Into The Depths

Neat little game. I like the randomly generated areas.

Couple things I noticed:
1. Character randomly faces left.
2. Shop prices don't reset on new runs


Good work, though. I got to 170m... will update if I get further!

The player getting stuck on walls could was annoying, but other than that it was really fun!

I love this game!

This experience is extremely polished, and fleshed out, with a few minor bugs that @branden-wilson and @sugarsugarsugar pointed out. Overall, the graphics are probably some of the best in the JAM, and looks great.

Great job finishing the creating this game.

The sprite for the blocks was a little rough at times while the character was moving; it's possible that the high contrast of the diagonal white lines on the blocks was creating a lot of visual noise. Like SugarSugarSugar said, I found my character often getting stuck on walls, but I liked it overall!

At the first run I thought that this was this kind of game where you go the farthest possible, die, and then use your money to improve your character. I lost almost 3k… then I understood the game and enjoyed it.

I would have liked that the upgrades are not lost when dying (so, that only the gold is lost), it is a bit discouraging to have to redo everything.

Nice game!

It only really work on full screen for me.

In my first run I was lucky to have two chests early in the descent. Later game I was deprived of them... THat made the game a bit less fun to play to never find chests

Fun game! Love the name! My second game felt like there wasn't as much treasure to find without diving so deep that it would kill me. I also found myself getting stuck on walls sometimes, which made jumping out of the water tricky.

@branden-wilson thanks for the feedback. I fixed those bugs soon after you posted.

@sugarsugarsugar the player getting stuck on the walls was a side effect of my tiled collision boxes and Box2D weirdness. If I were to do this game in less of a time crunch, I probably would've rolled my own simple 2D physics, since I never get great results from Unity's.

@ianthebee thanks for the feedback. I'm glad you enjoyed it and liked the art.

@pseudohausen I see what you mean about the block tiles. I probably could've went with something a little less stripey. I glad you liked the game.

@loig I was going for a rogue-like vibe with the starting from scratch every time. Having the gold preserve over runs could've definitely been a different approach. I'm glad you liked it.

@dhim it definitely works best in full screen. The random generation can be a bit punishing at times. It should guarantee at least one chest per cave branch, but one chest vs. two or more chests can be a big difference.

@nisovin jumping out the water never quite worked as well as I would have liked. If I were to spend more time with the game I think the physics would be the first thing I'd fix.

@jason-wilson I think one way to fixed it could be to give the player a physics2D material in the collider2D component, a set the material to have 0 friction. Maybe you can try it out and tell me if it works?

@sugarsugarsugar wow, that does work a lot better. Thanks for the tip.

Well made, not a very rewarding gameplay experience tho. I had fun, but i didnt want to keep playing

I also thought that you had to keep going down all the time. The first time I didn't see the shop, and then the second time I noticed that I could buy new equipment so I thought that I could keep upgrading every time I died. Then I lost 4k gold and realised that you couldn't :grimacing:

It's a pretty fun game, and I really love the design of the squids. I felt that returning to the surface to buy equipment felt a bit more of a chore though, since I was losing progress to upgrade. The upgrade system and the shop were nicely done though.

Nice game! I like the shop aspect, and overall it reminds me a bit of an underwater Downwell, having to shoot spears while descending makes for some challenge.

The shop feature is great, I like the minimalist art, the simple animation and design. Well done !
I explored a cave that lead to a dead end and no reward, so I return to the entrance with nothing..
So frustrating xD

Overall the game has a good mood, lovely art !

Nicely made game! I reached a depth of 332 meters, how did I do? :P
I liked the game loop a lot. Each time you were looking for treasure and air pockets, while avoiding the squids and fish. At first I was a bit annoyed that you had to go up every time to get the upgrades, but after a while I did not mind so much anymore. It gave it a bit of a strategic choice to make, as in 'will this be the dive where I try to go as deep as possible, or will I collect a bit more gold to get an extra oxygen thingy?'. After a bit I had more than enough oxygen to last me a lifetime, but then one of those sneaky squids got me >_<
As a point of feedback, maybe it would be interesting if the game got harder as you got further down somehow. Maybe by spawning more enemies? There was also a few times that I got through one of those side-branches, but there was nothing at the end of it. I understand this is just part of the random generation, but it did not feel great when that happened :)
Of course, some sounds and visual effects would make the game even better, but understandably you probably did not have time for that after making the rest of this very polished game
Thanks a lot for making it! It was a lot of fun to play :D

Edit: I also noticed very late there was also a shop on the right. Although, to be honest I did not really see the use of the attack mechanic. Generally just avoiding was good enough for me.

