AHH LAVA! by Dreii

made by Dreii for LD29 (COMPO)

You're in a sub trapped at the bottom of a cavern, SUDDENLY LAVA!

Can you make it out before its too late? Oh look, shiny!

You can blow your way through the rocks with bombs, and you can spam them for bigger explosions!

I tried to balance the amount you can die with a quick respawn time, and I tried to make it always possible to get through with enough bomb spam. The layered challenge is trying to get as many baubles as possible on the way up.

I'm really proud of what I've got here, it evolved like 3 times due to me realizing I just couldn't do certain things in two days. :D

Instructions are in game, just hit the question mark button.

Web version is WASD only, arrow keys had a strange bug. Also, colors are off so you can't see when lava is coming. Windows executable works much better. ;)

Made in Game Maker Studio, with audio from FL Studio and Audacity. Graphics done in Photoshop with some Illustrator used for UI planning. :)

Check out my other game, it's on the App Store and Google Play store. Find it here: http://www.gamechildstudios.com

EDIT: People have mentioned some buggy movement at the surface, It seems to be in the HTML5 version only, and I'm not sure what it is yet. Try and play on windows if you can sorry! :(

Already working on a post LD version for mobile devices and web portals!

Web	http://seanverhaagen.mygamesonline.org/ahhlava/
Windows(best)	https://www.dropbox.com/s/xbu4ihtp8c370ko/AHH%20LAVA.zip
Source	https://www.dropbox.com/s/6ku7kh88u15b3aw/AHH%20LAVA%20scource.zip
Video	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6nRCbAkMvM
Post Mortem	http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2014/05/01/ahh-lava-post-mortem/
Original URL	https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-29/?action=preview&uid=24533

Ratings

Coolness	100%	1
Overall	3.44	308

Audio	2.87	497
Fun	3.44	236
Graphics	3.29	467
Humor	2.54	476
Innovation	3.19	462
Mood	2.95	588
Theme	3.58	286

Feedback

omaha

28. Apr 2014 · 03:11 UTC

Nice work.

It got a little frustrating when the random level generation left me with few/zero workable paths. I was playing the web version.

Suese

28. Apr 2014 · 03:44 UTC

6 shiny bubbles. Found the maze actually gets impossible pretty easily.

ehtd

28. Apr 2014 · 04:06 UTC

That moment when you took a bad path and lava is coming for you. Nice!

malmazuke

28. Apr 2014 · 04:07 UTC

Solid concept, although the procedural stuff sometimes creates impossible levels (as far as I could tell at least)

cr2crstudios

28. Apr 2014 · 04:09 UTC

Really original! I like it a lot!

aeveis

28. Apr 2014 · 04:10 UTC

I beat it! pretty fun, I liked spamming the bombs and dodging the sand and rocks.

benmcnelly

28. Apr 2014 · 04:12 UTC

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! This is so frustrating but I can't stop playing!

Flopster

28. Apr 2014 · 04:16 UTC

Nice game. You forgot to mention that you can use the mouse to make a path. I got to the top though, and the submarine got stuck.

🎤 Dreii

28. Apr 2014 · 04:21 UTC

I tried to make it possible to get through any path by spamming bombs and dodging, still needed some tweaking though! ^^;

orangepascal

28. Apr 2014 · 06:34 UTC

Simple idea but it works well. Like a reversed Mr Driller sort of thing :)

FyberOptic

28. Apr 2014 · 06:39 UTC

This was fun. It's good that your idea evolved because you ended up with something a bit unique; like a puzzle and action game combined. Little things like getting stuck in the seaweed was a nice touch, it gets you worried that you won't get out in time. Took me a few tries, but I finished it. Good work!

PaperBlurt

28. Apr 2014 · 08:19 UTC

Great graphics and I like the simple gameplay!

terraco

28. Apr 2014 · 09:08 UTC

Did not realise i could click for bombs

🎤 Dreii

28. Apr 2014 · 09:36 UTC

Yeah i shouldve made it bigger on the help page :(

sknoslo

28. Apr 2014 · 14:29 UTC

I really liked it but the level generation could use some work. I played a few times and always ran into dead ends, 16 bubbles was my best!

