Spiraling Down
A Minetest Game for the 2022 Minetest Game Jam.
All textures by temhotaokeaha
Playing
Recommended Specs
- CPU with a PassMark Single Thread Rating of approximately 2000 or more (e.g. AMD Ryzen 5 3500U)
- At least 2 GB of free RAM
- About 1 GB of free disk
Very unique game
Fascinating experience that feels fairly complete: the attention to details in the mapgen is very nice and makes exploring interesting. The custom inventory and radar makes for a nice feel as well.
One huge problem is lag: This game is a monster for anyone's CPU. Items that you've dug will take a few seconds to appear in the inventory, lights take many seconds to place, etc.
The story also seems a little rushed, perhaps more elements to the story and a more fulfilling finish would be nice. The radar and inventory can also be quite confusing for a new player: a better explanation of it would be helpful. Other than that, this seems fun and playable.
Cool Game
To be honest I don't really know how to get saturnium or sand yet but it's still an amazing game the music is also very nice and the one on the top layer is strangely familliar, I don't know from where though.. (first thing that pops into my mind is super cube cavern but I haven't played that in years)
Cool idea, but glitchy
Good audiovisuals/UI theme. The prompts are a bit too slow at explaining, a HUD label or inventory tooltip would have been better. Game keeps freezing too, I suspect the text hud system causes that. Craft GUI could use UX improvements, more vertical separation / tooltips.
Gamplay: 6/10
Innovation: 7/10
Audiovisuals: 8/10
Content: 6/10
Theme: 7/10
Atmospheric but a bit rough around the edges in its current form
Rating Scale:
1-10 for each of the 6 categories, 1 being a thumbs down, 10 being a thumbs up. Max total being 60.
Gameplay: 6 | Innovation: 8 | Graphics (Content): 7 | Music & Sound (Content): 7 | Theme: 10 | Stability: 8 |
Total: 46
I agree with what others have said: this game really does atmosphere well, both on the surface with the view of the planet and inside the caves. The pixel art in the opening and menus is very clean too. The thematic music is a very nice touch. It would be great to see fleshed out beyond its Game Jam state. Spiralling Down could be Minetest's answer to Deep Rock Galatic.
That being said, it's not finished enough to recommend spending a great deal of time in right now. The menu screen isn't really very intitutive, it's not clear what the various elements you're collecting are or do, or what the tools are (it would be helpful if the HUD showed a descriptive name for the selected tool). Though I said I like the music, it's way too loud by default and there really could be more emphasis on sound effects, especially for drilling and such. Music transitions are a bit abrupt when moving between areas. I also got some errors related to sounds when using the acid gun (didn't know how to use it either). There were some plants that were kind of floating a few blocks off the ground that looked like they should be hanging from the ceiling. It would be good if you could pick up the lights again. The bat monsters could use some work, they're a bit laggy for me and totally overwhelming. The weird green balls also look a bit rough and clutter everything up. The game could introduce you to the hostiles in a bit more of a staggered fashion - perhaps only a handful at first, then more of them and more dangerous foes the deeper you go.
I am taking the time to give feedback here because I think the bones we have here are promising and it could be a fun game with more development.
Fight or flight, the game
Man future government suuucks! This adventure game has a varied soundtrack, a cool story and much to discover. I liked the artstyle of the initial briefing, and it was simply fun running through the many caves and caverns, blasting a few of the powerful aliens with acid while collecting resources. The mech model looks nice, I only wish it had animations. The beacon system is well integrated and easy to track.
I believe that the music in the ice layer could be more varied, as you're bound to spend more time in there to stockpile supplies for the danger ahead. I couldn't complete the game because the enemies simply frightened me too much: when I poked my head in a cave close to their spawn depth, a swarm of 10~ of them attacked me and caused me to flee. When I tried to fight them, they always overwhelmed me with numbers because of their fast spawn rate.
Overall though, this is a recommendation because it felt polished where it counted, albeit being really difficult at times.
v (More in the comments) v
Unique experience, but unstable and feels incomplete
Overall rating
First of all, even if this game is incomplete, this game demonstrates greatly how games can be a form of artistic expression. This game is clearly a very special and unique submission for tha game jam. I like that a lot! But I still have to give a "No recommendation" due to massive performance problems. This is a shame, as the game is otherwise something really special, I really hope the problems will be fixed and the game will continued to be worked on post-jam, it 100% has HUGE potential. I am looking forward for a post-jam version of this game. It's stuff like this why I like the game jam, even if not every submission passes the park.
Gameplay
This is unique, yet familiar. It takes on the "mining" genre with a twist. The custom mapgen definitely is a huge plus for this game. Your goal is to go deeper and deeper. The mapgen is good, you will be able to go down relatively easy, don't have to backtrack often and frequently find large cavities. What's unique are the ores, which might come in high and low quantities. Alien plants grow on the floor and ceiling.
You collect resources while venturing down and have to evade ... aliens?
This game should actually be called "Speedrunning Down" because that's the winning strategy. :D My winning strategy is to first stockpile enough saturnium and steel on the high and safe layers, and then YOLO downwards as fast as I can, not even trying to fight the enemies. When I get hit, I briefly heal my self, then continue to speedrun downwards. I also try to avoid large caves due to the enormous amount of enemies. Maybe it would be better if the game had some other method to prevent the player to venture down too fast.
What was confusing is the game tells you to go to a spot on your radar but I did that and found ... nothing. Strange. Probably this wasn't coded yet?
(the full review continues in the comments)
It is a interesting game
I like the textures, they are very good made.
The story isn´t simple and is well made.
Music is also nice.
Potential for a nice game, not there yet
I can tell this game has got potential, it creates a particular atmosphere, and yet it's too buggy and not optimised UX-wise. For instance, the narrated story could have a "next" or "ok" button rather than expecting the player to press "Esc". Then, the instructions for the tools were so slow (and laggy) to appear, and being dark green you should also have to put them on the right background to actually be able to read them.
Then, the first tool wasn't really working, and when it did it threw a warning error in chat. The inventory was really nice, the problem is I didn't get what I'm supposed to do with all the refined materials. When I reached the area with enemies, it lagged very badly. Also, I had to manually fix the game to launch it on Windows, after having seen the description on CDB.
Talking about things I've appreciated, definitely the music changing according to the area, the pixel art seen in in the inventory and in illustrations, a minimap to give you a goal, and the atmosphere