itch.io

Thank you for the thoughtful feedback !
You're right, the chicken is placed randomly (among a predefined list, so it should always be reachable).
Definitely, the game lack polish on several points, but I'm glad the main loop clicked for you.

Excellent game!

Great atmosphere and very good visuals. I particularly like the main character.
Dialogue presentation is very good. Moving into the other person's square + a little shift for his sprite works well.
Movements are pleasant.
The map is really well implemented, and auto travel is very practical.

Frankly, it's pretty impressive for a jam game.

Really nice game, I liked the atmosphere.
Dubbing and sound design are pretty good.
The game isn't too long, which I consider a very good thing for a game jam.
I have one minor regret about the secrets: I don't really like the idea of going through walls without feedback. For exemple, finding a button to open the wall, or a wall that disappears as you go through it (like an hologram) would be more pleasant.

Zany scenario, just the way I like it.
It reminded me of the kind of scenario you can find in some old-school/OSR rpg's (like DCC or Troika).

The conversion of gold into upgrades for the characters makes the game too simple in my opinion, but for the rest it's particularly polished and well done for a game jam !

Thumbs up for open source code, that's nice.

Thanks for the recording!

Nice score, even without loot drop to regain your speed. I realize that the loot drop mechanic would be really meaningful over a longer time and in a larger level, but the game is too short for it to make a major difference.

There are no monsters. That was a lie the whole time! There was supposed to be an opening cinematic, and I used a monster from our dcjam2024 entry (Cosmic Dreadnought) as a placeholder. In the end, time constraints didn't allow us to do the cinematic, and I decided to leave the little monster where it was.

Thank you!

The sound is a bit lacking in its current state, I agree.

I just noticed something. In the screenshots from the game page and in your speedrun video, we can see bags of gold lying around.
But in the web build I have access to, they're invisible!
So it's not the water that hides the gold after all.

Thanks for playing and for the video feedback :)

In fact, to leave the submarine, you have to click on the pictogram representing the exit while standing on an adjacent square. You can't interact with it if you're on the same square.
This can be confusing, so I've prepared an update that allows you to exit by moving to the exit square.

I agree with the idea of buying equipment between runs. It's a thought we had at the start of the jam, but we quickly put it aside to avoid work overload. It would definitely be a great thing to develop on a longer game.

The basic mechanics (shooting, inventory, map, etc.) look quite appealing. Unfortunately, we don't get to see much of the game, but it makes me want to explore the ship and see more of it.

Thanks for playing and for your comment :)

Great atmosphere! Music, sound effects and death screen make for a wacky but coherent whole.

It's also nice to restart only the current level and not the whole game when you lose.

Mostly bug free, apart from a small bug on the third level, when you hide in a box you go through a wall.

Special mention for the dynamic minimap, simple and functional implementation. It reinforces the “tactical” aspect of the game, and limits random deaths at every turning of a corridor.

Nice!
I also made a system of water flooding in my submission. This is the first game I've tested that has implemented a similar idea.

I replayed the game a few times to see the different possible branching dialogues paths and endings.

One option I didn't manage to do was getting 100 gold coins to pay the ransom. I tried, but the water made it difficult to see the coins on the ground.

I enjoyed the atmosphere and some of the ideas. The rain of loot on the end screen is particularly funny, I really like it. The door opening animation is nice too.

I like the atmosphere and the concept of exploring the mansion to collect loot. On the other hand, I found the controls rather cumbersome. It would be smoother with “Pickup Item” mapped on something like SPACE or Left Mouse, and without opening the inventory each time you pick an item.

I encountered a bug: at one point I was attacked while opening a door, it launched a fight but returned to standard gameplay before the fight occur, and then input (move, free-Aim, ...) no longer work .

Congratulations on the technical limitation, I love this kind of challenge!
I haven't managed to finish the game because I get killed by the “crazy hens” every time.
Is there a special strategy for winning the fight, or does it mostly depend on the RNG?

Thank you very much!

I agree, more advanced oxygen management mechanisms could be interesting. I intend to experiment with this type of mechanism again in another (bigger scoped) project.

Thanks for playing and for the great comment!

I'm a beginner in game development (this is my second gamejam), and it's true that it's not easy to make a game quickly! My teammates and I had planned a longer game, but we had to reduce the scope a bit to manage to complete it.

I'm also pleased with the water effect. It wasn't very difficult to do, as I mainly used third party shaders. It did the job, but I really need to learn shader programming to be able to respond more precisely to my needs in the future.

Thanks for the playthrough and commentary. It's nice of you and helpful!

Thanks, it's appreciated :) .

Thanks for your comment and also for the video, it's a great feedback system!

