Play game
Rock Bottom's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Enjoyment | #340 | 4.062 | 4.062 |
| Audio | #841 | 3.625 | 3.625 |
| Artwork | #1948 | 3.719 | 3.719 |
| Creativity | #2508 | 3.688 | 3.688 |
| Narrative | #5963 | 2.188 | 2.188 |
Ranked from 32 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the theme?
Your energy is counting down and you count how far down you go
(Optional) Please credit all assets you've used
see description for full credits
(Optional) What would you like to be called if GMTK features your game?
PepperBoi
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
I liked paying it a lot. Cool little game. I wish RNG was a little be more in my favor
Really solid game. A really nice feedback loop of trying to keep energy high and buying upgrades and threading the needle.
Only two things felt off. Having to use the mouse to buy things, having to leave the directional controls to use the mouse felt jarring. And it did take me a while to tell the difference between coal and stone. Even with the instructions, I assumed there were 2 types of stone and avoided both.
Thank you for the feedback! I think keybinds for the upgrades was a nice suggestion given someone else that I might implement. I can definitely understand the confusion for recognizing the coal I tried to make it readable but maybe there was some way to show it in the introduction better? Idk the best solution would have been a full tutorial but that’s always a nice to have for a jam for me even if it should be prioritized more.
Ya, definitely nice to have.
The only thing I thought of was having like a little auto-demo of the drill digging through coal during the instructions, and then avoiding stone to go through coal for that bit. But at that point it's basically an unplayable tutorial so *shrug*
Yeah my idea was to have the first run have the text that is currently in the tutorial show up when you first see each ore but just didn’t have the time.
Loved this game. The take on the theme was creative, and the retro aesthetic was well-executed. I think the choice to only have dirt, coal, stone, and gold for the terrain generation was a good idea for a jam game to keep everything simple and clean.
I found myself wanting finer control over the drill, like having it follow my cursor instead of just left/right arrows. The time pressure could be retained by having the camera continue moving at its constant speed and trigger game over if the drill goes off-screen. Arrow keys probably are best, like you have. But out of curiosity, did you try out any other control schemes during development?
Thank you for the review! I didn’t think about mouse movement during the jam, but I did change things a bit with movement during the jam. I had a turn speed upgrade that I think somehow got lost when I was refactoring upgrades at some point because I haven’t seen it when testing, I wonder if that upgrade would have helped with your feeling. In the process of making the turn speed upgrade I made the base turn speed and acceleration lower which might have made control feel worse.
Very fun, the desperation to dive bomb into a coal vein just to get a few more seconds is very real.
The procedural generation is really cool but there were some situations where it was ALL stone across. I suggest having some pre-designed masks you can subtract over the different generated layers, so you can create a possible path and even use it as a challenge for the player.
Great work!
Thank you for the review! If I end up expanding this to be more of a high score/mobile game that would make sense and also be an interesting algorithm to try to make but that was a bit out of scope for a jam.
A solid, well executed gamejam idea. Good job :D
Nice looking and fun game, would rather personally that the game was paused while I was shopping but can't really complain since I won first run. If you do decided to implement paused shopping, perhaps it could stop when you've just finished digging a gold vein and have upgrades available to purchase?
Yes, paused shopping was something I was considering fixing in a few ways. I thought about slowing/freezing time when the player clicks into the shop, but I feel like people would try to abuse that. I also thought about having a shop every 1000(?) ft that shows up when the player has gold but this system was working and didn’t have enough time to test a new system. I appreciate the feedback and suggestion!
Hello! I checked out your game on Discord - it has a vibrant atmosphere and made a positive impression on me, captivating and holding my attention. As a suggestion for improvement, I would recommend introducing simple and intuitive training integrated directly into the gameplay, which will make the interaction even more comfortable and enjoyable for users. I would also be interested to know your opinion about my game
Thanks for the suggestion, I was planning on putting text dynamically next to the first of each ore type to spawn but didn’t end up with enough time and ended up putting that in the start screen which seemed to work ok but it’s always nice when you can get a tutorial in a jam game.
