Dark Plunge by LBO
What lies at the bottom of the abyss?
There is only one way to find out...
LET'S PLUNGE!
Guide for Plungers
Embody -- Angry Man -- Dan T. as he challenges the abyss. How deep can you go before the shadows takes you whole?
But watch your step! You’ll get hurt if you plunge with greed. Unstable platforms and curious imps makes the descent a deadly endeavor. The further you fall, the bigger the hurt when you crash into the ground.
Maneuver your fall through the abyss by Double Jumping and Air Dashing. Bounce off enemies to gain an additional jump or dash while airborne. You may even use these actions to break your speed, saving you from a potentially lethal leap.
Demons of the abyss infest every corner. Fortunately you come equipped with an iron mace and magic balls of fury. Get up close and personal to obliterate demons with your mace and regain some health, or keep your distance and throw a barrage of balls. If you are brave enough, consider jumping on the gremlins to stun them too.
With your trusty balls of fury and mace you can overcome the demons and the abyss! ...Probably!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLKEVSmxxxE
| Link | https://plungecrew.itch.io/darkplunge |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/dark-plunge |
Ratings
| Overall | 730th | 3.54⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 903th | 3.278⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 876th | 3.192⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1365th | 2.685⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 396th | 3.981⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 328th | 3.708⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 922th | 2.65⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 640th | 3.5⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 44🗳️ | 22🗨️ |
But sadly I found the game a little too difficult
Still had a good time overall !
I enjoyed discovering more about the game and its mechanics the more that I played. Especially the music! The bass especially reminded me of the DOOM soundtrack. I also appreciated how it changed and morphed even after I was playing for some time.
Eventually I felt like landing on enemies was a bit of an exploit for going really deep, then I realized that you can just fall in the middle and then double jump when you see a center piece, which is how I got over 3000m deep. I feel like the enemies' projectiles could be bigger, I don't know if I ever got hit by one. Other people say it's too hard though, so you can't please everyone ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
I would definitely play a post-jam version with more enemies and some kind of difficulty ramp-up or even like level color variation as you go down. Loved the game, hope to see more of your work next jam!
The depth fog effect was very well implemented and seemed to reveal things at the right distance, and the hand sprites and animations were really excellent. Excellent entry!
I would work a little on visuals of the level. It's often very dark and I couldn't see where to go.
Overall I think this is very cool entry and would like to see where it would go with little more time.
In terms of gameplay, though, I didn't feel like there was much incentive for me to try to hit enemies that often. My strategy was just to jump for a long time, and then use the double jump to break the fall, which ends up being a bit broken. Perhaps in the future if killing enemies gave you some kind of other bonus besides healing, or there was some reward for killing as many enemies as you can while falling. Maybe if the enemies get more aggressive as you get deeper, so you're forced to engage with them more. These are just a few things that I think would improve the replayability of your game drastically, to incentivize people to master the game. Overall, great work!
The fact that enemies took more than one hit meant I just didn't bother killing them, it would also be interesting if they would give you some health back, as an incentive to actually fight them. Also the sensitivity was quite high.
I still had fun with this game though, it's well done!
Hi!
There is a lifesteal mechanic for melee attacks, and the sensitivity is adjustable in the settings ( accessable through the main menu or the pause menu) if you wish to play again :)
Also, the mouse sensitivity resets every time I die and the volume sliders reset but the actual volume stays the same.
however, I loved the graphics, hitting animation and the audio.
it is a very nice short ldjam game :) great job !
The downwell inspiration is great, and the menu art especially was very nice.