Such a great concept! It really captures the feel of trying to go deeper and deeper and the terror of pushing too far. I would have *loved* to have a minimap. Also, on a minor note, I think the shop should switch "heart container" to "heart recovery" when you've taken damage. It could still be the same price but this way you'd have the visual of the hearts recovering instead of having that damage permanently showing, which feels a little harsh.

@southpawdevelopment thanks for playing! I was hoping to add more of a sense of discovery with new types of enemies and treasures as you get deeper and deeper, however time was my enemy there.

@lithia-studios I'm glad you enjoyed the game. Thanks for playing!

@crucknuk I'm glad you appreciated the art. The random generation of the caves is pretty simplistic so there is a risk of there being no treasure at the end of a tunnel. If I were to keep building this game I would probably make the generation a bit more intelligent to make sure there was something of value at the end.

@wuppos 332 meters is pretty decent from what I've seen. The aspect of risk and reward of pushing deeper was something I really wanted to explore in this game so I'm glad you appreciated that element.

I had hoped to add more enemies and more enemy types as you progressed deeper but it was cut for time. Up until probably an hour before the compo ended I only had one working enemy, the squid was a relatively late addition. I had plans for a great white shark and a cave troll, but they didn't make it.

@machwerx the original plan was for their to be health pickups that would allow you to restore hearts that you had lost so that having empty containers actually meant something. An unfortunate cut due to the time frame.

Thanks everyone for playing and the great feedback!!

Hey, I also made a scuba diving treasure hunter game!
I like the graphics, they have that retro charm.
The shooting controls were a little tough, sometimes harpoons didnt shoot and i thought i was out of ammo, but i didn't see ammo counters, and they'd start shooting again after a few moments. I'd also suggest different jumping/swiming controls. For a game that's mostly swimming, maybe holding space would be better, or holding right mouse button since we're already using the mouse anyway?
occasionally a squid would take only a couple hits to kill, sometimes a lot, and I'm wondering if the enemies are pooled objects that retain their health?

@shaolin-dave scuba diving seems to be a popular style of game this year. :)

There is a limit to how many spears you can shoot, which is upgradeable at the weapons shot. Probably could use an ammo counter, or some other kind of indicator to better communicate this.

Enemy health is dependent on how far down the enemy is when it is spawned. Sometimes enemies further down will make their way up making the health seem a bit inconsistent at times.

This was a fun little game! I managed to get to 979m - the flippers and rebreather help a lot! It would have been interesting if more enemies started appearing later, but of course it's a game jam game and there's only so much time. (I saw you addressed this in previous comments)

I like the simple graphic style, it worked well. A little bit of constructive feedback - I was surprised I got all of my air back the second I hit an air pocket; I kind of expected it to tick back up more slowly based on other games I've played. I also ran into some sort of graphical glitch that seemed to draw a bunch of boxes over the screen for a frame or two every few seconds. It didn't interrupt gameplay and wasn't too disruptive, I just mention it because it was odd.

Overall this was a really fun entry; thanks for a fun game!


I don't have much to add to the comment above, I just wanted to say that this is a pretty fun game !

@cppchriscpp well done on the 979m. The flippers and rebreather are definitely an essential purchase.

That's interesting idea to have the air fill back up over time rather than instantly. I didn't want players to have to spend too much time waiting around for their air tank to refresh, so I went with instant, but there is probably a good middle ground rate where it refills quickly enough that it's not too much of a nuisance.

I haven't seen the graphical glitch you're referring to. May I ask what platform you were playing on, Windows or HTML?

@masaru I'm glad you liked the game. Thanks for playing.

Pretty cool really smooth feel.

Sure! I was on html5 fullscreened on windows 10. Let me know if you need anything more, I can hop back on and see if I can reproduce it.

Very good overall.

I actually regretted buying the flippers as I found it more difficult to control my trajectories (longer effect of [space] with longer cooldown), especially when trying to shoot at jellyfish. And I'm a bit ashamed to admit that I didn't see I could shoot at things until I realized there was a weapon shop on the other side.

And yes to the above: having heart bonuses along the way would be great for a final version of the game.

But there's one philosophical question that I still have in mind:


Cool concept! I didn't get super far, but it was a nice mix between finding treasure / explore and managing oxygen

Very cool! This game actually has a lot of content to it. I really liked the motivating upgrade system and the sense of exploration (which you want to do for that shiny gold). The enemies were not much of a challenge (the fish enemies I encountered all seemed o be stuck in walls) so collecting the bones was a bit more tedious than getting more gold. Swimming up from far down also needed a lot of spacebar-slamming - but I assume that's what the flippers are for? Still a very nice experience of discoveries & rewards!

Not sure if I had a bug or if there is no audio in the game. The initial amount of oxygen felt a little bit too punishing, but I get that might have been the intention. Good job, and in 48 hours for Compo!

