LDJAM UPDATE) https://initialposition.net/LD/48/120/TrapdoorInTheGarden_WIN.zip
LINUX (POST LDJAM UPDATE) https://initialposition.net/LD/48/120/TrapdoorInTheGarden_LNX.zip
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/trapdoor-in-the-garden

Ratings

Overall 136th 3.875⭐ 46🧑‍⚖️
Fun 169th 3.784⭐ 46🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 646th 2.886⭐ 46🧑‍⚖️
Theme 531th 3.443⭐ 46🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 198th 3.852⭐ 46🧑‍⚖️
Audio 61th 3.977⭐ 45🧑‍⚖️
Mood 242th 3.619⭐ 44🧑‍⚖️
Given 47🗳️ 66🗨️

Feedback

monkeybit29
26. Apr 2021 · 10:36 UTC
this was a solid experience, very nice polish with some great art. fantastic!
PurpledArtFrog
26. Apr 2021 · 10:50 UTC
Thank you very much for your entry - I hope you had great fun making it :smile:

Nice and polished entry - kind of reminds me of my own LD47 entry... however an entirely different game :wink: come to think of it ... It would have suited this theme as well :rofl:

I really liked the graphics, the audio and the controls :thumbsup_tone1:

I hope you'll drop by mine and give it a spin :wink:

:purple_heart: :dart: :frog:
Vitor Figueredo
26. Apr 2021 · 10:57 UTC
That an overall well-put game. I had a great time despite dungeon crawlers and such not being my cup of tea (reached level 7). I noticed some elements of The Binding of Isaac and your use of trap doors goes with the theme. It also reminded me greatly about those PICO-8 games that are great. If you are planning on developing further, I would perhaps invest in more characters or powers, maybe equipable weapons. nonetheless, great work.
Sthealthinator
26. Apr 2021 · 11:03 UTC
An Extremely Well Polished Game. I see a lot of potential in this game. you should really expand on this project and release it on steam or something. I had a lot of fun playing it never the less :)
Erk
26. Apr 2021 · 11:13 UTC
Hey, this was pretty cool, love the music and sound effects!

Are the bats supposed to be un-killable, and instead get pushed back super much? Confused me a bit as to why they would not die and instead fly off-screen :smile:
🎤 InitialPosition
26. Apr 2021 · 11:18 UTC
@erk yeah, the bats are meant to be a permanent hazard you can push back but can't kill. I should have communicated that more clearly in game ^^
Liam
26. Apr 2021 · 11:21 UTC
Enjoyed this game and had fun, I'm pretty much in agreement with the posters before me. Will just add that I loved the lightning sound and effect for your character, you obviously here it constantly and I felt it was satisfying.
adam077x
26. Apr 2021 · 11:45 UTC
Great game. I really like the art and music.
rhoff95
26. Apr 2021 · 19:54 UTC
Well done polished game. Art is really nice. I like simplicity of attacking and moving.
LDJam user 236586
27. Apr 2021 · 02:19 UTC
This was fun! The art style is great, a lot of legibility for such a low resolution. The little wizard is super cute too :)
wujood
27. Apr 2021 · 02:22 UTC
Hey @initialposition thanks for submitting this game! Really really polished game! As said earlier i think the game could profit from grid-based movement to prevent "unfair" enemy attacks, but everything else was perfectly executed! Well done!
Eugenik
27. Apr 2021 · 15:58 UTC
I love this ! Good Job !.
Jupiter_Hadley
27. Apr 2021 · 16:48 UTC
Fun game! I included it in my compilation video series of a bunch of LDJAM games!
https://youtu.be/joQCxT9jLww
steelax
27. Apr 2021 · 19:22 UTC
This was a well polished roguelike. great art style, great sounds, and a great execution of game mechanics.
Shaolin Dave
27. Apr 2021 · 20:09 UTC
I noticed sound settings, but didn't actually hear sounds?
The menu interfaces were a bit wierd, I get "Back" starts with "B" and "Tutorial" starts with "T", but menu navigations should be based on keyboard location, not lettering.
The game itself was nice. Controls were nice and responsive, objectives were clear, good difficult curve. I loved the pixel art, the little wizard dude is pretty cool.
🎤 InitialPosition
27. Apr 2021 · 20:12 UTC
@shaolin-dave I assume you played the HTML5 version? Because that one sometimes fails to load the music for some reason. I have looked for a fix but haven't found one yet, sorry.

Also yeah, the menu buttons were assigned after approximately 12 hours of coding when my brain was screaming for me to go to bed so in hindsight I didn't assign the most intuitive buttons ^^
Plepletier
27. Apr 2021 · 21:19 UTC
Wow!!!! Great Game!!! Very hard dont take any hit of theses hellSlimes kkk, and you find the stars of my game difficult kkk Good job man! I really like these game! Remember Gautlet!
Alexandre Pedroza
27. Apr 2021 · 22:01 UTC
Can't believe the things people do on these compos, really, mindblowing. Congrats man, super well executed!
Ayxh
28. Apr 2021 · 00:48 UTC
Whoa, that was a lot of fun! Great art, nice music and sounds, and fun combat :) Super well polished too!
She Wrote
28. Apr 2021 · 00:56 UTC
The art is nice.
Magna
28. Apr 2021 · 13:40 UTC
You were not lying when you said our games are pretty similar! Haha even the shop every 5 floor!

Really fun experience, pixel art and music!

Little feedback: I'm not 100% sure but I think the player movement increases his speed while running diagonally, you should normalise your vector to make him run at the same speed.
Arpit1434
28. Apr 2021 · 17:17 UTC
An enjoyable experience
LDJam user 244504
28. Apr 2021 · 19:05 UTC
Nice art, nice music, nice gameplay. Everything is great !

