Abyss Vaulter by sinclairstrange
My entry, Abyss Vaulter for LDJam 57. The theme was depth and I decided instead of going into the depths, like try and escape that theme. All created solo within 72 hours.
You've fallen down a sinkhole! Oh no! Luckily for you a gun has fell on your head and balloons seem to be friendly! Ascend the abyss and escape these depths!
Featuring: 3 Unique Areas 22 Levels 11 Upgrades 8 Enemies 7 Weapons And all the blasting 8-bit fun!
Description soon but: Controls: Arrows - Jump A - Jump S - Shoot Enter: Pause (-/+ Changes volume)
(These controls can be edited in the game)
Now I sleep!
Screenshots:
(Link to a full playthrough over on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GClSKA7fJ68 )
| Itch.io Page | https://sinclairstrange.itch.io/abyss-vaulter |
| You Tube Playthrough | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GClSKA7fJ68 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/abyss-vaulter |
Ratings
| Overall | 1th | 4.588⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 2th | 4.588⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 334th | 3.412⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 226th | 4.015⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 2th | 4.868⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 1th | 4.735⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 223th | 3.397⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 45th | 4.309⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 57🗳️ | 36🗨️ |
It never ceases to amaze me how much you manage to get done in these timeframes lol. MMO when ?
In all seriousness though, it goes without saying that the presentation here was amazing all around. Love how each of the 3 areas both looked but also felt distinct. Let it be because of the types of enemies, or the overall visual styles of each area.
Loved how each area had atleast one mechanic to differentiate them. I also loved how you introduced each of these new obstacles in a way that I pretty much instantly understood them. I thought every level had a great flow to it as well of this. I can definitely see some people speedrunning this and having a swell time doing it
That said, I think the game suffered in a way because of this. Mostly because the level design started to get somewhat repetitive in each of the 3 areas. This was mostly prevalent in the second half of each area where it felt like certain ideas got re-used a little too many times. ( I think some of the levels in the first area had a little too many instances where there was an enemy that would shoot at you horizontally on a higher platform )
While I thought the diamonds in the third area were an interesting obstacle, it wasn't clear as it could have been what the range of their pull was. More often than not I couldn't really hear the sound they were making because of everything else, and I ended up getting pulled away even though I was only slightly on their level.
The rogue-lite mechanics definitely kept things interesting and really incentivised me to collect gems and go for bonuses
The final boss while cool, also felt a little undercooked imo. All of it's attacks felt like I could mostly just shoot upwards while moving only slightly. Still, it goes back to what I said before about how amazing it is that you were able to put out all of this, including a final boss, in such a small timeframe lol
All in all, this is a very polished game with a ton of great content in it. Great stuff
Excellent job! :blue_heart:
Aww thank you for your kind comment! I'm glad you enjoyed the game ^-^. So with the stages dragging on the original plan was to have five randomised levels/depths from a set of 10 to play. However I ran out of time making all these areas, so I just kept the ones I had made. In hindsight maybe I should of just removed them, but seeing as I already made them, I kept them in. But honestly thanks for playing, I'll be checking out games over this weekend when I have some downtime, can't wait to play!
@hoichael
Thanks for ye comment! I'm glad ye liked the game! I'll be sure to check out your game this weekend when I'm gunna play a bunch of jam games! :)
@badpiggy
Thank you for your beautiful review! Honestly all that really helps with further jam games or titles I decide to make, as always amazing comments! So with the regards of the repetitive levels towards the end, there is a reason for that. The original plan was to have five levels, that would be randomly pulled from 10 levels. However I just ran out of time at the end to do this, so I kept the ones I had already made. In hindsight I should of just chose 5 better ones and left the rest but I kinda felt I'd made them so it'd be a shame to waste them.
Yeah the diamonds could of done with a little more of a tale than just a noise and them blinking, they pull you in once you're on the same Y axis as the whole tile. Again should of made the hitbox on the gem a little smaller but blame lack of sleep on that! And with the boss, I didn't intend to plop a boss in, but I had an hour spare towards the end, so I thought it'd be nice to end on something a little bit extra than just finish the stages. If I had a bit more time or I factored in a boss at the start I'd make it a little more fleshed out.
I can't wait to play your game, I saw it over on the discord server and twitter and it looks rad! I'll be checking out games this weekend when I've got more free time and I'm fully recovered! Looking forward to it ^-^
@caffeinetrip
Aww thanks for the kind comment, looking forward to checking out ye game this weekend! ^-^
@shadyshade Aww that means so much to me! I hope you enjoyed it! It's all worth the lack of sleep in the end haha. Looking forward to playing ye game this weekend! ^-^
@morepixels Hehe the temptation not to make it into a full game is big! Thank you for your kind words, I'm glad you enjoyed the game! I'm looking foward to checking ye game out this weekend when I'm fully recovered and have some free time! ^-^
Someone needs to take your 'hazards that shoot on timers' license away though!
I did feel like the enemy placement could be pretty tight at times, especially with the above ^ offenders.
