Arkeolog by Shaggy
The Cursed Depths Await
Deep beneath the earth, forgotten tombs whisper of ancient treasures. You are an archaeologist who has descended into a procedurally-generated temple, armed only with a flickering torch and an insatiable greed for artifacts. But the darkness is alive and every relic you claim places a curse that upon your soul.
The deeper you go, the greater the treasures... and the heavier the curses.
Story
You've discovered an entrance to an ancient underground temple, rumored to hold priceless artifacts from a civilization lost to time. But these treasures are not freely given, each one carries a dark curse. Some curses dim your torch, making you vulnerable to the restless spirits that haunt these depths. Others slow your movements, cloud your vision, or even prevent your escape entirely.
The ghosts fear your torch's light, but as curses accumulate, your flame weakens and the ghosts gets bolder. Protection charms offer temporary respite from spectral attacks, but they are precious few. You must balance greed with survival: collect enough artifacts to make the expedition worthwhile, but retain enough strength to reach the extraction bucket and escape with your life and your fortune.
Goal
Navigate into the procedurally-generated temple, collecting valuable artifacts (grails, rings, coins, weapons, skulls, and scepters) while managing the curses they inflict. Avoid or survive encounters with ghosts that stalk the shadows and traps around the temple. When you've gathered enough treasure or when the curses become too heavy to bear find the extraction bucket to escape and bank your gold. But beware: death means losing gold based on how deep you ventured.
Will you escape with riches, or be forced to leave your loot behind?
Controls
- WASD / Arrow Keys - Move
- Mouse - Look around
- Space - Jump
- E - Interact (pick up items)
- I - Toggle inventory
- Gamepad Support - Left stick to move, right stick to look, A/Cross to jump, X/Square to interact, B/Circle to toggle inventory.
Features
- Procedurally-Generated temple - Each expedition offers unique layouts with multiple floors
- Curse System - Every artifact brings penalties: reduced speed, dimmed torch, impaired vision, angry ghosts, or worse
- Persistent Gold - Your total wealth carries across runs—escape to bank it, or lose it to the darkness
- Dynamic Lighting & Atmosphere - Deferred rendering with volumetric fog, shadow mapping, and torch-based gameplay
- Ghost AI - Spectral enemies fear your light but grow bolder as curses weaken your flame
- Rarity System - Common to legendary artifacts with varying curse severity and gold values
- Progression between runs - Gold is accumulated through runs, purchase upgrades in the shop to venture deeper
Made with a custom typescript and WebGL engine. How deep will you dare to go?
| Link | https://github.com/Praccen/ldjam58 |
| Link | https://ldjam58.rlyeh.nu/ |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/58/arkeolog |
Ratings
| Overall | 455th | 3.438⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 585th | 3.021⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 420th | 3.208⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 305th | 3.813⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 631th | 2.273⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 130th | 4⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 24🗳️ | 25🗨️ |
@gat Thanks! We had a lot of more ideas which we did not have time to implement sadly. But we are happy with the result! What would you have liked to have seen more of?
I do have a few critiques:
* The game is not super clear on what is and isn't an artefact when you play it through for the first time
* Some of the artefacts are super small
* The ghost whilst interesting didn't seem to be any danger for me (maybe I did not play enough)
* You can just fall down to the bottom from the start and collect higher level stuff.
* The progression is super slow for a Jam game. I don't think I would ever be able to sink enough time buy all the items in the shop. Would be nice to have it progress faster.
* The procedural generation was cool but a lot of it felt similar to one another.
Overall though I thought it had some good ideas and could be interesting to play through more with a few tweaks. The custom engine ran well and I was impressed with the design.
Great feedback @surfa. I think we share a lot of you thoughts. We really would have liked more time to polish it, but still happy with the results! The ghosts do get angrier and angrier the more you play like you suspected though. Thanks for the input!
Fantastic job! :D
- The first person/mouse navigation didn't feel very smooth for, but this might be because of my setup or the browser version.
- When going close to a wall, everything becomes dark (like I am too close to the texture for rendering).
As mentioned below, these are just some small tips, overall your game looks very good!
@patuwu Thank you for playing!
@diralf Interesting that the sensitivity is so high, I don't think we experienced that issues but we might have a bug there somewhere. Thank you for the feedback and playing!
@pegasys You are probably right, we should have made the ghosts dangerous faster.. We were afraid it would be too hard initially but we could have tuned that more. Thanks!
@d3kryption Thank you, that means a lot!
@flying-dog-fish The archeologist.. has really strong legs perhaps and can fall great distances without issue? ;) Thanks for playing!
@stratcat66 It seems we had some sensitivity bug, is that what you encountered perhaps? And yes the light is slightly in front of the player so it kind of clips through things sometimes. Thank you for the feedback glad you liked it!
@bluedandelion Thank you! We had a great time making it!
That said, even though it has potential for much more (who wouldn't want to ditch the deadlines and keep developing the ideas forever), it's a great jam entry and congrats for getting it out in time. :sweat_smile:
But overall, it's a really cool concept!
Also, if you enjoy a slightly strange and absurd atmosphere, you might want to check out our game ;)