Dive into the abyss by xiyou

[raw]
made by xiyou for Ludum Dare 48 (JAM)

You drive this submarine to the mysterious abyss, to find the legendary treasure. However, the monsters in the abyss are trying to tear you to pieces, and you must be brave enough to fight them in close quarters.As you dive deeper, the environment is getting darker and the monsters are getting stronger. Before each battle you have to take a deep breath, which will help you get more oxygen cards and go deeper. As the saying goes, the deeper you breathe, the deeper you can reach.

t1.png

The rules of the game came to me suddenly. As the game was gradually completed, I realized that the rules of this game is really interesting. However due to time I wasn't able to make a lot of fantastic skills and monsters, but I'd love to briefly introduce them here (if you haven't played it yet, you should experience it first) t2.png Each turn you can draw 5 cards, but you can only use one. Like this attack card, it can deal 4 points of damage.

Some cards look weak such as the Quick fist which only deal two points of damage, but it allows you to use another card. After using this card, you can still using some defense Cards. Imagine you are fighting, you suddenly punch the enemy and then quickly run away, which allows you to defend but you can not continue attacking t3.png

Most cards only allow you to use extra non-attack cards, which makes the opportunity to use attack cards very precious, however this card is able to use extra cards of any kind. This card itself is not an attack card, which means when you only allowed to use defense cards, you can continue to use attack cards after using this card. As the card description, you adjust your stance. at2.png

This Punching combo is also interesting,it can use any card just like the adjust stance card. The difference is that it is an attack card. In other words, it cannot be used as a conversion stance, but it can be the first card you use so that you can continuous use attack cards. at1.png Also in the design but not implemented is Pistol. You get six temporary bullet cards after using the pistol cards, each of which allow you to use another bullet card. This means that if you are very lucky to draw 5 bullets, you can fire 5 shots in one turn, but if you only draw one bullet, you will need to think about whether to fire or not. fi7.png

Monster cards are also very interesting. The blood of the monsters directly affects their actions, as they are two sides of the same card. A monster's blood is determined by the number of cards in the monster stack. When you deal a certain amount of damage to a monster, remove an equal number of cards from the monster pile and place them next to it in reverse. the card at the top of the second stack is used when the monster acts. The snail monster, for example, Most of its life cards are shell cards that do no damage, but when the snail is near death, his last few cards are the bite, so players need to be prepared to defeat the snail in one turn to avoid taking damage.

This is only the simplest use, more complex is how the monster returns blood, which means adding extra cards to the life stack. Jellyfish, for example, adds powerful attack cards. This means that the jellyfish not only regained blood, but also made a power-up attack. And this attack can be avoided by player by dealing enough damage t7.png More interesting is one of the final boss. He has a recover card that adds five cards to the pile, and each of these five cards is the same recovery card. If the player fails to deal more than five points of damage in the turn, the boss will continue to recover five cards, and this process will repeat itself over and over again, making it very difficult to defeat

Of course, there are more interesting ways to play. For example, monsters can deliberately reduce their life to release powerful attacks early, monsters can add a second stage card to the bottom of their stack, and players can deal enough damage to jump over the monster's second stage. To complicate things even more, if there are multiple monsters on the field and they can add cards to each other, or they can merge and mix each other's stacks together... The scene is beyond fun!

This is the second game I made, and the first time I finished a complete game.At the end, I would like to thank my teammates who helped me to make the beautiful graphics, water ripple effects, and collect sound materials. Without their help this game would not have been complete. I was going to make a nice ending and put their names on it, but I ran out of time at the moment.(Now added

I think this card game has a lot of potential, and there are a lot of fun things I didn't get to play. I will continue to develop this game, so if you are also interested in this game feel free to contact me. my email is xiyoi1111@gmail.com

=======================================================

After two days, I finally recovered from exhausted. My teammates told me that there were some bugs in the game, so I made a small fix, most of them were wrong card text descriptions, and bugs about restarting the game and some display order errors, etc. Here is the list of fixes.