The game is pretty simple, it looks good, it would be a fine mobile game. I had fun playing but couldn't reach the 10k goal, i find the game to be very hard, gold being very rare, and upgrades not being powerful enough. Might be a skill issue tbh but i understand that balancing can be hard in the context of a game jam.
Anyways, good job on the game, keep up the good work !
Yeah I sadly didn’t get time to playtest with work on the weekdays and being busy most of Saturday, it’s definitely not the most balanced. I was trying to make it difficult enough to not win on the first few runs to have a bit of replayability but I clearly made it too long with not enough player agency. Thank you for the feedback!
Very smart use of the theme and solid gameplay with simple elements! Also BANGER OST. Great job!
Nice and simple but well executed. I like the light/shader effect a lot. Trying to do the little mental path-length-optimization of "is it worth drilling through all this rock for this chunk of gold" is a nice risk-reward.
Thanks for the review! Glad you liked the visual effects, it’s pretty crazy how much better the dither + lighting made everything look.
Very fun game! I went for multiple runs of this to reach the 10k goal. The gold being a little bit more frequent would have been nice to see more of the upgrades but overall one of my favourites of the mining genre i've seen so far. Nice work
Thank you for the feedback! Not enough gold is a pretty common complaint, I’m thinking about making it much more common but worth a bit less while also making it spawn earlier to give the player more to think about for a post jam build. Glad you enjoyed.
Played on stream! Great game
Fun game, I would have loved for the gold to spawn more often, because otherwise there was not much to do while going doing. It has potential though! Good job
Thanks for the feedback!
Excellent roguelike, with a solid range of upgrades that made each run feel a little different.
Some really lovely vfx here, from the dithering effect for the lighting (such a good way to render lighting in pixel art!) to the chunky particle effects from the drill :)
Thank you! I’m really glad the visuals turned out as good as they did as I spent a full day after work adding them before I even had the win condition or dying added lmao.
Really fun game! I wish I could use a & d for movement and/or have hotkeys for purchasing upgrades (I ended up using my nondominant left hand for movement and right hand on mouse), but I got use the controls soon enough. Really neat idea, love the procedural generation, and super cool dithering effect + pixel art! :D
Thank you, I realized I forgot to add a/d movement right after the deadline lmao. I have a build with that ready and will be there after ratings and upgrade hotkeys make a lot of sense as well. Glad you were able to enjoy anyways!
Cute and fun. I love the visuals
Thank you!
Simple and addicting. This is such a cool idea and the visuals are great. I wish there where permanent upgrades and other ores but for a gamejam this is great.
9428m is the closest I got.
Glad you enjoyed! I had a few ideas for other ores with the one most far along being lava that increased a heat meter and if it got too high you would lose, but that ended up being too much for the time I had.
This is one of the best entries I've played so far. The overall vibes, art, and audio are all top-notch, and the concept is really simple and cool. The buy-while-digging mechanic is genuinely elegant and gives something to think/balance while also navigating the terrain. I also love the name a lot.
Well done!
Thanks for the review! Funnily enough having the player buy upgrades while digging was originally put in out of convenience but ended up making interesting gameplay so I kept it.
This game makes me really nostalgic for an old flash game. It was a lot of fun!
Thank you! That’s high praise.
I like the visuals and but gameplay could be a little more interesting.
Hmm would you mind expanding on what wasn’t interesting?
There could be more interesting things to add like some hazards such as TNT or a hard rock that bites your time. Or maybe some enemies that may chase you for a small time.
Currently the stone is a hazard which sounds like your rock that bites your time? I was in the thinking of making a lava mechanic where the player gets heat from it and if their heat gets too high they lose but it felt like too much for the player to keep track of.
Oh sorry, I actually never noticed that at first but yea I see it takes up more energy when you mine through it. Definitely better to keep the game simpler, probably it's just me feeling like there needs to be slightly more pressure to the game.
But thank you for the expanded response, that helps me understand what you are getting at.