Cool concept! Art and audio support it well. And playing it was fun, although I did get bored by just standing by the bow, waiting for wave to over. Perhaps, stronger weapon would fix it. Otherwise - great entry!

Solid art and audio! Game is cute. I think the experience would've been better (for me) if tiles were all visible at the onset, but I respect the choice to have an exploration component.

i like the idea of balancing exploration and defense, maze was a bit disorienting tho lol. could be an improvement if i could shoot the bow myself, maybe find stuff like triple shot or fire arrows in the maze? good work!

What a fun game! I completed it first try, but I don't think it was too easy, just the right level of difficulty. Always carrying the boots and prioritising upgrades helped so much! Good entry!

Very nice concept. I wish the purpose of the items was a bit more clear. I couldn't read the instructions because the menu was not properly formatted and I couldn't figure out what to do with the chest, the map and the key. Also I was not sure how to manage the enemy waves when I'm exploring.

Really nice concept! I love the fact that I have to manage exploration and defense. I would like to have the ability to shoot the mobs myself by pressing frenectily a button. I also would like to have a feedback when I'm hurt. However, the graphics, the music and the concept are so cool!

I think concept was interesting but I couldnt figure out proerly what I was meant to be doing in the maze! The music wand art was also nice!

The concept of combining tower defense and delivery is really awesome! Love to explore the unknown map. The limit of picking up at most one item at the some time adds a lot of difficulty to me! Overall a great game.

I love this game! the way you have to manage time spent solving the maze and fighting of enemies is realy fun, little bit stressful when you are lost and enemies are aproaching but it's realy fun! I got a bug where one of the minions got stuck and I could not kill him with arrows but after i killed the boss I managed to push the minion myself into the line of fire. I realy had fun playing this game!

Fun exploration and defence game, mood was good and different items and 2-item combinations after getting the backpack made every exploration tactical as you wouldn't want to waste too much time because the waves are getting worse by the time. Good to include playing instructions inside the game as in the ludum page controls don't show up properly.

First game was wondering how everything works but second play I already had tactics in mind and played it through :)

I agree with other commenters that the instructions were a little confusing and hard to remember - besides that I really liked the art and the music. I think the "step" sound effect is way too prominent though, and gets in the way of the rest of the audio, which isn't ideal. Pretty solid overall.

@jul-li Definitely agree with you on the crossbow. If we had more time, I’ll definitely be interesting in exploring what might make the tower defense part more interesting. @julieb Having a spam to shoot part would definitely make it more engaging!

Mandatory victory screen:

It's like solving a maze, mixed with time pressure, Doom-style keycards, and RPG-style progression! Very interesting mashup of genres and ideas. Life got soooo much better after finding the map — maybe that one should be even closer to the start, or just unlocked from the get go. I didn't think I'd like upgrading the turret and running back to man it every so often, but I kinda did! Imagine adding tower defense gameplay into the mix — now we're getting somewhere!

I love the concept on paper; it's just there are so many little things that come together to make this thing *frustrating* when it should be *engaging.*

This is the second game I've played this Ludum Dare which has a dedicated "drop" button and it *really should not.* Upgrades should be permanent when obtained; making me choose between basic features like "run faster" and "see the timer" and "a map that doesn't fade after a few seconds" feels like a bad joke at my expense. Likewise, keys should be used instantly when you touch the door, as should turret upgrades when you touch the turret - *there should be no reason to have to explicitly "drop" anything at any time.* (Honestly, the fact that the map fades by default also strikes me as foul play!)

I want to love this game, I really do, I love the loop where you're having to constantly run back from your explorations to defend the flower, but the "delivery" angle you've tried to shoehorn in here with the "pick up and drop" mechanics is at complete odds with everything that makes this game *interesting*. The actual "tower defense" angle may be thin (it'd be more fun if you could actually aim and shoot oncoming enemies!), but it's the absolute least of my problems with this game.

@ryusui Thanks for checking out the game and taking the time to leave feedback. Some of the design decisions you mentioned would definitely be interesting to explore further -- within the constraints of a game jam we didn't have too much time.

If we were to explore this game further, making the tower defense engaging would be the first focus. I'm also curious how different angles towards the maze exploration could turn out.

@caeonosphere Congratulations! Thank you so much for checking out our game, seeing people have fun with this entry has been an absolute joy!

Damn, now I'm dreaming of a tower defense addition with different ways to upgrade the tower, different "checkpoints" along the enemy's routes would be so cool!

