Delve by riordan
Delve is a platformer-management game about a professor who, despite dangers, refused to leave their team's submarine after discovering an ancient relic. Help the professor survive for 3 days by performing all sorts of tasks, from maintaining power in the submarine to keeping yourself from getting hungry.
The enormous number of tasks are overwhelming but, fret not! With a few cups of coffee, our professor will be sure to do things quicker and more efficient. However, beware; relying too much on our friend may cause some side effects...
How to Play
You have 5 values to look out for: your health, air supply, water supply, electricity and the sub's depth. Interact with their respective stations to bring their values up. Don't let them get too low!
Survive for 3 days without dying. (A how to play presented in image form available in the itch.io page.)
Controls
- A/D or Left/Right arrow keys - moving left or right
- W/Up arrow key - climb ladder
- E - interact
- Space - jump
Screenshots

| Windows | https://scheinza.itch.io/delve |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/delve |
Ratings
| Overall | 681th | 3.365⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 907th | 2.923⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 945th | 2.904⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 853th | 3.212⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 152th | 4.232⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 549th | 3.333⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 32🗳️ | 30🗨️ |
A problem I had was that I was kinda lost on what I was doing, I knew interacting with some stuff would make some values go up and down but I could never tell which ones were going up and which were going down. I would add some sort of feed back so that the player knows(maybe have the numbers flash red or green). Another thing was the size of the window, I'm not sure if this was just a problem that I had but it was really small. There also didn't seem to be a way to resize it. Overall the game looks great and seems like it has potential! If you keep on working on it I'm sure it'll come out great!
And now for the bad part. This game is really confusing at first. I almost gave up but then I reread your description and decided to give it another chance. You should have added some kind of small tutorial to the game. After some time I thought that I understood how to play it but then player dies of unknown cause (all stats were at least at 20).
@Handle I already updated the description with your feedbacks. I forgot about not putting up how to play the game. A tutorial was planned for the game but, like the value feedback, it didn't make it on release. About the window size, I do wish that too. Haha.
@RadioactiveRambo Thank you for reminding me about the lack of instructions. After you left your feedback, I updated the description and added some how to play images in the itch.io page. I'll look into adding a tutorial in-game. :)
@Jima The death by unknown cause is a known bug. Although, it's also possible that to miss "Depth", which was located in the top center if the screen. If it goes beyond 400, it also spells a Game Over.
@WarIIn This was another thing I didn't get to add. It was planned too. I'll see if I can add this in the future.
**@differentname @FormalCloud @Neon and the others, thank you very much for the feedback!** My apologies for replying late.
I enjoyed the ambience, that poor professor running everywhere and drinking too much coffee made me laugh 😄
I read you want to remove coffee, but don't : having a way to speed up the character is a really good idea !
It took me 4 or 5 tries to succeed, so you achieved a huge goal : making a management game easy to learn. Great job !
:heart: What I loved
* Gameplay & overal feel
* The artwork is soooo good!!!
* Smooth controls
* Awesome mix of the 2 genres
:thinking: My Thoughts
* Don’t remove coffee!!! I love the way you can speed up your character.
* It takes some time to know what you’re doing, but it’s really fun afterwards!
Overall great entry and I’d love for you to review my submission as well.
## https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/keyboard-warrior
Awesome artwork, feels very consolidated.
Some gripes I had with the game:
- You start off at the depth control, but since depth never goes below(above?!) 200m, I had no idea, for a long time what the first console did; because I tried to use it right at the start and nothing happened. That made the whole game confusing at the start because I didn't get anything after interacting with a console.(I was just running around getting high on coffee until i found the others XD)
- The interactable stuff needs to stand out more(visually), otherwise it looks just like the other non-interactable things; unless you get close and get the prompt. Especially depth console, with that screen on it that's in multiple places.
- It wasn't clear if a stat was at the max, and I had to remember all the max values or waste time, because I intuitively thought each would have a max value of 100. 100, 80, 80, 90 seemed very random.
There was perhaps a collision bug around the power system(slope not working as intended?) but that's not a problem since this is a jam game, and you could get around by jumping.
Even so, once I'd figured out where all the systems were and what they did I had a lot of fun playing it. The visual cues on those were done nicely. Good job, and good luck!
- maybe consider adding some background music and audio? I think that would have contributed to the atmospheric feel of the game, which was already really well done
- as others have mentioned, make clear which elements are being affected by what the character is interacting with
Overall, really well done!
For the slopes, there aren't any. :) They will appear in the post game jam version though.
@caterein @reality-blind @Bodaciouslycrazy @croewens @EkkoEkko and the others, thank you very much for playing the game. I really do appreciate your comments and suggestions. :)
I love the graphics !
Good job !