Very fun little game. The random generation was neat and still well done in terms of level design. Small issue with the way the pixel art tiles jitter, you definitely want to use the pixel perfect camera for unity. Other than that it was quite enjoyable yet difficult! Good job!

Nice concept, I like the addition of the upgrade system.

@eugenik thanks, I'm glad you liked it

@slowfrog-again asking the hard questions. One which will be debated for the centuries to come.

@ladybenko thanks for playing. I'm glad you liked it.

@fargred the fish getting stuck on walls is an unfortunate bug in my super simplistic AI. If they spawn to close to a wall the trigger volume used to detect an incoming collision and turn around won't fire. Making smarter and a wider variety of enemies is definitely something that got cut for time.

@mhorth unfortunately the lack of audio was not a bug. The initial oxygen amount was meant to be enough for you to get in and out of the first branch of the cavern. You also start with some gold so you can purchase one oxygen upgrade for free.

@pious I'll have to look into the pixel perfect camera you're referring to. Thanks for the tip. Glad you liked the game.

@schuster thanks, I'm glad you liked it. I'm happy to get a lot of positive feedback on the upgrade system. It was probably the largest time sync out of anything I worked on in the 48h. I'm glad to see it paid off.

Very fun game, i like the upgrade system and random level generation.

Very cool game. I assume there is no ending? I tapped out after 1500m because it was long past anything new happening and didn't seem much else to do. Didn't really want to go back up at that point. Audio didn't work for me on web build on a Mac unfortunately. I really like the graphics, and the push your luck element is nicely balanced at the start. Could be very cool with more and more creatures further down and some way to mitigate the tedium of coming back up at that point. Well done.

Hey ! Very fun game, I like the graphics and the game mechanic is fun. It's impressive you did all that work in only 48 hours because it's a polish game ! Audio didn't work for me so I didn't rate it. Good job !

Really great game, some tile glitches, but really had fun playing it :D

nice graphic games, I just missed sounds ;(

@jokubasg thanks. I'm glad you had fun with the game.

@flipsy the cavern bottoms out at around 5000m, but it's meant to be virtually endless. Adding more creatures would've been great and add a lot to the sense of exploration.

@shin0nome thanks a lot. I'm glad you enjoyed the game!

@rushhourz thanks. I'm glad you had fun!

@felo07 I'm glad you liked the graphics. Art is definitely one of my weaker skills, so I'm really happy that so many people have appreciated the art.

Really fun game, so nice and retro. I think you nailed it here. Great work and thanks.

After getting the flippers I kept swimming into jellyfish because I was so fast! :skull:
Fun game!

Neat game, I had more trouble finding air pockets in time than fighting ennemies. Like other comments I found that resetting the equipement was a little bit frustrating. I sometimes had very tiny black lines between blocks of water, I had similar issues that were fixed using the pixel perfect camera from unity.

Good job!

Very fun game!

At the end, the speed is a bit out of control. But it's very good :clap:

This was a really fun game. I enjoyed the graphics and the gameplay quite a bit and played several rounds. The upgrades kept things interesting and the prices seemed well balanced. The one complaint I have is that sometimes the fish spears hitboxes were really odd. If I was too close to an enemy they'd just despawn without hurting it, for example, and I could never really shoot upward although it seemed I was meant to be able to.

@verygenuinecraze thanks for playing. The flipper speed upgrade is a bit excessive and definitely could be balanced a bit better.

@bentglasstube there's a weird bug I could never figure out that would sometimes cause spears to disappear prematurely. Something I definitely need to dig in deeper to figure out. I'm glad you enjoyed the game. Thanks for playing.

@michaelyount thanks for playing. I'm glad you enjoyed it!

@maaxoom the flipper upgrade is definitely a little overtuned and could definitely be rebalanced. Thanks for playing!

@oddarock finding air pockets is definitely the more challenging of the two objectives. When I come back to the game I'll have to look into this pixel perfect camera. Thanks for playing and the great feedback.

Things I liked:
- I like the simple limited palette art style
- fun core mechanic of the game
- Game matches the theme well
- HTML5 making the game more accessible to more players


Suggestions/ideas:
- would be great if you continue development to put in procedural generation for the levels for replayability (or at least a town portal type ability so that you don't have to swim back through conquered waters so much)


Bugs:
- I played through not knowing I could go back for upgrades because the first few times I tried to jump out of water it didn't work; so I missed the core mechanic of the game there
- The spears will collide with blocks behind you; making shooting with a block at your back difficult at times

@bw-devel the game does have a very simple form of procedural generation so that the branches, chest locations, and enemy spawns are all different each time. Thanks for playing, I'm glad you liked it and thanks for the great feedback.

