Aetherocks by AnimalX

[raw]
made by AnimalX for Ludum Dare 49 (JAM)

Aetherocks

Hello! This is our entry for the 49 LD jam! You're a miner in a magical cave that's starting to collapse. There's a magical fire keeping the cave from collapsing, but you need to keep it fed with the very resource you need to extract. Up to you to keep the cave from collapsing and extracting as much Aether as possible!

Mine rocks to grab aether fragments. Once you have fragments you can hand them in for score at the elevator or feed them to the fire to keep the cave stable!

Cropped.jpg

Lift.jpg

RepairRoom.jpg

InGame.JPG

InGame2.JPG

Ratings

Overall 596th 3.635⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Fun 746th 3.423⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 788th 3.269⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Theme 448th 3.852⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 432th 3.94⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Audio 410th 3.596⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Mood 464th 3.66⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Given 34🗳️ 31🗨️

Feedback

Daniel Giorlando
05. Oct 2021 · 00:47 UTC
Liked this one a lot! More chill than I expected. I really enjoyed the SFX actually. A little bit hard to aim the pickaxe but I had a good time.
achef122
05. Oct 2021 · 12:59 UTC
It's nice concept, execution of mining is very good, i like that it's not too easy (since you need to aim with pickaxe to hit crystals) but at same time its very satisfying when crystal drops out of it. I also like the falling stalagmites that stay in the ground for some time and make it so you cant move where they have fallen, its another aspect that makes player think about. Only thing i really missed is some background music.
fegabe
05. Oct 2021 · 13:02 UTC
The graphics and sounds are beautiful. The mechanic works good to. I'd like to have a goal different than waiting to die (maybe I missed there is one?). Good job anyways!
GabrielGameDev
05. Oct 2021 · 13:10 UTC
Very interesting game. I really liked the idea and the gameplay loop. To improve, I would increase the pickaxe's hitbox. And I believe the score is broken. I played for a while but in the end I got 0 point. The game starts off pretty quiet and after a while you're desperate to get things done. It managed to keep me interested to the end.
🎤 AnimalX
05. Oct 2021 · 13:29 UTC
@daniel-giorlando Thanks for playing the game! I put quite some time in the SFX, glad you liked them. We tried to make the mining feel realistic so you really need to aim the head of the pickaxe on the rock indeed.

@achef122 Thanks for the feedback! You can also mine the fallen stalagmites to clear the way, it just takes some time, so you need to decide if it's worth it! Unfortunately we ran out of time to create a music theme :(

@fegabe Thanks for playing! The goal is to extract as many crystals as possible, as it is a survival game I didn't want to put a goal to how many you need to collect, just as many as possible before the cave collapses!

@gabrielgamedev thanks for the feedback! Did you deposit ore into the elevator after mining it? This should make the score go up, but I'll double check right now. Glad you liked the game
GabrielGameDev
05. Oct 2021 · 13:40 UTC
@animalx Not really. So that was it =p
Abregado
07. Oct 2021 · 19:16 UTC
Very satisfying feeling from hitting the crystals. Nice work overall!
CozyGamePals
07. Oct 2021 · 20:45 UTC
I got 30! Wow, it's so ambitious to do a 3D game! It was really fun to juggle all the different meters as they were draining.
🎤 AnimalX
07. Oct 2021 · 21:02 UTC
@abregado Thanks for playing! Glad you liked it :)

@cozygamepals Nice! Pro-tip, the lower the stability bar the more the crystals you hand in are worth! We're more experienced in 3D than 2D, it would take us way longer to do a 2D jam than a 3D one :smile:
TrueWolves
07. Oct 2021 · 22:39 UTC
190! That is probably the most fun I've had in a game this Jam so far. The theme was well hit, things getting more unstable as time went on. As others mentioned, it had some skill involved without it being difficult. My only critique would be to make it more obvious when you're about to get hit, or that getting hit causes you to drop your crystals.
Iori Branford
08. Oct 2021 · 06:25 UTC
Nicely crafted with shiny visuals and crunchy sounds. Hitting the crystals feels great, but collision can be hard to find.
🎤 AnimalX
08. Oct 2021 · 08:55 UTC
@truewolves Wow, that's a great score! I wanted to mix some glass falling under the Oww sound effect when getting hit to indicate the crystals falling but ran out of time unfortunately :( Feedback is definitely something we need to work on in the next jam! Thanks fore playing

@iori-branford Thanks, glad you enjoyed the game! I agree with the collision, but it also gives a bit of a challenge!
Junber
10. Oct 2021 · 00:12 UTC
That was fun. The fire ate most of my crystals but I got a score of 134 in the end. The game seems quite polished and balancing the different meters was fun. At first I thought that the stalagmites were just for show but towards the end they actually blocked some places off sometimes which was cool. Here are a few minor things that could imo be improved:
- The pick-axe range should be longer: Standing right in front of ore, missing with the pick axe and having to reposition isn't very satisfying.
- I wish there was some way to add all of the crystals in my inventory to the fire.
- I also think the fire should consume fewer crystals in total, so you can send a higher ratio up.
- I'm not sure how I feel about the limited inventory. It wasn't relevant for me too often and when it was, emptying it at that moment felt more like chore than an interesting restriction.

But all of these didn't take much away from the experience.

Great job!
balduin
10. Oct 2021 · 12:50 UTC
Nice Game that fits the theme very well. The crystals look very pretty and hitting them feels really good.
LDJam user 269293
10. Oct 2021 · 18:25 UTC
Nice game, but you could add some exporation.
EternalXP
10. Oct 2021 · 18:52 UTC
This game is beatiful and fun. I didn't quite get if it was skill to hit the crystals first try or luck. But it kept me engaged and I like the magical vibes. Great game!
CynthianConspiracy
10. Oct 2021 · 20:06 UTC
Really good sound design, agreed! The pickaxe controls with trying to aim the head are interesting but confusing at first. I also didn't *find* the pickaxe the first time, and I didn't realize I had an inventory limit either until I noticed the top right of the screen—I thought there might be a glitch due to some crystals falling out of reach, at first.

I really like how there's more falling spikes as the cave destabilizes and that creates an extra challenge with having to use up pickaxe durability and time to get through them sometimes.

By the way, full screen at this FOV has a tendency to give me motion sickness issues… resizable window and/or FOV options can be important for that sort of thing.