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Descend the endless, randomly generated Strike Dungeon while knocking out as many pins as you can with your Trusty Bowling Ball along the way. Thanks for trying my game.
HOW TO PLAY:
_ Z key to begin the game.
- Arrow keys to move the hero in eight directions
- Z key to throw a bowling ball
- Esc to return to the Titlescreen and restart if the hero dies
- Bowling balls must be collected to be thrown again.
- Collect powerups to increase the hero's health and the number of bowlingballs he can carry
- Collect colored keys to progress
- Basic joypad support. Hat/d-pad to move, Button 1 to throw the bowling ball
- Modify the settings file in the main directory at your discretion.
ABOUT:
Originally I wanted to make a Zelda-like where the player collects random weapons as they progress deeper into the dungeon. Unfortunately getting the basics up and running took too long, so I just stuck with the bowling ball weapon and added a simple scoring mechanic. The dungeon generator is very simple but uses Doom-like keys to gate progression. Only one enemy type, unfortunately... As always, variety and a boss battle were desired but it became too important to finish within the time limit.
This game was written in Python using the Pygame/SDL media libraries. FL Studio was used to create the music, while Bfxr produced the sound effects. Graphics were drawn in Paint Shop Pro and GraphicsGale. Executable was "compiled" via cx_freeze, and only a Windows package has been created thus far.
Downloads and Links
Ratings
 | Coolness | 78% |
| #36 | Fun | 3.95 |
| #46 | Audio | 3.91 |
| #68 | Mood | 3.76 |
| #71 | Graphics | 4.14 |
| #80 | Overall | 3.84 |
| #243 | Theme | 3.73 |
| #391 | Humor | 3.03 |
| #395 | Innovation | 3.33 |
Comments
Oops. Press Z or Button 1 on your gamepad. I thought I put a prompt on the titlescreen but I guess I forgot.
Really enjoyed the NES style graphics. Nice use of the bowling ball as a weapon. I felt like the Bowler from the move Mystery Men. Shame you ran out of time, with some clever level design it could be pretty awesome.
The sound gave me an heart attack at the first launch :O
After that hard part, great game, hope to see more.
I really love the graphs, remind Zelda from SNES. Controls are good to play. The "earthwuake" effect on the screen is grat but makes me a little dizzy. Great game but I do not sure if its fit the theme.
Honestly a quality product. It is a bit repetitive but everything feels good. When you hit something there's a satisfying thunk.
Probably gameplay wise my favorite straight out game I have played so far for LD32.
Fantastic game for this short time. I feel that the mechanic could have been used for many neat puzzles if you flesh this game out more but still 48h for this is really impressive.
Great job! I made it to the 6th floor and enjoyed playing. I'd decrease the hitbox size on your hero to make navigating corners a bit easier. In one level a key I needed was hidden under a bowling pin - not sure if that was intentional but it made me feel like I found a "secret" :)
I played this for 7 floors. Felt really good to throw the bowling balls around, especially when you get 3 or 4 going at a time. Nice work!
This is really great for just 48 hours. Great work!
I actually got immersed with this.
The bowling pins have to go. Score is useless unless it gives you hearts as an incentive if you do continue on with this.
If you happen to spawn on one of those destructible walls and walk to some direction that only has more blocks until it hits a wall, the game closes.
I hit the same problem bazoo had.
But aside from that small thing there is a lot of satisfying crushing and exploring in this!
such a solid and polished game
you really capture the retro feel in this game
Very awesome game. It's simple but the bowling ball idea gives it a superb harm and the random dungeons adds a great level of replay ability. Totally the next Shovel Knight!!
Pretty fun game, hands down really flushed out, controller worked well.
Very nicely done! The game felt really good to play. Tons of feedback from screenshake and animations.
Only complaints:
- Add a game over screen when you die. Maybe just something with "You died" and a button for restarting or going back to the menu.
- The bowling ball could get stuck in the doorways sometimes. This happened when entering a new room and it really sucked since I was trying to use it to kill something and wasn't able to.
Graphics are good, but should be more challenging (though I only played a bit)
Such faithful 8-bit artwork and music. I love the mix between Zelda and what reminds me of Technos NES games. Very impressive dungeon generator! My feature request would be different kinds of enemies. Overall, an awesome game!
Awesome job! :) Love the visuals and the quality of randomized design.
Hehe i like it. Me watching the big lebowski lately, it's like the dude in a zelda dungeon.
Great work in every aspect. One of the best entries I've played thus far.
Please! Develop this game further! With really bowling-based puzzles! I like the Zelda Game Boy style. Make the enemies drop hearts. Encourage the player to toss balls around like crazy by placing hidden passages. The sound is great, I find the "hurt enemy" and "ball bounce" ones really compelling, they remind me of Kirby Super Star. Awesome!
Wow, this has a lot of potential for becoming a great game!
Amazing game, and the random dungeon gives it a lot of replay value. My only complaint is that sometimes the enemies would spawn right next to the entrance, and sometimes they'd even push you back out the way you came before you can react.
A most excellent entry; nice graphics and sound, I like the retro style. The gameplay is pleasing but can be punishing (instant death when entering a room) and some variety in the enemies might have been nice. But overall a great piece of work!
Note that the game crashes when the player is spawned on a wall. This happened twice to me. Here’s the call stack if it might be of any help: http://pastebin.com/WUswE6TX
Thanks for the feedback, guys.
I am aware of the bug, which is the result of spawning on top of a line of blocks which collide you outside of the tilemap and out of a legal camera boundary. So far, this is the only crash-to-desktop bug I've seen, but there are a few others I didn't get around to.
The most common and annoying bug is bowling balls getting stuck in doorways. The most innocuous bug is purely graphical, where the damage flicker animation for enemies glitches.
I will probably do a very meager post-compo version that just fixes the bugs and has more intelligent entity spawning/updating (right now, every enemy on the map gets updated, which results in a lot of unnecessary collision checks that slows down the game loop quite a bit). What I probably won't do is any sort of expanded version with more features/content, because I am just too busy for that and not passionate enough about this project to put other hobbies aside.
Also, I actually didn't mean to launch the game fullscreen in such an odd resolution that many displays might not handle appropriately. It was a configuration I was using on my laptop to demo it at the local gathering for LD32, but I forgot to change it. In case that gave anybody problems, you can disable fullscreen by changing the value to '0' in the settings file. Alternatively, you can set a resolution you prefer, but it's a good idea to set the screenbuffer value to a factor of the resolution or things will stretch.
Fun concept and I really enjoyed playing the game. The game could benefit from a bit more variety but not bad for a compo entry.
Pssst - You are in todays Ludum Dare to Believe! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFcSJC6FtXs
definite stand out for me, could have handed this to me on a gbc and told me it was a forgotten pearl and i would not have objected
i'd love to see a post compo version with some more variety
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I feel a bit stupid but how do you actually start the game? I was stuck on the title screen (enter or space didn't start it).