LudumData

Deep In Debt by Echo Team

[raw]
made by Echo Team for Ludum Dare 59 (JAM)

Does a captain go down with their ship? Financially, most definitely. Fortunately, you had a complete inventory of all cargo containers and you know just which ones had the really pricy stuff. Zip up and get diving, because the more you collect, the less debt you end up with. And if you do lock something down, why not spend a little of your savings to upgrade your detection app. There's more debt to offset! Just make sure you're back in time for the rescue helicopter, otherwise they will leave without you...

This game can be played with a keyboard and mouse, or with a controller.

MINIMAP AND AR OVERLAY ONLY AVAILABLE TO CLOSED BETA PARTICIPANTS (i.e. we didn't finish those in time)

Attribution - Engine: Unity - Font: Syne Mono by Bonjour Monde & Lucas Descroix on Google Fonts - Ship shape based on: "Container Ship" by RM02 on Sketchfab - Containers based on: "40ft ISO General Container" by Lex713 on Sketchfab

(no actual geometry or textures from those assets were used, but parts of their geometry were used to generate derivative shapes with new geometry)

Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/59/deep-in-debt

Ratings

Overall 689th 3.149⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Fun 737th 2.784⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 595th 3.083⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Theme 621th 3.289⭐ 40🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 200th 4.171⭐ 40🧑‍⚖️
Humor 490th 2.596⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Mood 416th 3.647⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Given 44🗳️ 52🗨️

Feedback

azsteak
Apr 21st · 09:58 UTC
Nice !
The swim controls/physics are great ! The feeling being stranded is here.
I don't know if that's a bug but I don't have any sound, even though you enabled the audio rating. Speaking of which, maybe a beeping sound with varying pitch depending on distance when looking at the tracker would help. I sometimes had a hard time to feel if I was getting closer or farther away by just watching the flash frequency.
Also the bloom can make reading the tracker UI a bit difficult depending on the camera orientation.
Vorkuta
Apr 21st · 10:12 UTC
I really liked the implementation for the water and diving controls, and thought the assets did a good job of being clear about what they are without needing excess detail.
🎤 Echo Team
Apr 21st · 13:06 UTC
In our time zone, Ludum Dare ends in the middle of the night. We forgot to disable the audio category. Sorry! :sweat_smile:
RushB
Apr 21st · 20:43 UTC
Sound design will make the game more juicy, but anyway, great visuals and idea! and all this beautiful graphics runs on a calculator! damn...))))
Igor Silva 19
Apr 22nd · 01:44 UTC
I really liked the swiming mechanics! I dont remember playing something like this before really good for immersion, but I dont know exactly what I was looking for, my tracker didnt showed me anything and I didnt see anything to interact with, would be good if we have one of the interact items right in front of the player at start
thormoth
Apr 22nd · 01:57 UTC
The swimming mechanics are really good. Neat concept, although as others have mentioned I struggled to find the any items to collect. Cool entry!
Arnage
Apr 22nd · 12:34 UTC
Thank you all for the nice comments! @igor-silva-19 & @thormoth, if you are stuck finding anything, here are some hints:
- At first you only have the blinking speed of the tracker to indicate you're getting closer to something
- Finding them will allow you to upgrade your tracker, to make finding more hidden ones easier
- What you are looking for is quite shiny, so once it comes in view you'll know what it is
- Try the very front bit of the ship first
- Diving deep might be scary, but can also be rewarding...
🎤 Echo Team
Apr 22nd · 13:31 UTC
In hindsight the tracker could have used some more balancing, but unfortunately time was getting too short for any extra testing. There's quite a few things we wanted to do more or differently (in hindsight) but in the end this is what we could manage in the time available (power outage notwithstanding).
Mr.Relanium
Apr 23rd · 09:22 UTC
The swim controls/physics are great ! Sound design will make the game more juicy, but anyway, great visuals )
JCoMcL
Apr 23rd · 09:37 UTC
There are a lot of cool elements to this game, and I love the premise, but it doesn't fell like anything really works quite right for the game. The map is so big, I'm so slow, and the tracker tells me so little. It takes five minutes to swim somewhere just to discover that there's nothing there, and then the game is basically over.
LDJam user 9418
Apr 23rd · 12:30 UTC
for me camera is constantly moving right, so it's very hard to play
have to admit great visual, but the game is very slow
Arnage
Apr 23rd · 12:52 UTC
@ghpxi thanks for the feedback, do you maybe have a controller connected? The game supports controllers, so if you have a controller lying around with something resting against the right stick (or which has a bit of stick drift) that can happen. I experienced that myself while debugging another game and finally spotting the controller lying face down with the stick against something 😖
LDJam user 9418
Apr 23rd · 13:02 UTC
@arnage no, I don't have controller connected
Arnage
Apr 23rd · 13:22 UTC
That's a weird one than, normally I'd like to debug it on our end, but since it's a jam game, that's not allowed 😅 Still, thanks for playing the game and providing feedback!
Itero Proto
Apr 23rd · 17:32 UTC
I can't load the game here! 😢
WouterK12
Apr 23rd · 17:44 UTC
Really cool atmosphere, interesting take on movement. It took me really long to find something but it was worth a lot! :)
Gleb Domakhin
Apr 24th · 11:54 UTC
Good atmosphere, fun concept!
Julester
Apr 24th · 14:42 UTC
Love the underwater aesthetic. It's fun to explore the ship with these swimming controls. at first i thought the game was really show. but then i found out its' because shift didn't do anything for me. i restarted the game and then it did work for some reason. It still takes a long time so i think the pace can be better. I know you don't have a sound category but audio would make the immersion even better. great entry!
Itero Proto
Apr 24th · 17:50 UTC
silence...
🎤 Echo Team
Apr 24th · 17:59 UTC
We don't really know how to help you :neutral_face:
Arnage
Apr 24th · 18:06 UTC
@itero-proto Yeah, the only thing I could recommend is: have you tried another browser?
metalim
Apr 24th · 18:46 UTC
No audio, and no idea what to do. Instructions are very tiny (read them by making a screenshot and zooming). Can't climb stairs. Am I fish?
🎤 Echo Team
Apr 24th · 20:27 UTC
The instructions are correctly sized on my screen... and my screen only. I forgot to account for high-DPI displays. My bad :slight_frown:
murilojones
Apr 24th · 21:50 UTC
I like the idea and the visuals are the highlight of the game. I don't know if your tracker works as intended, but I never got any signal on it. So without the tracker I couldn't find anything. And I didn't understand the upgrades.
oxnh
Apr 24th · 22:30 UTC
The treasure was a bit sparse on such a big map, and I thought the lack of music was a shame, even some quick music from Kevin McLeod or freesound or something really would'be improved the experience. Still interesting idea, and the ship model is quite cool if you remade it from scratch.