Spotline

28. Apr 2014 · 16:29 UTC

Very efficient gameplay, immediately fun to play ! Best score 18

MrShortee

28. Apr 2014 · 16:57 UTC

So. Much. Tension.
That was fun :)

WhiteWolf93

28. Apr 2014 · 17:00 UTC

Nice work, maybe a bit short :(

Ludonaut

28. Apr 2014 · 17:03 UTC

I like this one. Got stuck, though.

Afal

28. Apr 2014 · 19:11 UTC

One day I'll get to the surface :(

danidre14

29. Apr 2014 · 11:27 UTC

7 Shiny bubbles. Loved the game, but the lava rushed up too fast XD.

kristof

29. Apr 2014 · 16:37 UTC

Very fun game. I like the sound effects and the screen shaking. Makes the game look very polished. When I reached the surface, the game frame rate dropped for a short moment.

ninjacharlie

29. Apr 2014 · 19:28 UTC

Nice job! This was a solid game. I would have liked having a few more mechanics (maybe extra weapons or something), but everything that was there was solid and polished. The graphics where nice, too. Good job :)

GreatBigJerk

29. Apr 2014 · 23:13 UTC

It was pretty fun, but I got to an area with no blocks and couldn't move until I killed myself.

Penguincat

30. Apr 2014 · 04:56 UTC

One of the most fun LD games I've played so far - haven't beaten it yet, but I'm gonna keep trying!

GameGrape Corporation

30. Apr 2014 · 05:09 UTC

"oh my ears :(" haha! :) Nice little game you got here! :D 5 stars! :D

🎤 Dreii

30. Apr 2014 · 06:52 UTC

haha i had my volume up way to high on your game gameGrape :D

Thanks!

Hypnohustla

30. Apr 2014 · 07:22 UTC

This was cool! The graphics got a bit glitchy at parts but that's a minor complaint. Destructible environments are always freaking awesome! :)

Oddly Shaped Pixels

30. Apr 2014 · 09:05 UTC

Super fun!! And great concept and mechanics, feels really polished. Impressive work!

ohsqueezy

30. Apr 2014 · 17:11 UTC

Great concept -- forced me to choose going straight to the top to avoid the lava or spreading out to get more gems. I got a 25 on the second try, then died a lot of times after that from greed.

eteeski

30. Apr 2014 · 21:45 UTC

I won the first level! great game :)

Phobos001

30. Apr 2014 · 22:04 UTC

Had a lot of fun with this one! It was kinda buggy near the end where the ship gets stuck and you have to fidgit around a bit to get it to move again, but other then that pretty solid ;)

theholychicken

30. Apr 2014 · 23:01 UTC

Pretty innovative concept and well executed!
The level was shorter than I expected but that's appropriate for LD.
Great job here!

microapple

01. May 2014 · 05:33 UTC

Liked this game! Got 13. Nice incorporation of elements of Bomberman.

BlazeCell

01. May 2014 · 05:42 UTC

Fun. I like the intro music, especially after you die and are greeted with it. Makes you wanna go again.

jeffz

01. May 2014 · 06:21 UTC

I like the opening guitar sounding out. Great game overall too. Well done!

TeamEagle

01. May 2014 · 07:16 UTC

Pretty original, hard too though!

MSaul

01. May 2014 · 07:29 UTC

I love spam bomb x) (may be too much), so I had some fun with your game. Fun game with fun guitar sound. But really too easy. Good work.

tomvert

01. May 2014 · 08:41 UTC

Wow so hard, but nice idea.

jtpup0

01. May 2014 · 09:51 UTC

Frustratingly good!

