You Gnome the Drill! by P3ngui
//We uploaded a hotfixed Post-Jam-Version on Itch.io: https://bene-labs.itch.io/you-gnome-the-drill
People always confuse Gnomes with Dwarves and compare them to each other. You've had enough of that!
You are a Gnome who is tired of the Dwarves being known as the best hole diggers in all the land.
For this reason, you built a giant drill to do the work for you... as long as it has enough fuel...
Gather resources as you explore the dungeon, but return in time
to keep your drill safe from waves of attacking monsters!
Jump off the Drill and start gathering ressources! But make sure to return in time!
Controls
Walking: A,D
Jumping: Spacebar
Sprint Left-Shift, Left-Control
Dash: Right Mouseclick
Shoot: Left Mouseclick
This Interface shows you the oil tank of your drill. If this hits zero it is game over.
It drops over time and loses even more when an enemy hit the drill.
You can refill your oil tank by collecting these crystals within the mine.
You can see how long until the next monster wave with this bar.
As it gets closer to being full you should head back to your drill to defend it.
Picking up this crystal can help you get back faster. For each stack of this resource you can dash once using it up.
The last resource you can find is the ammunition for your weapon.
You will need it to defeat the enemies attacking your drill so make sure to gather enough of it.
The enemies can deal damage to your character too.
You can refill your health by picking up health crystals in the mine.
Screenshots
The Drill digs Deeper and Deeper!
Go deep into the dungeon and collect resources!
But be back in time, to defend your Drill!
Team
Benedikt Mertes / bene-labs - Coding, Gamedesign
Alexander Bobb / Dephos - Leveldesign, Gamedesign
Christopher Graen / Eos034 - Art
Nando Berg / UmbraLux - Art, Coding
Johannes J. Kross / P3ngui - Music, Sounddesign
Special Thanks to Jan Bleßmann, Mike Missiamey und Moritz for helping us out at the Jam on site!
| itch (post-jam build) | https://bene-labs.itch.io/you-gnome-the-drill |
| Newgrounds (with leaderboards!) | https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/975818 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/you-gnome-the-drill |
Ratings
| Overall | 487th | 3.481⭐ | 56🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 522th | 3.25⭐ | 56🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 396th | 3.306⭐ | 56🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 195th | 4.065⭐ | 56🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 439th | 3.657⭐ | 56🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 219th | 3.692⭐ | 54🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 404th | 2.875⭐ | 50🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 544th | 3.41⭐ | 52🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 61🗳️ | 96🗨️ |
Lots of stuff to collect and everything feels useful.
You have to jump off right when the game starts or you are going to miss the entire dungeon ;)
You can always wall jump tough. ;)
Thanks for playing!
Other than that our game is still exactly the same as before the deadline.
If I had to suggest something, it would be about the initial clarity of the gameplay. At first, I struggled a bit to understand what I was supposed to do. Even though the instructions are clearly written in bold in the game description, it didn’t quite click right away. Maybe it would help to display a message at the very beginning of the game saying something like: "Disembark from the drill, gather resources, and defend it!" Just to highlight the player's main objectives from the start.
That said, I can only congratulate you on creating such an awesome game. Well done!
We will also try to adjust some of the level designs and to make the controls less slippery after the rating period so that it becomes more manageable tough
We made the classic game jam mistake of stalling on that and then ended up fixing bugs until the deadline xD
I liked the sprite work and gameplay, althoug it the map is a little too big for the movement speed
Good job tho!
The controls are really good and the ressource gathering mixed with the waves is a great challenge.
EDIT: I missed half the game because I did not leave the drill soon enough, i would recommend a way to visit the cave even after the drill has started ex. a rope or zip line. Also getting back to the drill during an attack is troublesome at times, maybe teleporting the player would up help with that. Overall excellent job I really enjoyed gnoming around
Second play was much improved, very nice job. The wall-jumping was especially welcome.
Thanks for the game!
What makes the controls akward? Just the slipperiness or did anything else bother you?
@Bea @keith-wang @jtap @the-stewarts @johneyd
Thank you all so much for your invaluable feedback! I just uploaded a new itch build which should address a good chunk of it. (The builds on this site will remain the same of course.)
- To make the start clearer I added a text that only disappears once you enter one of the side tunnels and made the drill start much higher. I also added a rope that you can climb up to always reach the side room from the drill quickly.
- To make getting back up easier I added an arrow that points to the start which appears once the drill is 2/3 to the combat room and made the drill a bit slower.
- To (hopefully) make the platforming less frustrating in general I made the player much less slippery and widened a lot of the very tight passages in the rooms. I also made the mazes wider and a bit smaller on average.
- To make the combat room fairer/fun I stopped the drill from draining fuel by itself but made it so that the worms don't die when they touch the drill and can damage it multiple times. I also added a mechanic were the enemies take a small amount of damage when touching the player so you can use health to make up for a small amount of missing ammo.
