Cacophony: The Ballad of the Celestial Goblin-King by Renikor

[raw]
made by Renikor for Ludum Dare 46 (JAM)

Cacophony: The Ballad of the Celestial Goblin-King is a roguelike dungeon crawler

Your village is undergoing a severe famine as a result of the Goblin-King(s) hoarding all the town's food supply. You must defeat the King(s) and reclaim this year's harvest in order to KEEP YOUR VILLAGE ALIVE.

-- TUTORIAL --

W/A/S/D - Move Up,/Down/Left/Right, respectively. If there is an enemy in the tile you are attempting to move to, you will attack the enemy instead of moving to that tile.

I - Open/close the inventory and equipment panel

SPACEBAR - Interact ---> opens the shop when you are next to a shopkeeper, opens chests when you are on top of a chest, and goes down stairs to the next level when you are on top of a stairs tile.

LEFT CLICK: When you are in the inventory/equipment panel, left click an item's icon to select that item. You can then drag that item and drop it in either an inventory slot or an equipment slot.

When you are in the shop, left click on an item's icon in order to purchase that item (if you have enough gold to do so)

//VERY IMPORTANT// -> "HOW DO I EAT FOOD?" -> Drag food into the "Food" equipment panel (the bottom slot to the left of the inventory) to consume it. Eating food will increase the player's current nutrition.

WHAT IS NUTRITION? Nutrition is the stat that we keep track of to "keep you alive" in this dungeon. Every action (moving, attacking, being attacked) consumes nutrition. When your nutrition is 0, the action(s) will consume the player's hitpoints instead. By consuming food, you can maintain the player's nutrition.

-- DETAILS --

All assets except for the gold coin icon, and the item icons were made by us.

We had 2 artists and 2 programmers.


Ratings

Overall 2047th 3.095⭐ 44🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1849th 3⭐ 43🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 2117th 2.786⭐ 44🧑‍⚖️
Theme 2112th 3.114⭐ 46🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 1801th 3.155⭐ 44🧑‍⚖️
Humor 1878th 2.162⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Mood 1830th 3.012⭐ 45🧑‍⚖️
Given 16🗳️ 32🗨️

