The Depths by Hydrogen8
It is said that those who seek the treasures of Atlantis, must first brave the terrors of the depths, and attain the riches of the sea.
This was our first Ludum Dare game!
Hydrogen-8 - Programming and SFX
JanuaryGray - Art and level design
Chris Gray - Music
| Link | https://hydrogen-8.itch.io/the-depths |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/the-depths-1 |
Ratings
| Overall | 707th | 3.632⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 624th | 3.526⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 1309th | 2.921⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 166th | 4.211⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 466th | 4.053⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 374th | 3.763⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 12🗳️ | 5🗨️ |
Things I enjoyed about it:
- Beautiful, charming pixel art
- Cool, relaxing music
- Simple, yet fun game mechanics, gameplay loop
- Random generated, endless gameplay
Some things to improve on:
- Maybe ditch the pearls as a scoring system. I would much prefer if you tracked the "deepness" in meters. It's simpler, easier to track and feels less random compared to the rarely and randomly spawned pearls.
- The control can feel a bit "drifty" at times. For a precision "platforming" game like this, smooth control is everything. :joystick:
Anyways, thanks for the experience, brilliant game! :smile:
Here are the things I would change to make the game even more fun :
- adding more ways to score would be good, currently my best score is under 10, it does not really push you to replay more than once or twice.
- adding some variety on enemies could make the game a bit more challenging, currently I did not feel a lot in danger.
But that's only nitpicking, great job overall !

This one is a very straightforward game. Jump into the water, keep going down, avoid enemies, get treasure. Simple and to the point. While there seems to not be much to it when it comes to gameplay, it stills pops up with some great visuals for the engine and a very good tune (though I do feel it gets repetitive fast). Sure, there are always things that could be added to make it more engaging, but for gamejam purposes, this entry is solid. Good polish, responsive controls, and goes as long as the player can and feels like!
All things considered, It's a fun quick game worth giving a shot. Good job! :whale:

Always fun to see a Pico-8 game, they're so neat! This game is really nice, hope you get enough ratings in time!
Instruments chosen were just a bit sharp for my ears but the melody is great 😅 Graphics are very nice and the Pacman ghost jellyfish are so good 💜 Sound design choice to only have danger approach from the left going right so you didn't feel unfairly surprised at the edge, but I do wish they appeared pixel by pixel from the left too and didn't just pop in, that got me a few times haha 👀 The gameplay is simple but fun, I just went very long without a single clam/pearl sometimes. Well done!!
Gameplay works nice enough, movement is a bit loose but understandable for underwater reasons. Enemies spawning on side of the screen snipe you a bit unfairly sometimes.
Oxygen loss particle effect is gorgeous.