Adventure Bag by Raphiell

[raw]
made by Raphiell for Ludum Dare 45 (JAM)

Ludum Dare 45

This year I had some initial trouble with the theme, but thanks to a post from @pandademic42, I found something good!

Unfortunately my team-mate @peter1987 was not able to participate this time.

I have removed myself from the audio category as my only sound was music courtesy of pytchie.

Game

gameplay.gif

Welcome to the wonderful world of adventuring, except you're not the one having the adventures!

You play as a trusty backpack to a wanderlust-filled adventurer.

Rearrange items in your pack to make sure he gets the right tool for the job.

MINIMAL INSTRUCTIONS REQUIRED TO PLAY

Download / Setup Instructions

  • No-Install: Download > Direct Download in top right, extract, and run .exe
  • Install: Download > Direct Download in top right, install

NOTE: There is a tutorial in the game as well, but what you'll find below is much more in-depth

Controls

  • Click and drag to move items
  • Release Left mouse to drop
  • Q and E to rotate items
  • Click on the speaker icon to mute the music

Quick Notes:

  • Items in queue disappear at the start of each new event
  • You cannot move items that are directly below other items
  • On the adventure track, Exclamation point means Combat event, Compass means Location event, and Snake means Wilderness Event
  • An item will always be pulled from the highlighted column

Read below for more info on how exactly the game works

Further Information

  • The adventurer goes through events throughout his journey, halfway to each event a column will be highlighted in the grid, this is the column from which he will pull the topmost item from once the event occurs.
  • You have to provide the adventurer the best possible item in the scenario to get a good result
  • You can kind of guess what you may need based off of the hints in the bottom left, and the icons on the adventurers timeline.
  • After an item is taken by the adventurer, the progress bar will fill up at the top, once that fills up, you get a result of how the event went based on your item. You can the result either depicted to the right of the progress bar with an image, or in text form on the left side of the screen in the message area.
  • After the event resolves, you might get items dropped into your queue on the right based on how the event resolved. Make sure to drag these items into your bag quick, as the queue is cleared once the adventurer reaches the next event

Tips and Tricks (Spoilers):

  • For Combat, swords and sticks are useful
  • For Location, key is useful
  • For Wilderness, swords, sticks, bear hide, and meat are useful

What's unfinished:

  • HTML5 version
  • Proper game over/complete state
  • Better grid texture for the backpack
  • Fix tutorial errors ( Telling you to refresh the page to replay, but since it's not HTML5, you'll have to exit and restart the game, sorry!)
  • Needs more Content

Ratings

Overall 723th 3.283⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Fun 817th 2.957⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 200th 3.696⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Theme 982th 2.652⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 736th 3.196⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Humor 666th 2.476⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Mood 789th 3.045⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Given 21🗳️ 20🗨️

Feedback

tarfield
07. Oct 2019 · 08:49 UTC
Cool concept, but how do I unlock the cabin? I think I've tried all the items now :P
🎤 Raphiell
07. Oct 2019 · 12:16 UTC
@tarfield Unfortunately you need the key item, but I neglected to make an event that actually gives it to you yet... I plan to add it in the 30 minutes I have after work today before the jam ends! (Or in a post-jam version)
tarfield
07. Oct 2019 · 12:25 UTC
@Raphiell I see! It's a cool concept noentheless. :) I like how the order of the events are different each playthrough. A flaw with this however is that you can put yourself in a situation where you can't do anything and just have to wait 4 turns to die.

It'd be fun to see a post-jam version with more content!
Stefanie Leitch
08. Oct 2019 · 23:37 UTC
Super interesting concept! Would have been nice to have some sort of end condition, seemed like the hero indicator moved off the screen and then nothing happened. Was fun though, great job!!
XeduR
08. Oct 2019 · 23:38 UTC
To be completely honest, I was shocked when I saw the instructions screen full of text, but my pain was made better by the background music that seemed almost like it was taunting me at the time. :D

Quite a novel game, I must say!
🎤 Raphiell
08. Oct 2019 · 23:43 UTC
@stefanie-leitch Yea Unfortunately I never added an ending. Thanks for playing!