I completely agree with what you say. We had ideas for several complementary mechanics during the gamejam, such as: more complex level with keys to find and doors to unlock, oxygen refill scattered in the level, and even a harpoon gun to defend yourself from nasty fish.

However, time was running short. I spent a lot of time on the basic mechanics (movement, water, loots) and didn't have enough left to implement anything else.

I don't think I'm going to continue developing this game, but it gave me ideas and allowed me to experiment with tension/time limit mechanics, which I intend to integrate into another project I'm currently developing.

Thank you! Glad to hear you liked the concept.

Thanks for playing! The sound part was definitively rushed. We'll try to spend more time on it next jam.

The chicken can be tricky to get. There are several possible spawns, mainly in the lower part of the submarine.

Nice, I like the minimalist graphic style, and most of the puzzles were fun to go through.

One readability problem I've had: you can see the enemies from several squares away in a straight line, but they're never visible diagonally (even though the floor and walls are visible). It's a bit confusing.

Thanks :D !

If I had to tweak the encumbrance system, it might be better not to give a malus below ~20 loots. It should be annoying if you're carrying a lot of loots, to force you to drop them and plan an escape route, but there's no real point in slowing the player down when they're carrying few.

Nice score by the way, I think the best I've got while testing the game is ~70 + the idol.

Phileas -- "Gentlemen, this is a spaceship hijacking. Please remain calm and everything will be all right."

Butch -- "You've got 3 rocket launchers and a fire extinguisher pointed at you, so don't try anything funny..."

Joe -- "I've hacked into the station's protection system and updated the space GPS, so we're ready to go guys."

Igor -- "Hey Bob! You're some kind of bird, aren't you? You must have learned how to fly, right? So take control of this damn ship and let's get the hell out of here!"

Bob -- Cluck Cluck Cluck! (procced to peck some buttons on the dashboard.)

And that's how our merry band of degenerates escaped with 43500 brouzoufs in their pockets…

What an ending. I may have *slightly* exaggerated it in my head, but this is proof that it's a good RPG!

For the sound bug, it was a random enemy near the start of the game (in the first biome).

I liked the idea of taking the car to explore the planet, which I wasn't expecting.
Unfortunately, I didn't manage to finish the game because of the door opening mini-game bug. I tried several save/load and OOB glitches, but stayed stuck.

"You are forever know as RedCock the Fox Slayer"

Great entry!
At the beginning of the jam, my group considered the idea of making a rhythm game, but I (the group's programmer) said "It sounds too difficult to calibrate over such a short time. If the inputs aren't perfectly handled, it's going to suck. No thanks, I don't feel like it."
But you managed to do it! Well done!

Really nice graphics. The old-school cathode-ray effect is fun.
The environment variations make it clear how far you've progressed in the dungeon, and make orientation easier. There are even variations on the map, nice touch!.
The last environment reminded me of "Arcane Sanctuary" from Diablo 2, for some reasons.

The movements are fast and that's a good thing, but I find the rotations a little too fast. To make it more enjoyable, I think the rotations should either be a little slower, or not repeated on a key hold.

Some minor bugs I've encountered:

• During a fight, the sound volume suddenly increased dramatically, making my speakers crackle. I quickly lowered my sound to like 2%, then at the end of the fight the sound was back to normal.
• When you open or close your map while moving, the animation of the map slows down considerably, as if paused every time you cross a square.
•  I was able to OOB several times while moving quickly against a wall. Fortunately it wasn't game-breaking, and it's possible to return to the level without any problem. Here's a screenshot (but I think it can happen anywhere on the map and in any direction).
• At one point I crossed an enemy's sprite without it activating a fight. I was able to retrace my steps and attack him normally. (probably the same cause as the OOB bug)

Glad to hear it, thanks for playing!
As we didn't have time to implement many game mechanics, we decided to keep it very short to avoid boredom, and with the option to replay to get a better score/ending.

"Return to the airlock! -> Victory!"

I had trouble with the movements, I kept wanting to do sidesteps instead of turning.

Having to collect 100% of the ship's treasure was a bit too harsh.
Being able to escape the level with, say, 12/14 treasures, and possibly reducing the time before the ship explodes by 30 seconds to compensate, would probably be more intense and less frustrating.

That said, I like the concept of a Dungeon Crawler with pirate boarding, and it would be worth developing the idea.

Interesting take on the "Genre Fusion".
The game is difficult. I suppose the numeric keypad would be a more fun way to play, but unfortunately I don't have one on my keyboard. As suggested by "Evgeni Doudar", alternative key mapping to "QWEASD + space" might be nice.

It's a nice concept, it's fun to play.

