To The Core

Neat idea. I like the sprites details. I look forward to your improvement in the future.

Glad I could help! At least you didn't just attach the .exe file like I did the first time I made a game! I can see you are just starting out at game dev, and I thought you might appreciate some in-depth feedback, and some pointers to help you.

I think the main gimmick is very cool, a simple, fun gameplay loop, sort or mobile-esque but that isn't a problem at all for a game jam. Generally speaking, you want to spend a considerable portion of the jam time polishing. Polishing is sort of a large bracket term for all the small aesthetic details that you add to make the game satisfying, smooth and fun(ner). For your game, this would equate to screen transitions,  particle effects when you drill, a trail for you and the enemies, and an animation on dying and spawning on a level. There are infinite ways to polish, and polish is what makes a good game, like this, into a great one - the smaller details. If you struggle with this, try looking up games like Nuclear Throne, Enter the Gungeon and see how they deal with it.

The game itself is fun, but you might want to balance it a bit, as in, make the player a bit faster,  make the enemies slower to begin with and make sure in your algorithm (or in the individual levels if you made them by hand) for placing enemies to always allow safe spots, where you can rest because sometimes you get overwhelmed by having to move down, only to find yourself in the way of another enemy, especially in the later levels. I would also add a level counter to show how far you got - this isn't hard, just make a canvas, and add a text object - there are some great tutorials on unity UI, try brackeys, they make some fantastic tutorials. You can also have a death screen, that displays your score and high score.

I really like the animations on the dwarf and the goblin miner dudes, they feel very alive, good job on that, but they don't fit the environment at all, which is a big problem. A main thing about pixel art is: make the pixels all align. Avoid scaling art at all costs (except for ui, you can generally get away with that). For big, environmental pieces like this generally, instead of making one big art like you are doing, you might want to make one big circle in pixel art, then draw, like, several different types of rocks, or trees or other environmental decor to spice it up. This should hopefully remove the temptation to make a small planet and then boost the scale up in unity.

Overall, it is a very solid game, exceptionally good for 2 days, and presumably one of your first original finished games. Very well done on this, you should be very proud of what you've managed to accomplish! Good job, and keep programming!

Wish I had more time on some of the art, but I'm glad with how it turned out!

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