Magmatic Descent by Vanea

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

In this permadeath roguelike puzzle game, you are a vulcanologist in a facility built into the side of a previously dormant volcano that unexpectedly erupted, causing cave-ins in the tunnels beneath and a massive flood of lava that found its way right through the front. Your task is to descend into the tunnels, clear a path, and escape somehow, all while a tidal wave of boiling hot magma chases you at every step.

WASD or arrows to move and space to shovel.

Blocks.png

Soil can be broken with a shovel, stone cannot. Barriers spawn blocks to stop the lava behind you, giving you precious time to solve puzzles. An explosive ore, explodium, can be found in the depths, which explodes when activated with the shovel; these explosions destroy most blocks but will activate barriers. Lasers can activate other lasers, but will destroy any other blocks in their path, and forcefields protect a 3x3 area around them from destruction.

We were rather cruel with level design (it was an accident I swear), so you may find yourself softlocked with even the most mundane of mistakes.

Have fun!

Ratings

Overall 1672th 2.952⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1590th 2.833⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1300th 2.929⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Theme 651th 3.833⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 1555th 2.929⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Audio 974th 3.095⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Humor 1166th 2.353⭐ 19🧑‍⚖️
Mood 1741th 2.475⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Given 20🗳️ 6🗨️

Feedback

JedeMac
26. Apr 2021 · 23:27 UTC
The link doesn't work :(
The project is not set to public on itch.io I think
ThatANoNoWord
27. Apr 2021 · 00:03 UTC
A very interesting game! it's fun and quick, though the parts that permanently block you from progressing because you made a mistake should be changed a bit.
jorgeblanco
27. Apr 2021 · 00:44 UTC
In my short run, I didn't find a reason to not be digging the whole time. If that is the case, why do you need a separate key press to dig? For me the biggest challenge were the controls, not the game itself.
thomas-olsson
27. Apr 2021 · 11:41 UTC
Simple concept with good potential! I'm pretty sure it'd be quality of life improvement to just automatically dig whatever breakable block you walk into.
woergbi
27. Apr 2021 · 15:32 UTC
I like that the game is rather fast-paced, but I have to agree with jorgeblanco regarding the controls. Sometimes, the player does not behave like I expected (i.e. didn't dig upwards, but in the direction I dug before) when I pressed W + Space), which unfortunately lead to frustration.
gimmers
29. Apr 2021 · 20:47 UTC
The lava graphic is super cool, and I liked the setting and some of the cool ideas you came up with (resources and narrative)
AguaHervida
30. Apr 2021 · 23:34 UTC
Simple idea but cool mechanic, i like that you did a lot of little thing to spice up your game this was great. I got stuck bechind a metallic wall and the lava after a while seemed to have stopped falling(like after the first blockade I never saw lava again) I also loved the little top down '3D' view in pixel art, really neat. Keep it up.
onedozenbagels
03. May 2021 · 03:05 UTC
Interesting game. The lava time pressure really pushes you to move quickly. Also agree with others that combining the move/dig action would help, especially considering how punishing the levels are and how fast you need to move. Would have been nice to have an easier level or two up front to experiment and learn the game play, but maybe that's the point?
smilewood
05. May 2021 · 19:15 UTC
This is a surprisingly intense puzzler, the lava wall coming up behind does a lot for adding time pressure. I thought that the setup of the level design making you look ahead a bit so as not to trap you was interesting with that time pressure. The controls were a little bit inconsistent sometimes, I found myself having some trouble moving only one square without jumping across to the far wall. Using the shovel was also strange hen it would dig in a direction other then the one I thought I was facing. I think that your music and sounds worked well with the game. Overall I think this was quite a fun game, with a bit more polish I could see myself putting a lot of time into it. Well done!
LDJam user 246128
06. May 2021 · 00:06 UTC
Controls definitely need a bit of tweaking or fixing, but still fun and fast-paced game.
Jonathan Lorenz
15. May 2021 · 14:04 UTC
I liked the idea but I didn't liked having to die multiple times in order to know the correct path. Maybe a subtle hint for the player, like having skulls near the wrong path.
Marcus Otterstrom
16. May 2021 · 00:52 UTC
I think the idea is really good for this game, sadly the controls made it a bit frustrating to play. A very simple music track but it's groovy and fits the rest of the game well. Nice job!
YouK
16. May 2021 · 03:18 UTC
I think the core gameplay is very workable, but the level design is kind of depressing for me. Most of the time, I just choose the wrong way and get a game over.
Peace Of Cake Games
16. May 2021 · 03:56 UTC
You're right, it is easy to get softlocked....

I love the graphics, they're kind of simple but that's what gives them their charm! The gameplay was nice, it isn't too hard to get used to the player's movement. The digging did seem to have some buggy directions when I tried digging and running for my life at the same time, but turns out mashing Dig and your direction effectively fixes it.