grimmrobe [Lexaloffle Blog Feed]

The Deck and the Labyrinth (alpha v1.5)

Mon, 23 Sep 2024 16:36:32 UTC

grimmrobe_deckandlabyrinth_a1

by grimmrobe

[Click to Play]

The Deck and the Labyrinth

The Deck and the Labyrinth is a roguelite deckbuilder(lite) maze crawler where you, a mysterious hero with a magical deck of cards, traverse 28 floors of a randomly generated maze to battle monsters, collect cards, and eventually defeat the evil creature that brought the maze into existence.

Controls

Exploration

Up,down - Take a step forward or backward
Left,right - Turn 90 degrees left or right
z/c/(O) - View map, open chest, interact, close window
x/v/(X) - View deck, close window

Battle

Left,right - Change selected card
Down - Hold to see what the selected card does
z/c/(O) - Play a card
x/v/(X) - View discard pile, close window

Gameplay

Exploration

Each floor is a randomly generate maze filled with monsters. There is a locked door somewhere in the maze that leads to the next floor and a chest with a key to unlock it. There are also some chests with random new cards for your deck.

In the top left of the screen is a compass that shows which direction you're facing and in the top right is an orb that shows how close you are to a fight: blue is safe, orange means it's getting dangerous, and flashing red means battle is imminent.

On the bottom is your player level and your experience points, gained from winning battles. Also on the bottom is a (O) button icon which flashes when you can interact with something in front of you.

After every second floor, you will encounter either a fountain or an altar. Drink from a fountain to heal up to 3 wounds and remove them from your deck. Use the altar to burn your lowest power sword or shield card and remove it from your deck, up to 3 times. The altar will refuse your sacrifice if it is the last of its type in your deck, or if your deck would be smaller than 10 cards.

Battles and Death

In battle, you take turns playing cards and taking hits from your opponent. On your turn, you draw 5 cards (4 if you're poisoned) and you can play up to 3 cards (2 if you're weakened). (Other status effects include cursed, where your sword cards do no damage, and shattered, where your shield cards don't increase your defence, as well as guard, which gives +1 def per turn, and protect, which protects from enemy status effects).

Sword cards cause damage to your opponent's defence (shield) and health (heart), and shield cards increase your own defence (shield). You'll also find more powerful sword and shield cards as well as equipment cards that have their own unique effects.

On your opponent's turn they will play a number of wound (skull) cards equal to their attack power (sword). You will block a wound card for each defence point that you built up on your turn. Any unblocked wounds will go into your discard pile and be shuffled into your deck. Playing a wound card while you have a potion will remove that card from your deck entirely.

After each turn, your defence goes back down to 0 and your opponent's defence, if any, is replenished.

You win when the opponent's health is reduced to 0. If you earned enough XP to gain a level, you can choose between your weakest sword or shield card to give +1.

If you ever draw a full hand of wound cards in battle, you die and it's game over!

Notes on this WIP

I started this for the low rez jam 2024 but, as is often the case when I do game jams, I didn't have much time during the jam to work on it. So I continued with what I had anyway and this is the nearly complete thing!

See changelog below for updates. I managed to squeeze more tokens out of it to add some features, and recently added music!

Missing is a proper ending blurb. Those that manage to get through it will be met with an simple but unceremonious "The End".

Even though this is a roguelike, I still wanted to incorporate some sort of suspend save so that a player can take a break before continuing, but the lack of tokens also prevented this. Perhaps after some playtesting and polishing I'll have another token saving epiphany and add such a feature, but most likely not.

It's certainly not balanced yet, so please feel free to comment on that and any other issues you find. Enjoy!

