Prelude of the Chambered

Prelude of the Chambered was put together by Markus Persson (aka Notch), the creator of Minecraft, for a 48-hour Ludum Dare competition.

It's a 3D game, but with pixellated graphics reminiscent of Doom. Movement is with the arrow keys (A and S to strafe), and space-bar is "use." The game start is a little confusing; you appear to be confined to an area with no exits, though you can see monsters moving beyond barred doorways. Facing the walls and pressing the space-bar, you eventually discover that some wall sections -- not visibly any different from others--are breakable.

Over the course of several levels, you acquire items, such as the power glove, which allows you to fight monsters, and skates that allow you to control your motion on ice. Number keys may be used to switch between items, which is sometimes tricky, since only one may be in use at any given time.

While it is possible for enemies to kill you, the challenge is not in defeating them, for caution should be sufficient to keep you alive, but in traversing the dungeon and finding all the items, keys, and gold cups. Many areas are impossible to get to until a particular item is found, and you'll need to backtrack to return to places you noted that you couldn't previously access.

In other words, the level design is quite polished, despite the speed of development, and there's a satisfactory feel of puzzle-solving as you traverse the game.

There are two negatives; first, it is possible to die, and there are no saved games, forcing a restart. And second, there's no map, and while the levels are small enough that you are unlikely to get lost, it's sometimes hard to remember which levels lead to which other levels. It's worth making some notes about connectivity, as well as about areas you can't access yet on each level so that when a new item is obtained, you know where to go.

For a 48-hour game, it's remarkably fine.