Monkey King: Five Elements Survival

Introduction

Taishang Laojun threw the monkey king in his alchemy furnace in hope that it will kill the indestructible monkey. The monkey has to keep moving, but everytime he moves, the space in the furnace becomes less accessible. Death is certain, but time is not, all you can do is help him live longer.

Use arrow keys to move the monkey and help it survive as less and less space are available.

Game Mechanics

There are five elements: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.

Metal counters wood, wood counters earth, earth counters water, water counters fire, and fire counters metal.

Everytime you move, The block at your previous location will get destroyed, and depending on the direction you are moving to, all blocks will try to move in the same direction and destroy at most 1 adjacent block in that direction if its element is being countered.

In addition,  every game the monkey will be assigned with an element as well. If you step on a block that counters your element, the game is over.

Game Modes

The game has two different modes: puzzle mode and survival mode. In the puzzle mode you'll be solving mazes by ultilzing the block movement and countering mechanic. In the survival mode, you will need to survive as many steps as you can as every move you make, fewer blocks become available.

Jam Version

This game was originally made for ludum dare 54. In the original version the monkey king has to survive 49 days (which is the number given in the original story of Journey to the West) . The current version no longer use that fixed number to make it easier for player to manage and for me to smoother the learning curve for players.

https://compasslg.itch.io/49-days-jam-ver