Space Dwarf by DesertMaw

[raw]
made by DesertMaw for Ludum Dare 48 (JAM)

Dave the space-dwarf was min(e)ding his own business until he got lost in an irradiated cave.

Fight yourself through waves of enemys as you proceed deeper and deeper into the cave. With every wave of enemys you survive, you unlock upgrades and get stronger. How long can you survive?

Chaos.png He found a weapon to fight the countless creatures of the dark. But somehow his body starts to react to the uranium deep in the cave... Will he ever return to the surface?

Doublet.png

Updated Version:
Browser: https://desertmawgames.itch.io/space-dwarf-updated
Microsoft Windows: https://desertmawgames.itch.io/space-dwarf-download-updated

Ratings

Overall 798th 3.577⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Fun 639th 3.519⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1651th 2.62⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1404th 3.231⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 512th 4.019⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Audio 439th 3.692⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Humor 1005th 2.543⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Mood 1135th 3.327⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Given 51🗳️ 29🗨️

Feedback

upcharlie
27. Apr 2021 · 14:22 UTC
It crashed part way through, but the game itself had great designs and played well :)
DesertMawTobi
27. Apr 2021 · 14:28 UTC
@upcharlie thank you for the feedback, we will investigate to fix that bug as soon as possible!
Kevin Jeong
27. Apr 2021 · 14:43 UTC
Impressive the amount of work you were able to complete in 72 hours! One suggestion would be to have indicators for enemies especially when only one or two are left alive. Having to search for them is a bit difficult.
DesertMawTobi
27. Apr 2021 · 14:50 UTC
@kevin-jeong Thats a good idea, unfortunately there was no enough time to integrate an proper UI showing this, also sadly there is no stage number shown too. But we will continue work on it to improve that. Thank you for your feedback!
khofez
27. Apr 2021 · 16:33 UTC
Great idea, very impressive what you did in so little time!
Webox
27. Apr 2021 · 17:37 UTC
omg how in hell did you made this in a weekend!! This is sooo polished, amazing art, sfx and overall implementation. The feells super polished. The only thing I found weird was that some enemies were still alive for a second or two after killing them. Other than that, an amazing game, it can be improved with moore weapons for example. Great job!! Loved it! :D
DesertMawTobi
27. Apr 2021 · 18:33 UTC
@khofez @webox thank you both for your feedback! It was very much work todo, but we are a team of 7 so it was possible at the end. The enemies still alive is a bug, normally they should disappear as soon as they are dead...
We will publish a fix soon so stay tuned :D
Jvdwijk
27. Apr 2021 · 20:32 UTC
I liked the game, it was a bit on the easy side but with each level it did grow a bit more difficult. I found it kind of annoying to have to search for the enemies, maybe they could still come to you to up the difficulty a bit. Well done!
DesertMawTobi
27. Apr 2021 · 22:29 UTC
@jvdwijk Yeah that would be an idea, thank you for your feedback!
Saerki
28. Apr 2021 · 08:45 UTC
Don't take this the wrong way, I really liked the game, art, sound and the enemy design in general, but the game suffered from the fact that the fun in every level was packed right at the beginning of it. The first ~15second of each level was satisfying, but then due to the fact that the stationary worm enemies had a relatively small aggro bubble and a pretty damaging attack, the "most clever" way to defeat them was to stand outside of range and pepper them down without them reacting.

Some of the melee enemies also got stuck very easily, which led to the feeling that you "cheated" to get through the levels. At some point after finishing a level, the game stopped responding. I'm not sure if this was due to the fact that the game ended or it just crashed.

All in all, a fun game with a lot of potential that did not get fully realized in the Jam perspective. Would also benefit from choosing upgrades over static ones.
Noctuaris12
28. Apr 2021 · 08:46 UTC
You gotta love these voxel graphics ! Overall the game feels really polished, a bit on the easy side the first levels but then you start to get swarmed by enemies and the difficulty start to go up. The controls feels nice, the mechanics are really easy to understand, good job !

