LudumData

Pagemage by OrbitalBlueprint

[raw]
made by OrbitalBlueprint for Ludum Dare 48 (COMPO)

Play as the Page Mage and venture deeper and deeper into a book, fighting monsters along the way and gathering powerups to ready yourself for the tower in the middle of the field.

Each level, or page, has letters in the middle, which can be gathered to be used as projectiles. Some of these are helpful words, which can either give you health, give you more hearts, or increase your bullet capacity.

Controls

  • Arrow keys: Move around
  • X: shoot

Use of jam theme (Deeper and deeper)

You journey deeper and deeper into a book.

Unfortunately due to the time constraints, I wasn't able to fully finish this.

While I'm pretty proud of what I made, the game still has its obvious flaws due to me getting overly ambitious during the jam yet again. For instance, the gameplay isn't fleshed out. Also, the tower was intended to end with a boss battle, but in the jam submission build, the tower's levels have no end, instead making the goal "venture through as many levels as you can".

So essentially, if you got a game over in one of the tower levels, that's pretty much it :)!

Screenshots

pagemage_screenies.png

Windows executable https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1M0Iopu04aiZ7dcN4JEiRKaiuxJ9GlIKe
Gamemaker Studio 2 project file (github) https://github.com/orbitaldot/DeeperAndDeeper
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/pagemage

Ratings

Overall 33th 4.158⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Fun 37th 4.132⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 7th 4.553⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Theme 160th 4⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 47th 4.263⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Audio 25th 4.105⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Humor 136th 3.447⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Mood 79th 4⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Given 11🗳️ 14🗨️

Feedback

arya-s
26. Apr 2021 · 13:27 UTC
hi,
this game is amazing.
I really like playing inside a book. Special items being spelt out is very clever. The setting is amazing.

The game is a bit hard, I think probably because to turn you need to move in a direction so I often just run into enemies when I try to attack them.
I think if you had a mouse for aiming it would make controls smooth.

Great game!
GarethTheDestro
26. Apr 2021 · 14:05 UTC
This is crazy creative. Really awesome take on the theme, lots of fun.
LDJam user 249705
26. Apr 2021 · 16:57 UTC
Such a cool concept! Great job!
GeneralSturgeon
26. Apr 2021 · 17:02 UTC
Creative concept and nice feel and sound to picking up and shooting letters! Quite hard as arya-s mentioned though. I would also propose adjusting the controls.

Great job!
Slowfrog Again
26. Apr 2021 · 17:02 UTC
Excellent. Simple but polished.
negabyte
26. Apr 2021 · 17:13 UTC
Amazing execution. Absolutely faultless on all fronts. Loved the graphics, loved the audio, loved the theme. And the game itself is great fun and plays brilliantly.
Stampizi
26. Apr 2021 · 17:15 UTC
That was great. I appreciate the take on the theme, and it had a great setting. It took a bit to get the hang of the game, I died in the tutorial 3 times, but once I did I got through it. It had interesting enemy variety, I think the starting A monsters might've been a little hard (see dying in the tutorial). Thanks for the game!
maxr00
27. Apr 2021 · 00:43 UTC
This concept is so cool! The visuals played so well on it, good job!
BidentWorks
27. Apr 2021 · 13:22 UTC
Super cool concept! Graphics work well with it and it feels great to go forward page by page. Nice enemy variety too.

As mentioned above, basic mob enemies were the hardest. Probably a bit too fast, especially when 3 of them gang up on you :D. Difficulty curve could probably be tweaked a bit.

Good game though, feels like a concept powerful enough you could potentially expand on a bigger scale game!
v0idpointer
28. Apr 2021 · 10:07 UTC
Love the concept. Really enjoyed playing it, good job
dpmzi
01. May 2021 · 11:38 UTC
The book theme is such a cool approach to the theme! Love how words and letters are the power ups. There's some polish in here that really makes things pop: the pitch levels when shooting for instance.

Good BGM and nice, consistent, graphics. Sweet game!
Untitled Studios
01. May 2021 · 19:57 UTC
Absolutely lovely! Art was incredible, concept was great, gameplay was fun. I kind of wish shooting was more of a choice and conserving ammo was more important (maybe add in a worse weapon you have to use when out of letters?), and that I had a second or two to get my bearings on a page before enemies charge, but neither of those were especially detrimental to the experience. Congrats on making a great game!
MiltonNH25
04. May 2021 · 10:56 UTC
Great job on the game. Delving deeper into a book was a cool use of the theme and the concept as a whole worked really well. Using words as power-ups was a nice touch and the sound effects for shooting and collecting letters were very satisfying. I do think the game could have benefited from either slowing down the enemies that chase you, or allowing the player to shoot in directions they are not moving. Also I felt the early pages lacked variety since rooms were usually just letters or 1-2 of the enemies that chased you. However, once you started seeing the other enemies later it was much better in that regard. Overall though, I had a really good time with it and would love to see it expanded on.
PiJaMar
07. May 2021 · 02:48 UTC
This game is so good! It has a satisfying game loop, it's pretty hard but never feels unfair, there's progression and a learning curve. Add great pixel art and cool sounds and music on top of that and you got a hit! I'm impressed that you made this in 48 hours. Great idea, superb execution. Didn't feel unfinished at all!

If you're looking to add stuff to it post jam, I think it would be cool if there were some strategic decisions during the runs, like in a "choose your adventure" book, where you can choose your rewards / upgrades / shortcuts / enemies by going to different pages. I hope you keep working on it, I'm a fan!
Harmadillo
09. May 2021 · 08:42 UTC
Great game. The different enemies mixed up the combat nicely. Loved the book theme.
PaperAeroplane555
09. May 2021 · 10:59 UTC
damn all the effects feel so satisfying and great! the page flipping sound and collecting the letters were well executed, and the gameplay also was really fun and a creative take on the theme

however i just wished that there could be a bit of buffer time between entering each page? but overall really really well done!! :>
Cruise Elroy
13. May 2021 · 22:04 UTC
Lots of potential here! Unfortunate that features had to get cut short but I could easily see this being expanded and polished up even further in a post-jam version! What's already here is pretty fun to play through too.