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Final update (for now) is live for Raid the Abyss!

Following some great feedback from Ludum Dare 57, we’ve rolled out a last patch with:

Balance adjustments

Bugfixes

QoL settings

Touchscreen support (mobile-friendly!)

We’re shifting gears back to prototype asset development on our main project—but Raid the Abyss has potential and an ambitious dev roadmap. Whether it stays a side project or becomes a higher priority depends on interest.

If the concept sparks your creativity and you’re interested in contributing, reach out. We’d love to hear from you.

Play the latest build (still free & open source):
https://staticleapstudios.itch.io/raid-the-abyss

Feedback Cliffnotes:

Metrics

Advanced data on this game

Karma from Feedback given:38

Ratings given:36.125

Ratings received:30.5

Classic Balance:110.6606 *

Smart Balance:3.8925 *

Nice game with interesting stylization and fine sound effects.
I did found the combat system to be somewhat confusing and the AI’s weren’t doing much of anything so I mostly got use from them when my current character died. I made it to Wave 3, it got better once I started using shield a bit more.
Good job!
Cool stuff!
the audio-visual aspect is very high quality.
Unique style, the retro aesthetic.
All the sprites, animations. ui and menu illustrations are really good, especially for a jam game, and the audio pairs well (though besides the really good main menu music, I missed the soundtrack in the actual gameplay)
The movement and combat felt a little clunky to me, especially using the shield, which felt very inconsistent, though maybe it was due to me playing the web version.
Also the character level would reset after death (which I assume was intended), but the indicator on screen would still show the level I died at, which kind of confused me at first. The reset in exp would also make gaining it back pretty frustrating, and when I died in Layer 2 fighting the Balrog-looking boss, it was gg. He would just scale himself so much faster and regaining my lvl was straight-up impossible with even the basic orc posing a great challenge capable of one-shotting me. Though maybe that was the intention, it definitely made the game more chanllenging, but combined with the clunky movement it sometimes felt unfair.
I’ve also experienced a bug where some enemies were invisible, though that was at a point where, the performance-wise the game was struggling, so again, perhaps it’s the fault of me playing the web version.
But despite these things I did like the overall idea for the combat system here, and with more polish and added complexity in enemy types, and maybe various weapons etc. I think it could work really well.
It reminded me a little bit of the Crypt of the NecroDancer, though without the rhythmic element.
Nonetheless, the game has a high production quality and it’s impressive what you’ve cooked up here.
Nice game! I had an issue where new enemies didn’t appear after I played for a while
Great visuals and plodding feel to this! I found it a bit tedious to traverse large distances, but I like the intentional aspect of positioning to attack. Cool stuff!
I found the font quite hard to read, and the web version is a bit small. Is there a way that you can add a fullscreen button? If the LD site doesn’t allow fullscreen button you can post the game on itch.io.
I like the animations and it feels good to hit an enemy, though I wish I could move a bit faster (or maybe move without snapping to the grid)
So, the graphics were really nice. I didn’t like being stuck to the grid so much, but that’s a design choice I guess. I liked the sound effects and the overall vibe, would definitely like to see this developed more!
I also spent a while killing guys and leveling up, then noticed that on the bottom near my sword it said kills: 0 … Then I realized the guys I was killing weren’t attacking me, and I’m pretty sure I got to like level 9 off of friendly fire killing my AI teammates, since they didn’t seem to be attacking me either? Then I went towards the different looking people on the map and suddenly they were attacking me. So… oops?
The boss kicked my butt because I’m not used to use my shield
At the very least, I should probably lose EXP for killing allies instead of gaining EXP, unless that’s a design choice
Pass through allies would probably be the cleanest solution, just disable collision on allies, leave it on bad guys. Still, good job again!
I really like the aesthetic of this game, the animations and sounds really made it feel smooth. I couldn’t get the shield to work, not sure if I was just doing it wrong but if so it doesn’t feel very intuitive. Unfortunately couldn’t get past the boss because every time it killed me my max hp reset and it’s went up. Still really fun though. Great job!
The game goes hard, I liked the gameplay, my strategy was to be aggressive and start with a kick before slashing away. Gamplay goes hard, music goes hard, even the animations feel really fluid how did you even do them? Overall this was fun. I did have some difficulty reading text though.
Thanks for dropping the link in my stream! Was fun playing. Although the artstyle wasn’t really my thing, it really was a fun game.
Nice I managed to kill a lots of “oRcs”. Game played fine in my browser.. Began a bit repetitive at some point. I think I was at wave 6…
Wow, what a cool game. The character animation is also so smooth, did you do it in 3D? My only piece of feedback is the font, found it a bit difficult to read and thats about it. Music is great and the game plays well, I really like this entry. I would def buy a game with these sort of mechanics
The slashing sfx is satisfying. Love the animation as well!
I’ve just wanted to write the same as @aizomon.
Love it! Music is awesome, the retro graphic is so cool! Its so much Diablo vibe! The control feels strange but maybe its just a game design idea.
- I have played&rated your game, don’t have time to write long review, things I liked:
+unique art style
+moving on tiles gives some Warcraft 1 vibes
+also game itself like dark souls or diablo atmosphere
+gaining control of other people when respawn.
+overall lot of interesting things implemented: cutting stones, sparta kick to pits, blocking, boss, leveling up, procedural endless corridor
- Things works not so well for me:
-collider of block is for front wall, so you cant go above it or squeeze corner;
-smoothing of camera is nice but tiresome after a while when I begin to move more aggresively and faster, because it aligns to tiles
-idea of block is cool, but its positioned on side of body and turning just before block is very hard
-kick is too instantaneous, giving too small time to react, looking almost like teleporting.
-leveling up feels like you become unstoppable at some point (on other hand, boss could kill you too easily and you now weak again)
-sometimes its difficult to discern between ally and enemy, particular because of light – for example sometimes soldier is golden, but when he raises hand he got shadow (?) and looks almost like orc.
P.S. minor undestandable jam things: at some point I just rushed forward, and sprites were visible oustide of play field in the void, also I think cutting 3 stones in front is too powerful for sword.
(At this point you may wonder if that’s my short review what long is…)
- Ideas I propose:
+dash action, also for enemies, for more tactical surrounding and backstabs
+some ally teamwork, may be action to call for help, for example place banner
+objects or points of interest, like chests, idols, some unique rooms, to do something else from slashing
Keep up good work! Good luck figuring how to transform this idea to full game, may be some dancing-rythm mechanics p.s. after watching someone stream, I realized I missed descending on next layer and played only 1st.