I decided to share how I arrived at the final version of the game.

The Idea:

I struggled for a long time, thinking the theme was too weird and that I wouldn’t come up with anything. And it’s true—after three hours, the only idea I had was a swimmer digging through dirt with his bare hands. Honestly, I wasn’t unhappy with the idea, just frustrated that I didn’t have multiple options to choose from... Oh well. I immediately imagined a lot of blood and the vibe of those old Flash games from 2008-2010. And I thought, Hey, this could actually be fun.

Graphics:

Since time was limited and I didn’t want to use AI, I went for a simple art style that matched the absurdity of the concept. I think the visuals turned out pretty good... but that’s just my opinion, lol.

At first, I sketched the main character with different arms, then redrew everything piece by piece—so the style ended up inconsistent.

Humor:

At some point, I realized that coding and game design would take too much time, and I got into game dev mostly to draw. So I decided to focus all my effort on humor and visuals. Honestly, those random news channel cutscenes came to me by accident, but they ended up creating the game’s fun atmosphere. Although, the death screen in a hospital room with sad music also makes you smile in a weird way.

Game Design:

When I first came up with the idea, I considered making it a standard mining game. But that wouldn’t have been funny—just another clone. Yeah, the game lacks mechanics now, and that’s a downside. But within the time limit, I wouldn’t have been able to polish them well anyway. Instead, I focused on art and humor. I think it’s important to play to your strengths.

Code:

I made everything in Construct 3. While playing other Ludum Dare games, I mostly saw Godot and Unity... Where are my fellow Construct devs? Am I the only one? :)

Final Thoughts:

That’s about it. Unfortunately, because of the blood, I can’t really publish this anywhere else, so I won’t be polishing it further. But I really enjoyed making a game from scratch with my own characters instead of cloning popular mobile titles just to cash in on the web market (what can I say, a guy’s gotta eat). Maybe I’ll participate in Ludum Dare more often now.

Actually, my first game was made in a team four years ago—also for Ludum Dare—but I lost that account, and I was just the artist back then.

Anyway, thanks to the organizers—it was awesome!

By the way, here’s the game: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/record-depth