Into the Catacomb by JesusAcHe

[raw]
made by JesusAcHe for LD 43 (JAM)

Cover Image.png

You find yourself in a mysterious catacomb full of treasures and danger. But the path forward isn't always as clear as you'd hope it was.

Catacomb1.gif

Controls

Controls stated on the game are wrong / not properly marked, but that would have to be fixed post jam. Controller assumes a Play Station layout, but generic gamepads have weird inputs, so you may need to experiment what works with yours.

Move Arrow Keys / D-Pad

Attack C Key / Square

Jump/Hover Spacebar / X

Equip X Key / Circle

As of writing this, Xbox controllers are not supported, but I will patch that out. I just ran out of time to change my input script, and I had no way of testing them either way. Generic gamepads and keyboard are supported.\

My second LDJAM, my first time going solo. Things got real rough at the end, I'm not even sure if I made it in time at all. If I had slept less and wasted less time on Overwatch I could've done more of the ideas I had, but I didn't want to stress myself too much since I joined this jam as a way to rest from work.

Post Jam edits

(v.1.0.0.2)

-Minor graphical updates to the button prompts and UI -Added 100% clear end state. -Added Options menu during gameplay. -Tweaked level design to make areas accessible without taking damage.

Ratings

Given 1🗳️ 0🗨️

Feedback

Jared York
04. Dec 2018 · 20:52 UTC
I really like your game! One thing though is I couldn't crawl through the narrow gaps, is this by design? Maybe I need a certain item? Also you can clip into the wall if you're crawling while you jump at a wall. Otherwise, I really love your visuals and the platforming! The controls feel great as well.
🎤 JesusAcHe
04. Dec 2018 · 21:12 UTC
@jared-york It is by design, but I never had time to test the game with other people so it seems I didn't make the answer clear enough. The whole point of the game was to advance by unequipping stuff instead of finding upgrades but I wasn't able to fully explore the idea by the deadline.

Thanks for playing and commenting!
Bartosz
04. Dec 2018 · 21:18 UTC
Hi! Cool little platformer, nice graphics and nice jetpack mechanic instead of ordinary old and boring jump.

Movement feels polished and well done.

Issues:
- you know that fuel is now useless because you can just 'tap space' and fly without restrictions?
- i had no idea that you can shoot in this game on 'c' or you can access menu on ESC button - make it more obvious...
- i can take off helmet - does this give me anything apart from just 'not healing' me? Why should i bother to take it off?
- inverted spikes makes no damage...
- there are some horizontal metal bar that i cannot shoot or move through so i'm stuck in 1st level...
- i was able to pickup some coins twice (they reapeared)
- i have just helmet in menu - there is nothing more to pick-up (did i miss something?)
- i cannot leave anything else from menu than my helmet
- where is theme? I know i can take of helmet - but where is sacrifice?
- what is yellow square for? Is it checkpoint? It's not obvious...
- even though i leave helmet - still cannot go through narrow gap...

Overall really nice entry but it let me a little bit confused...
Bartosz
04. Dec 2018 · 21:18 UTC
*duplicate comnment - cannot remove it - sorry :) *
🎤 JesusAcHe
04. Dec 2018 · 22:22 UTC
@bartosz Yeah, a lot of that comes down to this being a jam and me not properly scoping the whole thing when I started. But I can go through some of your points

-Yeah, I know its useless as a stat for now, but it was coded from the start and it doesnt affect the level so I just left it in.
-There's a message down on the right with the controls because I ran out of time to draw the UI that displays your item and how to activate them, plus the message is wrong and it says you shoot with X.
-Yup helmet is the one item without any implications.
-The thing about the metal bar really really bums me out because the whole core of the game hinged on it and it looks like I didnt sign post it well enough. The idea was that you cant crouch under there while the jetpack is still equiped, and going forward you need to unequip other stuff.
-The coin thing is really weird, and I need to look into it because I use the same coin system for another game of mine and that bug really breaks the whole ordeal.
-And yes yellow diamonds are checkpoints, but they dont do much since you can hardly die in the game as is. I figured I would include them anyhow because the level is big and if you did manage to die it would suck to go back to the beginning.

I dont want it to sound like I'm making excuses, I really am thankful for the feedback and I will keep it all in mind as I go forward in game making.
Bartosz
04. Dec 2018 · 22:31 UTC
I @jesusache - i got that you need to crawl into those tight gaps, although i couldn't do it!
Only thing i could take off was helmet and even without it i could not fit the gap so i was stuck...

In other words - i was unable to unequip jetpack for some reason...
g12345
06. Dec 2018 · 00:07 UTC
I just played and finished the game before I found this page, so while there are a lot of hidden rules, if you guessed what you're doing you can finish the game easily.

However, the only thing I needed to remove was the jetpack, and it made the game actually a lot easier to play after that.

It's a very nice game; I've finished it. And it looks great too! Please continue like this.
Purrseus
09. Dec 2018 · 16:12 UTC
Well, @bartosz basically has said everything there is to say yet.

I really like the premise and it's not hard to see a solid foundation of your game here!
Art is really nice and music works well too!
DDRKirbyISQ
21. Dec 2018 · 18:45 UTC
Played and rated the compo version. Apologies if you've already addressed any of this feedback in the updated version!

Cool start to a game. I finished the level and collected all 16 coins.

The character can mid-air jump without limit with the jetpack unequipped though, meaning you actually get more vertical travel power without the jetpack, which is sort of amusing, as @g12345 noted. The sword seemed a bit inferior to the blaster; perhaps it would be more interesting if you started with the sword and found the blaster instead?

Since you didn't really get a chance to explain most of the mechanics around unequipping in-game, maybe you should write something about that in your game description? As mentioned above it's pretty unintuitive to need to open up the "pause" menu in order to advance in the game.

Health restores quite quickly with the helmet equipped; I had to try for quite some time intentionally to ever suffer a death, which you already noted.