LudumData

Deep Space Diggers by Stormjack

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

The dwarves of Dorfic Kingdom are greatly enhanced with cybernetics and robotics and they love to dig. As long as they can eat, sleep and have a pint, of course. They dig, they build required stuff, dig deeper, build more, deeper, deeper and deeper. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cR2ibvbefag

It's been a bumpy road and we had to cut a lot of features but we found a version with a taste of our grand vision.

Gameplay is simple: You give a command to dwarves and one of them will pick up and take care of it. As you need energy and get more dwarves, you always need to keep digging deeper and deeper.

Make sure to build one of each building early on to ensure your dwarves have a place to eat and sleep and have fun... and convert ore into energy.

We hope you enjoy the game!

CREDITS - Art: nurbikee - Code: mestania&ragnor - Music-Sfx: SUPERDAZE - Design: Stormjack

Link https://github.com/themaelstorm/LD2021
Link https://ragnor.itch.io/deep-space-diggers
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/deep-space-diggers

Ratings

Overall 1672th 2.952⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1739th 2.595⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1581th 2.69⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Theme 837th 3.705⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 1503th 3.024⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Audio 1118th 2.818⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Humor 1184th 2.325⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Given 47🗳️ 20🗨️

Feedback

Jeremia
27. Apr 2021 · 13:04 UTC
I feel like most of the time, you just wait for the dwarfs to finish sleeping/eating/partying, and nothing is happening.

![Unbenannt7.PNG](///raw/9cf/12/z/40918.png)
eusekerci
27. Apr 2021 · 23:13 UTC
Great concept, and it is unbelievable to make this in 3 days. If the game is more smoother/faster, I would enjoy it much more.

It feels like Fallout Shelter at first glance, but it is a different type of tycoon game when you go deeper.

I would like to see more challenges and motivations to continue playing.

Well done :thumbsup:
Yigit Doruk
28. Apr 2021 · 00:20 UTC
I think the game lacks a proper goal to guide players. I spent most of my time to figure out what to do. But the concept is interesting, reminds me the games like fallout shelter. I hope you could execute your vision after the jam, I believe there is a potential here. Keep up the good work <3
ragnor
28. Apr 2021 · 16:12 UTC
Thanks for the lovely comments. Unfortunately we could barely finish the game just in time so we didn't have much time to balance or prepare a guide or tutorial. But our biggest sin is we couldn't add enough game feedback to players. We had planned to add small icons on dwarfs to indicate what are they up to for example.

The game definitely needs work but comments like these gives us real motivation to work on and make it better.
jk5000
29. Apr 2021 · 10:37 UTC
For me was a fun little prototype. The game looks pretty good and the music was also good. The gameplay balance could have been better, and the AI is not perfect, but it's all okay for jam game. I would like there have been a goal, or perhaps a way to lose the game. But anyway a pretty good jam game. Well done.
JokubasG
30. Apr 2021 · 09:37 UTC
Very interesting and fun game, good music, game would be better if it had a goal, but for 3 day game jam it's very good.
Incal
01. May 2021 · 19:06 UTC
Nice idea, impressive for a jam. My dwarves always stop doing things and just stand there, would be nice to have some feedback on what's going on.
C4Scar
01. May 2021 · 22:43 UTC
Needs a lot more improvement in terms of player feedback but I think it could turn out really cool. I could not tell if the dwarves were dead or eating for example. The speed at which they seem to die or lose motivation also should be reduced because it seems like you basically need to build everything over ground immediately to make sure your stats are in the green. Maybe you could add a little UI card that comes up when you hover over a dwarf that shows your relevant stats like hunger, thirst, and current task that way the player can 'debug' what their little colony needs. Also a speed up/down option would be nice to reduce waiting.
Raphiell
02. May 2021 · 15:08 UTC
Great entry, I found sometimes my dwarves weren't building anything new for some reason, unsure why. Great 3d models and good job completing something so ambitious!

Well done!
ragnor
02. May 2021 · 15:19 UTC
Thanks for all the great feedback!

If your dwarves just standing still is probably a bug, something went wrong in their AI and they just stuck there. But also it could because they need food, sleep, for fun but there is not empty building to go, so they stand still and wait. This is our fault for not putting enough feedback for the players. We planned for some but we were run out of time and have to cut most of it. I think right now they just gave out a sounds for being hungry, sleepy or bored but it is easy to miss also not enough as you don't understand which dwarf that made that sound.
James Macgill
03. May 2021 · 23:27 UTC
Lots of potential here - I see from your responses so far that you had to cut things, we fell foul of the same thing. You did get a working game loop going and I'm busy growing my dwarf population!
Alexey Erzyukov
04. May 2021 · 10:11 UTC
It was interesting to play. As I write a review, the dwarves are still digging. :D