LudumData

Calibal's Curse by neonlare

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

Calibals Curse Screen 2.png

DEV NOTE: Please play 0.1.3, it's a post jam version BUT it addresses 2 typos that meant the music in stage 2 overlaps. It's frustrating as hell it slipped through, but no new code was really added save for a minor health tweak to some enemies, and fixes an additional glitch about overflowing weapon levels. THIS ALSO fixes an issue with some seeds crashing the game, softlocks where the game won't progress past a boss, and stat typos that meant Swords, Daggers, Spears and Axes weren't obtaining the right statistics. Enjoy~

SUMMARY:

Explore an uncharted world in this bizarre hybrid of Galaga and Minesweeper! Find treasures, upgrade your equipment and try to uncover the riddle behind Calibal's Curse! Everyone's stuff is missing!

CONTROLS

Arrow Keys - Move C - Swap Weapon, or randomly generate seed on title screen X - Search Adjacent Tiles (friendly tiles adjacent or ontop of you will show as green numbers, enemy tiles will show up as red)

Try to upgrade your equipment, find the boss and fight them to progress!

Calibals Curse Screen 3.png

NOTES:

Phew, this was a huge crunch to get this to a playable state. I BELIEVE this should run without any hitches or issues, but I definitely had to work incredibly hard and certain assets couldn't be finished properly (for example, the intro cutscene is missing music).

Calibals Curse Screen 4.png

It's been a LONG time since I submitted something solo for Ludum Dare. I tend to try and aim to build as complete a game package as possible. So far, this runs without any bugs, and seems like a reasonably complete game esp. considering the time limit, I'm pretty proud of this lil thing. It definitely needs a lot more polish and a lot more love, but I'd love to get people's thoughts!

P.S: The dialogue is deliberately a shonky, just aiming for that "old unknown NES game" vibe, complete with mistranslations and weird grammar galore!

Calibals Curse Screen.png

If there are any crucially breaking bugs, lemme know and I'll try to get up a fix. The game runs fine to the end on GMS2 my side, so I'd like to ensure everyone can get a good go at it! Balance might be a bit buggered of course due to the nature of making a game in 72 hours. Hope you guys have fun :D.

Youtube https://studioanjin.itch.io/calibals-curse
Youtube https://drive.google.com/open?id=1rMWb21DY4RTyz_B7GkZLj0STIyN1zPxv
Youtube https://studioanjin.itch.io/calibals-curse
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/45/calibals-curse

Ratings

Overall 46th 4.173⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Fun 34th 4.154⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 219th 3.66⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Theme 437th 3.463⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 49th 4.407⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Audio 41th 4.135⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Humor 385th 3.08⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Mood 90th 4.038⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Given 17🗳️ 25🗨️

Feedback

Hydezeke
08. Oct 2019 · 02:08 UTC
This was really enjoyable- the presentation especially is super high quality.
The game feels super crisp and juicy so it feels good to play.
I'm really wowed by the quality of all the assets, and the enemy battles especially.

After dying to the boss, it was a bit of a grind to find my way back to them. Still, on the first go I had a really good time with the minesweeping. Loved it.
eupde
08. Oct 2019 · 02:08 UTC
Lovely. Well done. I like the concept and you nailed the feel. Found it to be really tough and unforgiving; feel like I could use a few more hearts (the spinner spider was the only boss I felt like I could make progress on), but in some ways the difficulty fits well with the over all "old NES game" feel and it's easy to jump back in and try again, so I can't really complain. Took me a moment how to figure out how to attack. But, the art, music, and overall game design are great.
eva
08. Oct 2019 · 02:31 UTC
Cool idea and graphics! Think the enemies I encountered had too much health.
🎤 neonlare
08. Oct 2019 · 14:17 UTC
Cheers for the comments and thoughts guys! I know the balance at start up can be pretty rough, but that's a lil bit of the intentional design (though for a post jam build I will reduce their health).

When you restart from a game over, you'll notice that your stats are reduced by 1 until they hit the base (boxer briefs and a butter knife), but the map doesn't reset, only restarts it's state. Any fights or bosses you do find will still be there, as will all npcs and chests, and you retain half the gold you had in the previous run of it. You can use this to plot out a path for where is safe and what is dangerous, and end up with a +1 gain to your max health if you can find two chests with armours in them, same for 2 chests of each weapon. Combine that with NPCs and once you have a mental layout of the map, you can build your upgrades and start searching for the boss tile to progress to the next stage. Hope this helps!
NachtWitch
08. Oct 2019 · 19:21 UTC
really, really love the art style, looks absolutely amazing and I love every part of the game, keep up the good work
t1a2z
08. Oct 2019 · 19:40 UTC
Awesome art, audio and gameplay! Really great piece of art! And damn it is hard! But eventually I'll get through it =) Very nice job!
🎤 neonlare
08. Oct 2019 · 21:33 UTC
Cheers for the comments guys! Might I suggest playing 0.1.2 as opposed to 0.1.0, as the first version has a typo that meant music overlaps in the second stage. It's amazing what one character can cause. Other than that, it does nerf the health slightly of enemies and makes the minimum chests a lil higher on stage 1, fixes the boomerang shop not giving boomerang upgrades AND fixes the overflow glitch. Cheers :D
Aj Jones
09. Oct 2019 · 05:03 UTC
Graphics are fantastic, dug the music, love the whole theme, only suggestion i would have is to possibly allow for sideways attack, as that could help out a lot.

Game was awesome!
BinarySystem
09. Oct 2019 · 05:19 UTC
This song is a banger! The NES presentation is awesome and the game play is tough but fun. This game rocks, well done! I've easily played this entry the most.

