itch.io

So many great things here! The aesthetic is super charming. I liked the enemy encounter transition. Movement felt great. I was impressed by the enemy/enemy attack variety. I appreciated that losing set you back a battle instead of sending you back to the beginning. The adaptive music was a nice touch. Excellent work.

Sorry about that, that's one of the more obscure mechanics. Your tether has to be directly ahead of you to be severable (that is, it won't work if you're standing even slightly diagonal to where your body is). Thanks for giving it a try.

I've added some puzzle hints and solutions on the game page for the parts that I've seen people have the most trouble with. Check those out if you're stuck! :)

That was really enjoyable. There's so much heart in this.

The way we're thrown into this established world really made it feel like an early game section of a full game that I'd play.

I was surprised to discover clicking on the map moves you there. Cool feature.

The music was great too. Everything was great. Nice work.

Looks great. The tunnel effect was cool. Ending was amusing. Nice job!

Short and sweet. The buttons feel really tactile and satisfying to press.

Ah, the four torches were a separate puzzle from the golems. That idea with the golem room was that one of the six little golem "cages" had a torch you needed to light, and to circumvent fighting up to six golems to see which room was the key forward, you could scout through the doors in spirit form to avoid opening them at all.

The next puzzle with the four torches being so close to the golem one is admittedly misleading and could've been pushed a bit further away.

The sixth pressure plate was indeed kinda buggy after taking another look at it, so thanks for pointing it out.

Thanks for your comments :)

I'd planned to make the different areas more distinct using props and decorations, which probably would've made navigation better, but I ran out of time for that. And I'd found a few wall issues myself, immediately after the submission period ended :') A reminder to place more emphasis on polish and playtesting next time, I suppose. Thanks for playing!

A unique entry, nicely done.

The character selection is varied, each with distinct abilities not only in combat but during exploration, allowing for tackling the dungeon in different ways (neat!). Not to mention, they're very flavourful given the premise of the game. Speaking of, the premise is very cool, and implements the theme well. The visuals are fitting too.

The game was super challenging! Maybe less so for old school/experienced dungeon crawlers, but I was terribly lost most of the time, and I found the enemies very deadly. I was able to beat the game, but probably not the right way – only through grinding the random wolf encounters and save scumming was I able to get strong enough to brute force my way through the dungeon. And the lion's ability was vital while I tried to find my way around.

I'm glad there's a happy ending after the initial gut punch upon leaving the dream world for the first time. Looks like our games' ending messages are kinda similar ;)

Thank you for the lovely comment. I’m very happy to hear what you liked about the game, and that you finished and enjoyed it, especially the final sequence. I’d been worried about the balance between making the solution to the last puzzle hidden at the beginning but possible to intuit by the end so I’m pleased it landed for you.

And death by spike traps is a totally valid way to get back :) it can definitely be much faster than cutting your cord.

This is super cute! What a unique idea for a dungeon crawler. Great job!

Great and unsettling visuals.

I also struggled with the combat at first; it took me a while to understand the proper strategy. I'm probably too used to other dungeon crawlers where you're expected to just take the hits.

The movement is fantastic. The smoothness of transition movement and the speed of instant movement? The best of both worlds.

I had a good time, even if I think I made a few poor choices at the end there, hehe.

Oof, I hadn't noticed that, good catch.

Thank you for the kind words! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

I beat the game after a close call with the frog left me with 1 HP to spare. Pleasing graphics and satisfying progression. Great work!

What a charming game! I got 23 points in my luckiest run.
I would've liked also being able to switch between the pick and rod by right clicking or by a keyboard button or something like that. Also, unchecking the sound fx option doesn't seem to turn the sound off, although the sounds were quite satisfying, so I didn't feel the need to.
Great work!

Very engaging for an idle game! As someone else already said, the tutorial is well made and seamlessly integrated into the game. The sound design definitely adds a lot as well. Once I was able to ascend once, my income and ascension bonus blew up extremely quickly. Very enjoyable entry.

Oh, I see! It's always interesting to learn about the underlying mechanics of a game. I must've just been unlucky with the enemy drops and when I tried fleeing from them.

Those ideas for changes sound good. I'll have to come back and check out the game again if you end up implementing them.

It's impressive how much you packed into a jam game!

The graphics were charming. The atmosphere was great. I liked the variety of items and enemies. The different biomes were a neat addition and each introduced their own complications to worry about, keeping things fresh.

I played several games, and found it quite challenging.

My best runs were the ones where I got lucky with finding food and focused on rushing for the exit each round. The few enemies I killed didn't drop anything or seem to give any reward other than points, so I avoided combat as much as possible.

The longest I survived was up to round 9. Most of the time, I lost to starvation or after aggroing bandits, who are terrifying and relentless. In my experience, you can't outrun them, even if hydrated, so if you're being chased by one while unarmed, your only practical option is to find and escape through the exit. It seems like water doesn't even slow them down like it does the player. All that said, I suppose enemies are easy enough to avoid if you pay attention to the minimap.

I got caught in doorways and stairs a lot and I think item spawns could be increased, but you've already addressed that feedback in other comments. Also, a minor nitpick, but I'd like to be able to pick up items from slightly further away.

That aside, the foundation of the game is very solid. There's quite a bit of depth to the game. Again, the polish put into this is very impressive for a jam submission. I don't know if I've ever seen a jam game have an options menu. And your footsteps sound different depending on what you're walking on!

I had fun playing this. Great job!

Wow, thank you for taking the time to leave such an in-depth comment! I’m very glad to hear that you enjoyed it.

It is possible to get a gold rating in every level, although for some levels the way to do so is difficult to figure out. I didn't expect anyone to get a diamond rating, however! The gold rating was the "perfect" rating, the one you get for (what I believed to be) a level's fewest number of moves. I threw in the diamond rating in case a player completed a level in even fewer moves than that. Essentially, that means that you beat my personal best for those two levels. Impressive! I spent quite some time retrying the levels and I thought I'd found the best for all of them.

I'm curious to know which levels you got the diamond rating for. I may adjust their ratings after the jam is over. Although I understand you may no longer know which levels they were, since I didn't implement save data. (I saw you implemented persistent data for high scores in your submission; I assume you used local storage?)

This was really enjoyable! Fun and unique idea.

Thanks so much for checking out my submission!