The Whole Game by NBumgardner
Our game "The Hole Game" is a top-down action game where the goal is to collect money and delve deeper down the mine shaft without running out of hearts!
How to Play: Use the arrow keys and space bar to navigate the main menu. Once the game starts, use the arrow keys to change your character's movement. Collect flying money bags for bonus cash. Touch the hole with a ladder to advance to the next level.
Credits: The Hole Game was created with the Scratch engine in 72 hours with original code, art, and music. The team was made of 4 people. For two people making code and/or art this was their first game jam, for one person making music and some code and some art this was their second, and the 4th person helped with initial brainstorming and finishing testing.
Feedback Wanted: Since this is our first Ludum Dare entry for this team and has original art, music, and gameplay, we are welcome to all kinds of feedback! Especially related to how fun or balanced "The Hole Game" is to play. You can also check out the open-source code on Scratch at: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/520639668
| Scratch Source Code | https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/520639668 |
| Link | https://nbumgardner.itch.io/ludum-dare-48-the-whole-game |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/the-hole-game |
Ratings
| Overall | 1888th | 2.452⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1898th | 2.143⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 1883th | 2.119⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1642th | 2.905⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 1739th | 2.381⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 1165th | 2.69⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 1117th | 2.425⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 1740th | 2.476⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 18🗳️ | 13🗨️ |
Once I got going I noticed that this game has a sort of rogue-like feel to it, which is right my up alley! I like how you can keep the coins after you die, and upgrade your stuff for your next run. Really fun and engaging gameplay loop right there. And the speed boost is an absolute MUST.
The art is a bit simple, as is the music. But they both sort of work well together in a way that makes it feel intentional. The music, however, did get a little repetitive, and the sine wave tones cut through the mix a little too harshly at times.
Fun game with a nice use of the theme. Thanks for making this!
Also, since the turning is pivoted on the front of the character (the "drill" part) turning moves your hitbox. This means if you move towards an obstacle and then turn around, you might hit the obstacle simply by turning around which feels a bit unfair.
- The letters in the menu were barely visible (this might be my bad, I'm colorblind)
- Like many people pointed out, the drill speed is too slow. Speeding it up a bit would make it more fun.
- You need to place a pivot on the center of the drill so the rotation works correctly.
- I think this game would work better with hand crafted levels, as the randomly generated enemies can just spawn in non-dangerous positions - or on top of the player, happened to me in my last life :(
- I didn't see any incentive in collecting the coins. Maybe having a highscore would be good enough, although it would be cool to have an upgrade system (but I understand there's only so much time in a jam)
Keep it up!
To add to the previous feedback. Making the player a square shape instead of a rectangular shape would make it more controllable for the player, as then accidentally hitting an enemy while turning would not happen. I also think this game would benefit from turning it into an arcade game by reducing the player size but also making it much faster and adding more but smaller obstacles and moving enemies so the player has to play on reflex. Also, perhaps if the player could not advance to the next level without collecting coins, that would add some interesting opportunities to the game mechanics.
Overall, nice job on the game!