Updates

alpha 1.1

A few bugfixes
Increased chance to get equipment cards
Either button closes a window and moves through dialog
Door asks if you want to enter right away
Changed altar text for clarity
Still no music! Coming soon!

alpha 1.2

MUSIC!!! Added themes for the intro, dungeon crawling, boss battle, and death. Still more to come.
Some more bugfixes
Changed equipment drops so that there is max 1 drop per floor and no duplicates until all pieces are found
Fountain now heals up to half of total wounds, minimum 3. Fountain also doesn't appear if the deck contains no wound cards
Ring now adds a status effect "Protect" which heals status and protects from status effects for 3 rounds
Hammer now does minimum 2 damage to monsters with defence of 1 or less, or completely destroys monster's defence
Added Large Shield equipment card. This card adds a status effect "Guard" which gives +1 defence for 3 rounds (thanks @RealShadowCaster for suggestions)

alpha 1.3

bugfix: discard pile window during battle

alpha 1.4

bugfix: equipment pool actually works now and empty hand ends turn

alpha 1.5

bugfix: defeated monster won't attack after hand is empty
bugfix: curse status correctly shows debuffed attack cards
bugfix: fountain shows up appropriately
Slight balance tweak for cultist enemy before mid-boss
Removed button icon from window since now either button closes it

Truffle Pig

Mon, 15 Apr 2024 04:01:04 UTC

trufflepig_jam

by grimmrobe

[Click to Play]

Truffle Pig

I little minesweeper clone I made for Mini Jam 156!

The theme was "mushroom" and my mind immediately went to truffle pigs (oink). The limitation was "stuck in a loop", which I barely met by making the level a literal loop. I had planned to make it a commentary by being stuck in a loop of labour exploitation under the capitalist whims of a greedy chef but, you know, jams.

Have fun!

music and sfx by @Gruber

grimmrobe_lilbugger_1

Mon, 03 May 2021 03:43:28 UTC

grimmrobe_lilbugger_1

by grimmrobe

[Click to Play]

Hi everyone!

I have another game for you all! This one is called Lil' Bugger, in which you drop bugs into a little boy's sandbox to make even bigger bugs and score points. It was originally meant for the MiniJam in April, but in my classic fashion, I didn't finish it within the jam's timeline. The theme this time was bugs and the limitation was: You are the bad guy (hence Lil' Baby Bobby's never ending tears)

The game is loosely based on the tabletop strategy game Tiny Towns but much simplified for the sake of being a short little ditty. The music is not great so feel free to play with the sound off!

How to play

Select a little bug to place in the sandbox
Match the little bugs to the patterns at the top to make big bugs and score points
You can match the patterns in any 90 degree rotation (but not mirrored!)
The game is over when the box is full

Note: The little bugs come in a "deck" of 15 cards. Only when you run out does the deck get shuffled again and 3 new cards are dealt.

Enjoy!

-Mike (he/him)

5/12/2021 - Fixed pattern in mantis that made mosquitoes every time

Solid Rogue

Wed, 14 Apr 2021 06:00:34 UTC

solidrogue

by grimmrobe

[Click to Play]

March 2025 update

It's been a while since I touched Solid Rogue, but here I am! I just wanted to put my final version here for the fans, but I've also uploaded it to itch.io if you want to give me money :) Those in the know (with a copy of pico-8) can export native files and see the source already, but I've provided those on the itch page for folks who want to support my work.

Thanks again to everyone who played it, and I'd love to see some top clear times ;)

-Mike

Hi everyone! This is my first post and my first game made with PICO-8.

This is Solid Rogue, a "coffeebreak" roguelike where you play as Badger, a stealth operative who has just stolen plans for the bipedal nuclear weapon known as Rogue Gear! Help Badger climb 20 stories of a bad-guy infested facility to freedom!

I had originally planned for Solid Rogue to be part of the 2021 seven day roguelike challenge, having spent what free time I had the weeks before learning the ins and outs of PICO-8 from the amazing PICO-8 rogulike tutorial series by LazyDevs (specifically Krystman, the creator of Porklike). Unfortunately, with a new job and some personal duties I was unable to have a playable game before the end of the jam. I decided instead to spend a few more weeks jamming and this is what came of it.

Controls

Up, down, left, right to move one space (when you move, enemies move too)
Move into enemies to knock them out for a short time
Tap X to pass a turn
Hold Z and tap a direction to peek ahead one space (you can pass turns while peeking too)
While peeking, tap the direction again to dash two spaces (dashing uses stamina which is refilled at every new floor
Hint: bumping into walls or stepping on grates makes noise!

I hope you enjoy!

-Mike (He/Him)

Version History

4.14.2021 - uploaded game
4.14.2021 - added faster reload after death and a manual "restart game" to the PICO-8 menu
3.10.2025 - added a proper intro, ending, fixed some bugs, added best floor and timer for hopeful speedrunning