Descendant by silkworm_sweatshop

Descendant is a sokoban-style cryptic puzzle dungeon crawler inspired by Void Stranger (mainly). Travel into the depths and explore all 30 floors of the dungeon. A single run won't be enough to solve all the riddles. In a 20 year cycle your descendants down the family line take on the mantle with the knowledge passed on by ancestral call. Can you break the loop and find the ultimate secret treasure? If you're stuck (or just curious), I've linked a walkthrough below.
Controls
WASD: Move
Space: Interact
Q and E: Toggle Items
Enter: Use Item.
Edit: I forgot the move the intro text back to the beginning of the game so I re-added it for some story context.
| Link | https://silkworm-sweatshop.itch.io/ld57-decendant |
| Walkthrough | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYj8GLuMtwE |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/descendant |
Ratings
| Overall | 49th | 4.178⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 81th | 4⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 300th | 3.478⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 424th | 3.705⭐ | 46🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 264th | 4⭐ | 46🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 115th | 3.939⭐ | 43🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 300th | 3.167⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 174th | 3.988⭐ | 45🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 42🗳️ | 63🗨️ |
Also really enjoyed the music; that moment where you use the candle and the BGM speeds up is awesome. Loved the game!

I think that's the only clue I had trouble with - everything else clicked into place!
Really liked the art style, audio and level design of game.
So nice job! :heart:
Putting personal feelings aside, the vibe when exploring the dungeon and discovering all there was to it was quite enjoyable. On the first playthrough I had accidentally figured out 3/4 of the secrets that were hinted towards on f-22 which made me feel really good about myself :D. I'm also a fan of the artstyle as well as the soundtracks and effects. It's honestly quite crazy how much you were able to add into game made in such a short period of time!
You nailed the Gameboyesque visuals. Everything was very clear and UI was good to handle.
The game mechanics were nicely introduced by a clever level design.
The soundtrack and the sound effects are also good.
I actually have nothing to suggest to make this one better.
The difficulty curve was fine and I really appreciate the fact, that you could just use the easy route or take the "more-thinking-route", but if you were not able to solve the puzzle, you could still progess. :)
One of my favs of any LD ever to be honest. As soon as I saw the second symbol I got pen and paper out and started noting them down as I came across them. I still wasn't sure how excited I was to redo stuff to find secrets until I got to the very end of the first run and saw all those clues and then I really did get hyped up! Figured them all out and *gave up everything*. Lost a bit of time on my third run because I forgot to pick up the candle. Good thing I had the dagger!
It's just really slick and well done in every aspect. Looks nice, plays nice, sounds nice, and having to think beyond the sokoban puzzles themselves was so much fun. I honestly can't add much more, I don't really have criticisms. Super good!