Dungeon Escape by mar3k

made by mar3k for Ludum Dare 50 (COMPO)

Dungeon Escape

Dungeon Escape is a turn-based rogue like game with a little twist -- You're running away from the boss. The defeat might be inevitable, but you have to do your best to delay it and get as far as you can.

Navigate your way out of the dungeon, while the boss is chasing your. Enemies won't attack you, but you can choose to attack them, but then you receive damage as well.

TIP: Reaper is INEVITABLE... Escape, don't fight... TIP 2: You have health regen, make use of it.

You can let me know the furthest you got (room number) and I'll post it here in my little personal scoreboard. In case you got to the hidden (and I would say impossible) "section" be sure to let me know about that!

Controls

W, A, S, D (or arrows) - To move.

ESC - Skip intro cut scene.

M - Mute music.

That's it! If you want to interact with something, step on its square (walking into enemies will attack them).

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Running the game

The game is available as .jar file or source code. It was developed on Linux (KDE Neon) system, but should be platform independent.

The game does not run

It's mostl likely that you're missing the needed Java stuff - you just need to have the latest Java SDK (download Java).

Windows

Just double click the file and it should open if you have Java SDK installed.

Linux and Mac

If double click does not work for you then just type java -jar DungeonEscape.jar in terminal in the folder where you downloaded the game. (In case downloading jdk from link above was not helpful, look in your repos for java-11-openjdk-11.0.12.0.7.4.fc34.x86_64 by using your packaging app like sudo dnf install .../sudo apt-get install ... or similar.)

About the game(dev)

This is a COMPO entry (made within 48 hours) all by me (the art, music, sound effects, animations, code).
I made this in Java using my custom hand made engine (that's why it's somewhat small, but might have some problems with portability... oops).

How to play

There is purposefully not too many information about how to play, since I personally like that in rogue like games -- dying and retrying with new knowledge and strategy is one of the fun aspects. But in case you don't like this or want to get some things clear, here's some info:

You have health regeneration.
The red arrow at the bottom tells you how close a boss is.
Picking up bananas slows boss down (he might not have feet, but he still can slip on a peel... at least I think).
To escape the boss find the ladder (just as when escaping a room).

Cheats

If you get stuck or just want to have some fun after real runs:

F8 + N - Skip current level.

F8 + C - Money cheat.

F8 + H - HP cheat.

JAR file	https://drive.google.com/file/d/1221Aq9L4x7g8xVmTTFGnRYH8d4Y1RxS5/view?usp=sharing
GitHub	https://github.com/mark-sed/ld50
JAR and EXE on GitHub	https://github.com/mark-sed/ld50
EXE file	https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W0ynGdcCo5MfR1YYEfCZboQkgKN4iZSh/view?usp=sharing
Download on Itch.io	https://pixcom.itch.io/dungeon-escape
Original URL	https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/dungeon-escape

Ratings

Overall	152^th	3.721⭐	36🧑‍⚖️
Fun	161^th	3.657⭐	37🧑‍⚖️
Innovation	243^th	3.457⭐	37🧑‍⚖️
Theme	241^th	3.757⭐	37🧑‍⚖️
Graphics	153^th	3.847⭐	38🧑‍⚖️
Audio	164^th	3.545⭐	35🧑‍⚖️
Humor	178^th	3.266⭐	34🧑‍⚖️
Mood	131^th	3.652⭐	35🧑‍⚖️
Given		41🗳️	51🗨️

Feedback

GummiBot

04. Apr 2022 · 18:41 UTC

Loved the game. However it was too difficult for a ludum dare game - I would have to spend much more time to get the flow right.
Balance seems off - items were way too expensive, I never got over 4 coins when items costs even 20 cents. Loved the character and enemy design. Sapper-like grim reaper stage was amazing. ? tiles were a neat twist.

arthurr

05. Apr 2022 · 15:32 UTC

Very good i loved it

Sodaro

05. Apr 2022 · 15:43 UTC

I liked the artstyle and the concept of the game! The game however feels a bit too difficult so I was not able to make progress past the second floor and could not afford any items

BubakGames

05. Apr 2022 · 15:54 UTC

Nice game with fun gameplay. I really enjoyed plazing it. The music is great.

LDJam user 234567

05. Apr 2022 · 16:15 UTC

Good game. The music too.

Each level is different. It's good for replayability

UkuleleFury

05. Apr 2022 · 18:47 UTC

:) Cool game! Definitely too hard though. I cheated heavily. I really like the pixel art, and your music is fantastic. The game became very laggy after I died in the crazy light-beam level.

Dan Allison

06. Apr 2022 · 08:13 UTC

Great entry and really impressive that you made it yourself within 48 hours. Love the art style especially, it's really polished. I do agree with what others said about difficulty but not an easy task to balance things properly in such a short amount of time.

iambaangkok

06. Apr 2022 · 08:17 UTC

Loved the game! It fits the theme quiet well and the cutscene is pretty funny. Fighting enemies is a quite punishing since you get so few gold for it and lose so many turns & hp.

Other than that, this is a solid piece of game!

