Mathemagician by bentglasstube

[raw]
made by bentglasstube for Ludum Dare 55 (COMPO)

I tried to make a mashup of the dungeon exploration in Legend of Zelda and the "edutainment" of Number Munchers. You explore a randomly generated dungeon but each room has a magic seal. In order to break the seal you must activate floor tiles which SUM to the target number. Doing so will unseal the door and grant you an orb. You must use an orb to open the door once it's active. There is currently no use for attacking and no reason to get multiple orbs per room. There is also no ending. The game generates 15 rooms so once you get there it's over.

Controls

WASD/Arrows - Move Space/Z - Attack or interact J/X - Focus power (used to activate floor tiles

ss.png

Notes

As usual, I tried to make a much more complex game than was appropriate for the time. There are many missing things I wanted to add that would flesh out the game, but such is life.

Here are some of the things I wanted to add but couldn't:

  • Enemies - you can attack but there is no reason for it.
  • Traps and effects
  • Boss rooms - these would be optional and require you to get extra orbs to summon (tying in the theme more than the pun of a wizard that sums numbers)
  • Final boss - doing the optional bosses would give you crystals to unlock the good ending
  • Real music - I didn't have time

How the sausage is made

  • The game is written in c++ using my own game engine, gam
  • The art was drawn in aseprite
  • The music was made by a modified version of autotracker which gave me more control over the generated music.
  • The sound effects were made using sfxr

Ratings

Overall 233th 3.273⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Fun 256th 3.045⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 245th 3.068⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Theme 338th 2.341⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 179th 3.455⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Audio 133th 3.333⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Humor 289th 1.944⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Mood 291th 2.763⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Given 16🗳️ 12🗨️

Feedback

LDJam user 388431
15. Apr 2024 · 01:55 UTC
Really fun idea! The art you use is really fun and appropriate, and as far as math games go I could see myself playing this in school as a child. Would've loved to see some enemies thrown in, but obviously we were all crunching for time. I'm impressed that you used your own engine too!
LDJam user 386211
15. Apr 2024 · 04:10 UTC
This is my type of game! I had issues with the second room though, after getting it wrong on accident the used numbers didn't show up anymore, and I couldn't make a valid sum with the remaining ones, so I got stuck
🎤 bentglasstube
15. Apr 2024 · 06:22 UTC
@myse yeah, that's a definite problem with the game and unfortunately I didn't think of a way to handle it other than forcing you to restart, sorry you experienced it so early on.
Mhanicos
15. Apr 2024 · 11:38 UTC
love the idea, but sometimes had an issue with selecting number, it could be hard to stand right at the position
LDJam user 233659
16. Apr 2024 · 04:31 UTC
First of all, props for having your own tech! (I played the HTML5 export, it runs very smoothly.) Second, love the art.

I had a little trouble picking a number at first, but after things got rolling I was really into this! Like, add some enemies and this is basically up there with Number Munchers for me. I have a pretty low attention span, so the fact that I can be glued to this for a bit is a good sign!
Rob6566
16. Apr 2024 · 09:15 UTC
Nice idea, and nice work building your own engine! Nice sound, music and art. It would have been good to be able to undo if you ever select a number that doesn't work. I got up to room 13 before giving up.
goodwincek
16. Apr 2024 · 11:39 UTC
Had a great playthrough and it definitely left me wanting more! All the planned ideas you had sound really cool. Impressive that you built this in your own engine! Love the art and design. The thumbnail illustration is also really nice. Great work!

The music was also nice, That autotracker tool is really cool! Thanks for sharing that
Linus Lindberg
16. Apr 2024 · 12:21 UTC
Nice graphics, nicely polished in all aspects. Really cool that you use your own engine!
Flying Dog Fish
16. Apr 2024 · 20:43 UTC
Nice educational game. It would be nice if you made all the stuff you planned.
dasilvacontin
20. Apr 2024 · 06:53 UTC
Cool concept, nice music, and really good for getting better at summing numbers.

Unfortunately it lacks a "carrot", a reward to make you invested into the game and invested in completing the levels.
OadT
20. Apr 2024 · 08:45 UTC
Cute entry! I feel like the last levels got a bit easier because they had more 1 digit numbers in there but maybe I was just lucky? Some thoughts:
* For me the time it takes to activate tiles is too long because you are not allowed to move during that time
* I wasn't able to see a pattern to systematically solve the puzzles. Most of the time I took the largest numbers and tried to come up with a combination for the remaining numbers.
* Its a bit strange that you cant deactivate tiles. At first I thought you could deadlock yourself because of that, but later undestood the health bar :smile:
* Just a personal preference: When pressing multiple keys (like example W and A) I would expect the last pressed one to take prevalence over the other, but by the way the input is implemented A always takes prevalence.
* Liked the graphics and music! Has a nice clean look!
Baluj
23. Apr 2024 · 20:35 UTC
I like the concept and I've had a nice time playing it. But I would put some way to deselect a number. Good job!
PieRo_PBeS_studio
24. Apr 2024 · 14:55 UTC
A real pleasure to find the dungeons of Zelda 1 even if it is to do mathematics. The concept is nice, we should keep digging to see what it can give in any case there is a very original idea
Alchemic
03. May 2024 · 23:57 UTC
Cute game! I just wish it was a bit more fleshed out.