As a nitpick - I also found it a little frustrating that I don't return to aiming horizontally automatically & have to push left or right to do so. I think I'm just so used to games where it works that way, though.
Also, like @badpiggy said, the boss was surprisingly easy; I think, with my double damage upgrade, I gunned it down in like 6 seconds with the starting gun. Not that it really detracted from my experience, I think it's great that you managed to add it, & it served as a good finale vs just 'you escaped!'. (also way better than it being wicked hard)
Excellent music too!
It's definitely on the level that wouldn't look out of place in Steam (maybe with more levels). I wouldn't have guessed that this is made in just 3 days if I saw it on Steam.
What software did you use to make the music?
Still, amazing work on this. I had a great time playing it. The environments were all beautiful, and the controls were sufficiently tight. This deserves _way_ more ratings than it has. I'm assuming you just haven't had time yet, but if you want this game to get to the minimum of 20 ratings (and I really hope it does!), I'd highly recommend you get to playing some games soon. This won't surface very often in people's feeds otherwise, unfortunately, and that would be a shame because it's a wonderful game. I found it through the Fresh Games feed on itch.io, not through this site at all.
Ok, this is the most completed and beautiful game i saw in this LD. I really dunno how you made it just in three days, but you are awesome! And the game is really great!
There was one thing I didn't like about the gameplay: When you aim upwards and release the direction button, the character continues to aim upwards. Usually in this type of game, the character only aims upwards while the button is pressed. This prevents you from taking damage from an enemy that is in front of you or coming towards you.
Otherwise, I made sure to play until the end and fly out of the hole in my beautiful blue balloon.
Congratulations! It will be saved on my list of "Coolest Ludum Dare Games"
Music is awesome.
How did you managed that make that game in this time frame ?
It feels like a complete finished polished game.
Reminds me of Downwell a bit but with so great NES Vibes.
I REALLY love that game and will definetly play it tomorrow again - i want to see the end lol.
Well, this was just freakin' great on all sides. Some nice weapon variety and interesting enemies and environmental effects. Very enjoyable difficulty. I was getting some strong Velgress vibes here, am I crazy? Also: how the heck did you make so many levels?! You had 50% more time than me, but you created like 400% more content. If I had one minor complaint, actually, it'd would be that you could have dropped maybe 1/3 of the levels and packed all the same nice level design ideas packed into the rest.
Also, rocket launcher OP.
The experience was very well polished, the graphics were great, the music was a *jam*, the amount of levels made for a satisfying experience start-to-end, well done! It's one of the best entries I have seen this jam, so the following are mostly nitpicks:
* The weapons were interestingly varied, but I was not always happy to see each. (Looking at you, spreadshot.) There were situations where I would have clearly preferred to use one over the other, but this was left basically up to chance: did I happen to have a good weapon equipped for this section? What confused me a bit more was that in a couple of places there were side-by-side weapon pick ups (both at the start of a level IIRC?). This would make a lot more sense if the player were given the freedom to actually switch weapons, which IMO would make for more interesting/strategic gameplay, too.
* The early levels were quite easy and not *super* different from each other. Maybe the difficulty curve could be a liiitle bit more steep.
* The boss, once I got to it, turned out to be a little disappointing! Just shot it a bunch of times, it just had a simple pattern with one wave of sending some bats after me. Should be stronger! :)
* I wish the shop had more exciting things to offer! I looked through the line up and for many things I thought: yeah, this looks ok, but there was nothing that I really actively wanted to save up for. In retrospect, the orb of ow was probably the most fun upgrade of the bunch.
* The screen scroll was a bit frustrating at times: the levels often had two parallel paths on the left and right, and gems to pick up on each side. Once the branches connected I wanted to collect gems from the enemies/gem clusters at the top of the other path, but having got to the top, the screen already scrolled a bit. Now, there was a little bit of grace because you could still stand on the platforms that were *just* below the screen, even though you could not see them. I guess I understand that this mechanic exists to support some of the more tricky platforming sections in the later areas, where the player is punished for falling off of thin platforms, but the side effect of not being able to collect what you want in the earlier levels was not the best.
* There was a strange stickiness to aiming upwards? I expected it to only last as long as I helt the up arrow key, but it was not quite that.
* I had to restart once because after respawning from falling off of the screen, because the player character was placed on a ledge, but then could not move or shoot. I could only press the arrow keys to aim, but that was it. :)
The difficulty was perfect for me, though I think on the second run I've abused the homing bullets a lot, to a point where I wouldn't grab other updates. They make going through the enemies easier, though I wouldn't say the game becomes unbalanced because of that. It required less skill from me, but was still fun!
Pretty awesome that I could play on a really low end machine too.
@euler-moises Based on one of the author's itch.io comments, CT Fusion was used. The author seems to know that engine quite well - to be fair I think the beautiful outcome depends less on the tool itself, and more on the author's abilities, which are - as we see - superb.
So much polish, really great job.
