Play game
Evershifting Dungeon's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Originality | #20 | 4.333 | 4.333 |
| Theme | #36 | 4.095 | 4.095 |
| Fun | #88 | 3.571 | 3.571 |
| Presentation (graphics, audio) | #225 | 3.143 | 3.143 |
Ranked from 21 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game represent Mode?
The game features two completely different modes of play that you swap between as part of gameplay--a puzzle mode that plays like a match-3 game, and a dungeon mode where you explore the game board with top-down action gameplay
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
Very interesting and unique idea! I love games that match together conventionally disparate systems. Navigating the spaces you personally make (also suffering the consequences of your actions) is very gratifying. Unfortunately I did get stuck in the corner once with no exit on spawn, but other than that, a very smooth an satisfying experience. Excellent work!
This game is so clever and unique, I enjoyed it so so much! There are many more layers to it than I originally realized and it was so exciting when I figured it out and made it to the skull for the first time! The addition of color-blind mode was such a thoughtful touch.
Can't wait to see where you go from here!
Really unique interpretation of the theme and well executed too! Not too much to add that others haven't already touched on, but nice job!
This is a real cool idea! It was quick to intuit what to do even without reading the instructions too much. I'm not much of a match 3 player so I'd swap between the different modes decently often, building a path, navigating it, then matching again until I can get closer.
Very cool idea! It took me a while to figure out how the match-3 mode connected to the dungeon mode, but really liked the concept when I did. I think there is very little incentive right now to swap between modes, as the best method imo is to collect gold and create a easy path in match-3, then just run to it in dungeon. Maybe making obtaining gold be mainly through dungeon would create a stronger incentive to switch?
Glad you liked it, and thanks for the feedback! I definitely agree that there needs to be a better balance between modes, I had a few ideas for ways to intertwine the two better and push you to swap more instead of being able to easily just freely play the match-3 mode until you have enough gold to do whatever you want, but unfortunately I wasn't able to finish much more than the basic proof of concept in time. I'm hoping to revisit and refine this idea in the future though!
I had a lot of fun with this one! Super creative idea. There were definitely a few things that could've been improved for a final release. Combat is pretty clunky and the best way to play is to interact with enemies as little as possible anyway. Also, getting gold was too trivial. Matching a couple of blocks was easy and the only thing gating you is your own patience. But either way: amazing game, loved it
Really clever idea that I think could have some potential for iteration.
At the moment I think the way you interact with the dungeon is a bit too simple. There should be more reason to switch between the modes. The best way to play atm is to get a really short path to the dungeon and then just rush through it while skipping all the enemies. The actual dungeon and the combat is honestly the one part that I enjoy the least in this game, but if there was a way to tie it in more with the match 3 puzzles than I think there is potential here.
Great proof of concept tho and extremely unique.
Thank you for the feedback, I'm glad to hear you liked the concept! There's definitely a lot of room to expand and improve on it, I had a lot more ideas than what I was able to fit in for the jam
This is really clever and actually addictive!! Also I highly appreciate that colorblind mode, it's so thoughtful!
Evershifting Dungeon was a great idea! I think it was a strong application of the theme with a very innovative gameplay loop. In a future version, I'd like to see a block that can take you up and to the left, as well as a check of the board state to make sure that the dungeon you spawned into is solvable.
Thanks, glad you liked it! I appreciate the feedback! I'm honestly a little embarrassed I never caught that oversight with blue tiles allowing for a broken spawn if you get unlucky, there's even one in that position that causes it in the screenshot I used here for puzzle mode. I might even put out a patch to fix that for this iteration of the game after voting is over!
I really like the idea of the shifting the dungeon via puzzle game. Took me a sec to realize I wasn't beholden to Bejeweled rules but after that it was a lot of fun. Good Job!
Really unique and good game loop! Once I figured out that each color has a their unique path, I was able to really start enjoying and planning my moves. Though I feel like the match-3 mode gave you way too much consistent money to be able to easily cheese it and enemy also often get stuck on the octogonal obstacle.
What a cool idea! It took me a couple tries to get a hang of it, but it's really straightforward and has a lot of replayability. I like how customizable everything is. I do think that there could be more variety with combat and items. Best idea I've seen yet and I hope you continue to work on it!
Thank you! I am hoping to revisit and refine this concept down the road, I had a lot more ideas during development and as you point out there's a ton of room to expand on the dungeon mode gameplay in particular!
I got up to dungeon 5 after my 3rd try :) and had a great time playing it. Neatly polished game, balanced learning curve and a concept prone to a lot of variety and expansion if you decide to keep working on it.
PS: kudos to you for adding accesibility settings (color blind mode)
Glad you enjoyed it! I've definitely got a lot of ideas to expand on the concept if I come back to revisit it down the road
the dungeon mode and puzzle modes where both enjoyable and i dig the music
i did find a couple ways to cheese the game though:
you could safely farm gold and gain a bunch very quickly
enemies would get stuck and edges and are unable to move
i also started on a purple in the bottom right one time and was immediately stuck
Thanks for the feedback! Sorry you ran into that issue with the unlucky spawn point, I unfortunately didn't catch that oversight until the day after the jam
What an unique game! a lot more complex and tricky that it seems at first sight. I honestly enjoyed the art and music a lot too, while super simple it works perfectly with the concept and feel of the game, also a very smart representation of the theme.
The only things I can think of to add are maybe having a little more combat variety (maybe a different enemy) and I was really hoping for a boss fight when reaching the skull room. Nevertheless those two things are in no way a must, for this game is already really fun and creative.
Excellent job!
PS: props for adding a colorblind mode!!
Thanks for the kind words and feedback, I'm glad you enjoyed it! The exit being marked with a skull might give away that I really wanted to have a boss fight at the end—in fact it was the very next thing on my agenda before the final day rolled around and I had to shift focus to polishing up the presentation—but sadly there just wasn't time. If I end up revisiting this concept to expand into a more fully fledged game down the road, you can be certain there will be something a bit more exciting waiting at the end of each dungeon!
Really unique little game! I like the little tricks you learn like how each room shape is always the same color (maybe this is supposed to be obvious but it took me a bit to notice).
Glad you liked it! Early on the room shapes actually weren't tied to color, but I thought it would be better to have some consistency you could rely on while thinking things through in puzzle mode. Good to see that change was well received!
Super fun game, loved the way the match 3 worked to change the layout. Our game intended to have a similar map aspect in the way it was structured but I'm just not good at programming lol.
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!
The dungeons combat was a bit too punishing for me but I love the idea!
Thanks! The dungeon mode gameplay definitely could have used more refining, but getting the mode swap working smoothly took so long that I ran short on time