I did encounter a few bugs though, like enemies staying alive a bit longer than they should, or the game crashing after the 5th or 6th level.

The UI is the only part which I have felt was a bit less polished, but otherwise it's still impressive for a game done over a week-end, congrats !
Heremeus
28. Apr 2021 · 08:58 UTC
Good job! The graphics are great and I the level design looks really good (especially for randomly generated stages!). Impressive how much you got done in just 72 hours. In later stages it got a bit tedious to kill the enemies (I think their health kept growing from stage to stage?).
DesertMawTobi
28. Apr 2021 · 09:04 UTC
@saerki @noctuaris12 Thank you for you feedback. We understand what you mean, the enemys have some bugs therefore not "finding" or "following" the player or get stuck. Because the levels are dynamically random generated, there is about 1 sec freezing time when you collect the mutation orb at the end. Unfortunately we couldnt manage to handle this better in the small amount of time, but we will adress all the mentioned bugs in the upcoming fix. Also an UI fill come with information about enemies left in the current level and the LevelCounter and a Score. So stay tuned for that!
Beardmage
28. Apr 2021 · 09:08 UTC
Nice, voxel art ! It looks nice overall, congrats. One minor issue I had with that is the voxel density that varies too much depending on the asset (Some mobs have way higher voxel density than others, same goes for ground tiles). The ground can feel a bit noisy because of the shading too.

Gameplay-wise, some enemies lingered for a bit after I killed them, they still took hits but their model disappeared. If you wanna keep working on this game for a while, you can add basic FX (Or even reuse the poison one) to enemy deaths for extra game feel.

Good entry so far, good job !
DesertMawTobi
28. Apr 2021 · 09:13 UTC
@heremeus Yes indeed we could investigate a little more in the balancing part of the game. Thank you for your feedback!
DesertMawTobi
28. Apr 2021 · 09:15 UTC
@beardmage Thank you! We will address this in the next update.
LDJam user 249705
28. Apr 2021 · 10:28 UTC
Love the art, and the music fit really well. It made you feel like a god as you murdered these monsters. Unfortunately, I got a bug on the 4th floor where the enemies couldn't hit me and I couldn't hit them. Fun game overall.
DesertMawTobi
28. Apr 2021 · 11:19 UTC
@sugarsugarsugar Thank you for your feedback! The bug gotta be fixed soon.
PSV Games Studio
28. Apr 2021 · 11:23 UTC
I liked this game! The graphics are excellent and the mechanics well done, there are some mistakes, but it is a great game for a game made in 72 hours!
DesertMawTobi
28. Apr 2021 · 12:07 UTC
@psv-games-studio Thank you!
Eugenik
28. Apr 2021 · 14:10 UTC
Just two words: Absolute Perfect ;).
DesertMawTobi
28. Apr 2021 · 14:23 UTC
Thank you very much! It was very stressfull, although we were seven people team...
jonathan-turner
28. Apr 2021 · 22:10 UTC
The graphics were neat and movement and shooting was smooth for the most part.

I think some sort of reward or pickup would have helped motivation for killing the enemies.

Also when switching levels I thought the game was crashing, there was quite a long pause. Just a heads up.

Nice work!
DesertMawTobi
29. Apr 2021 · 05:39 UTC
@jonathan-turner thank you for your feedback. The load time is unusually long in webgl build, thats due to the random generation of the next level. Unfortunately we didnt have enough time to fix that, but we will post an updated version soon where we will adress this.
MaxKyckling
30. Apr 2021 · 12:55 UTC
I think you did a great job!
BlackOpsBen
30. Apr 2021 · 13:03 UTC
Very well done! I loved the diversity of enemies! I would recommend using a different cursor since the aiming is based on your mouse position on screen. And some sort of pickups would have been nice to feel more rewarded and have a reason to keep going deeper. Nicely done overall!
DesertMawTobi
30. Apr 2021 · 13:07 UTC
@maxkyckling Thank you!
@blackopsben Thank you very much, were currently working on a post-jam update which we'll publish soon so stay tuned for that!
zimny11
30. Apr 2021 · 13:40 UTC
You got me with the word "dwarf"... and "space"! :) A really amazing game.

