Cave-In by JPshoe

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

Send your miners into an increasing perilous cave in hopes of collecting the Soul Gem at the Earth's Core.

This is my first game Jam submission. All the art and music was made by me. I know it's far from perfect but I hope it's at least interesting.

Ratings

Overall 1283th 3.3⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1281th 3.1⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1144th 3.05⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Theme 908th 3.65⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 1507th 3⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Audio 961th 3.111⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Humor 1018th 2.526⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Mood 900th 3.5⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Given 20🗳️ 10🗨️

Feedback

Risk4Bisk
27. Apr 2021 · 03:31 UTC
Letting my miners die was not good for me... I have 3 of them left, but they no longer seem to make any money, just stuck at $32. I'm going to restart because I'm curious to see the other levels, but wanted to share the bug first ![Screenshot 2021-04-26 22.28.59.png](///raw/bc3/a3/z/40307.png)
Risk4Bisk
27. Apr 2021 · 03:36 UTC
Ran into the same issue again, this time because of a cave-in, I think. It appears to be triggered somehow by the death of the miners. ![Screenshot 2021-04-26 22.34.45.png](///raw/bc3/a3/z/40314.png)
🎤 JPshoe
27. Apr 2021 · 05:01 UTC
@risk4bisk Thanks for trying my game, it appears you bought a structure that you couldn't afford to maintain. The cost on each structure is taken every second instead of a one time purchase like the others. The game temporarily pauses if you're about to go into negative money. If you ever get that message in the log again choose the none structure and the game will resume.
Risk4Bisk
27. Apr 2021 · 05:08 UTC
@jpshoe Thank you, I hadn't realized that I could revert the structural upgrades! Now I can finally get back at those spiders!
Rocket and Blanky
27. Apr 2021 · 06:08 UTC
I have this song stuck in my head! I got down to level 4 a couple of times, but kept stalling out. The blue on blue text hurt my eyes from strain a little bit. I tended not to back out of the item menus, so I missed a lot of the console output. Thanks for uploading!
LDJam user 0
27. Apr 2021 · 06:24 UTC
Finished it twice. The changing prices of upgrades based on the amount of miners made the strategy to reach the end a bit awkward. I managed to do it by focusing on pickaxe upgrades and upgrades that increased money generation. I'd memorize the price of them at 1 miner, then camp at 2 miners until I had enough money then wait for the miners to die, since it decreased the price. It never seemed worth it to buy things that made the miners die less often.

It seems a bit weird to incentives having dead miners, but it was interesting figuring out that strategy.
Mololo
27. Apr 2021 · 06:34 UTC
I liked it so much I couldn't stop until I got the gem :smile:.

It was a bit hard until I understood the upgrade system a bit(one-time upgrade I guess). There was no clear sign in the shop which upgrades were already bought(maybe add a bought or active sign on the item).

Maybe some animations to the miners(pickaxe swings) would be nice.

Overall a fun and interesting experience.
frompdx
29. Apr 2021 · 02:00 UTC
Nice incremental game. I like the music as well.
Michbet
29. Apr 2021 · 02:02 UTC
I played all the way through. At first it was a bit hard to understand but I figured everything out. It is a bit difficult to tell which of the items you have selected.
Foursay
29. Apr 2021 · 02:08 UTC
Love the game though the process is a bit long for me .Nice job anyway!
OldDog
03. May 2021 · 07:00 UTC
nice game , but I fell a little confused to play, maybe some tips can help :smile:
Jezzamon
10. May 2021 · 04:05 UTC
Nice one!

Those hazards seem pretty deadly! I felt like even with the upgrades I was struggling to keep up. Seems like the best strategy was just to have a single miner that you would just let die and replace for free haha. Poor miners...

Some simple SFX would've been nice for the clicking actions. You can throw together some simple sound effects pretty quickly with SFXR (there's an [online version, JSFXR](https://sfxr.me/)), or searching for effects on freesound.

And yeah a quick UI effect that shows which item is selected would be nice.

But yeah, overall a pretty fun game! The mine and upgrade game loop was satisfying :slight_smile: And I successfully obtained the soul gem :P
Jezzamon
10. May 2021 · 04:10 UTC
Now I'm at the end and can afford most of the upgrades, I wonder is there a way to counter those spiders? It feels like even with the best gear for killing the spiders, the miners don't have much of a chance.
banan
10. May 2021 · 15:18 UTC
Got to level 11. Like the idea and mood of it. The upgrade system is really confusing tho and the way it scales with the amount of workers you have seems really weird, and I found myself kind of wanting my workers to die. It's also not obvious what stuff you have "selected"? (I think that's how it works?) I like idea that you get to the "end" but then oh what's this, there's more. I think some factor of that is pretty much needed for incremental games like these so nice. Rebalanced and with some UI tweaking I'd definitely waste some more time on this
VixenMink
11. May 2021 · 02:44 UTC
Unity player didn't want to work for me on firefox or chrome but I like your concept
chtimy
11. May 2021 · 06:37 UTC
Cool game!
I don't if it's me but I find the game difficult :(
Any advice to have a good start?
Very nice for a first game otherwase, congrat!!
Thank you