A Message for the Stone King by SelkieHarbour
You have a gravely important message to deliver to your leader, the powerful and legendary Stone King, about an enemy army approaching the kingdom's borders. However, after many years of firm, decisive leadership and uncontested rule it will be difficult to make him hear you.
Play this short game about trying to convince the king that a war is coming. Dig your way out of the dungeon and try to find out why the king won't believe a word you say.




We made this as a team of two in Unreal, we'd love if you played our little game and gave us some feedback! ♥

| Download | https://selkieharbour.itch.io/a-message-for-the-stone-king |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/a-message-for-the-stone-king |
Ratings
| Overall | 207th | 3.967⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 503th | 3.533⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 241th | 3.767⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 522th | 3.967⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 145th | 4.367⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 820th | 2.708⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 107th | 4.167⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 58🗳️ | 34🗨️ |
Everything looked very polished and clean. The artstyle is pleasant, sounds are minimalistic and very fitting!
It worked for me with no problems btw :) (didn't have to download the additional unreal thing)
The story was intriguing and the two scenes together with everything else made the world feel very epic :)
I thought the minigame was a cool idea, but it might be that I didn't get it, haha. other than clicking the colourful parts in the best way to remove more tiles? But that is very nit-picky since this is a gamejam :D (we for example weren't able to finish like 20% of what we wanted, haha)
if you wanna work on this it would be cool if there were different endings, safe files and maybe work on the digging mini game some more, maybe that how long you take also effects the outcome? I really liked the kind of continous hinting at clues and searching for the right way to go, so it would be cool if you as a player had tto (and could!) figure out the correct way to reach certain endings (maybe with like a list hinting of what the ending does?)
Again, great job, congrats, hope you guys are proud of yourselfes :)
Great work!
Now I wonder if I would have been able to make the king sign a treaty but oh well, off to war!
I don't think the digging puzzle added much to the game though. No idea what the different colors meant. Could probably be removed and just been a button that brings you back to the king.
Good job with the game! I Enjoyed it!
@dingledorf regarding the color blind options, unreal has a function you can call that changes the colorblind options so it's very easy to [implement](https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.1/en-US/API/Runtime/UMG/Blueprint/UWidgetBlueprintLibrary/SetColorVisionDeficiencyType/)
I do like the artistic style, you know that I'm a big fan of it, right? :smile:
I was actually expecting that king will turn out to stone one cycle after the next, but anyway it was pretty neat experience. The only part which didn't fit is digging, tbh. It's unclear why it's needed and how it's working, like a placeholder for a normal mechanic or something.
I would rather replace it with some point-and-clicking to find evidence in a prison or some more complicated dialogue system with other prisoners.
But that's a minor and I think you have the same feeling, just was running out of time. Overall I love it, lovely story, lovely idea (and pretty cool theme interpretation), cool art & animations and of course good music. Here is my :star2::star2::star2::star2::star2:
I like the concept, the visuals (of the two scenes), the dialogues and the overall setting, but unfortunately I didn't see the end.
If someone has I video of the whole playthrough, please @ me. I really want to see the end. xD
Anyways, itchio recorded a gameplay you can find here ^^
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B74ukTSLcCk
Oh and I forgot to mention that I LOVE how well that art style works, and the animations on the king. And the concept of learning how to speak with him in a way that'll actually matter is so epic!
I also loved crafting my delivery and getting new tips from the prisoners as time went on.