Dungeon Keysmith's Apprentice
Puzzle game originally created in 48 hours for the GMTK 2021 Game Jam, now with new levels and mechanics! Play as a smith's apprentice who must repair the single-use keys that plague modern dungeon crawlers. Powered by puzzlescript.
Controls: arrow keys to move, Z to undo a turn, R to restart the current level.
Discord: pteren
WARNING: the debug tool is still present in the 48-hour version, so pressing X, enter, or spacebar will skip the current level. Don't press them by mistake or you'll have to restart the game to go back. This has been patched in the updated version released after the jam.
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Development log
- three new levelsDec 18, 2023
- gasp an updateDec 12, 2023
- Version 0.13Jun 25, 2021
Comments
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I beat the last new 3 levels. They were fun. That last one was nice and clever. Sorry I don't come up with any suggestions. I'm drawing a blank.
that's okay! i'm glad the dungeon lock levels are proving interesting
Well, I played the 'updated' version, but I must admit, I didn't really notice much of any difference. Maybe fewer wooden blocks. Anyway, looking forward to your next venture.
Great game. The ending says that there will be more levels coming. Do you think you will add some?
hi! i have no plans to work on this game anytime soon- i lost the most up-to-date file, so it would take some work to build back to what's published here.
i also struggled to make interesting puzzles with the elements i have. i know it's possible but at my current skill i don't think i could make the game as interesting as it deserves to be
but! i will look at it and get back to you in two weeks with a yay or nay. i would love to turn DKA into a finished game, and this winter would be a good time to try to get it done
(in the meantime if you haven't played ascent yet go check it out ;) it's much less agonizing and is being actively updated)
shoot, i forgot to follow up on this- but if you red my ascent devlog you know i do plan to return DKA to development in the coming weeks :)
Just finished playing and this was pretty enjoyable. Not too easy, not too hard.
I agree with some of the other comments here. The boxes felt excessive and completely irrelevant to the puzzles, so at the start of each level, I just pushed all the boxes into the nearest hole before starting the actual puzzle.
I really like the concept a lot and I wish more levels expanded on the red door game mechanic (e.g breaking apart the keys and reordering them for different yellow doors to unlock different paths/sections of the map in the same level). Would definitely love to play more levels of this puzzle game. Great job!
Oh my gosh. I feel so dumb. I'm stuck on level 2. I know I must be missing something obvious, but I can't figure it out.
If you aren't used to block-pushing puzzles, level 2 might be tricky- it's stumped several other playtesters so I'm considering removing it. Movement pattern is: >^>^>>^>v>^>>>
I see where my error was now. I thought I needed an additional key segment, and so would reset every time I couldn't reach the key fragments
I was having fun up until red doors were introduced. Not because the red doors weren't fun or anything, but aside from the tutorial, it didn't seem like they were used at all? Like, I literally never needed the pieces in the giant level or the other one with a red door after that. Also, throughout the whole thing, I spent way too much time pushing boxes. It makes me sad, since there seemed to be many more ways to interact with the pieces that weren't explored. So, I guess my suggestions would be:
- Chill on the boxes. Heck, maybe even remove them altogether. As it is now, it feels more like Box Genocide Simulator than Key Forging Puzzle Game.
- Reduce level size. A lot. That should help prevent some of the tedium that came with the larger levels, ESPECIALLY the one with 5 red doors. (Seriously, why did that exist?)
-Perhaps along with that, remove a stage or two of the iron being hot to accommodate the smaller level size?
- Try to focus the levels on funny interactions, like the last level before the red doors (although it seems weird to me that that one had two at once?)
I know this is really critical, but I really do like the idea, and as I said at the start, I was having fun, despite the excessive box murder. I do hope you'll come back to this and revise the levels at some point!
I've been worried about a lot of your feedback for a while, particularly the box spam- I used it during the jam because it's a quick way to make puzzles that feign actual difficulty, and it managed to fool a couple people then, but now that I have more levels and time to work on it people are starting to catch on XD.
I'll probably end up phasing out crates altogether by the end of Day 2, but I'm keeping them around in the earlier levels, both to introduce newcomers to block-pushing games and to strengthen the theme of a cluttered workspace run by a grumpy master who is too experienced and enlightened to bother with material matters like tidying up. With more time I'll be able to tighten up the rooms and practice using the key mechanics more - the level you mentioned at the end of Day 1 was my favorite to design and definitely my best puzzle because it focused on keys and not crates.
Red doors were just completed, so I haven't come up with a lot of good puzzle concepts yet, but I'll definitely go a lot more in-depth with them before moving on to my plans for Day 3 and Day 4. The 5 door level was designed as a tutorial for the dungeon locks (demonstrating how they can allow you to move fragments without permanently affixing them to your handle) and has some interesting pit puzzles, but it can absolutely be made way smaller and less painful to push through.
Not reducing the weld cooldown- in fact I've been considering increasing it to make certain welds possible, but reducing it even by one turn breaks almost all my puzzles as is. Even with smaller levels I don't think it will be necessary.
Thank you for your very detailed criticism and advice! This may be the longest reply I've received to date and will help me a lot with the next few updates.
I'm glad I can help! Regarding the weld cooldown, yeah there was a reason I put "perhaps" there.
I think the main problem with the 5-door level (aside from how incredibly tedious it is) is that it just feels like 5 separate normal puzzles, probably catalyzed to some extent by the fact that having multiple yellow doors in one level has only one level associated with it, if I remember correctly.
If you intend for the later levels to have no boxes, I would think it'd make more sense to have useless key parts scattered around than wooden boxes; maybe roundish chunks of metal, idk.
Unrelated, but maybe the red doors should have something to visually distinguish them from the yellow doors other than color? I'm not exactly sure how hard colorblindness would make this game right now, but it couldn't hurt.
Oh this is very cute. Haven't played it through completely, but I quite like what I played. Thank you for the lovely game :)
OMG increpare! This is high praise. Thanks for making puzzlescript- when my dad showed it to me I instantly fell in love with it and I'm sure it will power many more projects in the future <3
I need it to liberate the piece from the bottom room, but if I use it then it's stuck in the wrong position for the exit door..
You're not crazy- this is a bug which I passed over twice before patching. The pin in the final door is supposed to match the key fragment with a hole in it. Sorry about that!