Right click on the deep sea card pile will not cause the game crash

Fix the text descriptions of punch combo and Adjust Stance

Monster cards will not appear in filped state

Crossbows will not fail to reverse

Fixed incorrect delay when drawing cards

Card number counter will not be covered

Monster piles do not initialize incorrectly

Cards will no longer move to the wrong position

Damage is dealt normally at the beginning of the round

Added a more obvious tutorial

Added a thanks list at the end

Ratings

Overall 253th 3.943⭐ 37🧑‍⚖️
Fun 219th 3.9⭐ 37🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 221th 3.9⭐ 37🧑‍⚖️
Theme 622th 3.857⭐ 37🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 285th 4.243⭐ 37🧑‍⚖️
Humor 646th 3⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Mood 558th 3.758⭐ 35🧑‍⚖️
Given 48🗳️ 53🗨️

Feedback

🎤 xiyou
26. Apr 2021 · 22:31 UTC
1, in the game there is text that says press shift to skip the turn.
In fact you need to press shift to end the turn when you don't have any cards to play.
If you accidentally skip the text description you may get stuck
🎤 xiyou
26. Apr 2021 · 23:00 UTC
2、The effect of Surge Combo is shown as using another non-attack card. But this is actually a mistake on image. It is possible to continue using attack cards. (I wrote 4000 lines of code in three days, there must be a lot of bugs. If there are any serious bugs that prevent you from continuing the game, please let me know and I will fix them as soon as possible.

update This bug has been fixed
🎤 xiyou
26. Apr 2021 · 23:52 UTC
3, adjust stance can not only transform the state of the card, and he himself can let the player draw a card. I forgot to write this point. So it's not a bug to draw a card when using Adjust Stance

update This bug has been fixed
scyq
27. Apr 2021 · 03:46 UTC
It seems like you dont make your itch.io page public so that I can not download your game.
🎤 xiyou
27. Apr 2021 · 06:04 UTC
@scyq Thanks for the reminder, I was in a hurry to submit so did not pay attention, now I have changed the game status to public XP
katriadoodles
27. Apr 2021 · 11:54 UTC
I reeeally liked this game! Graphics are excellent and having background be darker and darker the more you play was pretty clever!
David U
27. Apr 2021 · 18:01 UTC
A cool idea. I like the enemies, but I feel the attack types don't fit the theme that well. Nevertheless, this game does have a lot of potential. Awesome pixel art and animations too.
uboretsky
27. Apr 2021 · 23:04 UTC
Ducking yeeah, I love this game! It looks amazing
LDJam user 242054
29. Apr 2021 · 09:59 UTC
amazing and ambitious!

would be nice to polish conrols and remove keyboard shortcuts
Arthur Mairs
29. Apr 2021 · 10:13 UTC
This was amazing, i played this for way longer than i usually play the submitted games. Great artwork, interesting enemies, great all round! well done!
Staber
29. Apr 2021 · 10:17 UTC
This is amazing
mitch_heisenberg
29. Apr 2021 · 10:18 UTC
I loved the graphics
badabooom63
29. Apr 2021 · 10:19 UTC
Great game! A little bit too hard IMO, it's a little bit frustrating that you always get 1 damage at the beginning of the battle (or I didn't understand how to avoid this) and there is no heal cards.
Went down to a Golden Octopus, but the most annoying one was chlorophyll medusa :D
Great game, had much fun playing it anyway!
Grangerer
29. Apr 2021 · 10:29 UTC
Amazing Artwork. Cards react kind of slugish but i really love the game.
MetalFox Dioxymore
29. Apr 2021 · 10:31 UTC
That was really good ! Cards game are usually not my jam, but I enjoyed this one ! Just a quick little thing : it should be clearer what cards it's possible to use at any point. For exemple, when I use a "use another non-attack card", all attack cards should be greyed.
I also didn't get the point of moving the cards with left click, it took me a while to understand that it was right-click to use them (since I could move the card, I thought it was something like Hearthstone ^^).