Wow I loved this!!! But i have a lot to say:

- I loved the shop: It had so many options and cool items and worked perfectly, and finding money was really rewarding and valueble, because you knew you can spend it wisely. And also clever how the prices raised with each purchase.
- I liked the controls: Gameplaywise it reminded me of downwell but also i had to think of how swimming felt pritty much exactelly like in minecraft. Maybe you could say it was a little boring and slow, but overall i think that only added to the difficulty and made the player plan how to handle the resources for breathing. Also I liked how exploring did not just get rewarded with treasure but also with pockets of air to make a pause.
- I think audio could have really improved this entry and the lack of it made the game unfortunatelly more boring to play
- sometimes there was a graphic issue where the blue water in the background started to flicker.
- also often the fish just despawned for no reason and some i couldn't even kill
- and wow was this really generated or did you design levels, because if this was randomly generated, than respect to you! Boy, this really does have potential!
- i always don't like in jam games, when there are ways to loose health, but none to replenish it. Maybe i just didn't find the item, like, i know you can buy a new slot in the shop, but that gets really expencieve after a while and a lost life can't be refilled that way.
- treasure was rare, i propose you give the player some money for maybe each 10 new meters they dive, that adds some goal to the diving mechanic, or if you kill fish.
- a nice touch is broken records get noticed and apreciated. That must have been awfully difficult to implement for such a small detail

Conclusion: Even if it isn't perfect, absolutely polished or finished by any means, this easily was my favourite game so far in this jam. I spend an hour playing this! Hats off to you my friend! ;D

Great Job! Very nice game, it seemed very polish and pretty simple. There were a few bugs, I'm not sure if I misunderstood the money saving mechanic but it seemed like I would collect around 640 coins but then die and comeback with only 200, which made it less of an importance for upgrades. Great game though and would love to see future updates!

@johannimations thanks for all of the great feedback.

Audio was an unfortunate bit that got missed. I left it as a polish task that I never got around to. In future jams I plan to at least put in quick placeholder sounds so that I at least have something.

The levels use a very simple generation algorithm. I preconstructed about 10 different 10x10 tile chambers and then the algorithm basically carves a path through the map with some basic rules for what type of chamber can spawn next to what. For instance there's always exactly one air pocket in any given branch path.

The fish despawning has to do with my very hacky way of culling enemies that are too far away from their start location. Sometimes enemies can wonder far away from home and then end up getting respawned when in view of the player. A future improvement for me is to despawn things relative to the player rather than relative to their starting location.

Health pickups was an intended part of the design, hence why you can purchase heart containers rather than just adding hearts. It unfortunately didn't make it in in time.

I'm really glad you enjoyed the game. Thanks again for playing and all of the feedback!

@zackary-bazzle thanks for playing. I'm glad you liked the game.

The intent of the game was for it to be "rogue-like" in that every time the player dies they start again from scratch with a freshly generated cavern to explore. Should I return to this game I think I will make it a bit more "rogue-lite" with some elements of progression like certain upgrades or currencies persisting after death.

yeah i found it a bit frustrating to start over after drowning, but it also made me play carefully and added tension.
I know many people just comment nice things on this site, but i really do mean what i wrote. You should keep working on this in my opinion, even if it's just for the small fixes you mentioned. I'd even go so far as to say, it'd be worth the time expanding upon, what you've already got. At that pace it's maybe one month away from being a small, but whole and finished, sellable product.
Just my opinion, you must decide yourself. Anyway thanks for your contribution, i really had a lot of fun!

Edit: oh and i forgot one more thing: diving up to the shop after collecting money was cool, as i always looked forward to getting what i wanted to buy for a long time, but i think "Downwell"s way of handling shops would fit better. The idea would be to generate shops in caves(maybe at places with airpockets), so you can take a breath for a moment and spend all your collected money.

Would have liked some music or sounds to make the game feel more immersive. I liked the concept of the shop but it didn't seem like I could hoard gold to get to the expensive items. The enemies also seemed pretty easy to avoid, so the only limiting factor on descent was the air cannisters. In my runs the health seemed pointless.

@dk5000p thanks for the feedback. Music and sound was an unfortunate bit that didn't make the deadline. Next time I intend to put more sounds in right away, even if they are placeholder.

The enemies are really simplistic, only basically moving left to right, or up and down. In a more full featured version of this game there would be more complex and varied enemies.

Thanks again for playing!

Well done! I read your bio - must have felt good to get back into coding for a while! Neat little game. I liked the simplicity but quality execution. I would have liked W as the swim up key - that would have been more intuitive. Maybe respawn points? It felt brutal to set me back to the beginning when I died! Good luck!