@xedur I would have loved to make a better instructions screen, it definitely is a wall of text. Will have to improve it if a post-jam version is made. Thanks for playing!
bassguitarbill
08. Oct 2019 · 23:44 UTC
I lol'd when the hand reached into the bag for the first time, very funny visual effect. This is a pretty cool idea but it seems like there were many no-win scenarios. I would love to see this game expanded and balanced a bit more so I'm not always helpless against bandits.
🎤 Raphiell
08. Oct 2019 · 23:51 UTC
@bassguitarbill Thanks for playing! I definitely agree it can feel a bit hopeless. Game balance took a backseat, but thankfully I designed the events and items in a way that they are easy to add. So extra content will be a big focus in a post-jam version.
slagathor
09. Oct 2019 · 02:00 UTC
I enjoyed the hand reaching in effect as well, @bassguitarbill haha. Great concept for a game!
Andre Fremaux
09. Oct 2019 · 03:09 UTC
I love the backpack mechanic of this game, there is a LOT of potential here for a neat rogue-like experience! The instructions at the start were quite overwhelming, either breaking up them up onto different screens or highlighting specific parts one at a time would help. But nevertheless Awesome work, well deserving of a high rating! :smile:
🎤 Raphiell
09. Oct 2019 · 12:52 UTC
@slagathor Thanks for playing! I really enjoyed making the hand! I really like how this art style turned out.

@andre-fremaux I definitely agree, the tutorial could use a lot of work. Thanks for playing!
Lone_Wolf
09. Oct 2019 · 22:12 UTC
Please ping me when you get the HTML5 version out!
Don Fouts
10. Oct 2019 · 00:35 UTC
Very interesting mechanic! The audio was a little loud but I loved your mechanics. It was fun to try and arrange the backpack based on the upcoming events.
🎤 Raphiell
10. Oct 2019 · 00:56 UTC
@don-fouts Thanks for playing! I hope a bigger variety of items and events will make it shine a bit more
Savvy Community
10. Oct 2019 · 08:10 UTC
It was fun :) the concept is really good!
I'd love to see more items and/or a growing difficulty!
Honey Pony
10. Oct 2019 · 17:15 UTC
Neat game. The first five or so rounds the item I needed was the very first one available so I was kind of wondering what the challenge was. And then the item I needed was buried behind like six items so I kind of got it.

I'm not entirely sure how the gameplay could be balanced so that you couldn't eventually be screwed over by the RNG but I think if that were possible it could work pretty well.

I think the art style is pretty cool.
🎤 Raphiell
10. Oct 2019 · 18:36 UTC
@savvy-community Thanks for playing! Yeah I hope to add those soon! Unfortunately life sees it fit to keep me from creating a post ld version! I'll probably take a crack at it this weekend.

@honey-pony I agree finding a balance could be difficult. Thanks for playing! Oh and thank you for complimenting the art, I'm very happy with how it turned out!
Empty Set
12. Oct 2019 · 10:24 UTC
Fun concept, though as you admit it's quite low on content. Some items like coins and bear hide never feel useful, so the variety of useful items feels somewhat limited. However the presentation was solid and the idea has a ton of potential. I think some sort of progression would be cool for both the bag and the adventurer - maybe you get more inventory slots as you go along, or your adventurer has stats which can be powered up with certain items.
🎤 Raphiell
12. Oct 2019 · 16:41 UTC
@empty-set Thanks for playing and thanks for the suggestions! Progression would be nice for sure, in order to make it into a proper roguelike.
itsdanidre
20. Oct 2019 · 03:16 UTC
I like the features and idea behind the game. I wish it was more visual and rewarding though. If I get a bad item and therefore no items in return, I'm in dead waters because I have nothing else useful lol.

But it was simple and straightforward. For a passive game like this, it's fun!
itsdanidre
20. Oct 2019 · 04:04 UTC
I don't know how to delete comments, but here I changed the one above because I mistakenly posted it based of a review of a next game. (I have a list up)

![Capture30.JPG](///raw/0fb/8/z/29bad.jpg)
🎤 Raphiell
20. Oct 2019 · 14:49 UTC
@itsdanidre Thanks for playing the game! A little more oomph for either the animations or sounds when something happens would help a lot I agree!