What else ? I had a good time playing your game ! :smile:

Congrats on this compo ! Amazing work ! :tada:
mhorth
28. Apr 2021 · 23:48 UTC
Nice job with this one! The sound effect on the whip attack was really satisfying, and I'm happy with your choice to let us spam that rather than having a cooldown. Those slimes still got me but at least I didn't feel hindered in my control of the character, just my lack of skill lol.
DoctorTM
29. Apr 2021 · 00:01 UTC
Nice compo! Great work. Loved the art and animation, nice audio as well.
Finn_Tr
29. Apr 2021 · 02:56 UTC
Really awesome game! The audio is absolutely fantastic and the art is great! I really enjoyed this game. Amazing work!
Blue Pin Studio
29. Apr 2021 · 03:01 UTC
Amazing game made by an amazing man. Fantastic sounds, my only two criticisms are :
- The slimes are too powerful
- Not enough particles
stephenwhoskins
30. Apr 2021 · 03:07 UTC
This is SUCH a good game. I love the music. I love the art. I love how it fits in with the theme. I love the shops. I love the SFX. I'm definitely recommending this one, heh. Great job! =D
Havok06
30. Apr 2021 · 16:48 UTC
Graphics, music and sfx are all well polished and make the game feel good.
On the other hand I felt that the hitboxes and enemy movement were a bit unjust to the player. I lost a few times because they jumped at me and I couldn't react.
Great game though.
🎤 InitialPosition
30. Apr 2021 · 21:21 UTC
@havok06 Thanks for your feedback! And yes, you are absolutely right. I didn't have enough time to make the AI I wanted to have so it has to resort to cheating sometimes, which can feel unfair. Also yeah, I forgot to update some hitboxes properly. The hitboxes when slimes are jumping for example, resulting in their shadow being part of the hitbox.

I have been working on a post LD update basically since compo ended though. It will fix most of the things people complained about and adds some quality of life updates as well. I have some of the more critical stuff taken care off already but won't release anything until the voting phase ended since I feel it would be unfair to alter the basic AI of the enemies this drastically while voting is still going on.
🎤 InitialPosition
30. Apr 2021 · 21:28 UTC
@monkeybit29 @purpledartfrog @vitor-figueredo @sthealthinator @liam @adam077x @rhoff95 @cameron-paxton @wujood @eugenik @jupiter-hadley @steelax @plepletier @alexandre-pedroza @ayxh @she-wrote @magna @arpit1434 @gcake @mhorth @doctortm @finn-tr @blue-pin-studio @stephenwhoskins

Thank you SO MUCH for your feedback! Glad you liked the game! I don't think I've ever gotten this many encouraging reviews before and it's just blowing my mind.

I am still working on the game and will release a big quality of life patch when the voting phase ends. I can also see myself continuing working on the game after that to eventually release it to Steam. No promises of course, but this game feels like it has the most solid gameplay loop out of all my LD games so far and I can see this work as a full roguelike game.

Again, thank all of you for your support and kind words! You are awesome!
MiltonNH25
01. May 2021 · 06:26 UTC
Good job on the game. It was fun to play and had nice with with satisfying sound effects. The different objectives on each of the floors worked well. I personally feel like it would have benefited from having the attack direction being independent of the movement direction so you could attack while backing up/moving away from enemies. Overall well done, and I would love to see it continued.
civmaniac
01. May 2021 · 16:44 UTC
I enjoyed the graphics, it's consistent and pleasant to my eyes. Music is cool and reminded me somewhat of FTL. An animated tutorial is a nice touch, especially for a Compo game :). I'm not necessarily agreeing to those hit boxes xD. Having played a number of rogue-likes(-lites), the difficulty is about right for me, maybe harder than an average lite out there. But for an LD game, maybe a bit too hard. RNG can be harsh as expected. Some enemies seemed invulnerable to damage. Not sure, I liked that. Overall, it is a polished and pleasant experience! A very nice compo entry!

Made about 6 attempts and here is my best score so far:

![Screenshot from 2021-05-01 19-24-18.png](///raw/d01/a2/z/41ec0.png)
Zliebowitz
02. May 2021 · 12:31 UTC
This plays pretty well. The audio works very well. Gameplay is good, although I have to fight my instincts around slimes and be cautious.

I did have a shop that spawned multiple of the same items which seems unideal given that you can rebuy items anyways (or maybe that was just the health, it was the only one I bought).
🎤 InitialPosition
02. May 2021 · 15:46 UTC
@zliebowitz yeah, health is the only item you can purchase multiple times. It felt unfair to make it into a shop on low health, having a ton of money and being unable to heal up.
marcmagus
02. May 2021 · 17:32 UTC
Thanks for bringing your game by my stream for playtesting! If you’d like to revisit the play and commentary you can view the highlight at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1008724063
Ausstein
03. May 2021 · 15:56 UTC
Hi,

Very nice game!

Here is the Youtube Playthrough you requested :)

Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/VkKpqw6paa8
FishMasterino
10. May 2021 · 22:13 UTC
Nice game, it felt very responsive. I had quite some trouble with enemies diagonal to me, maybe the attack could have used a bit more reach to the sides, and some kind of cooldown to not encourage mashing the attack key.
ToxicComputer
11. May 2021 · 14:02 UTC
I had quite a good time playing this game! Great job! I love the music, I agree with others that maybe a cooldown to the weapon would be nice since it would encourage more thinking in combat. But this game was overral one of my favorites, kudos to whoever did the music as well, that was phenomenal.
digital bacon
18. May 2021 · 20:20 UTC
Really enjoyed this game. Loving the retro graphics, the uncomplicated gameplay. Really well done!