I liked the idea but the game kills my vibe every time forcing me to dive again. It gets a little repetitive and it takes time to get upgrades, but as it progresses, it gets better.

@gabrielgamedev Thanks for the feedback!

At first I had no idea what I had to do, I tried to eat the other fishes but then I realized I had to evade them and try to get as far as possible. Main issue is that it gets very repetitive very quickly. I liked the graphics but the gameplay itself could be a little more interesting. Maybe add some powerups on the way down that the player could collect. All in all, a very good looking game that has some neat features.

@muruw Thanks for the feedback! There should probably be some sort of tutorial system to prevent the first problem and power ups sound like a much needed addition!

I like the concept of the mechanical fish and the upgrades, but i think it needs something added to the gameplay to avoid repetition. Also the visual upgrades on the mech fish after some updates was a nice touch!

@crimsonhorizon Thank you for the feedback!

I like the graphics and the gameplay idea, unfortunately didn't manage to get far and, as others mentioned, it got repetitive quite fast.
But nice entry nonetheless

I think with a few tweaks the concept could be a cool challenge. I think the process needs to kick off a bit faster in the beginning so you get to the challenge/reward system to offset the repetition. I also encountered an issue where I got a Fuel Tank first, then Fuel Efficiency second, but that actually made my fuel run out faster.

The concept is great, especially for a mobile game. For the jam, the upgrades were a little to expensive. (We had the same problem) so it takes a lot of repetitive dives to get something new.
To dive again i suggeset adding a button to just press once and starts diving immediately. Think it would work better / faster

It felt a little slow at first, it was just grinding money to get some upgrades so you could get a little deeper and then just the same thing again. I'm also not a huge fan of the fact that you have to restart the entire game if you die. The graphics were nice and the background sound was cool

Fuel efficiency seems to work against you, reducing your time to dive, as @maytch said.
Other than that, it would feel much smother if you'd just take hull damage when diving without fuel. This would result in a player always dying to reset instead of having a perfectly fit fish and being forced to redive.

The concept is good and the game plays well. I would be great if you could improve the UI. Nevertheless, I liked the game, good job.

I agree that this can be somewhat repetitive. On the positive side the game made want to progress downwards. Got quite curious. graphics are good. Sound would be nice. Well done.

I agree with the others. At the start, I had no idea what to do and I tried to eat smaller fishes. Some tutorial would be great.
Anyway, I like this entry.

What is otherwise a cool game that is also nice to look at gets killed by horrible balancing. I need more than 5 dives to get the first upgrade, and then it increases my performence only ever so slightly. By the time I get some more upgrades it already gets very annoying and repetitive and the diving still feels the same as in the beginning, with no more interactions except steering downward and waiting for the money counter to increase.
This has potential, but it needs to be tweaked a little bit!

I like the visuals, they're really nice and clean, the concept is good and I enjoy those sort of games but it just takes too long to progress. I would love to find out what lies in the depths of the ocean but I don't have the time! Also the fuel efficiency upgrade does the opposite of what is intended and makes fuel run out faster. I think an interesting change you could make would be to allow the robot to eat fish for fuel, and have some kind of pickups for gold. Close to the surface = more fish/fuel less gold, deeper down = less fish/more gold. Maybe some spiky fish/sharks/giant squid to damage you?

Game gets quite boring after short time and confusing at 1st... So i ended up with no time that i truly had fun, the gameplay idea is really great but the execution not so much, i would love to same some kind of upgrades, cash, special fishes that you can eat and give you fuel, restore hull strength, give fast and short boost, give stacking movement... etc. and also something to do expect swiming left and right... maybe dash? which allows us to collect these powerups and eat special fishes

graphics are nice

Overall: Great concept & visuals but needs balance.

Fun: Well, after a few attempts, I managed to get everything upgraded, then made it to the black layer before dying. And that was enough for me. It's a fun concept but could do with some careful balancing. I think each individual dive takes too long. And, as the speed increases, my fish gets closer to the bottom of the screen, so it's harder to react. I have to choose between making it into a game of luck, or making the game too slow and tedious. (Unless... I have failed to figure out the right strategy?)

Innovation: Sure! I think I've played games before where you have to dive to a certain depth, but the mechanics were all different.

Theme: You start at 0m depth? OK, fine.

Graphics: Looks nice!

Mood: Thanks to the ambient sounds + the wide range of sizes from tiny up to enormous fish, this game gives me a real sense of a vast underwater environment.

Interesting concept, but as others have mentioned it needs some tweaks. Fuel efficiency is obviously not working as a benefit at the moment. It's also a bit of a grind. Maybe different underwater creatures to avoid would make this better. The graphics are simple, but they work. Similar with the audio, it fits well. Some basic in-game directions would be good too. It's an interesting idea though, it might be worth exploring further.

@psiv Having to eat the fish to progress further while avoiding other, scarier fish seems like an idea that would completely save the game and its repetition problem! Thanks for the feedback!

Fuel efficiency upgrades are broken, whey make it worse.
It takes far too long to dive deep. After a long game, I'd totally maxed out all the upgrades by doing lots of high speed shallow dives, then attempted to dive to the bottom. I got to about 9.5k before dying because either you go slow enough to avoid the baddies, in which case it takes absolutely forever, or you go faster but keep getting hits along the way which eventually wears away your strength to nothing. General concept is good, graphics are fine, and sound is atmospheric, but it does need balancing.

Liked it overall. I thought there's a lot of potential here - the balancing is just not very jam-friendly.

I was very annoyed when I died for the first time after saving up for $400 worth of upgrades - not doing that again... for an arcade game like this permadeath should probably be an option the player chooses, especially with such a long grind for upgrades.

Good attempt! Keep up the good work.