* Either make it so that the environment can be destroyed (which means that the player can dig their way back to the shaft) or
* Make it so that the caverns will eventually cross back over to the center, where the drill will go through at some point
The game played well and was scoped perfectly in my opinion, that's my only complaint
As for the lack of loops in the maze: that's already a setting we can toggle, I'll try out how it plays with a higher chance for loops
Also is it me or ammo is quite scarce with no melee available? At least my every playthrough ended like that — I'm with no ammo, dragged away by enemies (off-screen, a bug? a feature?) and unable to shoot.
So, without imposing on anyone I would've kindly suggested:
1. add branches of cave along the line of the drill (I'm not climbing 5000 meters in time, yeah). Perhaps smaller ones.
2. at least some way to fight without ammo or less scarce ammo
Anyway, great game!
Getting pushed into the wall is a bug, in the post jam build the flying enemies can’t push you any more to avoid it.
About the ammo issues: I made it so that enemies take a bit of damage when they touch you so you can trade health for extra attacks. I‘ll consider increase the ammo count as well.
As for getting back up: that is by design as we wanted to reflect the theme in the gameplay by having a real risk-reward factor with how deep you go in the mines. I think I will add a mini-map to make it more fair tough
You're right, there needs to be a faster way to get back up. We had some ideas for that for the jam but couldn't realize them in time. For the post jam version I added a rope you can use to climb back up super quickly :D
Here some scattered thoughts:
- platforming felt a little clunky and controls feel floaty (like on ice) at one point, then very snappy and the character would stop instantly
- the "dynamic" climbing animation is really cool and very well done!
- Did you take inspiration from spelunky level generation? Sure feels like it :D
- I don't understand the dash. Sometimes it works well and I dash quite a distance, then it's weak af and doesn't move me at all. Is this intended as a falloff for double jumps? Aiming the dash is really difficult for me. :(
Level design:
- The arrow when the drill is close to the arena fight is really confusing. It points in the direction of the drill, so I thought I can just go there and the level would loop around. Yet, it landed in a dead end and had to backtrack and platform through already cleared sections.
- Why not allow the level to loop back into the drill shaft? As is, the level seems to be two large linear corridors, so why the arrow?
Defense arena:
- I like the idea of prepping for the "final boss" of the level that is triggered on a forgiving timer! Great design!
- When I first reached the boss I had two bullets left. At first I did not realize I had limited ammo. With two shots left, I could do nothing but watch the drill die. :( Maybe some pitty ammo pickups would help in the boss fight? Placed far off, so I have to sacrifice drill health for ammo while plattforming towards the pickups?
- The second time I got to the boss, I had one enemy left, but it never spawned in so I got soft locked.
- Is the arena walled off? I think I can just walk off infinitely in one direction
Sorry if this is a bit negative, but I do really like the game! I think there are some great design ideas that can be expanded upon for a full release :)
Great job y'all!
I think a lot of the platforming issues are caused because everything is velocity based and a bit hard to balance - you are slowed by a fixed break rate each frame which is much higher on the ground. Because of that you are more slippery the faster you are. I think I will just increase the break force further for now. The dash is tougher to handle because it adds a fixed velocity (in the direction of the mouse) to you current one - so if you jump and dash in the same direction at the same time you go much further. I'll have to see how i can adjust it tough I personally kinda like this "combo" potential.
The arena is walled but it goes a bit further so enemies spawn can be more randomized. As of now you can see after combat when the camera becomes unlocked. xD
Also the arrow was more of a quick fix - I'll try to add a mini-map
In the end, I ran out of oil, while I've been climbing out of some deep hole in an attempt to return to the drill under attack. I've reached the depth of 17000+ though.
This game was somehow fun. It could become a lot better if you invest more gameplay effort in it.
I'm also in a big sorrow because of the way you've treated the pixel art. Different scale of pixel pieces is a flaw you don't have an excuse for.
About the pixel art: I can see why it peeves you. We didn't really account for how big everything needed to be in game and had to re-scale most spirtes in-engine. We gonna try to plan better for the next jam, another thing learned ^^
Don't start the drill right away, or you might get stuck
Have more ins and outs to the drill, so you don't have to retrace yourself every time to go back, a map would be great.
THe movement is to ice-y, ideally remove the acceleration parameter out and give crisp and precise movement to the player.
Have some sort of progress inidicator on the screen, like a score, so there is clear sense of progression.
But overall, very good, the music is very nice as well.
Thank you for your positive feedback on the music! We put some effort into musically creating an atmosphere that matches the vibe and making the soundtrack change the vibe to remind you to return to the drill and battle!
@detectivedirk: I agree on most points! Some of your feedback may already have been changed in the Post Jam build on Itch.io. For our game idea, we specifically didn't want to have more ins and outs to make it riskier to go deeper and harder to calculate the time you need to get back to the drill. But I understand that it's frustrating to memorize and go back the same way.
@j-rara: A map is a great idea! Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to implement it. :/
thanks for the feedack ^^ Yeah the planning was a little lacking there since we set some ratios in size in the beginning but later had to change them when everything was already finished. some of these are just scaled up and I did not have time to repixel everything since it was in the end :(