I really liked the music and the pixel art. It has a nice vibe and reminded me of childhood games. Thanks!

As I understood it, you’re supposed to walk around the map and at some point the shovel should activate, but it’s not clear when exactly that happens.

Thanks for the game!

I love that the game has multiple endings. At first not understanding what I was doing, I immediately went up the steps to the lighthouse and everyone died. The second time, I did find what is probably the easiest jewel and got the 1 jewel ending. I couldn't quite figure out what else I was supposed to do for other jewels. I got a shovel and there was one house that mentioned digging, but I couldn't quite figure out where exactly I was supposed to use the shovel or how. Overall, love the vibe and funny dialogue. Felt very smooth for movement and reminiscent of old pixel games. When I have more time, I could see myself going back to get the other endings

The retro style of the game is really good. As soon as the music starts, it feels like you've traveled back in time. But I didn't really find the gameplay all that interesting — though to be fair, I'm just not that into this kind of gameplay.

Very good presentation, the music changing when going inside a building is a great detail.
I managed to get up to three jewels. The easy one, the shovel, and the illusion one. The two harder ones were found somewhat on accident, as I was just walking all over the map after a while.
There are a lot of dialogue and hints, though try as I might those other three jewels are beyond me for now.
The three endings I did get were funny too, I liked that at least the third one is considered a good ending.
The difficulty in knowing what to do is also very reminiscent of older retro games, so in that regard you did a very good homage as well!

That's the one I got 

This is a fun conceit for a game! I spent my first playthrough just going in all the houses and seeing what everyone had to say, expecting the game proper to start after I left the town, then was surprised by the game ending after I took the stairs. It was fun to go through the map again and try to find all the secrets I'd missed the first time around. The art and music are great too, and feel authentic to the NES.

I was only able to get four jewels; while I assume there's a fifth, given the page says there are six endings, I couldn't find it for the life of me. I enjoyed what I did manage to finish, though!

I love the premise and execution! Sadly, I couldn't help Phranna to save the city because for the life of me I was unable to find more than 2 jewels, so I only got to experience half your game. I tried several times, but in the end I gave up. Maybe I'm just too stupid to properly understand the hints though.

Anyway, here's a list of things I loved:

- the audiovisual presentation is *chef's kiss*. The title screen alone is so captivating that I spent at least a minute before even starting the game (your music is SOO GOOOD!)
- A village full of silly litlle NPCs who react to current developments? Why, that is exactly my jam! (haha, literally: the heart of my game too). I love how even in these retro limitations they left their mark. I simply must know more about Sir Cle and Lady Soup - how mighty are they that the two alone can slow down a whole army?? I yearn for a manual of yore with illustrations, lore and jokes 😌
- Your spritework is incredible and the idle animations are an unexpected twist that really takes the aesthetic to another level. Special shoutout to Felix, by far the best 16x16 px cat I have ever seen :heart_eyes_cat:

FAMITRACKER MUSIIIIIIIC :heart: :heart: :heart:
Really well designed retro game a-like !!
Dialogs are soooo fun, great job ! :wink:

Zoomers CAN'T get that last jevel .

Nice game! I was surprised when the game ended as soon as I climbed the stairs! After a couple of tries i found only 2 jewels and got reasonable ending...

@purrseus

" I yearn for a manual of yore with illustrations, lore and jokes 😌"

Like this?


OMG 😲

100 % exactly like that!!! :heart_eyes:


Let's go! I'll leave the following screens a secret. (A secret to everybody you might say) You guys are sneaky, but although the same was simple, the dialogue was funny and all the information to find all of the gems is there. A hint for anyone looking, go talk to everyone again, and again.
!>And bring your video game lore knowledge

Nice work! Fun art and music. great dialogue, and fun sneaky puzzles. I wish the game was a little longer, but what you have is great.

Very good art and audio. Nice game.

I liked the style of old games.
It's like I'm playing Dendy.
But I didn't understand what was required of me. I found two gems, and that's it. English isn't my native language.

Loved the Kona riddle XD

I had a blast playing this—the game feels incredibly polished for a 72-hour project. The gameplay loop is super fun and keeps you on your toes the entire time. The "Signal" theme was integrated in a really clever way, and the overall vibe of the game is just fantastic.

The difficulty curve is well-balanced, though the siege definitely got my heart racing! It’s impressive to see such a cohesive experience from a small team. Definitely one of my favorite finds this jam. Great job to everyone involved, and thanks for the fun experience! Rated! 🐉🔥

I love everything, the theme is well-integrated, and the mechanics fun!!

Just the AI art, you don't need it, it spoils the presentation.

fun little game got lost after getting 3 gems and ended up kinda brute forcing things; you with you, this with that, trying every combination. I enjoyed the music as well!