TeamFlare

01. May 2014 · 13:22 UTC

Very very playable game! Kept me playing until I met the surface :)
I didn't get that you could a lay a bomb at first, and once it's placed, it's abit invissible. Other than that, very fine job.
Thanks for making this! :)

finefin

01. May 2014 · 13:55 UTC

arrrgh that's frustrating. need to try again ;)

SzRaPnEL

01. May 2014 · 15:45 UTC

Beautiful! And nice random death comments :D

Lyje

01. May 2014 · 15:50 UTC

Haha I love this - really simple but properly fun and challenging!

kikaz

01. May 2014 · 17:03 UTC

Great game, very fun, easy but effective ! Good job ;)

howieV (binarygirl)

01. May 2014 · 17:16 UTC

nice idea..first game ive finished :) good job

eskivor

01. May 2014 · 18:55 UTC

Very interesting.

MunkeeBacon

01. May 2014 · 19:12 UTC

The art is quite pretty! well done!

Kuchalu

01. May 2014 · 20:41 UTC

Looks great and is very fun to play. The difficulty is just right - thanks for sharing!

javifugitivo

01. May 2014 · 22:09 UTC

Woooah!Danger danger! high temperature! Thats really nice!

hyouko

02. May 2014 · 02:21 UTC

One of the more straight-up fun / addictive games I've played from LD29. For some reason my sub gets caught on empty space at the very top, but I was eventually able to win.

UltimateWalrus

02. May 2014 · 03:52 UTC

It's a nice little game, and while the mechanics are familiar the way you put them together is unique. It feels complete and decently polished, though some music or at least ambience would be nice.

Don't pay attention to people complaining they didn't know there were bombs... it's their own fault for not reading the instructions. Some people (newbs) are bound to struggle anytime you make something more complex than Angry Birds or Bejeweled.

oranebeast

02. May 2014 · 05:07 UTC

Top notch graphics and audio, Great arcade style and overall fun! great work!!

mcapraro

02. May 2014 · 05:22 UTC

nice job! the visuals are really nice. i especially like the sub :)

shadow64

02. May 2014 · 08:28 UTC

I thought the sound and the movement and the art were cool. I did find that I was hitting too many dead ends, though. Even with bombs, I'd hit a dead end, just blast through it quickly enough to not die and get to another group of walls.

I also wasn't exactly sure just how much the bombs blow up. Sometimes it would get all squares around it, sometimes it wouldn't.

It's a cool idea, but I wasn't able to get to the point where it felt like a fun challenge that I wanted overcome - just a statistically stacked challenge that always felt a little too against me.

Thanks for sharing, though. :)

ahnt

02. May 2014 · 11:48 UTC

I think I would have liked it much more if the ship didn't drop due to gravity. The underwater feel would also have been better IMO,

Caridorc

02. May 2014 · 11:51 UTC

This game is VERY GOOD, well done!

Bekokstover

02. May 2014 · 17:02 UTC

Great game, fellow Game Maker user. Work well, once you know that you use the mouse to lay bombs.

thinkster

02. May 2014 · 17:23 UTC

Frustrating but fun, great combination! Would like to see where you place the bombs a bit easier.

conormn

02. May 2014 · 18:25 UTC

Very interesting mechanics. Really well done! Great entry :)

ChuiGum

02. May 2014 · 23:09 UTC

Very nice, very innovative.

jsspiegel

02. May 2014 · 23:50 UTC

Really innovative concept, and really fun! Great graphics and audio too!

noom

03. May 2014 · 01:57 UTC

web version appears to be down, sad because this looks fun! :(

🎤 Dreii

03. May 2014 · 02:06 UTC

:( web versions down for a little bit yeah, should be up within a few hours...

GamerTaters

03. May 2014 · 14:18 UTC

Fun game. Liked the art style. Random levels are nice, but it feels like you are at the mercy of the procedural generation at times. Very well done!

Fragsteel

03. May 2014 · 19:42 UTC

Yeah, there really needed to be something about being able to use bombs, but after you figure that out, great game! Both the visuals and controls are nice and crisp. Best of all is the name.

