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Drawn Down's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Innovation | #88 | 3.800 | 3.800 |
| Audio | #386 | 3.167 | 3.167 |
| Overall | #507 | 3.144 | 3.144 |
| Gameplay | #515 | 2.900 | 2.900 |
| Theme | #545 | 3.167 | 3.167 |
| Enjoyment | #633 | 2.900 | 2.900 |
| Visuals | #706 | 2.933 | 2.933 |
Ranked from 30 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does the game fit the theme?
A dark, shifting dungeon you build as you explore.
Strange enough?
Danger lurks... but the real danger might be your own design.
What code and assets did you not make from scratch during the jam (if any)?
A few icons from none other than kenney.nl
Some audio and music from a recent "Game Audio Collection" Humble bundle.
A couple of low poly prefab assets, but most meshes are procedurally generated.
How many people worked on the game?1
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Comments
Thanks for submitting your game to the stream! If you wanted to look at the playthrough again in the future here's the VOD timestamped to your game
Really interesting concept, though found some of the controls a little clunky. Probably just a me issue but I would accidentally place rooms in the wrong place (I wanted to place them with the mouse...)
Still, the idea is really nice and I would love to see a more expanded and polished version of something like this. It's still really impressive how much you managed to get done during the jam by yourself!
interesting
idk if it was intentional but I got locked behind a door and had to restart the whole game. Also I could outrun the thing chasing me with that same mechanic, closing the door and going inside the room at the same time. But cool and fun concept and game once you understand it.
Hm, the controls are more than odd. Shift to zoom in, instead of using the mouse wheel? Other than that it was alright. Not terribly fun, but an interesting idea!
Found this really interesting. you were going for something here, some parts worked really well, others need work. Your atmosphere instincts are good, sound has not been neglected and your ambience has a really mysterious quality to it. As others have said already, you need to work more on the game feel and intuitiveness of controls. I found myself fighting against your control scheme. All in all it was a pleasent experience :)
Thanks for the thoughtful feedback. I appreciate it.
Your game definitely delivered on the strange places theme and kept the foreboding atmosphere up to the end. Thanks for playing and the review.
I believe a good inspiration for you would be Blue Prince, but it feels reasonable to assume everyone here has played it.
I have played it and enjoyed it thoroughly. Definitely took a bit of inspiration from that and was going to include a foot step counter at one point. :)
Thanks for playing.
There's something with good potential here - I like the idea of building your own dungeon then facing the consequences of that build. Though you'd want to balance an easier escape versus greater reward so the player has strategic choice weighing up pros and cons.
I did find the controls a bit unintuitive. Tab for build mode should be displayed on screen at all times, basically - it's that important. It would also then work as an indicator showing you what mode you're in. N and M to move the build positions also took a bit of getting used to. Perhaps zooming out in build mode would free up the WASD from camera movements and allow more intuitive placement controls. Finally, E to open doors felt unnecessary - just open 'em up automatically.
Otherwise, I think this is a promising POC! Loved the visuals and atmosphere. Any Blue Prince inspiration? I really loved that game and look forward to seeing its influence on new games.
Thanks for playing. I daftly removed the 'Tab' button message and went for a 'Build mode' label when it is active instead as the game sort of enters a pause state when you are in build mode. Maybe I could slow down time instead of completely pausing it... oh that might be a good vibe. Your comment got the brain thinking. Ta.
Agree with your other comments about controls and again I had the doors auto opening when the plate is stood on, but I switch that to an 'interaction'... some poor design choices in that last sprint for the submission deadline. :)
Thanks again for playing and the feedback.
Interesting concept, building the dungeon you are trying to escape. Controls were awkward, took me a while to figure out how to open the doors. This made it really stressful/thrilling trying to outrun the enemy, while also building the path out. Good work.
Thanks for playing and the comment. Aye - the controls are a bit finickity and that's a common bit of feedback and so need/want to address that. Glad your take on it was that it made it stressful/thrilling rather than frustrating.
Thanks again.
Excellent work, fellow solo dungeon builder! Really interesting building up the dungeon yourself in the first phase. It took a few attempts but I beat it in the end :D What is the trigger for the monster? Is it a random point on the map if you place a tile on it? Is there a strat for dealing with the monster or can you only run? It's a really fun concept that could be developed further. Maybe, if you do plan on taking it further, have visible tiles where the player knows if they place a room, a monster will spawn there, but also have an exit point visible, so the player needs to use the pieces they have to get to the exit without getting swarmed by monsters. I dunno. A lot you can potentially do with it. Great job!
Oh and forgot to mention the audio design! Really good.
Thanks for playing and the comments. Cool that you managed to get out and thanks for sharing it took a few attempts. The enemy/monster spawn trigger is related to tile count and the 'hunt' behaviour again triggers based on either tile placed count or the existance of the exit (depending on difficulty level as well).
At the moment there is no way to deal with the enemy, but toyed with a combat mechanic and a fear of the light, but need a lot more time to work through the behaviour and logic.
