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The Depths of Arkady's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Artistic Style | #401 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Theme | #653 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Cleverness | #678 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
| Playability | #804 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
Ranked from 2 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Judge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.
- Uhm... I found out that you could skip the levels by pressing E. I guess this is a unintended feature? Alchemy by mixing light sources is very loose term. Perhaps it is better when the player character has an alchemist background?
- So, you accidentally left the debug tools to skip levels in the game, and honestly you need a tutorial to show how to solve these puzzles and introduce mechanics because I could only progress BY skipping the levels and had no idea what to do.
Did you include your Game Design Document as a Google Drive link?
Yes, it is a link in the description of the game.
Seriously... did you include your Game Design Document?
Yes, seriously, it is there. Just in case, here it is too https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FJUH7Hj_52E5K1nItF-CqGpw8-264i_aRx5olA_xk84/edit?usp=sharing
Is your game set to Public so we can see it?
Yes, I even had a friend check for me.
Tell us about your game!
Mechanics: Super straightforward, you have to move get the pedestals out of the lights to be able to progress through each level. You are able to move the player model around the screen and push the box objects, both the ones with and without light sources.
Controls: WASD/Arrows/Gamepad Joystick/D-Pad for movement.
R on keyboard or Gamepad back/select to reset a level.
Story: You are an acolyte looking for knowledge. This has lead you to The Depths of Arkady! Arkady was said to be a powerful magic user and you are here to find his hidden chamber and unveil his secrets.
There is not specific exposition in the game. Just some hidden meaning with some text popups. Glean from it what you will.
Arkady is the name I always give my McGuffin powerful wizard in ttrpg campaigns I run. If the players need advice from a sage or if there are artifacts credited to a long dead wizard, it is usually Arkady.
GDD in one more place, just in case:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FJUH7Hj_52E5K1nItF-CqGpw8-264i_aRx5olA_xk84/edit?usp=sharing
Extra Notes
This was a lot of fun to participate in. I really enjoyed challenging myself to try to make a plan and execute on it in the limited time I had. I tried to have more time to work on my game, but I ended up only really having like 3 days of being able to focus on it and a handful of half days or few hours here and there.
I also surprised myself with how well the pixel art turned out.
I also got stuck on trying to make it take the actual lighting info to detect when something was lit and spent way too much time on that. But eventually I did a hack and used ray tracing from the light detector to all the lights in the scene (after a range check to see if they were close enough to matter) and that worked out pretty well in the end.
In the final version I took a crack at making some retro sounding music. It is a very simple loop. But I think it adds to the game to have just a simple sound loop going in the background.
Anyways, I'm very tired. I hope you all have fun playing and judging games.
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Comments
this is a good puzzle game. However, I feel like pushing boxes in this game is a little difficult when the box is against the wall.
Very nice shadow mechanics, sometimes i can't push a box if it's next to a wall tho