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Gilded Nest's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall fun and playability | #54 | 2.340 | 2.909 |
Ranked from 11 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Theme incorporation
The theme we choose is "Treasure hunt" in which you need to find the treasure and escape with it. We featured a level generator with random enemies and loot, increasing (Or decreasing) your stats.
In short: Find the key, find the treasure, escape!
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Comments
Interesting game. I included it in my compilation video series of all of the games from the Dungeon Crawler Jam.
Some nice ideas, environment is good to explore and the procedural generation is very too to have in the game, that nice unique part for this one. Combat is too basic i think, it ok but it just feels like clicking left mouse only to damage is boring. The game works well for survival instead.
So it was a decent game, with some nice ideas for it. It just needed more work so it can be much more fun and better to play. Good work with it.
I was quite confused, and I think a bit unlucky on my first attempt. Which also ended with the game crashing so bad that I had to uninstall and reinstall it to have another go at it.
The second time was the complete opposite of the first, and I quite smoothly got myself to the end.
I liked the environment, and the procedural generation worked quite well, I think. The fighting was good, though I would have liked a keybinding for attack as an option (e.g. Space). I don’t feel like there was much available strategy to the fighting since the enemies moved with same speed as me and followed me through rooms. So the only recourse was which weapon I chose to use.
Had the game been much longer, it would have started to be annoying with the fights since I didn’t have much agency/was just there to click the mouse, but as it was right now, I think it was fine.
The ending was a bit of a dud too. It could have been epic to have to get back to the start room, but that would have required to shake things up dramatically and increase the tension, not just entirely remove it. I think it would have been much better if the game had just ended with a text saying how we bravely rescued the chicken and against all odds manage to fight our way out.
But all in all a nice entry.
Playthrough: https://youtu.be/Fgttazw4Iss
Thank you for playing our first game! We've watched your video and learned a lot from your commentary.
It's unfortunate that it crashed on you which is an issue that we need to consider fixing. It seems to not happen on every hardware.
The game launching in resizable window mode was considered due to the fact, that there's no screen options in the game available and it could be a problem with multi-screen setups like we have.Adding a options menu will fix it of course :)
As you mentioned, the game is very RNG based. The spawn of the player, the spawn of the "Key Holder/Boss" and the treasure. Enemies, their stats, loot distribution and all the room placements are random each gameplay, making each round unique which also means, that you get either good or bad luck on the RNG, making it difficult to balance, though we are working on it!
About the backtracking to the spawn room: It was indeed planned to spawn enemies on the route back, there is unfinished code in the game build for this, though unfortunately to the extreme time constrains we had, we couldn't finish it on time.
Rebinding keys is also in our bucket list, which, now that we have the time we need for a 2-Person Project, we can slowly but steadily add features to the game!
We are still working on the project! We've fixed the sound issues with the weapons, implemented a new Inventory system so even the enemies can hold "real" weapons, not hardcoded (Like in the current build), added more weapons and consumables, more room layouts are also planned. We've added a parry system to the game so the players can now defend themself using the right mouse button if clicked on the correct time (Similar to RPG games) which changes the whole dynamic of the game.
We also want to change the enemy AI a lot! Adding ranged enemies, explosives (Mines, grenades etc.) and a stealth mechanic so there's more strategy in the game.
We are also planning on adding a a big boss fight if you grab the treasure, making it epic! Maybe some cutscenes with some voice acting to the bad guys :D
We are very dedicated to the project and each feedback helps us to improve the quality of the game a lot!
We hope you'll enjoy the next versions of the game after the game jam ends :)
It felt a bit slow and samey at first, but once it became clear how careful you actually had to be to win, it was more engaging. I think getting a good mask is vital to surviving the game.
When I got one, it provide a lot of relief from the tension. Which was bad, because it made the game easy afterwards, meaning I wasn't as locked in, but also good, because it was short, I wanted to beat it, and it gave me a whole lot of juxtaposition gratification.
This was pretty fun. The proc gen dungeon was cool, the non-fantasy setting was great and I thought the graphics are awesome. Combat was simple and getting treasures and different equipment was cool.
The minimap maybe clashed a bit with the high fidelity of the actual in-game but minor at most. The crates should have been destroyed in 1 hit not 3, it seemed to just increase time taken for not a lot of return. Getting health seemed kinda pointless as it was hard to keep it full, obviating the need for more max health.
Overall a solid entry. Gameplay here
Thank you for playing our first game! This was also our first game jam where we tried to make the best out of the week we had.
There's indeed some issues with the pacing and balancing. We had some plans to improve the boxes, increase the loot count and or add some additional health packs, though due to the time limit we had, we were running out of time to implement.
But that's why feedback from the community is so valuable to us! To know, what works, what doesn't. We are still working on the game and we made a lot of improvements lately, rewriting the Inventory system so even the Enemies can wear different weapons and masks, making improvements to the stats system and balancing the enemies, we also implemented a parry system where you are able to defend yourself if you manage to click the right mouse button when getting attacked which is very satisfying! We've also added more weapons, more items to find, fixed some sound bugs.