I also had a mode that included the exit you needed to build towards, but the tile/shape and orientations sometimes caused that to be quite difficult to get to and often in testing, I overshot it and so couldn't quite get to it... that was more annoying that enjoyable so I backed out of that design choice rather than try to work through and solving it.
I did add/leave a few hidden keyboard controls (G) to generate a random dungeon and (Backspace) to spawn additional enemies. One of those helpful dev/debug features that I left in cheekily and tbh can make it pretty tough to escape.
I really enjoyed making this one and hope to find/make time to develop it further.
Really cool game, the dungeon building aspect felt very unique and interesting. There is a lot of room to expand with this idea.
It was a little bit difficult to place rooms though. I also managed to avoid the monster completely my second run by just never opening the room it spawned in. Not sure if that was intentional or not though.
Also I want to mention the door animations, top notch!
Thanks for the comment/feedback.
The enemies can open doors, but the behaviour is sometimes a wee bit erratic and they decide to patrol again rather than hunt. You might've been 'lucky'.
As with a few other comment, the placement is a bit frustrating (especially all the options with the combination of placement and rotation/orientation). I know I can improve on that and plan to.
Thanks again and good luck with the jam!
I like the basic concept a lot here! My biggest gripe is that the interface is very clunky. It takes a lot of inputs to place a single tile, when it feels like it should be as simple as a couple clicks or a click-and-drag. Still, this idea feels like it has a lot of potential!
Thanks for the comment and feedback. You are spot on... I was wrangling trying to unify controller/gamepad controls with the keyboard/mouse set up and the next/prev placement options I ended up with are janky and annoying when you know where you want to place the tile/card. I need/want to work on that in the future.
Thanks again for playing.
This is quite innovative. It feels like a strange twist on the old dungeon exploration games. Very impressive to make this in just a week!
Thanks for playing and the comment. Exactly the vibe and inspiration I was going for. Did you manage to escape?
Yes, but on Easy =) I was glad that was an option!
Hey, really interesting game concept — it was a lot of fun to play! With a bit more investment in the game design, such as adding a story and similar elements, this could become something truly great. As feedback, I would suggest adding an auto-rotation camera that follows the movement direction, as well as a camera reset option. When the monsters arrived, I panicked a little, accidentally rotated the camera the wrong way and needed a few seconds to readjust. But other than that, everything ran smoothly and it was genuinely enjoyable!
Thanks for the comment and for playing! Love the comments on the camera and 100%, the 'auto zoom out' to show you the dungeon (without the zoom back in) is crap to be honest and I should've got that in for the jam submission. I just had a few too many ideas flying around and that ended up either on the cutting room floor or left on the drawing board in the end. Just managed to get the game loop working before the close of submissions.
Glad you enjoyed it.
A very interesting idea. It can be a bit confusing when you first start playing, but once you understand the game mechanics, it becomes fun.
Thanks for the comment. The control system is a bit overly complicated and understand that spawning into a dimly lit room with no backstory or guide is not the most intuitive and helpful starting position. :)
Glad that you stuck with it and sussed it out. Did you manage to escape?
Atmosphere is top notch, and idea is really great and unique. Just a little bit more polish (but hey, it's a game jam) and it would be a chef's kiss!
Thanks zobara. I appreciate the comment and feedback. Especially from fellow dungeoneer. :)
Did you manage to escape?
I liked the build aspect, very well done! The lighting was very ominous. Was bummed that I died so quick after the first build.
Thanks for the comment and for playing. There is quite a bit of randomness and as you build out the dungeon, the exit might end up spawning in a difficult escape location. I'm sure you can get out/down.
I also added a few hidden key controls (G) to generate a random dungeon and (Backspace) to spawn additional enemies... can make for a bit of a mad rush and again with the randomness - you might struggle to get out.
Thanks again for playing and good luck for the jam!
This is a really cool concept! I would love to see it expanded on! Had a little bit of trouble getting doors to open for me, particularly when they were close together which made it challenging to try to get away from a monster.
Aye - the door controls are a bit hit or miss, especially when you are in a small corridor. I experiments with auto opening (i.e. a simple pressure plate) and that worked quite well, but I went back to the press E to toggle for my final build.
Thanks for playing and the comment! I am very keen to keep working on this and have a tonne of ideas on the drawing board and the cutting room floor. If you have anything you'd like to see, ping me a message and I'll see what I can rope in.
Thanks again.
Interesting concept, great work on the atmosphere. I imagined a version where you place traps for the monster.
Good work!
Aye - traps placed for the monster and traps you need to avoid. There is so much on the drawing board and cutting room floor for this one. :) Ran out of time and only just managed to get my arms around it to build out an end-to-end gameloop that worked. I really enjoyed making it though and working with procedural gen and 3d.
Thanks for playing.
Really cool game with an interesting concept. Great work!
Thanks for playing! Appreciate the comment.