🎤 Dreii

03. May 2014 · 19:55 UTC

Heheh thanks! I wanted to make the help page animate a bomb blowing up but all I had time for was a picture of it, next to how to spawn them.

ramoncb

03. May 2014 · 20:31 UTC

Very solid entry!

Nice graphics and sound effects, good gameplay and is quite addicting! Good job!

🎤 Dreii

03. May 2014 · 20:53 UTC

Web versions back up! :) but still inferior to windows version... :(

HeroesGrave

03. May 2014 · 20:53 UTC

The link to the web version is not working for me. Firefox says it cannot find the server. It looks pretty good though.

Just letting you know that my game Shadows Below has a Windows version available if you want to try it (you commented saying you wish there was, so I assume you do :D).

Sorry for plugging it here, but there was really no other way to contact you.

perfect victim

03. May 2014 · 21:13 UTC

nice game, works well

HeroesGrave

04. May 2014 · 00:02 UTC

I think your site is broken. I get unknown host when pinging.

🎤 Dreii

04. May 2014 · 00:47 UTC

The domains being transfered...It seemed to be done about 3 hours ago then it went down again. Ill be talking to my host soon.

HeroesGrave

04. May 2014 · 02:23 UTC

That was definitely one of the most fun games I've played this LD.

Glad I finally got to try it.

sP0CkEr2

04. May 2014 · 02:59 UTC

very good game - easy to play - sound would have been a nice addition

🎤 Dreii

04. May 2014 · 03:43 UTC

Theres sound...Unless you mean music?

Fasox

04. May 2014 · 06:44 UTC

Funny game, somehow it remembered how bad im at bomberman.

VictorDoval

04. May 2014 · 14:21 UTC

Very fun! And nice concept. Thanks!

Thorig

04. May 2014 · 16:16 UTC

Fun game! I never made it out alive though...

ThingoStudios

04. May 2014 · 16:45 UTC

The web version becomes unwinnable pretty quickly. Still fun, and I liked blasting through stuff.

Noah Ratcliff

04. May 2014 · 17:37 UTC

Pretty and very simple gameplay, I like it! Although it was fairly frustrating that the procedural generation didn't check for a complete path.

🎤 Dreii

04. May 2014 · 19:23 UTC

In the full version it will make a single path to get up all the way

SevenKingdomsSurvivors

04. May 2014 · 19:25 UTC

It's really fun game. Little bit of audio improvement will make it even better!

scgrn

04. May 2014 · 22:36 UTC

Nicely polished and lots of fun!

whilefun

05. May 2014 · 02:43 UTC

Made it out alive with 32 shiny baubles! Neat concept. It took me a few tries to realize I should read the instructions and then learned i had bombs! That made things more interesting. Nice work! :)

mortus

05. May 2014 · 15:10 UTC

At first I thought that firing is somewhat glitchy but then I've got how it works and now I think it's a great game! You've managed to create a fine balance between easiness, challenge and greed. I've managed to get to the surface in like 20th go and I was really careful and got only 20 baubles that time. Then I decided to just make it to the top without thinking about them and managed to do that only on 4th or 5th try. Nevertheless, I never thought the game's too hard or imbalanced while I was playing. That's a great sign for a game - players losing at it constantly and not realizing it's hard at the same time.

Garris

06. May 2014 · 03:05 UTC

The randomization was a little frustrating at times, but the randomness of it really adds to the "just one more try" mindset of it. The controls worked pretty well, and the graphics were pretty nice. Good job!

pjchardt

06. May 2014 · 04:08 UTC

Fun game. Web version worked just fine for me. Seemed to hitch for a moment near the surface but just for a second and I was still able to win. Nice work :)

camlang

06. May 2014 · 14:25 UTC

Really addictive game. And that feeling when you explode blocking rocks moments before lava comes!

recursor

07. May 2014 · 00:07 UTC

I got out with 20. Pretty fun little game.

