Cursed to mine.

Time the ore as it ripens. Haul what you can to a chest.
Curse the ore as it ripens. For then we begin - again.

How to play

WASD to move, mouse to aim, left click to swing, right click to interact.

Survive as long as you can. Heal by mining gems. Deposit collected gems to a chest. Use collected gems to buy defenses. Hit the unlocked crystals (green outline) to activate them - they are your only mean of defeating the enemies. Several par times are given as goals inside the game.

Mechanics

• The ore ripens through five stages. You get exponentionally more gems by mining at the last stage - but if you are too late you will miss it completely. Mining early gives you more healing.
• Everything you carry drags. Weight slows you down, but also makes the crystals stronger.
• Banked gems buy crystal defense. A shockwave and a slow field - all increase in price with each purchase. However you could refund and respec your tower locations!
• Burrows can be sealed permanently. The price climbs with each one.
• Your health falls down with time. Mining gems is the only way to recover it.

Credits

I've worked on the design, programming, sound and music of the game.

The only visual asset I made was the hole animation.

I've used Godot as engine, and REAPER as DAW.

Here credits to the free assets I've used:

• the enemy animated sprite: https://ponkpixels.itch.io/insect-enemies
• the crystal: https://frakassets.itch.io/free-dark-crystal-shrine
• the playable character: https://dkproductions.itch.io/16bit-miner-animated-character
• the gems: https://kelano-studio.itch.io/ore-gem-50-minerals-32x32
• the chest: https://pixelserial.itch.io/rpg-pixel-art-chests
• the tileset: https://graycatgames.itch.io/cave-tileset

Jam theme

The jam theme "Timing is everything" is interpreted in a micro and a macro way.

In a micro way - you only way of fighting back is the crystals which have a delayed trigger, so you need to time them with the enemies. On the macro side - the gem's stages are cycled with time - so you need to plan out your routes according to the gem timings.

Issues

I didn't have the time to make a proper tutorial. The game starts off quite complex.