UNSTABLE
An incomplete game that still somehow made it into the top half.
What is this?
Unstable is (supposed to be) a game about a miner, whose job it is to mine Alkali and Alkaline metals from these weird caves. As you go deeper, different-- and subsequently more expensive-- metals can be found hidden within the rocks. Hidden under some rocks are stairs that will bring you deeper into the mine. Deeper and deeper you'll go, and more and more riches you'll strike...
At least, that was the plan. This is more of a proof of concept than anything. With this jam being held on Easter weekend and everything, I didn't have much time to work on it. This is what the game currently features:
- Infinite randomly generated mines, each sporting different metals
- 5 Alkali and 5 Alkaline metals to be mined!
- (Francium and Radium are a little too dangerous to be mined)
- A set of stairs hidden in each mine to bring you deeper.
- (Or, just take the stairs that are supposed to bring you back up to the surface. Those bring you downwards too)
- Cool textboxes! (Press CTRL in the game, you'll see)
...That's about it.
This is what I WANTED to include:
- Limit lantern fuel! You'd have to go back up and refuel every 5 minutes or so.
- Selling your metals to upgrade your equipment (mining speed, lantern life)
- Also, being able to submit how much cash you have to an online leaderboard.
- Treasure chests, with gems and rare metals!
- A full tutorial! What I have now is dreadful!
- Being able to have random conversations with other miners (NPCs) through a walkie talkie.
- You can see where I tested with that if you press CTRL in the game.
- As mentioned above; Leaderboards! For the following:
- Total cash
- Upgrades (lantern and pickaxe)
- Most decended
- Chests opened
I, uh... I had very high hopes.
If I ever update the game, you'll be able to find it here. Of course, you shouldn't review the updated version. That's not fair for the Jam!
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Lv. 15Hey dont be too harsh on yourself! What you did do is very good and polished! The sounds created a nice atmosphere and the graphics are very good. Also your text box was great and it makes me jealous! What you had planned on doing sounds sweet and I'd love to see it in the future!
SubmittedFlesh Eye vs. Mind Eye
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Lv. 38
For a "sucky unfinished proof-of-concept" this is super solid. The graphics are nice - I like the lighting effect around the character and the pick's mining animations. The audio is good - the background ambience is great and the mining noises are really satisfying. Even the gameplay seems fairly polished. It's a shame you didn't get to complete it.
SubmittedInto the Void
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Seems to be a good base for a future game. It is a satisfying way to mine. I hope you expand on it and share future builds on the subreddit!
One nitpicky detail is that the stairs look more like they lead up than farther down.-
Lv. 5
Thanks for giving my game a try!
Alas, the stairs that appear next to the player that bring you down further and look like they're going upwards are supposed to look like they're going and bring you upwards. Hidden under other rocks in the cave are stairs that look (and function) correctly. I might expand on this game one day. Or, I'll just take the concept and apply it to part of the RPG I'm already working on. (I like that idea better! Haha)
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Lv. 37
Very polished game, everything felt really great except maybe the repetitive mining.
What this game is lacking is some actual purpose, you're just mining for the sake of mining i guess, there's no real goal or even progression, I got down to floor 30 and nothing changed.
I mean, it's not bad, it's actually really polished, but there's no game, and therefore no fun.
Oh and if you use the stairs that go up you'll actually go down, so there's no point in mining either, but I know that's probably just a bug.
SubmittedPath Y
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Lv. 5
Thanks for giving my game a try!
Yeah, I got very caught up in the mechanics of Unstable and didn't have time to add any actual goals to the game. There was suposed to be a limit on your lantern's life, the ability to go up and sell your gathered metals, etc. What good is a game if it's not much fun to play? :P
And, yes, the stairs are a bug that made me throw my hands in the air and yell "Screw this" in the last twenty minutes of the jam. The culprit being a broken switch/case statement involving grumpy goto_room(); statements.
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Patron
The textboxes are cool indeed :D What you have for now is really good, my only complaint is that it's a little weird to play if you use the arrows.
SubmittedTescend
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Lv. 5
Thank you for giving my game a try! I added in the arrow keys as a option for control after thinking to myself "Say, what if the person playing the game is a lefty?". Then I realized that a lefty would use a mouse on the right side. I just never bothered to remove them as an option since the arrow keys didn't have any other purpose.
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Lv. 1
This is really, really good! Everything from the dynamic little metal counters to the nice sprite art just feels great and works really well with everything else in the game.
One thing I noticed is that the metals tend to fly on top of the walls if you're mining something on the very edges of the map. I also wish you would have put up some screenshots and more information about the game itself on this games page. It would really help to attract more people to your game. Overall though, I'm really impressed with the game!
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Lv. 5
Hello! Thanks for giving my game/proof of concept a try. I'm glad you enjoyed the parts of the game that actually seemed to function, haha!
Metals getting stuck in the walls was something I had tried to fix and didn't have much luck with. Fix that right away if I end up continuing working on this game.
When I submit this game last night, I was very, very tired. I'm going to be adding some screenshots, info, etc. within the next eight hours or so (in school as we speak).
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