I really liked the game. The graphics, the music, the vibes it gives you. I managed to find 2 of the jewels! I really liked that nod to the Konami Code. I was quite surprised. Very good game!!

Before I knew it, I’d already been playing for an hour. I really enjoyed this game, especially uncovering all the secrets—the satisfaction of finding Kona the Wizard's 'secret' was the best part. The music is excellent, and I love how it transitions between the indoors and outdoors.

I loved it, great game! It's a real masterclass in making the most out of a limited set of interactions. All you could do was walk around, but there was still such a rich set of puzzles. Very well done!


Gostei que tem até bastante interação e "puzzle" para algo que à primeira vista parece ser só "andar pra lá e pra cá". Queria que tivesse pelo menos alguma dica de onde usar a pá (se tem eu não percebi, esbarrei no local totalmente sem querer). Os gráficos ficaram bem legais, a música mais ainda (por favor faça músicas pra mim na próxima vez, desde que não tenha muitos efeitos eu consigo exportar do FamiTracker 😅). Adorei que até o Soldado Aleatório N°427 tinha uma fala (me pergunto se mais alguém foi falar com ele além de mim).

A única coisa que não curti ver - mas que não influencia na minha avaliação do jogo - é o monte de "arte" de IA aqui na página. Não sei se é o tal do "uncanny valley" mas me dá uma coisa ver imagens de genAI em geral, não sei nem explicar. Se fosse de uma pessoa desconhecida talvez eu nem tivesse tentado ver o jogo.

Hey! That's so different from everything I seen so far on LD, it's trully an ancient spirit of video games here and I love it. I managed to find only 2 jewels as I'm not very bright one but it still was a lot of fun :3 Thank you so much for this experience!

well... at least I helped enemies have a nice barbecue? :D


Enjoyed uncovering the secrets! The best part of a good puzzle is having your curiosity rewarded and there's a couple of moments in this game where that really works. The "dig here" spot was probably my favorite because it didn't require any "try every tree" or "every spot on this building" effects. Not too hard to get the super final ending and satisfying to find each jewel!

[Thanks for submitting your game to stream!](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2756861534?t=00h49m22s)

I'd be very curious to see how many non-old-heads get the Konami code reference. :laughing:

This was super cool and was dripping in oldschool NES flair! One of the secrets had me scratching my head but it was really cool when I got it! Well done and the oldschool manual pages were really neat!

Fun seeing the return to the retro style game. Very simplistic game but when you start figuring it out, its very satisfying. It did feel a bit difficult figuring out some of the clues, hard to know in a jam if i need to just discover more clues or that's all the content there is. The multiple endings made it feel worth while checking out what was possible.

The music was really great! I'll have to play it a few more times but I liked how it had multiple endings.

Thank you for submitting the game to the stream. I dont think I have anything to add to what I said live beside that the AI art is a massive negative to me.


Absolutely loved the retro graphics and the music! I found the Illusionist's puzzle to be the hardest to solve.

I managed to find endings for 0-4 jewels, but I got a hint about one the Kona one from a previous comment (because I searched for it). If anyone wants a better hint (because the one I got spoiled some fun out of it), this one shouldn't spoil anything (it also might not help):

!> Read the text you see on the screen aloud, including the name of the character.

It would be more fun if I figured that puzzle out on my own, but I don't think I would, and even if I applied the hint above I'm not sure it would actually help me.

I liked everything about the music and gfx, though I feel that brute-forcing for a hidden entrance everywhere is not a thing I particularly enjoy (and to be honest I'm not even sure it's a viable option, since I found only one jewel like that). Or, more probably, I'm getting too lazy with games/life and require some more direct hints. :sweat_smile:

Anyway, even though I wish I had found all the jewels, I had fun getting the ones I did. Congrats on the entry!

The game itself really is minimalistic, but it is really nicely polished. Everything works together to make a really nicely consistent retro experience. Even this page itself looks really nice with the fake manual pages!

I got the five jewels. Didn't think it was ***that*** code because you don't have A B button controls.

You did a great job capturing the atmosphere of old games.
I like how the music fades when entering a building—nice attention to detail.

I was missing clearer visual feedback for the tools; it’s not obvious when the shovel actually triggers.

The little riddles are very nice! I got 4, I think I missed one with the illusionist. It makes for a compelling gameplay, of the right length for the jam. Graphics I don't like that much, but the music is great. The manual is very nice but I would have preferred without IA. Not that IA cannot sometimes be a fun tool to play with, but in a jam it's about what you are able to make so not the place imo.