What I liked:
- The voxel graphics look really good (I haven't seen any other game with this type of graphics in this LD so far).
- The music matched the game nicely.
- The controls are smooth.
- There are many types of opponents.

I think the game can benefit from:
- Some bonuses or different types of weapon to pick up.
- Different types of levels. Like levels where you have to pick up required items (ore, or something) to complete the level and the enemies keep appearing.

Overall, good job!
DesertMawTobi
30. Apr 2021 · 14:01 UTC
@zimny11 Thank you for your feedback! You mentionend some good ideas which we will eventually implement in some of the future post-jam updates, thank you :D
cdunham
02. May 2021 · 10:29 UTC
Really cool game! Looks and plays well, though nothing feels like it changes much between levels. Especially after you get the tri-shot and no other upgrades happen after that(from what I can tell at least.) It'd be nice to have some more upgrades or even a different weapon maybe? I think that being able to move faster or run, shoot faster, have less spread on the weapon, or have a different weapon like an explosive or something would help the gameplay a lot. I tried the web version first but it crashed after the 3rd level. The downloadable version played fine though, and had faster loading like the page mentions. Good job overall!
DesertMawTobi
02. May 2021 · 12:23 UTC
@cdunham thank you very much for your feedback! We are currently collecting issues and ideas to improve the gameplay. Eventually some of your ideas will make it to the next version update. We will publish this soon. So stay tuned!
LDJam user 240168
04. May 2021 · 21:15 UTC
Pretty nice game! On the graphics side I'd say you could use bigger voxels, since voxel models with that resolution look more like high-res polygonal models with a ton of aliasing and less like voxel models. Also noticed some z-fighting on the terrain top faces. The enemies seem not to be really smart and start to be a problem only when they're everywhere, and up to that point you can mostly kill them from a safe distance. The gun seems to aim at the point above ground where I'm pointing at, making precise aiming a little confusing (my expectation would be that the bullets would fly exactly where I told them to). Found a bug when I for no apparent reason would get a higher vertical coordinate and could escape the level bounds, and also couldn't proceed since the bullets fly above the enemies without hitting them (see the screenshot). Finally, concerning the theme - it doesn't really feel like going deeper, you're just going to another level.
Anyway, there's a lot of work put into this entry, good job!

![2021-05-05-000106_1920x1080_scrot.png](///raw/82a/a3/z/42296.png)
DesertMawTobi
05. May 2021 · 10:54 UTC
@lisyarus Thank you for your Feedback, have you tried the updated version yet? link is above the original ones :D
Prof.Suarez
17. May 2021 · 16:00 UTC
Great enemy design, and level design looks fantastic. I find it hard to design characters in voxel that really stand out, so I think the dwarf has to much on him.

Gameplay was smooth, controls were simple. I really enjoyed playing the game and the audio was great too. Wish there was another level to this for replayability (Equips, leveling up, expandable levels)
DesertMawTobi
17. May 2021 · 17:01 UTC
@prof-suarez thank you for your feedback. Yeah we would definately implement more gameplay content like different level ups and other weapons and stuff if we had more time. After all it was stressfull to bring everything together at the end.
Ghuyajil
18. May 2021 · 12:29 UTC
Nicely done! I dont know what to say that has not been said already... Looks good, I personally think the small voxels are a nice style!
DesertMawTobi
18. May 2021 · 14:43 UTC
@ghuyajil Thank you for your feedback!
Jupiter_Hadley
19. May 2021 · 13:40 UTC
Fun game! I included it in my compilation video series of a bunch of LDJAM games!
https://youtu.be/rQyFGYR3HW4