Escape the Depths by Jhonny111
Escape the Depths is an adventure game where you have to mine you way through the underground and fight enemies along the way. Can you find the exit portal and escape?
Play it here or on itch.io. (Fullscreen recommended)
Controls
(Also explained ingame) - "WASD": Move your character - Left Mouse Button: Attack or Mine - Right Mouse Button: Turn Camera - "C": Open or Close Crafting Menu - "R": Switch Weapon
Mine For Resources

Fight For Treasure

| Link | https://jhonny111.itch.io/escape-the-depths |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/escape-the-depths |
Ratings
| Overall | 493th | 3.476⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 517th | 3.262⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 604th | 3⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 202th | 4.048⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 604th | 3.286⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 360th | 3.69⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 16🗳️ | 21🗨️ |
- I think I could've gotten stuck with non-upgraded lantern pretty easily if I didn't get lucky by seeing the area with monsters right before I was about to give up - just hacking through map and not knowing where to go!
- the game had a bit of a horror mood to it with the darkness and vignette and sound, so seeing the happy blob monsters was a bit of a contrast to that - maybe it would be even more impactful with some cute creepiness added, something like Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion?
Thanks for making it! It was fun!
I ran into a bug where the character moves wherever it wants, and there's no way to fix it. The controls are broken.
PS: smol bug, I think if player damages a wall you scale the collider too so it's possible to squeeze between walls which I used plenty :smile:

I liked the game, I just feel like there's an issue with how progression feels.
I felt like resources are very scarce, so you have to explore every point of interest to get the upgrades. Once you get them it feels great breaking walls easily, but just when you are breaking walls with one hit, you go back to having to hit them 3 times until you upgrade again with a new currency. It's more like "restarting" rather than "progression".
Also, there's much empty space. When you don't have any dark spots on the map, you can just keep going and going, without really knowing if there's something there. It can be very frustrating!
The player movement is very fast, yet the pickaxe animation is so slow. I think that it the animations were a little faster it would make the game much more enjoyable.
Anyways, nice entry! 😁
@broco There was also a compass planned but i didnt finish it. That way one would have to wander less aimlessly.
I was also not completely happy with how "smooth" attacks and player rotation were, but i was a bit tight on time.
I need an artist friend xD.
@urosh Sadly it does not show properly, but the later swings deal proportionally more damage then the animation takes. Its 1x for 1st; 2x for second; and 3x for third swing.
I also really appreciate how each upgradeable item significantly impacts gameplay. That kind of meaningful choice makes the game feel incredibly well-designed.
Another thing I really loved was the UI feedback on the right side — seeing what action I took and why it didn’t work was so helpful. It made it easy to understand what I could and couldn’t do, which is something many other jam games didn’t communicate as clearly — but your design totally nailed it.
Honestly, this has been the most satisfying gameplay experience I’ve had so far. I’m an artist (both 3D and 2D),If you ever need an artist for a future game jam, feel free to reach out,I’d love the chance to collaborate with you!
However, I noticed something strange that might be a bug:
I entered a room earlier that originally had three types of monsters, and at the time, I knew I couldn't defeat them, so I ran away.
Later, after upgrading all my equipment, I came back to clear that room — but this time, there were only two slimes left.
Even after defeating the slimes, the treasure chest stayed locked.
I remember earlier while digging tunnels, I did encounter one of the monsters from that room outside of it (I think it came from there), but now, no matter how many times I circle back, I can't find the missing monster anywhere. So I'm kind of stuck — I can't open the chest because I can't defeat all the original monsters in that room.
Just wanted to let you know in case it's something worth checking. Thanks again for the awesome game!
This was somehow addictively fun, something about gathering resources and upgrading stuff makes me spend way too long playing a game. The combat is simple but fun and not overly difficult (something I should learn myself lol). Awesome game!

I ran into some issues when I escaped from a room filled with enemy deciding to come back after some upgrades. It seemed that some enemys managed to get to me across the rock (the shooting guys).I came back and defeat all the enemies I saw in the room but the chest did't open. And later I tried to energize the gate but found one gate stone lost which seemed to be in the locked chest...Some codes making enemies out of sight go back may help.
Great job regardless!