Mouseketeer by SpaceMonkey

[raw]
made by SpaceMonkey for LD 44 (JAM)

Mouseketeer is a procedural platformer with a hint of narrative allowing the player to cheese his own adventure!

mouseketeer-03.jpg

You play a little mouse eager to go on quests. This is of course very dangerous: the owl's dungeon is rigged with traps and his minions –rats, bats and blobs– are expecting you! Fortunately, should you meet your end (you will), there's plenty more adventurers where you came from: you're indeed from a very large family, and your many many siblings will right away follow your steps.

Is it a lost cause, then? Should everyone of your kind get squished in the attempt, one after the other? No, as you had the wisdom to take up a life insurance before entering the dungeon! Each sibling who die pave so the way to the next, allowing him or her a better chance in the maze.

Amass honour points to maximize the insurance bonus, invest in equipment, defeat enemies both by sword and by word, and finally vainquish all the dungeon keepers!

Made with Unity, narration elements made with Fungus.

Controls:

WASD to Move Space to Jump Alt to attack, provided you have bought a weapon first.

Gamepad support!

Ratings

Given 14🗳️ 14🗨️

Feedback

Yngvarr
30. Apr 2019 · 15:32 UTC
After a second run I just stuck in an endless fall. =(

I like the visuals and music in this game. A platforming mechanics feels a but clunky and could benefit from some tuning. On the other side, it has a pretty nice narrative. Cool work, a team of six! XD
DrRozza
30. Apr 2019 · 15:34 UTC
Reminds me of Captain Claw, one of my favorite games as a kid :)
🎤 SpaceMonkey
30. Apr 2019 · 15:37 UTC
Thanks @yngvarr !! Sorry for the bug on your second run. We had to rush so much to finish it that we have a lot of these small issues. I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it still!
RedHermit
30. Apr 2019 · 15:38 UTC
This is really fun, holds true to the roguelike game form, and I'm having fun gearing up and going further. It's impressive all the features and the polish your team was able to do.. double jump, wall jump, parallax, procedural levels, etc.. Bravo!
Black Flag
02. May 2019 · 15:11 UTC
Really good game, the dialogue parts were really funny as well as the game idea in itself. The procedural generation is also really well done. Overall, I think this is a really good jam entry!
Juhani Koskinen
02. May 2019 · 19:00 UTC
Funny game with great music! A bit annoying that fighting didn't give any feedback if an enemy was hit. Other than that, I liked it :smiley:
🎤 SpaceMonkey
02. May 2019 · 19:07 UTC
@juhani-koskinen Sorry! We clearly overscoped and didn't have time to include all the sfx ^^' They were all ready so it's a real shame. Thanks for playing!
🎤 SpaceMonkey
02. May 2019 · 19:07 UTC
@drrozza I didn't know that game! Thanks for sharing, it's a good reference.
🎤 SpaceMonkey
02. May 2019 · 19:09 UTC
@redhermit I take that compliment on polish very seriously comming from you, thanks! It was a ton of features but fortunately some of them we implemented already in previous projects so we knew how to do it fast. Thanks for playing <3
🎤 SpaceMonkey
02. May 2019 · 19:13 UTC
@black-flag I'm glad you enjoyed the dialogs! It was our first time really trying to include more storytelling in our game. I'm really happy to hear that some players enjoyed it ;-) Thanks for playing
Sebeee
02. May 2019 · 19:20 UTC
I loved the game, i just don't think it suited the theme of Ludum Dare
🎤 SpaceMonkey
02. May 2019 · 20:30 UTC
Thanks for your feedback @sebeee ! We decided to make a roguelite in which you have a life insurence so each time you die, you earn money. In that sense, each life you loose is more currency. I'm usually not the best at finding a good idea for the theme, but this time I think our team did pretty well on that part? Sure it could have been executed better, but the idea fitted the theme quite well in my opinion.
tangiblegames
02. May 2019 · 21:04 UTC
The music is just so nice! :headphones: Sets the tone of the game perfectly.
🎤 SpaceMonkey
02. May 2019 · 21:17 UTC
@tangiblegames Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for playing ;-)
atmospherium
02. May 2019 · 23:13 UTC
I enjoyed your take on the theme, both in relation to choosing mice and using the life insurance policies. It definitely felt like I was better equipped each time I went back into the maze. I found that some of the enemies (or spikes) would get several hits off almost instantly, which felt fairly punishing (although, it's a rogue-like, so punishing is part of the charm). Granted, it's a Ludum Dare so you've got limited time to tune some of those things. Music and art felt like they worked well together and the story bits were engaging.
🎤 SpaceMonkey
03. May 2019 · 08:50 UTC
Thank you so much for this great feedback @atmospherium ! We wanted to implement a small invincibiity period after getting hit but never got the chance to do it before the deadline.
Frank Gevaerts
03. May 2019 · 17:43 UTC
This looks and sounds really nice, and I like your interpretation of the theme.
🎤 SpaceMonkey
03. May 2019 · 18:55 UTC
@frank-gevaerts Thank you for playing and for your nice words!
Zeriver
03. May 2019 · 20:02 UTC
That's a really ambitious project! I didn't expect someone to make Rogue Legacy for Ludum Dare and it actually fits the theme! The execution is also pretty good, dungeon is really hard and one mistakes can mean death, the variety of rooms and enemies is pretty small but that's understandable due to the time limitation. The graphics are pretty decent, however the moving background is kinda distracting. Game is pretty charming, mouses (as there is really a lot of them and death of one is not a lose to the family) fighting owl dungeon is a pretty funny concept. Really solid and intuitive entry overall.
DeathStorm
04. May 2019 · 01:00 UTC
Cool Game.
It's Super impressive to see a procedural generated Game in such a short Time.

I like in general the paralax scrolling and the idea itself.
The Animations of the mouse where neat.
But the graphics could have needed some polish especially the background

But overall, nice Game well Done Keep going.
Rombus
04. May 2019 · 04:26 UTC
Awesome procedural level generation! That's super cool, I had fun playing the game, the only thing that for some reason my money counter was always at 0. Congrats on the entry!
Julien Noel
04. May 2019 · 10:58 UTC
Thank you very much, @rombus.

The counter is unfortunately a feature that got a bit botched due to the deadline… The little crown in the top right corner is actually a honor counter. Our project was that, each time the player dies, the honor received in his last run would be converted in gold (the main idea was to implement a bid system, where a coefficient would have been applied, depending on the insurance you'd subscribed to). All of that was cut due to time, so the honor counter simply reset and the sum of money owned by the player is only indicated in the dialogs. But we're aware that's a clumsy fix…
pschichtel
04. May 2019 · 16:41 UTC
Definitely confusing with the honor and money. Also after 3 runs I have bought everything there is and there is no real reason to go out anymore except for exploring the generated levels which aren't interesting enough for that.

I liked the background music, very fitting. Sound effects and maybe even voice overs would have been great.