Feedback

milano23
21. Apr 2020 · 19:52 UTC
Good game. I was able to defeat the alien looking character but the others would not die so i kept loosing. The map texture reminds me of outdoor carpet/mat so i kept visualizing that, it was a nice touch. Good job.
lootgrounds
21. Apr 2020 · 19:57 UTC
Love the art style. Good job!
Carson Bentley
21. Apr 2020 · 19:57 UTC
It kind of feels like you made a circle fit in a square hole... But you get an extra point, because I'm super down with goblins.
ukirain
21. Apr 2020 · 19:58 UTC
I tried to play the game, but i had some problems with shop and inventory. I couldn't to eat bread. Oh. So voted in Theme and Graphics. Idea is nice! Good luck with fix problems.
dconn537
21. Apr 2020 · 20:02 UTC
Neat game! Nice one!
jaybaus
21. Apr 2020 · 20:03 UTC
It took me a few tries to pick up the controls but I enjoyed it once I got to grips with it :) Good job!
Shardykins
21. Apr 2020 · 20:06 UTC
I had no idea I had a sword for ages! Once I equipped it the game made a lot more sense. Looks like there's a good balance of combat and resource management, a nice range of enemies, levels and background art, but some smoother movement or animation would've gone a long way.
Khud0
21. Apr 2020 · 20:07 UTC
Would love to hear some music in the game, otherwise it's incredible how much random generation you managed to make in such a short time! I love the chat window, too, it's very informative.
karln
21. Apr 2020 · 20:09 UTC
I do like my fish girthy, thanks
Karas
21. Apr 2020 · 20:09 UTC
Nice game. Take me few try to understand that I have no sword equiped, some in game indications would have been nice. Overall it was pretty good. Love the random levels !
Woob
21. Apr 2020 · 20:10 UTC
Interesting game style, also the sounds matched with the game. I think i will spend some more time on it since i was pretty bad =D.
Airola
21. Apr 2020 · 20:12 UTC
For the people who can't kill the enemies, you apparently have to move the sword on the inventory to a slot on the left.
Pretzol
21. Apr 2020 · 20:14 UTC
Cool game! At first I wondered why I was dying so quickly, but then I realized I didn't have the sword equipped. The random-gen is a nice touch too! I wish I was able to get further in it though, I keep running out of nutrition.
fuxibut
21. Apr 2020 · 20:15 UTC
It's a nice game!
Alkis
21. Apr 2020 · 20:16 UTC
Very good looking 2d game! I like the art style and the controls although i believe the game needs a tutorial to be fully understandable. The only thing that missing is the music. Great job!
Connor0Wolf
21. Apr 2020 · 20:16 UTC
This really gave me old-school MUD feels. I think that a few simple tweaks could've made the game feel much better. Firstly, the UI is much too small. I didn't see the outlines for the equipment slots until my third playthrough. I seriously wished there was some kind of feedback when attacking enemies besides the dialog box. It was so small I barely noticed it, and I thought I was doing something wrong until I re-read the tutorial. Having an in-game how to play would've really helped out. The pixel art was really retro, and reminded me of old-school dungeon crawlers, but I wish there was some kind of animation, even just a slide to the next tile instead of a teleport. In the end, I wasn't able to make it passed the second floor, nutrition just goes down way too fast. Still, great job finishing, and way to nail the mood you were going for.
yodoG
21. Apr 2020 · 20:21 UTC
Took me a while to figure out the mecahnics of this game. I think there needs to be some more on screen instruction particularly when it comes to equipping a weapon and eating food. And frankly, the eating mechanic needs to be simpler and less time consuming since it happens so much. It took me about 3 plays before I ran into any shopkeeper, and when I did, I couldn't figure out how to buy anything. I finally figured out that you had to click ON the food in the menu, not just the bar. That menu also covers up your inventory, so it's hard to tell if you actually added it to your inventory. Also, it looks like there are 5 equipment slots, but I could only equip one thing in the bottom-most slot. EDIT: I finally figured out that the helmet equips in the top slot. This was not clear. I never made it to the Goblin King. I just kept dying due to exhaustion from not having enough food to eat. Finally, for a game called cacophony, I was expecting there to be some kind of sound. That's what actually drew me to try the game out. I was disappointed to see that it was silent except for the title screen. I like your pixel art and textures!
yscik
21. Apr 2020 · 20:21 UTC
Congrats on finishing! I think building all the rougelike/rpg things like an inventory system is a bit of a miss for a short jam. Would have loved to see instead some more done with the nutrition mechanic you started exploring.
gnx
21. Apr 2020 · 20:22 UTC
Classic dungeon crawling! Lots of nice work from the sprite art to the functional mechanics and large world. I think some of the inventory management is a bit complicated (especially in the small window) and it would be great if holding down directional keys would make you move constantly. Nice job though :)
Busy Games
21. Apr 2020 · 21:08 UTC
Some audio would have been a great addition to the immersion of the game. Like mentioned above holding down the keys would be much easier to navigate. Great job overall!
Almighty Games
21. Apr 2020 · 21:13 UTC
The pixel art style is really my favorite part about the game. The game itself is a standard rogue-like game, maybe even more like Angband with the sprite based tiles. I loved what I saw and played very briefly to just get a feel for it. The procedural generation seemed to work perfectly. There was a bit of a problem with some of the enemies being too powerful so early in the game, so there could be some advancements in difficulty arrangements. fantastic game jam entry. Best to you!
karln
21. Apr 2020 · 21:30 UTC
@shardykins to be fair, the lack of smooth movement is a traditional part of the genre
mmadara1
21. Apr 2020 · 22:42 UTC
i really like this game, but i think the hungry bar decrease a bit more than i would, sometimes you can start correctly and its a bit unfair because you lost a loot of foor bar between floors, maybe u can add a food inmunity when the game start for a few steps to help that an help with clear starts
kjscott
23. Apr 2020 · 10:19 UTC
I had a few instances where I was moving into an enemy but causing any damage but I was receiving it, I needed to back away before it started to recongise my attacks. A few times I had tried eating food but it did nothing for my hunger bar. Maybe it was only fish that was working? I would also have had the player start with the sword equipped.
Reece Geofroy
26. Apr 2020 · 18:37 UTC
The artstyle is solid :) well done!
Plopmenz
28. Apr 2020 · 16:58 UTC
Very nice game! Also what can you do with the staff that cost 200 gold? XD I did not feel much better than the axe. Just two tings I would have liked to see: Damage numbers / HP when attacking enemies, I dont want to constantly read the log to see what happend and some sort of map / minimap, as it was hard to know where I've have not been yet. But Im already amazed you guys pulled this off in such a short timespan! Well done! :D
ZerohBeat
28. Apr 2020 · 16:58 UTC
I died a few times before figuring it out, only got the second level once.... Really cool game :)
Well done for making a complete game in 72 hours!
lofiskyline15
28. Apr 2020 · 18:57 UTC
the gameplay here is really solid and that's awesome to see! i figured out the sword thing but I feel like it could be spelled out a bit more. the only other downside is that the shops initially aren't super distinct and I totally thought I was about to get wrecked by two enemies haha. but how in depth everything is is stand-out for sure and I could come back to this.