@digx7 I'll admit, I've been playing a lot of Desktop Dungeons and Soul Hackers 2 lately, so that might have made me a bit *opinionated* on matters of dungeon crawling! XD

I actually enjoyed the maze exploration part, *up until I noticed the game was eating my mapping progress while I wasn't looking.* I would've been fine, perhaps, if all I needed to do was find the map in order to keep my progress (still foul that it was being held hostage in the first place!), but the fact that I needed to *choose* between it and the running boots (yes, I did find the backpack, but I'd still have to forsake one or the other to carry keys, turret upgrades, or the bomb) soured me on the *carrying* mechanic in turn.

I should highlight - Desktop Dungeons *absolutely* puts a cap on what you can carry! But that cap is a generous *six,* with "small" items like potions fitting multiple to a slot, and there's no fumbling about with switching back and forth between items ("dropped" items are *recycled* for a bonus); inventory management is a puzzle, yes, but it rarely feels like a *straitjacket,* the way this game's limitations do.

It took me quite a while to figure out exactly what to do but once i understood how to drop items so i could carry something else back then things started to click. I didn't understand dropping the chest by the bow until i accidentally did it. Overall the game is really solid but it could benefit from a simple tutorial for picking up, dropping items and to express the reasons why you'd want to do them. In the end i still had a ton of fun - great work!

I played it until the end. The concept reminds me a bit of 'Dome keeper' with the core loop explore>upgrade>fight.

As a player when there is too much text at the same time, I partially read. So I play and did not understood at all (my fault but we are legion).

I was able to pick up chest but not to drop it, because I was dropping with the same button, witch you did because we can carry multiple things, so you need a dedicated drop button, and another button to roll those items. I think it's overcomplicated. You could take keys/map/boots/scepter one for all (Of course it changes the difficulty). Chest/Bomb can be picked-up/dropped using the same button. For chest a simple hit of the turret could drop automatically.

After taking the time to read completely 'how to play', that was clearer.

During the Fight phase there is not much to do, I think you could simply improve it by placing 3 (5?) bows at different places (but not too far), than you have to juggle from one bow to another to defeat the multiple attacks.

Once said, I like the mood of the game, the SFX and enemies. The like the exploration part with the fog of war but wish I found the map earlier ;). I had a good time. Great job.

Cool concept. Lots of mechanics for the puzzle. Love the Items pickups

The game is interesting and challenging. I enjoyed the combination of map exploration and flower defense mechanics in the game.

While the execution is pretty rough (no feedback on upgrading crossbow, no in-game instructions, all carried items drop at the exact same place) I do really like the concept of dungeon crawling and tower defense combined. The exploration is my favorite part.

I like the idea a lot. The games need a little bit more polishing (audio visual feedback mostly), but in general it's really fun to play. I like th maze mechanic, it gives the delivery a special touch and makes the game much more fun. Also the tower defense part is a great addition. I just like the combination of all aspects together. Make it a little bit more polished and you got a pretty good winning game! :)

I beat the game! The controls are a bit unclear and I had the read through the game description to figure out what to do. I liked the general concept, though chest is not the best imagery for upgrading, perhaps if it was something like "bow parts" or something like that. The maze felt a bit tedious but I did like finding the items (after reading up what they did). Keep up the good work!

excellent game!! it took me a couple tries to understand how to use the items, it was very fun and entertaining :smile: , I play it again just to buff the turret to max :muscle_tone4:

Hahaha, you have to hold the boot to run faster, brilliant! :D I had a lot of fun with this game, it might just be my favourite entry of this jam so far! Some of the mechanics were not too intuitive at first, I would have never figured out the chest upgrades without the instructions, but there were instructions, so hey.

Without upgrades, first I thought the attacks are a red herring, and you have to complete the objective ignoring the flowers. But in the end, it was much easier to just upgrade my bow quickly, and keep holding a boot whenever I can the rest of the time. (In fact, maybe the waves became too weak at that point, making the rest of the job not much of a challenge. Maybe this part could use some tweaking.)

Sadly a bug prevented me from seeing the victory screen: some monsters spawned in odd positions in the room, so they couldn't go down the tunnel, so the battle round never ended. But I did deliver the bomb, and it was still satisfying to do.

I really liked the visuals, the mechanics, as well as the dynamic music. The game feels like a very complete experience, well done!

Probably THE BEST GAME of this jam, I honestly loved it, and the music touched my soul for real. awesome game.
and please tell me the name of the music. lol