LudumData

Darkest Depths by Shasaur

[raw]
made by Shasaur for Ludum Dare 57 (JAM)

The roguelite auto-battler inspired by Darkest Dungeon.

Assemble and grow the right team of greedy adventurers and find your next fortune. Reach the deepest and darkest depths you can.

Leave your lowest floor reached in the comments - how deep did you get?

High score: 202 by ImNotVegan (@imnotvegan)

screenshot-3.png

screenshot-4.png

Gameplay:

  • Hire heroes to build the right team
  • Let them battle through the monsters for you
  • (V2) Use special abilities at the right time to progress further
  • Level up your heroes to get stronger every dive
  • Keep the team topped up with potions
  • Flee the depths at the right time to avoid a loss
  • Manage dungeon runs to avoid stress-related injuries

I may occassionally release small updates which fix or polish some things. I've tagged that build as the post-jam version so feel free to either check out the original or the improved submission :)

V2 - post-jam (web) https://shasaur.itch.io/darkest-depths
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/darkest-depths

Ratings

Overall 328th 3.69⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Fun 323th 3.548⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 399th 3.3⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Theme 156th 4.119⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 485th 3.548⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Audio 181th 3.775⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Mood 275th 3.833⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Given 19🗳️ 21🗨️

Feedback

Ruslana
08. Apr 2025 · 12:35 UTC
Good auto dungeon crawler
Sayeg
08. Apr 2025 · 17:20 UTC
I would suggest adding some gameplay pictures to your page to attract more people :)
ToKto
08. Apr 2025 · 18:20 UTC
Cool background game, chill game
Monogatari
09. Apr 2025 · 11:42 UTC
Really fun how it can be chaos quickly when my mage decides to take the front row hahaha, cute graphics, cool music thanks for the game :) The gameplay loop is nice !
LDJam user 202408
09. Apr 2025 · 11:52 UTC
I see the Darkest Dungeon inspiration in this game, it's surprisingly fun to slowly build your warriors I felt too invested in them at some point. The gameplay is simple and engaging. I enjoyed it. My only issue was the "flee to surface" button not turning on sometimes causing me to lose a warrior but that was also because I'm greedy and waiting until 1hp to go back :smile:
jtap
23. Apr 2025 · 06:54 UTC
Nice game, beautifully drawn sprites, interesting idea.
xen3x
23. Apr 2025 · 08:10 UTC
Nah this is really fun! I stayed playing for a little longer than I originally thought because I kept wanting to get more npcs for my depth delving adventure. Lots of fun!
vangrail
23. Apr 2025 · 12:28 UTC
Very nice game! The difficulty is well balanced to ensure that the hero does not die. The ability system adds good strategy to the game, even if the movement is sometimes clunky.
Alexis Brochec
23. Apr 2025 · 17:53 UTC
Cool concept, with some darkest dungeon mechanics.
Some abilities move characters out of their positions, making survival difficult, especially for the thief. Also, my characters weren't leveling up; in fact, they were losing levels (and staying stuck at level 1). Stress mechanics should also have some benefits.

A really cool entry, guys.
Supersayafynn
23. Apr 2025 · 21:20 UTC
I've reached depth 120, but I feel like only my melee fighters were able to level up. Rogues are my favourite so far
ImNotVegan
24. Apr 2025 · 14:10 UTC
Very addictive game!

I reached depth 202

I liked the cute pixel art and 8-bit music

At a certain point it becomes too difficult to move forward and progress slows down a lot, it would be nice to add more rewards for killing lower creatures
nrankin13
24. Apr 2025 · 19:00 UTC
This was a pleasant surprise! Good music and sfx. I enjoyed balancing the different archetypes to make a good team, too! Only thing I would change would be to add a "fast forward" button for certain parts -- the very early game felt really sluggish. Overall, though, great job!
🎤 Shasaur
25. Apr 2025 · 06:49 UTC
@tokto @monogatari @0x-void-x0 @jtap @xen3x @vangrail @alexis-brochec @supersayafynn @imnotvegan @nrankin13

Thanks to everyone for playing the game and your feedback, I'll take that on-board and maybe try to release this as a small mobile game at some point :) I'm very pleasantly surprised people liked the music since it was my first time making tracks!

I've also added the highscore by @imnotvegan at the top of the game page - great dive 🫡
Ponytrator
26. Apr 2025 · 07:02 UTC
Like this game pretty much! Cool oldschool art and simple gameplay! great job!