Also it'd be nice to have an itch link. The ldjam player is a bit small.
Byte Bark
Apr 25th · 19:31 UTC
I like the concept and the visuals are immersive. I agree that it would be more engaging if I could swim faster and if there were audio. But overall a nice idea and cool game.
LDJam user 383510
Apr 25th · 19:35 UTC
The game looks pretty cool, plays fairly decent and smooth. No sound though and it does crash my browser for some reason. I tried thrice got into three different places and I think it just overloaded. Not sure if it's the game, chrome, LD website or smth entirely unrelated
apt_prose7
Apr 26th · 08:54 UTC
A solid choice for casual gaming, easy to enjoy.
VenomousMouse
Apr 26th · 09:55 UTC
Great visuals and good overall idea. I love diving, and with the sounds it will be even better.
Aleksey Salion
Apr 26th · 21:11 UTC
The visuals are awesome, but I didn't get where to go and what to do :v:
Arnage
Apr 27th · 12:52 UTC
Thanks for all the feedback, all :)

@aleksey-salion I posted some hints a little way up in the comments here that might help.

@byte-bark regarding the swim speed: dus you spot that you could hold shift to swim faster? That's in the accidentally too tiny instructions in the corner.
LDJam user 423693
Apr 28th · 19:26 UTC
Reallt pretty and the swimming mechanic is really well made ! We struggled to find any items to collect at first and it could use some sound design, but the mood and smoothness make the game really enjoyable.
Theogen
Apr 28th · 19:45 UTC
This seems like a really well-made game, I love the premise and the graphics are really great. But unfortunately I had a few UX issues that prevented me from enjoying it properly.

1. Lack of fullscreen option, without which the game is too tiny and hard to see in the dark due to contrasting bright Ludum Dare website.

2. The game seems to have problems registering the WASD input. The movement was really weird for me as a result. Holding down W just moves me a little bit, so I had to spam it. Holding shift helps sometimes and allows me to hold W, but still is very unreliable. This prevented me from using the upgrade app as well, since it relies on W and S for scrolling. I was playing on Chromium on Linux if it's relevant.

With these issues resolved I feel this would be one of my favorite games of the jam!
🎤 Echo Team
Apr 29th · 09:53 UTC
Seems like Unity's new Input System has some issues still...

When I tried the game at home I also experienced the thing where the diver is constantly turning towards the right :neutral_face:
JuanRod707
May 01st · 14:27 UTC
awesome entry! very good atmosphere and mood, I agree that a little sound design would have made this game really pop! Liked the swim mechanics
Skleembof
May 01st · 17:26 UTC
I had issues playing in the browser because of the lack of fullscreen and a glitch with firefox and browser games that lock the cursor. I had to play with the cursor unlocked which was pretty awkward but I managed. You should release a desktop build as well.

Gameplay was difficult to figure out because of the tiny instructions, but I did enjoy just exploring the ship. It was surprisingly detailed which made exploring it feel kind of exciting. The underwater shader looked good but it was too bright which broke the illusion of being underwater at times. Audio would obviously have helped too, but I get having to make compromises in time for the jam.
ieee333
May 04th · 15:40 UTC
Great visuals and light effects. This style is exactly what I like.
Coda Highland
May 05th · 16:27 UTC
This is one of the most visually impressive jam games I've played. Well done on that regard! The concept is interesting and I think it would have been fun, except...

The controls didn't work very well at all, I'm afraid. For starters, Ctrl+W means "close tab" so trying to swim forward and descend at the same time instead makes you have to start the game over. It really struggled with recognizing when a button was pressed or released. Maybe I should try hooking up a controller.