Overall, a very good concept ! I would love to see that game going further after the jam =)
Minus
29. Apr 2021 · 10:41 UTC
Game looks great, but there are some small issues that made me wonder what I actually was doing.
- Selecting cards by right click and not left click is a little bit counter intuitive
- No solid mention that you need to press shift to end turn
- Tutorial might be reworked to show each action separately, this way people would better understand what's going on.

These are issues, but other than that game is quite good, works well, looks good and is playable :)
Just_Dante
29. Apr 2021 · 10:45 UTC
I will be honest. I would pay to play this game as it is. With little more polish like additional animation etc. it would be really great game.
Doot
29. Apr 2021 · 10:59 UTC
Nice game!

The game design and balance felt quite good, and the art was very clear and beautiful!

The controls were not very intuitive and explantation not always clear, I think that could be an area of improvement. I think I would have loved this game in a paper version!

Thanks for the game I had fun!
Ifidamas
29. Apr 2021 · 12:38 UTC
I love this game! this is not an hyperbolae. I'm really into card games, and this has a lot of possibilities, even for a home-made version (e.g: add custom Monster with custom effects, more red/blue cards, invent a "green" one for multiple-turn effects, etc.)

The graphics is nice, but I would love to have an actual art instead of pixel-art (just a matter of tast, ofc).

Only small bug I found is that, if you click by mistake some button while you are inspecting the reward card a monster left, it will stuck on the screen forever... Nevertheless, I still manage to go one somehow, since other cards are shown ON TOP. But I was unable to zoom on cards anymore (not a problem; I already know by heart all the card set :smile_cat: )
Titaninette
29. Apr 2021 · 13:00 UTC
Loved your game!
I tried several times to reach the end, but I don't know if there is one after all or if it is infinte :id:

I turned off the music because it was a little bit annoying over time.
Maybe youc ould had up a button to finish the turn, click on Shift was non intuitive for me. And I think the game should tell use more the moves we can do (which cards can be used etc..)

After all, I spent a long time on it and overall it was very great :D
🎤 xiyou
29. Apr 2021 · 15:29 UTC
@badabooom63 Thanks for playing, in fact that the damage at the beginning is negligible because you can recover your life by taking a deep breath before each battle. and, the trick to attacking chlorophyll jellyfish is only deal 4 points of damage each turn and then use shields to block the tentacle attacks so that the chlorophyll jellyfish doesn't recover 5 cards every turn. XP
badabooom63
29. Apr 2021 · 15:36 UTC
@xiyou I missed the part with deep breath. How should I do that?

UPD: understood! Now it is much easier to finish - before I tried to beat it without "holding breath" :D. Now I will definitely beat it (or try to), I liked this one!
🎤 xiyou
29. Apr 2021 · 15:54 UTC
@titaninette Thanks for playing, in fact there are only 12 levels (three treasure chests and 9 monsters)
badabooom63
29. Apr 2021 · 16:12 UTC
![3.png](///raw/cff/b1/z/4198e.png)
Done! Great game :)
LDJam user 233347
29. Apr 2021 · 18:57 UTC
I tried it, but cant get the hang of it.. Not a game issue, I just cant play card games.. I really suck at them. Terribly sorry.

I will, of course, give no rating as that would be wrong.
🎤 xiyou
30. Apr 2021 · 09:47 UTC
@metalfox-dioxymore
@minus
Thanks for the feedback, I've changed the tutorial to be less confusing and darken the color of cards which can't be used
RubixNoob13
01. May 2021 · 16:08 UTC
Fun little card game, and a nice change from a lot of the other platformer-like submarine games I've seen so far. I still think the cards could stand to get even darker and/or more grayed out (maybe drop the saturation value of the color to make them more bland?) when they can't be used. I kept finding myself trying to use an attack card when I had just used something that said "Use another non-attack card" because it was still pretty bright so I thought it wasn't locked :) Fun game, great job!
LRVStudios
02. May 2021 · 21:33 UTC
I loved the idea to explore the theme you used in this game. The art is incredible, and i had much fun playing this card game. Great work!
Martiniano Marelli
03. May 2021 · 07:05 UTC
I gotta say, i hardly see card games that take "Less is more" and push it to such extents. I like the idea of Lifedecking as a double edged weapon for enemies. But i have to say the deep sea theme is broken by the lack of relevant name cards. Also, the immersion of this game, granted it's a beckbuilder, is just impressive. It's hard to make a game feel like this, so hats off!