MrPouletBZH

06. Apr 2022 · 09:12 UTC

Really nice game well done! It's a fun experience with a lot of variety in it. I would have like a faster restart, and sometimes we are just blocked in tiny hallways where we have no other option than to fight an unwinnable fight with a foe, but except those two points, I liked everything the game offered. Excellent work in such a short time, gg!

🎤 mar3k

06. Apr 2022 · 11:05 UTC

@mrpouletbzh Thank you so much for the kind words. You can skip the intro by pressing ESC and to get out of those situations with tight corridors you have to take breaks (let reaper come closer), since you have HP regen. Thank you again for playing and the comment, I'll add this info to the description as well.

dob

06. Apr 2022 · 20:13 UTC

Fun game reminiscent of the 1980's. Nice variety of enemies and powerups. I could have used a bit of a tutorial to understand the health and distance mechanics. Cool sounds. Nice work!

Wuppos

07. Apr 2022 · 00:05 UTC

This was a very solid submission! I did not have Java jdk installed, but after installing that everything ran just fine :) It was interesting having to run away from the monsters instead of fighting them. Many times I walked right to get a monster to move right, and then quickly ran past them on the left. This worked suprisingly well, and felt really nice to pull off :D

My only feedback is that sometimes it was a bit unclear what things did. Like it took me a few tries to figure out that those red circles on the ground damaged me, and I had no idea how to collect coins until I accidentally killed a slime. I just tried to run away from all the monsters, so I had no idea that slimes drop very useful stuff. The boss room when I died I also did not understand, but maybe that was the point XD Maybe another tiny problem is that one time I ran into an impossible situation where two skeletons were blocking a path, followed by an unavoidable red circle on the ground. The damaged combined of those two traps was enough to kill me, but I had no other way to get through that. Just bad luck of the RNG I guess :)

The art, sounds and music were all amazing as well! Really impressive you did all that in only 48 hours!
Thanks a lot for this! This was very interesting and a lot of fun :D

frozenfire92

07. Apr 2022 · 00:55 UTC

A very good compo entry! I appreciated you having the pixel art scale at the beginning. One thing that I would like to see is some camera smoothing between turns. Keep on making games \o/

🎤 mar3k

07. Apr 2022 · 08:35 UTC

Thank you all for these kind comments, I really appreciate it. I won't tag you all to not spam your notifications.

Anaxie Studio

08. Apr 2022 · 13:49 UTC

I think the idea is very innovative, it was cool to run away from the boss. The game was fun playing, there is just one little thing that I didn't like, which is that I felt like the music kinda didn't fit with running away from the reaper, it was too chill / cheerful almost.
Great game though!

sacredbacon

09. Apr 2022 · 05:58 UTC

So much fun! I liked the tile based dungeon crawler, level generation is really good. Ended up getting a drop that gave me 100+ sharpening stone, felt really good to just one shot everything after getting beat to death 100 times. Needless to say this game is amazing, for a compo entry coded in Java it's absolutely brilliant. I couldn't figure out the reaper sequence, I'm guessing its some sort of minesweeper puzzle? Regardless, this is easily one of the top games I've played this jam. Great job!

gdesecrate

10. Apr 2022 · 14:44 UTC

Thanks for the game.
When I died it showed me that I still have a half of heart left.

🎤 mar3k

10. Apr 2022 · 14:59 UTC

@gdesecrate Glad you liked it. Yes, it's because you got hit to 0 and then health regeneration kicked in at the same time. Seems like I forgot to turn of health regen after dying, heh.

ilikescifi

11. Apr 2022 · 09:16 UTC

Oh Sh! What a good idea! I could only test it out now - will play it more for sure in the evening but i fell in love with the style when I saw it and just had to give it a try. 5 stars from my side!

Confidant17

15. Apr 2022 · 16:36 UTC

nice game, graphicsin some enemys are weird. i thinkit might be due to color pallete but no biggie. the mechanic of deciding not to attack enemys is interesting, but i think it need some improvement. like some sort of motivation to attack enemys. maybe a situation of high risk high reward? but interesting non the less. good job. thanks for the entry

🎤 mar3k

15. Apr 2022 · 18:05 UTC

@confidant17 thanks for the comment and playing. There are rewards for fighting enemies, all enemies have set drop chances and can drop many different items (harder enemies have better drops), maybe you just got really unlucky with no drops :(.

LDJam user 249705

16. Apr 2022 · 01:01 UTC

Impressive how much content is here considering it's a compo. Well done!

codebug

21. Apr 2022 · 11:10 UTC

A solid game for 48 hours. Challenging and replayable. There is clearly strategy that can be learned and employed which rewards you for playing more.

A simple, clear aesthetic that presents information clearly. I was, at first, confused as to why I couldn't pick up the things with dollar amounts under them. I had thought that they were the coin pickups as the banana skin wasn't immediately clear. However, it was an exciting revelation to find I could get coin drops from monsters and the banana skins etc. were things you could buy. Discovery is fun, after all.

While I could mirror some of the previous comments about balancing etc. I would say that it isn't relevant to a Compo/Jam game. Essentially, you're getting a game to the play testing stage in a weekend. If all that is needed after that is a bit of balancing and polish you have already succeeded.

Well done!