DROWNED OUTPOST by SHU WEN

[raw]
made by SHU WEN for Ludum Dare 59 (JAM)

Genre: Text Adventure / Horror Simulation

Background: Stationed at an isolated deep-sea outpost, you are the last line of defense against unspeakable abyssal horrors. These entities disguise themselves as ordinary human vessels to infiltrate the mainland. Your only window to the outside world is a retro, green-and-black CRT terminal. You must rely purely on text-based clues, logic, and a sharp eye to survive.

Core Gameplay: In this tension-driven text adventure, you must survive three grueling night shifts. As blips slowly approach your radar's center, you must multitask and deduce the truth before time runs out:

Interrogate: Open communications with incoming targets to gather text-based intel, including their ID, route, ship type, and destination.

Cross-Reference: Manually read through a scrambled, out-of-order Security Archive. Compare the ship's statements against the official text records to spot subtle logical loopholes or lies.

Analyze Waveforms: Intercept the vessel's radio frequency and drag it across a master waveform display, looking for microscopic tampering in the code.

Make the Call: Press ALLOW to let them pass, or DENY to call in an artillery strike.

The Stakes: As the nights progress, the monsters' disguises become nearly perfect, and multiple ships will approach at once. Make three mistakes, and the horrors will breach your walls. Trust your archives, check the text, and don't let them in.

Ratings

Overall 618th 3.3⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Fun 778th 2.617⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 607th 3.067⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Theme 398th 3.8⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 594th 3.35⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Audio 492th 2.983⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Humor 663th 1.731⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Mood 474th 3.55⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Given 36🗳️ 38🗨️

Feedback

Nikiroz
Apr 20th · 13:31 UTC
A very atmospheric main menu!
LDJam user 427212
Apr 21st · 03:46 UTC
The main menu is cool, and the game really captures the mood. I think that the difficulty needs to increase a little faster or you might lose some players' attention before it gets good.
MountainGoose
Apr 21st · 04:51 UTC
Wow art looks great! Well done
japes
Apr 21st · 11:52 UTC
You profile says you are a noob? wtf? this is awesome!

Papers Please vibes but with more text and less pictures, and a different theme. Nicely simplified for a compo entry.

Full marks for mood, sound was super immersive and the writing is great.

Only real criticism I have is the waveform matching mechanic, it felt like sometimes I couldn't find a match and yet the ship should've been allowed int. Wasn't clear when i'd checked the full spectrum. Maybe that could be tweaked.

But otherwise this is great, one of my favourite entries so far
pres2300
Apr 21st · 16:45 UTC
This game had great ambience! There's certainly an element of horror being all alone having to figure out if a ship out in the darkness is good or not. Great work!
eXTeeGi
Apr 21st · 19:18 UTC
Cool concept. "Papers, Please"-esque. I like it!
cedaoan
Apr 21st · 23:40 UTC
Wow nice job! As the other mentioned, nice menu. I like the music too, it helps making the eerie feeling.
Tommo120
Apr 22nd · 11:10 UTC
Very awesome game! The art, atmosphere, sounds, music and gameplay all compliment each other incredibly well. I felt very spooked! There is very little to criticize here, but if I had to; I basically never touched the signal wave at the bottom left, I wasn't entirely sure how to use it to be honest, and I think the ending cinematic was probably the weakest part of all the artwork, even though it was still very well done (also the music felt a little out of place considering how dark and eerie everything else was). But that's me trying to be critical, because everything else is so well done. I would genuinely love to see how this concept could be fleshed out some more, it feels like it has a lot of potential!

Overall, genuinely incredible work, had a blast playing through it twice :) Night 3 is hard, wanted to get 0 mistakes but still ended with 2 :laughing:
Brodyaga_sao
Apr 22nd · 17:39 UTC
Great game, the visual is excellent, the sound is also good, great job. I got through the first night without any problems, but I couldn't get through the second)
Meta-link
Apr 23rd · 13:50 UTC
Really cool game ! Great mechanics and the UI is easy to use once understood.

Good job :slight_smile:
Discomorphine
Apr 23rd · 15:12 UTC
Nice game, I really feel myself isolated and lil scared!
LDJam user 372231
Apr 23rd · 15:15 UTC
Nice concept with very fitting audio and a strong mood. The gameplay feels engaging at first, though after a few repetitions it becomes a bit repetitive.

It could be interesting to increase the pace or add another layer of interaction, maybe something happening outside the main screen to distract the player.

The description mentions terrifying monsters, so it might be nice to reflect that visually as well.

Overall, a very polished entry with a great atmosphere.
blinry
Apr 26th · 19:40 UTC
This game manages to build up quite some atmosphere! We had the advantage of playing this in a two-person team, which means we could do the waveform check and the information check in parallel! :) The mouse-over texts did a good job of explaining how to play.

It would be even better with more variety in the gameplay. The win condition was unclear to us. But we managed to lose! :D

We found the art style a bit inconsistent; the title screen suggests the use of genAI, which we would disapprove of in this context.
ruruie
Apr 28th · 19:35 UTC
It's very atmospheric but I also got very confused. I couldn't figure out how to access the book after starting (or even get out from the radar screen) and was getting dinged for shooting ships where the wave didn't seem to match no matter how much I scrolled.
Allax
May 03rd · 07:41 UTC
I can't say I liked it; the gameplay is very drawn-out, and the two-button controls clearly weren't up to the number of interface elements and the overall visuals.
But I finished the game.
Accelerate0814
May 07th · 05:12 UTC
Up until now this is my favorite game of this jam, incredible work in this short time frame.
Alekcey Ovalnyi
May 07th · 20:16 UTC
It's difficult, I didn't understand anything. Maybe the problem is with me, or maybe it's with the game.