Really great quality in your game, and i can't wait to get updates!
OldDog
03. May 2021 · 07:14 UTC
nice job !!! some details can be better :smile:
She Wrote
03. May 2021 · 07:28 UTC
Really engaging, I would love to play a more complex version of the game.
maaxoom
03. May 2021 · 10:39 UTC
Very fun! Restarted 3 times :smile:
polkoii
09. May 2021 · 16:35 UTC
I really like the intro and the card designs! The atmosphere is well established! The menu looking like cards was a good touch as well!

I feel like the stance card concept could be more fleshed out rather than just a "reset turn" card but I still love using it!

I laughed at the stone and exquisite chest cards and the sapphire chest XD

The idea of intertwining card usage within the card's abilities was fun to work with! Having to strategize what card to use first because of its "what card can I use after" ability is great!

I had a bit of trouble with the "Hard Shell" card as sometimes it would just go back into my deck and sometimes it would give me 5 shield cards. Though those only happened if I used the card at the start of my turn. If I used it after any other card, it would act like a stance card instead.

I wonder if the oxygen mechanic could be implemented as a card as well since I always forgot to click immediately so I would be left will less oxygen cards than I could have gotten.

I had a little bit of ideas when I was playing. I thought it might be cool to be able to pick from the enemy's deck instead of it being the same card reward. I also thought the addition of a choice at the beginning to choose a powerful card to go with your deck before you go down would fit nicely!

I think the addition of an auto-end turn feature (when you cannot use any more cards), more sound effects (like on discarding, getting, and using cards) and more transition in the music the further you go, would be great additions to this already great game!

Really had fun! Beat the game:D
DrSkort
11. May 2021 · 11:12 UTC
That game was really amazing ^^ I had a lot of fun fighting the monsters with the cards. I really liked the mechanic but sadly died fighting the poisonous snail :( It was really fun and I am really looking forward into seeing a full version :) A few additions I would made are maybe cards and a little more visual or audio feedback. It's a really cool jam game :) Good Job guys!!!
Lone_Wolf
13. May 2021 · 02:15 UTC
Second card game I've played this LD, second card game I've liked a lot that makes me think I need to get into more card games. Nice work! :P

I've sunk quite a bit of time into this, still haven't beaten it though. I'll keep trying
oeschmid
13. May 2021 · 14:40 UTC
Fun card game! It was an interesting mechanic, it felt very much like a combo-oriented game. It would be fun to flesh it out with more cards.
phoenix233
14. May 2021 · 07:53 UTC
Amazing card game!Realy fun to have 200 armor.
🎤 xiyou
14. May 2021 · 14:00 UTC
@polkoii
Thanks so much for playing and so much useful advice.
Monster bonus cards I thought about making a unique system for each monster, such as the octopus cards can make combo between each other. But time is too late to design so many cards(sad).

The automatic end-of-turn feature was involved, but it was temporarily removed due to some mysterious bug that crashed the game process.

The shell card bug is rather mysterious and I didn't find it on my computer, but it does happen on some computers. I'll figure out the bug, but on second thought the bug is also interesting. Maybe I can change the description of the shell card to "???" That way players who encounter the bug can imagine the shells as magical conchs that enable players to use a lot of cards in one turn.
Liam
15. May 2021 · 10:36 UTC
Great fun, I too built a card game this LD and it was tough so you should be v proud. Loved the animations and look!