Monty the Mole by Shawk

[raw]
made by Shawk for Ludum Dare 48 (JAM)

Monty the Mole is in a tough situation. He wants to dig to his heart's content, but he keeps banging his head against the mine's ceilings! Help Monty dig up enough gems to be able to afford a brand new mining helmet. And watch out for bats!

Controls: ( this game can be played entirely with just a joystick/arrows if you want :D (i wouldn't recommend tho) )

  • Joystick/Dpad/WASD/arrow keys to move left and right

  • (A)/down/[E] to hyper drill

  • (B)/up/[Q] to open the shop

    • (A)/right to select things in the shop

    • (B)/left to leave the shop

Gem values: yellow = 2$, cyan = 4$, green = 6$, orange = 8$, red = 10$, purple = 12$

....

Ratings

Given 8🗳️ 5🗨️

Feedback

Makeavoy
27. Apr 2021 · 05:48 UTC
So this is definitely addictive, which goes to show putting gems in a game is always a good idea!
I like how the head bonking doesn't hurt you in any way, you just feel bad for monty, thus the desire for the helmet. I really like monty's sprite, he's super nice and I want to buy him snacks

Some constructive criticism:

You can break progression with upgrades pretty quickly by holding down hyper drill forever. That's not necessary a bad thing, because honestly i had a lot of fun trying to just get as ridiculously OP as fast as possible, so that can play in your favor! I would recommend a cooldown for the hyper drill, OR maybe have a need to move side to side more. Like unbreakable or just really hard/non-valuable barriers? This way you have to move more and have more horizontal control. It's also tricky to avoid the bats unless you're just dashing down as fast as you can. But that helps balance it out 🤔

Overall it's pretty cool and it could shape up into a cute casual game if you add some more content :D
jaybaus
28. Apr 2021 · 20:18 UTC
A neat little game with cute graphics, nice job :)
Bobafett89
28. Apr 2021 · 20:28 UTC
This is very addictive, i like art, sound design and gameplay. Good job!
BoxedMeatRevolution
28. Apr 2021 · 20:50 UTC
Very fun to control and upgrade the mole! It was very satisfying to find big patches of gems, especially when they had those elusive purple ones. After I got the emerald helmet I had enough upgrades that I could just hold down and zoom through the ground, racking up lots of gems. Eventually bats stopped spawning, and then a little later the game froze, and Monty was left hanging in space forever. I think he died doing what he loved.