Game is too tough for me to play on keyboard though. I'm going to need some controller support please :)
dob
09. Oct 2019 · 05:34 UTC
Download from Drive was super slow - I'm on gigabit, and it still took 5+ minutes. Glad I persevered! This was very fun. I loved the melding of multiple game concepts. Some of the combats were very hard and unforgiving - it might be nice to have the first couple you meet be easier, and then step up the difficulty later. Great gameplay, great music, great concept, great design. Very nic.
pandan
09. Oct 2019 · 06:22 UTC
Feels like a legit NES game that could have come out. Very high quality assets and presentation!
Its very difficult though, i wish it was a tad more forgiving so I could see the end. (i could just be awful that is possible)

excellent entry
Nathaniel Jensen
09. Oct 2019 · 14:27 UTC
Great game! Feels very well put together, and I love the enemy variety!
🎤 neonlare
09. Oct 2019 · 22:16 UTC
Cheers for the comments guys! I found out some crazy stuff just now, the swords, daggers, spears and axes had the wrong stats! In this build, I added boss and final boss music, I know this is post Jam material, but I'd appreciate if folks would also check this out as it's more reflective of the experience and fixes some overflow bugs and crashes with fighting bosses not letting you through to the next stage. IT SHOULD at least! lemme know if there's anything more that can be fixed!
Gauphastus
12. Oct 2019 · 00:00 UTC
Really quality game, something you'd pick off the shelf at the old rental store in the 90s. While a bit on the hard side at times it's not at all a chore to play. Something you'd definitely just have around to have a few runs now and again.

Very nicely done.
Celdur
12. Oct 2019 · 01:54 UTC
Oh man, this is such a good idea. If you refined it a bit it could be a great little roguelite.
I also really like the art style, reminds me of old final fantasy or something.

One thing I would change is how the minesweeping detection works, it's a little tedious to do right now, and it doesn't give you much information. Once I had a decent weapon I wasn't really worried about what I'd walk in to and was basically just mowing the lawn.
What you could maybe do is have the enemies have different difficulty levels, so you'd have to explore and try to find treasure or weaker monsters to fight before tackling the more difficult ones.
Could also throw in some random event types or something, who knows.

Another thing is that I found the map a little too big, at least for this version of the game.
Once I had a strong weapon(spear is ridiculous btw), I was just wanting to face the boss, but it took me a long time to find him.
🎤 neonlare
12. Oct 2019 · 02:53 UTC
@celdur Honestly that's the next step for this, I definitely want to make the minesweeper aspect more akin to actual minesweeper, but that'll be for post the jam when I get time to breathe and work on some good ol' jazz. I'm so glad you enjoyed it man :). Honestly, all the weapons are intensely powerful at max level~
coffeecup.winner
12. Oct 2019 · 06:28 UTC
Awesome game! I really enjoyed the music, the NES feel and the fights. Hard to believe it was made for a game jam - so polished! Great job!
Sol Roo
12. Oct 2019 · 20:50 UTC
Really nice art and concept!
I struggled with the responsibity of the jump.
ThirdFace
13. Oct 2019 · 17:36 UTC
Wat a wierd game
cdunham
13. Oct 2019 · 20:44 UTC
Great game! I love all the different weapons and how many unique enemies there are! Its a really hard game though, I died like 5 times and had to get lucky finding health upgrades. I managed to beat one boss and then died another like 5 times in the second area.
DrEvilBrain
14. Oct 2019 · 03:54 UTC
Buff boomerang, axe is too busted
DrGrognak
15. Oct 2019 · 04:56 UTC
This game is crazy good. This is the first LD 45 game I played that I wanted to get back to it later! Awesome work! And really difficult lol
jefvel
20. Oct 2019 · 17:14 UTC
This game is both fun and so difficult! It would be nice if some of the items would be saved when clearing a level, so you start with them when you die. Also getting more than two hearts of life would be nice. I cleared the whole first level without finding a health upgrade, then died before getting to the boss.
🎤 neonlare
21. Oct 2019 · 00:24 UTC
@jefvel you do keep items when you die and clear levels though. The mechanic works by downgrading your equipment by 1 level (based on Gradius), not removing em, so you can keep them through to future levels too. You can find the same chests in the map to reclaim any lost upgrades. If I had the time to put this as an explanation in game I would, but sadly didn't have the time for it for the jam, so it's in the comments and write up above. Hope this helps!
jefvel
21. Oct 2019 · 18:48 UTC
@neonlare Ah, makes sense. Never played gradius though. Are there shrines that increase your health, or is that gained some other way? I cleared out the whole first level and was still at two hearts, but with all weapons and my dagger leveled to a billion. I got a bit sad when I died to the DVD screen saver boss hitting me twice after that :)

Would be great if it saved my level progress when closing the game too, since this feels like a game I'd want to go back to
🎤 neonlare
22. Oct 2019 · 05:25 UTC
@jefvel there are places to increase your health for sure, they're either found in chests (upgrades to armour), or sold via NPCs (upgrading/reforging your armour).

That DVD screen saver chap isn't the boss btw, you'll know when you find the boss as he'll have different music and is way bigger :). Honestly, a ton of stuff is just from the lack of time to develop the game, if I expand on this concept I'll definitely do those quality of life tweaks for sure.
jefvel
22. Oct 2019 · 08:28 UTC
@neonlare maybe there could be a minimum amount of those health upgrades per level, so you can get at least a little bit stronger. I might have gotten a very unlucky seed though :)

Ah yeah, I know, I meant dvd screensaver monster. I defeated the big boss once. I was just so disappointed in myself to die to such a small monster after getting all upgrades on the level