Caverns of Mal'Dur by suvi
Uncover long-lost civilizations and prepare your findings in time for the Archaeology Symposium. Laying tiles to maximize adjacency-based score will help you stand out amongst your peers.

Full-Screen for full-enjoyment & scroll to zoom-in. Descriptions of excavated cards might give you hints regarding the most lucrative adjacency bonus' -- try to max your high score, uncover the most successful civilizations, bring Dr. Smith to shame! Reading the tiles is recommended, both for atmosphere and strategy.
WARNINGS: May require multiple runs to maximize enjoyment(i.e. rogue-like). After all, much learning is required to become a professor.
We are committed to fixing bugs! Comment below with any issues and we will put our best effort towards fixing the problem. Upgrades/suggestions gratefully accepted.
Change Log
2021-04-28 * we now have LEGIBLE FONTS -- wahoo! * increased size of cards in player's hand
| Link | https://studioamanita.itch.io/the-caverns-of-maldur |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/the-caverns-of-maldur |
Ratings
| Overall | 1191th | 3.357⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1217th | 3.143⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 506th | 3.571⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1372th | 3.262⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 1474th | 3.071⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 1131th | 2.406⭐ | 18🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 1641th | 2.75⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 18🗳️ | 21🗨️ |
Okay, so as others have said, the font choice here is a big problem. For a game that has so much text, you want a crystal clear font, and that's missing here.
The game bills itself as an archaeology game, but that's not really what happens here, its more like a city builder. You have to place districts near other districts that give them a bonus, until you find the "go deeper" tile. That's cool, but it makes the theme feel a little distant from the gameplay.
I liked how the tiles would kinda hint at what needed to go near them. A lot of times with this sort of game you just have to guess and the developer is like "duh anyone would know that temples and markets go together" but players don't know that by default, so good on you for making it a kinda puzzly thing.
I didn't understand why I'd want to go deeper. Are there better tiles down there? I don't know. Moreover, I didn't really understand how I could influence how fast I got deeper. It seemed to mostly depend on whether I got tiles that drew more tiles or not.
Some eerie exploration music would have helped the mood
Overall, nice game idea, good job making it in the time, it has a very clean and polished look!
Yeah, you hit the nail on the head with the importance of legible fonts for text-heavy games, and we'll definitely be changing those (questionable) font choices asap.
The "A Way Down" tiles offer other ways of increasing your final score -- implicitly by allowing you to start uncovering a new lost-civilization (which will reset the deck/board and your hand), as well as explictly adding a civ bonus to your final score for every "A Way Down" discovered. Since the number of turns remaining act as a resource, it's up to you whether it'd be more lucrative to spend them uncovering more tiles in the current civ, or trying your luck on another floor with a refreshed deck/hand. The game does heavily lean on the player piecing together tile synergies accross multiple runs, so hope this clears things up!
Good game.
Honestly this was one of the most thought through games I have seen so far, and I wish there was a form of multiplayer here. I see so much potential in this game, I really hope you go further with it and turn it into a fun little puzzle game with maybe some nice story attatched!
I gotta say, we were stoked to read your comment -- we have some ideas on adding multiplayer, more puzzle/strategic depth, and of course, a complimentary story. I also spent a whole day messing with paper prototypes, so it's super gratifying to see the board game aspect shine through!
Definitely could use description of the tile before you place it (I'm looking at you, battleground) - sure, learning curve and so on, but I'd prefer being able to plan a bit (it would be different if the effect of the tile was partially randomized)