Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines
A jam submission

The Sludge HungersView project page

A short adventure for Cairn set in a mine
Submitted by MagicalMonstar — 1 day, 13 hours before the deadline
Rated by 18 people so far
Add to collection

Play game

The Sludge Hungers's itch.io page

Rate this game

In order to rate this submission you must be logged into itch.io and have submitted your own entry. Anyone with an account can leave a comment.

Leave a comment

Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.

Comments

Submitted(+1)

No nonsense good old crawl-the-mine adventure with a eco twist. Pretty good, with a good finish effort it could have been very good. The map is my favourite feature

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Solid mine crawl with dangerous, avoidable, and funny encounters. I like the ecological theme. I wish I knew more about the town since the river spirit feels more like a victim to me and I'd want the town to get some comeuppance, but I'm not sure you have the space for it. Nice map drawing, though I wish it wasn't so far from the keying since I had to do lots of scrolling. The basilisk, earth elemental, and molemen make me wonder how this town was able to mine at all! Good work.

Once judging is done, take a look at your affinity file, you might be able to resize it to A5 so you don't have all that white space.

Submitted(+1)

Mine diving is a fun premise and the module stays true to this theme. The layout is odd, though, with too much white space. The content would profit from expanding (i.e. a random encounter table) and an additional editing pass. Overall lots of good ideas and probably fun for a referee willing to put a bit of work into it. 

Submitted(+1)

This adventure has a great premise, but its mechanics present some balancing issues, at least from my read. The room collapse mechanic on a random d10 roll is overly punishing, it can cause an unpreventable TPK or completely block off the main central corridor if hit room5, breaking the whole dungeon navigation. Furthermore, placing a key spell in Room 9 under deep water makes it excessively difficult to retrieve without specific preparations, that may not be available. My personal feedback is that it's full of fun ideas, but needs some smoother balance tweaks.

Submitted(+1)

What an awesome entry. Cave diving sounds fun, and I think the module does a good job of that. There are some parts that doesn't sit with me just right:

  • Judging from the screenshot, I assumed you intended for the whole layout to be much bigger, but in the pdf, it's much more small, evidence from the massive margins, leaving alot of white spaces. Alot of typos as well and I can't really select the text on the pdfs, but this is minor stuff that I'm sure can be revised quickly.
  • I would've more ways to deal with the river spirit other than just combat. I think the immiscate spell is a nice stuff, but we can go further than that. In the random encounters, there's a section that explains one of the sections falls apart. Seeing this is the mine too, I would love to see explosive solutions to this (miners in Area 4 has mines but has no fuse, PCs can use these mines to explode the blockage.
  • I think Wilford can be a more helpful npc instead of just letting him sit there, trading his knowledge. I mean, what relevance is his knowledge for gold is for the PCs, or to destroy the river spirit?  Maybe if the river spirit is weak to gold, then Wilford servers a purpose. I just don't see his usefulness, or what is the reward for the PC to venture to his place. 

Overall, I can still feel the idea from the theme, and I say it was well done executed. Amazing effort nevertheless. Good work!

Submitted(+1)

This is a really solid adventure. I think you do a great job of very concisely setting the premise up and putting obstacles in the players' way in the form of encounters and potential enemies. 

I think if I were to run this as a GM, I might try to build in some hints about other ways to tackle the problem. If I were a player, I would definitely want to find a way to purify the elemental, restoring balance and all that good stuff. To that end, as a GM, I might also have notes spelling out:

  • Ways that the players may get clues that the blockage is a corrupted spirit before they're directly confronted by the spirit itself
  • I might have notes about how to purify the river spirit. What immediately comes to mind is the spellbook you've already put in there (maybe for that exact purpose) and obviously eliminating the source of the corrupting sludge
  • Ways to appease a purified, but probably still angry, spirit that will want to ensure this place never becomes corrupted again. Such as: getting rid of all of the miners, closing off the mind entrances for good, etc.

I'd also probably prepare for a less virtuous playthrough by thinking about what would happen if they just decide to kill the spirit and leave it at that. Maybe their village lies downstream and they'll have to live with the consequences of the pollution. 

I say all that because I think that even though space is limited, a brief nod to it on your cover page may go a long way in helping the GM to plot out what that might look like.

Great job!

Submitted(+1)

Nice adventure!

Submitted(+1)

Nice clean layout. A sticky situation. Dynamite and powerful spells. Fun!