We are planning in adding more rooms to the game to increase the pool in which the Dungeon Generator can choose from, currently there are 4 rooms which makes the room repeat itself a lot. Maybe more levels with different settings and design, a better "Boss" battle with cutscenes and maybe a simple lore. We have a lot of fun with the project and we will certainly improve all the issues we gathered from the community's feedback, that's mainly why we choose to create a game jam game, to learn and improve our skills!
I will definitely check out the post jam release!
Impressive take on procedural generation.
Nice work with the semi-procedural setup. I liked that the rooms were premade and just the number/layout differed. I thing hand curated rooms in procgen usually works a lot better than just completely random layouts. The gear upgrades and options were pretty cool, combat was straightforward. I agee with what Nika said that some things were not centered on the grid and it felt weird, but that's fine.
Found the key, found the room with the treasure but was overrun. I wouldn't have lost if I could've stockpiled medkits though. I had left so many behind, dang.
His shirt said "Stop me!" and so I did. Got the key and escaped with the chicken/treasure.
I enjoyed playing this. Sticked to the spiked club and the starting mask (I think like 250HP, 70AT, 17DEF) or so and probably was lucky with the first aid placements so I completed it in the first go.
Liked the setting and good choice of ambient music. Nice models and textures too, interesting upgrade system. Combat could need some additional options but for a jam game it is fine.
Aside from what has been reportet already: I found the backtracking to the treasure a bit unnecessary, I mean walking through rooms that are already cleared was not all that exciting. Would have been better if I had to fight my way out to make it a true escape.
Definitely exceeded my expectations for a 9 day jam game and could be extended into a full commercial game with some more depth to the combat system.
Well done!
I escaped with the treasure!
So first I would like to mention the strange grid at times. You would have 'doors' that are not centered and sometimes walls that feel way to close when you are next to them. This felt a little disorienting until I got used to it. All those objects were noninteractable after all. But it would look much better if they all would be grid-centered.
My third room was one with treasure, so I found it quite fast (key took a while), but it was insane. There were a lot of hooligans that were trying to smack me. Thankfully I found corner where only two was hitting me at the same time and survived. Rest of the game I was healing up the damage (I nearly died!). I found machete (sword?) and they all started to smack me with sword sounds :) that gonna be a bug ;). I never-ever (especially after having that brutal encounter at start) would wear a berserker mask. Almost whole game I was healing up the damage and getting just 5 more attack for taking so much more damage per hit sounded insane (it was from 17 armor to go -11 or so so 28 more damage per hit, if I understood mechanic correct).
Also you marked pick up wrong! you did (what you picking up) ---> (what you have) it supposed to be other way around or arrow need to be switched. Confused me at the start. Colour coding was nice there though!
But entry was solid. Nice map, really intuitive with all those doors and colour coding in there. Simple, yet effective battle. Had fun :)
Nice Entry!
I did a few tries to get to the end but couldn't make it. Since you start all over after dying, it is a long way to get back to it so it is a bit of tough luck. I didn't figure out if there were some kind of way to block attacks or if it was just based on shields. Having some mechanics for that might make the combat more interesting.
As it is now I mostly just had to break every crate I found to heal up from damage taken in the combat. Which was not that fun and a bit tedious. The breaking of boxes might also benefit from being faster to destroy with say holding the attack button. Tick based games like this with discrete actions benefit from snappier actions to get to next tick.
Anyway super nice entry!
Thank you for playing our first gam jam game! It was a lot of fun and very challenging to create the game in such short time frame from scratch, with a lot of overnight work and a lot of coffee :D. The game can be challenging at times due to the randomizer of the items, enemy statistics and level generation. It is recommended to break the boxes to make the first aid kits drop, even though i agree, the breaking of the boxes slows down the flow a bit (We are working on making it better). There are a few bugs, even game breaking one in the right circumstances. You can indeed hold the Attack button already in the current build to keep attacking.
We plan to still work on the game, adding more weapons, rooms, balancing, more mechanics like the blocking of attacks if clicked in the right time, puzzles, secrets and better Enemy AI with ranged enemies.
We already implemented a lot of bug fixes, rewritten the Inventory system so it's also possible to add masks, weapons and first aid kits to enemies that will also heal themself to make it more challenging! Though, due to the submission rating period, it's not possible to share right now.
I've escaped with the treasure!
I had a ton of fun playing the game, I needed some retries, I think in part because I underestimated defense at first, that was great. The controls and feedback feel pretty good. The set of weapons and masks is super solid, I love than many are not strictly better than the other ones yet also some are as I ended traded the initial bat for a spiked bat during my winning run, it's really my favourite type of equipment balancing. I'm still not sure whether a medkit gives more life back with more total life as I won before I dug deeper into testing that, the system was fun exploring. This kind of procedurally generated games tend to work well for game jams for me as they quite feel like complete games.
The boss was making no damage for some reason (my defense was 18).
Great one!
Thank you for playing our first game jam game! It was a lot of fun and challenging in those short days to make a game. There're of course a few bugs, even game braking one in the right situations. The enemies are, as you found out, quiet unbalanced, even though we tried our best to balance it with the systems we implemented. We will work on the game, balance everything, add more rooms and weapons, better AI and more mechanics, puzzles and more enemy variety. There is something wrong with the Key Holder (The "Boss") with its balancing. We fixed a lot in the new version which we can't publish yet due to the submission rating, but we will still work on the game!