Bog Bailiff by Raylond
Please use the itch.io to play the game: https://mythrazen.itch.io/bog-bailiff-ldjam58
Play as a tax-collecting frog who goes into the bog for revenue… and comes back with illegally enchanted artifacts.
It’s our first Ludum Dare, and we definitely bit off more than we could chew, but we gave everything into these three days.
Core loop: incremental hero builder with a lean content set. Collecting duplicates levels up items and boosts their stats.
No formal ending. Enemies scale to bog level 1000. Expect one-shots around 300–400+ if the flies roll deadly.
Small gameplay guide:
You have two 'belts' and inventory (bigger belt) The left belt is 'primary' - the items inside it are used in a battle. You can't move items in a primary belt during the battle, but can swap belts with the button between them. Monsters will be scaling with each level into the bog. One monster kill raises bog level by one. If you feel overwhelmed - you can decrease the bog level in the main menu before starting the new run.
Items receive random upgrades for each item level. You can increase loot item level in two ways: 1. Bringing items of this specific type in your collection in the main menu. One item gives +1 item level for this specific item independently of the bog level. 2. Increase bog level - it is used as the base for the item level loot.
You can upgrade character for the money in the main menu or roll some insane number upgrades on the items.
Credits Development - Raylond Art - Lenstar
Controls
Ctrl + LMB - sell item!
screenshot0.png

| Link | https://gitlab.com/lugovskoy.v/ldjam58 |
| Link | https://mythrazen.itch.io/bog-bailiff-ldjam58 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/58/bog-bailiff |
Ratings
| Overall | 389th | 3.519⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 341th | 3.426⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 556th | 2.963⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 412th | 3.648⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 446th | 3.537⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 414th | 2.935⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 623th | 3.13⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 45🗳️ | 29🗨️ |
I do like a good strategic battling game!
The idea that you can only change the items equipped to your inactive loadout is neat. It adds a bit of fun planning and mouse dexterity to gameplay, since you can think about your ideal organization as much as you'd like before clicking.
The collecting loot idea fits the theme well, and I like the silhouette interface used to show off what kinds of items you brought back from your last play. Related, the artwork on the whole is really fun. our main frog's design is pretty whimsical (feather sword? no wonder the pen is mightier!) and the insectoid enemies are fitting antagonists.
In the small chunk I played, I was very interested to see if the equipment swapping would become an important "active" part of play, but it didn't end up working out that way for me. Could be that there are incentives to do it that weren't clear to me yet - with more info or improved understanding I might have tried pursuing it more.
There could be some pretty blunt ways to incentivize swapping during combat (items that only recharge while inactive, items that are stronger the first time they hit) but it might be a bit of a balancing act - fiddling around with pools of inventory constantly might distract from the higher-level decisions you want to focus on. Not sure.
I know that games with abstract interactions (not-action-ey ones) can involve a lot of code work behind the scenes. Deciding how to communicate info is hard too, and I think you invested good effort to make this stuff understandable & interesting to play with.
I don't exactly remember the jam's policy on post-submission bug-fixes, but if you're able to get that tooltip info somewhere more central on the screen I'll definitely come back in and try diving more deeply into the bog... to see what strategic terrors wait within.
Hey, thanks for a great feedback! I figured out that the problem with tooltip being cropped by the screen is connected to game being fit in the screen vertically, so on some screens like Mac 14" for example they would be cropped. I will definitely fix it a bit later, as for now it should work fine on 16:9 screens - my bad, didn't test it on anything else
Added the short guide to the description
When it comes to your game, it feels strong and confident when it comes to the game design.
I played one run and I felt hooked. The execution is also pretty nice, but it clearly lacks any sound design and maybe a little bit UI clarity.
Good job, thank you for the game and take care!
Balance is so so, too much items are too long to cast to be effective, it's either you one shot with other items, either you're dead before
But of course, balancing this type of game is a long process
Anyway it did not prevent myself from launching fights again and again, it's super addictive, nice job
From the screenshots, I thought it would be another complex jam game that takes 20 minutes to figure out, but the item cooldown system is actually elegant and simple.
The progression feels great — definitely worthy of a full game — though the lack of an ending was a bit disappointing.
I played up to around level 40!