Dwarven Delve by fronwewq
Nurem the dwarf has dug too greedily, and too deep. Now he is stuck spinning around his greatest foes for all eternity. Can you help him survive?
Dwarven Delve is a match-3 puzzle game where you control a character walking around the puzzle. The objective is to create matches of three or more enemies to earn a high score. You can move around all sides and push rows of enemies to create matches. Be careful, since pushing a row will put an enemy on the conveyor belt. Touching an enemy results in game over. You can destroy an enemy on the conveyor built by pushing a similar enemy from the puzzle into him. Picking up diamonds on the conveyor belt will increase your score.
Controls: WASD to move
Space to switch conveyor belt direction
F to push the nearest row (if possible)
Escape to pause
UPDATE: Please find version 1.1 on the Itch.io page. This update contains the following bug fixes: - Diamond pickups now update score immediately. - Conveyor belt speed now increases as score increases.
| Youtube | https://fronwewq.itch.io/dwarven-delve |
| Youtube | https://fronwewq.itch.io/dwarven-delve |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/dwarven-delve |
Ratings
| Overall | 288th | 3.462⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 273th | 3.359⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 120th | 3.756⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 98th | 4.051⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 253th | 3.553⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 307th | 3.068⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 254th | 2.717⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 324th | 3.114⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 40🗳️ | 46🗨️ |
The only problem is that i can't always pull a col/row when some enemy on the conveyor is near (not in front, but near)
Seriously, consider make a full game to post on Newgrounds or Armor Games!
TLDR: A very creative take on a well-established genre. Also a creative take on this ludum dare's theme. Great job!
I love the gameplay and the new twist on the genre. The graphics work nicely together and you have some cute music though after a while it gets repetitive haha.
Great job on this entry, amazing work for the compo, definitely would be interested to see new levels. Well done!
The rules allow for fixing bugs after submission, so maybe fix the bug with the score not updating on gem pickup! I tired picking up gems, didn't see the score move, so figured it was just a no-op that didn't hurt me, as opposed to monsters, but would have probably played differently if I knew they gave points!
Like the visual style, and the music didn't get annoying =).
@jonathanfdr @Thorn I haven't been able to replicate this, but I think a better indicator for which row you're trying to push would solve it.
@BradyG @CursedSoldier Apologies for the music, the instrument choice was a bit shrill in retrospect, but I ran out of time to make anything longer than a 20-second loop.
@jimbly Good point about the bug fix. It's certainly not a challenging game as is, but I think future releases can make the enemies a bit more menacing.
@zimny11 You and I think alike :)
Here is successful integration match3 to looping theme!
Very liked the mechanics of pushing enemies to conveyer, so you need to be careful picking the row / column to push, and also destroying them by pushing the same kind of enemy.
There are some moments I would to improve:
- switch push blocks key to other than F - because is near the WASD buttons it easy to mistake them
- maybe need to outline current row / column that are to push?
Anyways, solid entry!
I thought that the mushrooms are a surprising game over, visually.
Also, turning enemies into skeletons and then dying to the skeleton feels a bit strange.
The game description on this page states that only diamonds are safe to touch, but ingame, I felt it was a bit unclear.
Maybe a way of destroying / manipulating objects once they are on the conveyor belt would be a great addition!
At any rate, I had fun playing this. Cheers!
@Battlerager Yes that's a good point, the mushrooms aren't visually clear that they are poisonous, especially when everything else is clearly a monster. I'm not sure what you mean by turning enemies into skeletons - they are just a basic enemy type. You can destroy objects on the conveyor belt by pushing a similar object from the puzzle into them. That said, I'm working on adding a more fully-fledged interaction system, where enemies have attacks and other behavior, while the player can use items and powerups found in the puzzle.
Thanks again everyone who played and left a comment!
For me I felt like there wasn't enough pressure to get points? Maybe this is just a personal taste thing, but I'd like a timer or a point goal or something along those lines.
You should do it in two steps. First, remove the current enemies/diamonds and display empty tiles, then replace and display the new enemies & diamonds.
As many others said : I can not tell when you can push and when you can't. The game description only says : "F to push, when possible". So, there may be a reason why I can not push, but I don't see which.
I thought you were obliged to do a match on each push. But that's not it. You can push without match.
Overall idea is nice.
As a suggestion, if you want to continue working on the game, you could let random items fell down on the conveyor belt that would change the attributes of the player (Become faster, slower, towards enemies indestructible). I believe the game would need some kind of pressure over time, like in Tetris. But overall you did a superb job!
It is well executed and works well, but I think it is somewhat too slow and there is no reason for the player to do things fast, as it is always possible to just wait until you are in the right position. I believe it would also be nice to have some sort of progression, like new pieces, enemies that chase the player, faster conveyor belt, etc.
That aside, good job on creating a polished game on such a short time! :D