PIXEL^3

07. May 2014 · 04:02 UTC

Nice, I love the feel of this game. Blowing things up feel satisfying with the screen shake, and the sound effects, the graphics are fairly consistent. If you want to get through though I found that you have to pretty much abandon bauble hunting making for your end score to be about at random as the levels themselves. Managed 18 though.

~AlucardX60

mustaine

07. May 2014 · 05:32 UTC

Reminds me of an old Psygnosis Amiga game called The Killing Game Show

jsmars

07. May 2014 · 07:07 UTC

Great game and fun mechanics, nice job! :)

romandtom

07. May 2014 · 21:50 UTC

Hey buddy, You made a great game!
It was pretty hard to control the bombs ><
But I loved the idea!

BTW, you were curious about our cute little worm guy if you remember ;)
We just updated the game now and you are welcome to check out what it've become!

NoTrueSpaceman

08. May 2014 · 05:48 UTC

The 'musical' sound effects are a nice touch. Great game, overall.

BadgerPriest

08. May 2014 · 06:46 UTC

A rather unique concept that works pretty well. I think that spamming bombs can make it a little too easy though.

RetroEpic

08. May 2014 · 07:17 UTC

Really fun concept, sort of like a vertical Bomberman! I would quite like to see this with everything sped up a little - player movement and the speed at which blocks fall. Nice work!

Gwinnell

08. May 2014 · 21:56 UTC

This is great! Shame the lava doesn't show in the web version.

Katamori

09. May 2014 · 19:23 UTC

Too few content for a good concept with decent graphics. Though, I love it.

Check my video for further explanation.

Jupiter_Hadley

09. May 2014 · 20:28 UTC

Fun game! I included it in part 17 of my Ludum Dare compilation video series, if you want to check it out :) http://youtu.be/wBne0r55jPY

🎤 Dreii

09. May 2014 · 20:46 UTC

Thanks both of you :)

GeorgeBroussard

10. May 2014 · 05:59 UTC

Fun game and a neat idea. Worked very well. Good job for 48 hours.

HybridMind

11. May 2014 · 16:28 UTC

Made it out with 21 shiny baubles! Pretty fun game. Controls are decent but could use a little tuning I think. A bit floaty. The lava accelerates at a decent but challenging pace. Nice work overall.

alvivar

11. May 2014 · 16:34 UTC

Best: 11

It's feels solid, fun.

I recommend using sound as feedback for the lava proximity.

Good job.

foodzilla

13. May 2014 · 03:49 UTC

It's pretty hard, the random maze feature actually detracts from playing it. Overall it's still pretty cool.

joe40001

13. May 2014 · 11:11 UTC

Simple yet fun. :)

DaanVanYperen

13. May 2014 · 20:33 UTC

Very unique!

kirbytails7

14. May 2014 · 06:00 UTC

Quick and simple. The physics on the bombs seem a little off; gravity seemed to not affect them unless shooting to the side. Fun game!

soy_yuma

14. May 2014 · 19:57 UTC

I don't know why people complain about difficulty. I found it quite entertaining and even easy! I got 27 gems on my first try. I like the graphics and the concept, quite innovative. Good job!

aelita1992

15. May 2014 · 09:35 UTC

The difficulty level rises a lot too fast for me to complete it, tried 4 time and the lava got me : < And the bombs aren't visible under the grass or mud, whatever the bronze block is, which is kinda dangerous for the player. But with some improvements the game would be really interesting.

Meedoc

15. May 2014 · 12:52 UTC

Smart idea and addictive game! Nice job!

Make A Game

15. May 2014 · 21:42 UTC

Safe and 25 bubbles! Pretty cool!

Harsay

17. May 2014 · 12:16 UTC

It's reversed version of my game! xd
I like the graphics, and gameplay is very good!

illugion

18. May 2014 · 23:34 UTC

Nice game ! I got really desperate when the lava appeared on my screen, it would be cool to keep online highscores on this haha