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How does your game meet GBJam's theme
The game is the tale of an old prospector seeking the gold cache of his father, another old prospector. By digging deeper and deeper into the old mine he gets the gold he needs to upgrade his equipment and find what lies in its deepest tunnels.
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For some reason, mining is incredibly satisfying, just hitting the walls feels good.
Thanks for the kind word ! That was exactly the intention
Incredibly fun game! The gold generation felt very nice and natural, the animation of Sam is great, and I like the challenge of trying to balance getting to lower levels while trying to get enough gold to make upgrades. The 20 seconds left music was a fantastic touch, reminded me of Crypt of the Necrodancer. Overall I'm incredibly impressed this was able to be made in such a short time!
My main criticism is that W/X for A/B felt very awkward for me and I had to stop playing due to a cramping hand. I'm totally going back later to try and get more endings though.
I had a few little bugs in my handful (4 or 5?) of playthroughs - ghosts catching me while I went into holes, the day-end screen appearing with the spacing at the top instead of the bottom of the screen, gold getting stuck in the border walls, and a stall that lasted about 10 seconds (after which a ghost had stolen all my money).
Some clearer documentation of mechanics on the game page would make starting up a little easier, I thought the dynamite was needed to get to lower floors in my first run lol. Worked it out soon after though.
I think if one were to add another upgrade choice to this game, a gold magnet (so that mined gold in a certain radius is pulled towards you) would be a good addition.
Hey there, thanks a lot for the thorough review and for the kind word !
A lot of the game is indeed pretty clunky. Everything pertaining to ghosts and dynamite was made in a rush at the very end of our development cycle. The game doesn't have a proper manual or a gold magnet for the same reason unfortunately.
I hope you still had a pleasant time, you may alleviate the W/X problem by switching your keyboard to AZERTY but it's hardly a perfect fix, sorry about that.
Just checked your game, "turn-based tactical paleontological combat" intrigued me immediatly, very nice take on the theme. I'll leave you a review shortly.
Very great submission! I got ending 3, and I couldn't tell is the ending text for that ending supposed to be the same as the intro text? If it is I read it as that the game is a repeating cycle which is really neat! Our team would appreciate if you left us a rating as well!
You're the "fire emblem with pirates" guys right ? Your game is on my list.
Thanks a bunch for the kind word ! Ending 3 is indeed cyclical, "old sam" gets replaced by "young sam" and "elder sam" gets replaced by"old sam" in the ending's text.
I like how much juice this game has, The game is great! Progression is also rlly good, I also like how sam bounces around. Great game!
Thanks for the kind word !
Fun game! The mining feels really good after a couple upgrades, and each upgrade (except the speed ones...) could really be felt, which is nice. I couldn't tell if the deeper floors gave more money or not, it would have been nice to have a little floating "+2g" or something as I picked up gold so I could get a feel for how much I was gathering without having to look at the top and do math :). The procgen dungeons were nice, made it fun on a replay. The gold placement felt good / kind of bursty which made it exciting to find a bunch at once, but I'm not sure if that was intentional or just my mind making patterns out of noise =). I managed to get endings 1/2/3 in order, and on my last run I got ending 0 via my own "friend of the ghosts" goal...
Oh I knew that profile pic was familiar, I remember your game from Dungeon crawler jam 2023, nice to see you again.
Thanks a lot for the detailed review and for the thorough exploration. The deeper floor indeed gave more money but we neglected to display that. In an effort to make the UI as minimalist as possible we ended up confusing everyone. The same goes for the speed upgrade, it was nerfed quite a bit because it made the game look bad when the pickaxe swung too fast, now it mostly reduce the cooldown between swings and the knockback from hitting blocks.
The gold placement system is simple but pretty intentional, gold blocks will usually spawn on cave walls or in small cluster to make them more pleasant to find. I'm really glad that someone noticed.
Thanks again for playing, I'll be sure to come check your game when I get some time.
Even if people don't notice, the intentionality there probably still greatly helps the feel. I find that's the case with a lot of procgen stuff, in my game for this jam I generate (some pretty crappy) house interiors, and probably no one will notice that every dead end has a chest, but it goes a long way towards making it feel game-y. Someone might notice if dead-ends didn't have chests, as they'd get a "why'd I bother coming here?" feeling, but probably won't notice when it's working. I think I only noticed here because I've got procgen on the brain :D.
And, hi! Yeah, I remember your game from DCJam23 as well, nice to see ya!
I love effects, mining feels amazing. Nice idea with upgrade stations. Great game
Thanks for the kind word !