Gecko Dive by LDJam user 250825

Explore the depths
Let us take you on a ride through the remains of a once glorious city! Each floor dives deeper and deeper into the ruins and unveils the beauty that nature has formed in a once man-made structure.

Solve Puzzles
Beware, each floor offers new and challenging puzzles to solve. Are you up to the task?

Play as a Gecko!
We almost forgot to mention the most important feature, you are a tiny gecko! What will our little friend find all the way down at the bottom of the ruins?

Controls
- Arrows/WASD for moving
- R for retry
- Escape to open settings
Credits
- @bqq - Programming/Level Design
- @wobs - Art/Animation
- @alks - Music/Sound
This has been an incredible experience and we hope you will have as much fun playing this game as we had making it the last 72 hours :)
Thank you for playing!
| Link | https://gecko-dive.com/ |
| Link | https://gecko-dive.com/Native/GeckoDiveWindows.zip |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/gecko-dive |
Ratings
| Overall | 10th | 4.43⭐ | 59🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 36th | 4.272⭐ | 59🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 231th | 3.893⭐ | 58🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1171th | 3.446⭐ | 58🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 43th | 4.614⭐ | 59🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 187th | 3.991⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 783th | 2.83⭐ | 46🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 166th | 4.173⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 46🗳️ | 69🗨️ |
It lags quite a bit on the web, but that's just unavoidable.
I feel like there should be an undo button, but I think I'm just too impatient to restart.
Overall it's really enjoyable! Though I guess you guys can make the Deeper and Deeper theme more palpable.
I have really fun to play this game)
Thank you!)
The level design is great too, really hard at the end but still very fun.
Great work :)
Love the music and the art. The gecko character is super cute. Overall, probably the best entry I've played so far.
@pdotjpg fun thing, the movement mechanics were just from the shape of the gecko, but the first time I got the movement working and tested it it was like "oh damn, this is so Snakebird!" :D
The mechanic is original and very well executed, this was really fun to play :)
PS. The level change animation is on the level of Persona 5!
Sick graphics, powerful and perfectly working animations and the music goes really well with the game, making me really feel like im in a jungle lmao. Just feels super polished to be a LD game which is super impressive lol. I get where the theme kicks in, and idk nothing wrong about that you are literally just dropping deeper to the black square of terror. Puzzles were also designed super well, challenging and epic! One of the sickest entries I have seen in my LD history :heart_eyes:
This would be a great mobile game!
The art is gorgeous, the puzzles are well designed, the music is very cute, the feedback is perfect all around.
I love it, I hope someday I am good enough to make such quality content.
You can be very proud this is so good!
Thanks I loved it 🐊
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1004858368
Great job to the three of you, you did an incredible and admirable job!
All this positive feedback has been super motivating! It has been incredible to read all your amazing comments so far, thank you all so much for playing :')
The only thing that felt a bit wonky was the backwards movement controls (is it led from the head or the tail? when does the tail decide to turn?), but other than that, I have almost no criticism! Difficulty progression felt very comfortable and I couldn't stop playing until I got the fruit at the end :)
Really solid art work and direction, the choice of a Gecko is top notch and cute and the low poly artstyle is pulled off so well.
Movement feels great, like others said moving backwards feels a little wonky at first but once you learn how it moves it's very smooth! I love the introduction of more mechanics the further you go to, and the level design/ramping difficulty is really well balanced
The real main thing that was so polished and memorable is that gecko screen wipe/transition. Brilliant idea, very cute and charming and memorable. Bravo!
The only crit I would maybe have is an undo button to go back a step/steps the more you hold. It's not integral as the levels are quite short and there's not much to redo, but it would minimise the amount of times a player would have to redo a certain set of actions and perhaps by extension less frustration.
Overall really great entry and with not much more polishing it would easily be ready for steam/consoles.
Great job!
I struggled a little bit with walking backwards and hated accidentally going forwards and bumping a mushroom in the wrong direction! I think a undo key would be nice here instead of just a full reset.
I would have also loved to see the gecko do some more gecko-y skills like go up walls etc!
The level transition effect is _incredible_