The balancing was too easy in my opinion. Cards with the “draw x card(s)” effect are overpowered. They're quite common, and as the cards immediately return to the deck after being discarded (without going through a discard pile), it's easy to break the game by drawing infinitely.

I got to the point where I could play almost infinitely without needing to build a new hand.
Having said that, I'm well aware that it's very difficult to have time to balance a game during a gamejam.

I've spotted a bug. At the end of a level when choosing an upgrade, if you click outside the frame, it loads the next level without allowing you to choose an upgrade.

Below, a screenshot of the moment I stopped playing, my character having become unstoppable, condemned to crawl the dungeon forever... spooky stuff :o

"Congratz, You saved Elena!"

My main gripe with the game is the too long combats. 
In the last biome before boss, an enemy got 400hp and I was doing ~10 damage per hit, so 40 hit * 5 enemy = 200 hit to clear the floor.
Maybe there is a gem to up the damage, but I didn't have the chance to find it.

Noticed a bug: With the "regen/defense per hit" stats, even a attack under 50% (no damage, so not really a hit) trigger the effect. You can spam attack with 1% of charge and regen all your life very fast for example.

Thanks you ! It's a nice feedback being able to see your playthrough, thanks for this too.

Congratulations, thanks for playing!

Nice to hear you are interested in further development of the game.

An update right after the jam votes close is already planned. It will mainly include bugfixes for monster behavior, sounds (important for ambiance as you mentioned) and some tweaks/QOL (like a retry button if you die).

Then, I will try to improve the game a little more with:

• A proper interface/menu
• Sanity system that I didn't have time to implement during the jam
• Maybe, with the help of my two teammates, sprites adjustments and original soundtrack

After that, I want to continue experimenting in the Dungeon Crawler genre, but I don't know yet if that will take the form of an expansion to Cosmic Dreadnought or a different project.

The game feels just right, with all the essential elements to enjoy it implemented. It doesn't feel like any important feature is missing or has been rushed.

Strong theme implementation (Infinity/The Endless).

Some causes of death are pathetic in a fun way ("you stare at the bonfire for a century, good luck next time !")

The idea of the three fingers "Hand of God" that look like a chicken feet pleases me a lot, for some reason. Thanks you for this.

I didn't find a way to use the ring that make you blind. I supposed it could be useful to protect against the eyeballs, but it didn't seem to work, so I walked backwards to avoid their gaze.

Bug: After dying to the gaze of eyeball enemy, you still take damage at respawn with each rotate (Q/E) until you move (W/A/S/D). I assume the line of sight check is only done after a move.

I failed on fourth floor. I will retry to actually finish the game later.

I really like the desperate feel the game give as you lost your characters one by one.
Solid implementation of the themes (Solitude + Cosmic Horror).

I was surprised to see that you could walk on some kind of invisible teleporter that move you elsewhere on the map. I assume its intentional, as this remind me of the sort of tricks you found in Dungeon Master. I managed to navigate the environment thanks to the automap, but if you choose to lose your mapper early, the teleport trick become really devilish. Mapper, my main character for sure.

Nice graphics. I liked the constant variations of the graphics, it bring life to the game, but also could become a little unpleasant after some time. Some adjustments would be necessary to be perfectly enjoyable.

I missed some feedbacks for looting. If I understand correctly, items are placed on the map but are invisible (like upstairs/downstairs) ? You only know there was some loot after you walked on it ? I like the classic tabletop RPG stats (3d6 for damage).

The save system and separate options for sounds/music is a very nice touch in a jam game.

From one azerty user to another, merci pour ce jeu, c'était bonne ambiance (˚3˚)～♪ .

I Liked the feedbacks on movements: the movement of your helmet/hud, camera movement when you hit a wall, ...

The combat/auto-aim system is pretty simple, but I like it even in this state.

MISSION_REPORT_END

I liked the exit teleporters that emit light, so you could see it from afar, even when partially hided behind a wall. This gives a pleasant feeling of “This way!”, and avoids the frustration of searching the exit for a long time.

It was nice to see a respawn system after the player death (not like in my submission where you have to restart the game manually...).

However, I didn't find the combat enjoyable. I think I figured it out after the initial confusion, but the lack of stats in the items tooltips, and the two-move (attack/heal) turn-based combat wasn't very interesting to me.

Even if it's not explicit in the game, I presume that you have already implemented several subsystems (like elemental resistances) which could be a good basis for a more interesting combat system.

Thanks for playing !

Misspelled indeed. Written in total panic during the last hour of the jam, and not in my native language at that :P

The flashlight is mostly useful in a late area of the level where there is no lights (one of the screenshots show it).