Wow just noticed the two new manual pages in the comments! 😍 I loved how well it captured the spirit and feeling of playing some early JRPGs (especially the music!) and the thrill of discovery when I first saw the dragon or entered the house. Also liked the idea of the shop and thank you so much for the subtle hint of reading out Kona's dialog to get the last gem! Long live Dragonia! Here’s the VOD of me playing it on stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMR3_KTESOU

It was a magical experience :) The dialogue was funny, and the overall story was also interesting and it kept me playing. I really wanted to save the kingdom of Dragonia. The music also fits the game very well, and one detail I noticed, which I think added a lot and it stood out for me, is the fact that when you entered houses the music would sort of get muffled, so it feels like a fanfare is playing outside, just for you. The graphics also fit the game very well, and they add to the overall magic.

I like how you discover things about the world through the dialogue, and how the dialogue has riddles that you have to figure out. And the story snippets that you would get after each playthrough are also cool.

At first attempt I found 3 jewels, it took me a second one to find all of them. Really enjoyed the game ! Thank you for sharing !

The NES inspiration is super charming and cute and I think the game manages to capture the feel of 8bit games very well and the style is very accurate too respecting the palettes and the sprite limitations.

it took me a bit to find every jewel but I finally managed to find them all and I thought some of them were pretty clever.

I also love the manual pages for the game it's such a cool touch, we tried to do kind of a similar thing for our game by capturing the feel of a certain era

Just tried the game aaaand... i think i'm pretty dumb, i managed to get only one jewel 😭 I couldn't figure how to use the showell. However, I really love this old 8bit style and the sound fit so well to it. It was overall a pretty experience for me !

Great work on recreating the look, feel and sound of an old console game! Loved charging around looking for that last gem. And the easter eggs ... <chef's kiss>.

Excellent work -- very well done!

I played some of the old ff games last year and this brought me right back to then. I was instantly ramming my head into walls to try to find hidden things. I think I missed one secret, but I got this ending.

I really like the art and sound effects of this game! Surprisingly, there are character introductions that I didn't expect. Each character has its own characteristics and skill advantages, and I think it's really well thought out. The style is also very unique.

Dropping a long over due comment here. Really appreciate you giving me the opportunity to play this game [on stream.](https://www.youtube.com/live/fCwnxSEAlQY?si=U8hj6ZEmxllUMNQw&t=2495)

My thoughts are shared in the VOD. Hope we see you back for LD60. ✌

i found the 6 jewel, simple gameplay with nice mood and lore. I found it original, nice entry!

Great game jam game design where the game is quick to finish, replay, and discover secrets within. Thanks for letting me know the manual characters were made with Gen AI so I could ignore them while rating.

Given more time, instead of quitting to a black screen on Esc, I think escaping to the title screen would be preferable. The current design is good for quickly muting the game, but requires a page refresh even though finishing the game normally lets you retry from the beginning.

Nice touch on making the audio slightly muted while indoors, and the humorous character writing.

Really creative idea -- I loved the puzzle aspect of it! The music fit very well as well

the vibe of this game is very nice! I love the music. Overall a fun little game :)

Fun take on the theme! Some of these were a bit difficult to figure out but I got there in the end.

!> For example the tree did not stand out from the other trees, if you changed the tree slightly like you did with the shovel jewel it would be a lot better!

!> Once I figured it out, I really liked the konami code puzzle, but I wonder if everyone will get this puzzle. Maybe you could hide the konami code somewhere in the game? (If you've done this, I totally missed it)

Good entry!

I love the retro audio and visuals. Great work on that! I loved getting to talk to all the people in the world, but I wasn't very great at figuring anything out haha. But it's a polished little experience, you did well!

I would like to thank you all for taking some of your time to stop by and test my game. I am grateful for all the praise and criticism.
In each Ludum Dare I learn a lot and I am very happy to see how much the community helps each other. I want to see everyone at the next Ludum Dare and I hope we have even more fun with so many wonderful ideas.

Thank you very much.


@fassenberg @tinker1175 @on-ne @toppervideogames @tkap1 @python-b5 @purrseus @jacky-san @awalone @jastrzebska @link270 @venomousmouse @yarcha @pkalaizich @nuclme @christina-antoinette-neofotistou @block97 @frowsyfrog @tomas-poblete @vidarn @wendel-scardua @sobigdrasil @ruddiculous @coleslaughter @conduit @sharky3188 @sasori @poweranze @marks @marudziik @tygrak @andriybyelikov @pipetto @yorsh @philstrahl @partialmoon @okkolobr @tetracold @ouisky @digital-bacon @sirred @zhangzhimu @emsea @fabonacci @nbumgardner @artur-hawkwing @mamboman @jvdwijk @sarah