Core Contest - Post Jam Update


Hello Summoners,

First of all, I would like to extend my sincere thanks for your fantastic support during Shovel Jam 2025! I have taken your opinions to heart, and although I haven't yet managed to implement everything, I wanted to make this update as soon as possible to address the specific issues you pointed out during the Jam. 

Changelog:

- Web version of the game was created!
- Added Interactible Tutorial to Core Contest, accessible from the game's landing page.
- Fixed music loop breaking.
- Updated resource icons.
- Terms "Orthogonal" and "Diagonal" are now applied correctly.
- Hovering a Summon over a Dungeon will now highlight all tiles that the Summon is affected by and display the volume of resource generated on that tile.

Summons:
- Mimic - Now can be placed only on a space occupied by a Trap. The effect changed, now reads: Gain 24 coins. Gain 7 coins per surrounding Trap.
- Petrified Statue (Generated by Basilisk) - Now can be placed only on a space occupied by a Monster. The effect changed, now reads: Produces 25 pointsProduces 20 points.

Known Issues:
- Value of hovered summon does not account for regular Dungeon Walls.
- You can softlock the tutorial if you waste all your mana on pondering instead of buying units.
- Sometimes Summon will stick to your pointer, if you try to play it atop other Summon.
 

Files

CoreContest-Jam Edition.exe 104 MB
Jul 28, 2025
CoreContest1.1.exe 104 MB
Jul 28, 2025
web.zip Play in browser
Jul 28, 2025

Get Core Contest

Comments

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  • I like the visual clarity updates! Very much appreciated, makes managing/placing summons a lot easier :D Below are some thoughts I had playing the game (a mix of both feedback and suggestions, mostly just spitballing ideas lol)
  • Going along visual clarity, when I'm placing a new summon I'd like to be able to see which towers that are getting influenced by the new summon, so say I'm placing a summon, aside from what spots the summon covers, I'd like to see what other summons it would effect (refer to the image because i BUTCHERED the explanation)

  • I would love to a see some temporary summon: none that stay for the duration of a run but something to help in some specific situations (like a scouting tower that exists only to uncover some spaces, I think that would give the (i forgot the name) tower that gives points based on surrounding walls a small buff))
  •  A quick way to reset a run (this is a nitpick because it really is just pressing end round and then pressing try again but it would be nice to be able to hold R and reset a run or something along those lines)
    • possibly a round 1 free reroll? just to get back into another run quickly, I find myself needing a strong start in order to get higher year runs
  • (this is purely extra) but a summon encyclopedia would be cool, just to see all the possible options.

I'll stop yapping about random ideas, this is more in depth thoughts after playing, I may make another one focused specifically on summons. Either way, looking forward to more updates! :D

Thanks for feedback! Expanding the roster of summons with more utility is on my To Do list, Scouting is a cool idea.  Summon Encyclopedia will be incorporated into Dungeonomicon. Previewing other affected Summons would be a good QoL, I'll try to incorporate it.

Nice update! The tutorial is a lot less overwhelming now ^_^ Also big W for the web version !!

I messed around a bit and have some new feedback / bugs:

- You can softlock the tutorial if you waste all your mana on pondering instead of buying units

- You can play the old tutorial over the new tutorial

- When you try to place a summon in an occupied space, such that you stop clicking with the pointer over the occupying summon, the summon you were trying to place "sticks" to your mouse

- I think it should be more noticeable when you have the shop locked, or maybe don't let the player ponder if the shop is full and locked. I got to round 8 and lost cause I wasted all my mana trying to reroll the locked shop over and over again >_< (TBF I wasn't paying too much attention)

- Sometimes the new tutorial seems to not check the conditions correctly? Like when it tells you to buy a summon you can just mouse over several summons on the shop without buying anything and it continues, and got to skip the part to place the bought summon one time, not sure how >_<

- Sometimes hovering over a placed summon doesn't show the description, and sometimes you are just moving the mouse over a summon and it shows and it is kind of annoying. Showing the description might be better as a right click thing IMO

Having said that don't take this list as if I'm looking for problems in the game just to be annoying, I enjoy testing weird use cases in games I like, and really want this game to be as good as it can get to.

Also want to make clear that I'm not that good at these types of strategy game, so take my feedback with a grain of salt and don't feel forced to implement every suggestion I give ^_^

Oh and I don't know how much experience you have with Godot so you might already know this, but as a fellow Godot dev I feel the need to preach for the use of signals, if you don't know about them too much look into it cause they make the code so much cleaner and easy to change / add new behaviors. Also might want to look into changing the boot splash screen, having the default one gives kind of an unpolished vibe that your game does not deserve, just changing the Godot logo by Coal Nugget would go a long way! (sorry for the unsolicited advice, just wanted to nerd out a bit about Godot features)

I want to end this by saying that I really liked your game, happy to see that you're continuing to work on it! ^_^

(1 edit)

Thanks for feedback and playtesting!
I'll add the bugs to the list of known issues and/or my to do list, as I try to tackle them with next update. I love signals, although this game relies on components and resources more than anything.