The Dungeon Lord by Thoastbot
I did it! \o/ Worked around 32 Hours on this game, made mostly with core javascript, no engines or libraries. Pictures are all made by hand in paint.net x) This game can also be played on your phone (that is why the size is what it is ;D)
My focus for ludum dare is mostly the programming and that seems to influence my games. Like the last time i think i made a too complicated game to get the hang of it fast - but i still hope some of you are willing to play it and find the joy within <3 Try to read the intro carefully as i hope it explains everything so u are able to enjoy the game. :)
Since the last time i got a lot of good feedback and still a kinda bad rating i really want you to tell me what u didn´t like - i want to improve ;D Tho of course i still love to see some positive comments again <3
-- Small Intro + How To (also shown in-game!) --
You are...
The Dungeon Lord
...or the owner of a dungeon, if you want to call it that.
In your world, there is finally peace, no one is trying to get world domination.
In a world like this, hero is by far not the most wanted profession, especially because there is nothing to do!
The Hero Association knows that if world peace keeps on going, there will be fewer and fewer heroes to save us, if new disaster is to happen.
Even tho, they want you to try everything in your might to...
DELAY THE INEVITABLE.
Things to-be-done in the future:
Feedback for hero interactions -> Monster fighting -> Trap evading -> Chest looting
(auto) save function
sounds for buttons and map movement for better feedback
Special Tutorial ... that i should have added way earlier to the real tutorial i guess x.x
So in generall - Heros interact with thinks if they STAND ON them. This is no tower defense, neither the monster, the trap nor the chest have any use if no hero moves on them :)
If a Hero interacts with an object (monster/trap/chest) he needs his time interacting, adds money to its end value for the "entertainment" provided and then walks where he pleases (also the way he came from) - this is because if they feel like they cant beat a monster or evade a trap they should have a chance to go back i thought :D
Heros try to walk on paths, and on a path they will not go the way they came from. Heros can also walk onto paths from the side (no opening in the path). On free space the hero has no goal and walks where he pleases (because if u are in a dungeon, the hell do u know where the exit is, so if u have no path in front of you, you walk pretty brain dead around till u find anything that helps to find the exit ;D )
Rocks are walls, quite literally, the heros cant pass them, and well there seem to be a bug that if a hero walks on a path into a builder he can no longer move, because he wont go the way he came (path rule) and he cant walk onto the rock, so he kinda freezes.
I hope that helps the people who enjoyed the game to understand it better, and the people to come to have a better time to get into it <3
| Compo Release State | http://ld50.kimrubendavid.com/LD50_TheDungeonLord.zip |
| Link | http://ld50.kimrubendavid.com/ |
| Memory Leak BugFix | http://ld50.kimrubendavid.com/bugfix_202204041433.zip |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/the-dungeon-lord |
Ratings
| Overall | 543th | 2.929⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 589th | 2.452⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 244th | 3.452⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 574th | 2.684⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 533th | 2.786⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 414th | 2.333⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 556th | 2.474⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 15🗳️ | 21🗨️ |
I'm running the web version in firefox. A few seconds after starting, the game slows down so much that I can't interact with it anymore and things happen many seconds after clicking (if they happen at all). There might (also) be a memory leak as the ram usage keeps rising.
I hope now its playable for everyone <3
The code zip for the release is unchanged, i added a link to the bugfix zip and updated it on the website so people can play the game without destroying their ram x)
One point, not really a criticism. I closed the browser at some point, so had to reload the game and lost all my 30+ min progress :( don't know if you intend on a autosave that would fix this. That said, I'll def be coming back to this after the jam.
It's sad, something is missing.. audio perhaps ?
But pretty good experience !
Nice job
Even with only a few traps and monsters, my heroes seem to really get stuck... they encounter one, and most of the time decide to walk backwards, and then encounter it again, so never leave... I've spent quite a while just waiting around, and _finally_ had a couple heroes leave, earning about 500 when they did ^_^. Doesn't seem there was much I could have done to encourage them (I already had them sticking to one path, they just like to go backwards...).
I like the simplicity of style and concept, after just a little while it was pretty clear how everything worked for me. Good job!
Thanks for the entry!!
Would opt-out of the music category now to prevent further confusion, but it is "required" - so either you hear music and rate it, or u dont and know that there should be - and just skip the voting for it. <3
I really like that you only get money once the heroes leave. I want to understand this game and play it more but there are issues with it which make it a bit hard for me to continue doing that.
Now comes "a bit" of (hopefully) constructive feedback, (in the form of my thoughts while playing this game).
Initial thoughts after 10-15 minutes:
The controls feel a bit clunky and slow, which was probably the biggest turn off for me. Even though this was designed for mobile, i think it would work much better with keyboard controls that allow quick choosing of things to place, rotate (maybe have keys 1-8 assigned to things you can place, R to rotate etc), so you can get used to them and eventually breeze through placing down a complex dungeon.
I'm not really sure what the heroes do, and how they plan, i thought they walk along routes, or try to get to the end, but most of them are just walking around the map randomly for me. It would be nice to either describe their routing somewhere in the instructions, or show their planned routes in game?
I'm not sure what the effect of traps, monsters, boulders or treasure chests are on the heroes either, and in general it feels like whatever i do to the dungeon, even if it's interesting or cool, will not have much effect on what happens.
more thoughts after 10 more minutes and understanding some things:
okay turns out placing a monster on the road makes it impassable, which causes characters to go off the route, but where do i put them then?
Are boulders just walls? if so, i'd recommend making a sprite/name that fits the functionality a bit more
This seems like a bit of a bug in the routing code, but the heroes will route in the following way, and then get stuck in front of a boulder, just 4 steps shy of the exit, not moving anywhere
And i just noticed this is a compo game, which makes it quite obvious why and how these issues could have arised.
(if you have any questions, or want me to look at the game a bit more, feel free to tag me)
Great job! I love to see Javascript games like this one (it's nodejs who pays the bills in my house \o/)
Just missed some sound effects...
Thanks for the great feedback, helped me a lot to finally understand the problem players have with my game.
I added an extended tutorial to understand better how the game works.
I should have really said somewhere that this ain't no tower defense game, and that u have to build objects into the path, so heroes can interact with them.
I feel like the biggest thing i have to improve in for the next Ludum Dare, would be to make better tutorials (or decide on easier games, but i cant seem to find the joy in this, if i´m not challenged on the coding part)
I think a good solution could be for the monsters etc. to be independent of the paths, so that you have a "path layer" and an "object layer", i.e. a monster/trap/chest can be placed on a path with the path staying there.
And that last paragraph is just an absolute mood, all the comments under my game just say controls hard.
It also might be worth to give the heroes a better routing so that they won't wonder aimlessly around empty space just for you to then herd them to the exit, like i did (at some point i just gave them a pasture to hang around in and then i randomly routed some of them outside to get money)