Really enjoyed digging, has a nice feel when combined with the sfx. Good job.

I would have liked there to be more hazards the further down you go, but it was a fun game overall!

It got a bit samey after a while with nothing more to explore. Got 451 first try, and don't really feel I could do anything differently or use different strategies on my second try. Nice vibe.

I like retro style. It was a good idea to use it for the game I think.

Very nice minimalistic art style, nice sound effects. Gameplay is weirdly addictive and gets hectic in the best way possible fast. Can't really complain about anything here. Mayyybe music would have made this even better but that won't affect my rating.

Highscore is 260 btw :D

I made it to 290!
Very simple and easy to understand but challenging. At first I was going straight forward to see if it was possible, but then air got very rare, I don't know how I could go deeper :) (maybe I should train typing faster!)
Anyway, nice mini game, I would have been please to find some power ups!

Wow, you guys are apparently way better than me if you're getting scores like that after a few runs. Maybe I should bump up the difficulty. It does scale based on death doing things like spawning less air the deeper you go, and spawning more stone blocks. But maybe the numbers need some tweaking.

I enjoyed it. I can see how it might get repetitive after a while, but I think that's true of almost all game jam games.

The suggestion to "make sure not miss any air" seems wrong, though, since really it makes more sense to skip air that looks inconvenient to get, especially when the bar is already mostly full.

I'm pretty sure this isn't how mining works. Probably more fun though!

Nice clean entry. It was fun balancing the frantic digging with the moving back and forth as the air got more scarce and the rocks increased. I ended up at a depth of 353 because I missed the one air pocket and never saw another one.

So far my favorite game from this event, has a really fun punchy gameplay loop. Trying to plan a decently efficient route against the breath timer is a lot of fun.

I made it to 313 btw

Well, I tried it, it's simple but funny. Although I don't know if I found a bug but, from 200 meters I went down 35 more and no burble found :( I died at 235

@budark you must have just got unlucky, that’s unfortunate. Maybe something I can tweak to make that not happen since it's not really fair that the game itself makes it impossible to go further. I might just force an air block to spawn if one hasn't spawned in the last 30 depth or so. The joys of totally random procedural generation.

Like others have said, sometimes there will be a ridiculous distance without an air pocket spawning. Other than that I found the game lots of fun, trying to get down deeper as fast as I can, planning a route quickly as I go, made for an enjoyable time.

@budark @noam-zeise @minibobbo I updated the game so that if an air pocket hasn't show up for ~17 depth then it'll force one to spawn. Hopefully that fixes your issues.

The presentation is nice and the core gameplay is very solid, straightforward.

I think the game could benefit from gems; something that boosts your score, but you'd have to think about how to get to them with air. That combined with smarter generation of air bubbles would make for a more engaging experience.

The game feel is really nice. Keep up the good work!

Thanks I will play again

Manic indeed! Cool presentation too.

This is the type of retro game I would like to make. The controls and mechanic are well designed and fills me with some good gameboy vibes.
The sound is crunchy and the highscore a nice touch. Thanks for this game.

Probably not healthy for my hands or keyboard, but I make it to 382 on my first try. Will likely play again once I've recovered.

I could imagine playing something like this on my TI-83 in 8th grade algebra class. Really fun. I love the way the rocks make a little scream sound when you hit them first time. Pretty fun when you really try to go as fast as humanly possible. Solid game!!

Cool idea, the scaling felt a little off as for ages I had so much air I could basically just spam the down arrow, but then suddenly there was no air and i died

Simple but really really cool !!

Really cool little game, had a lot of fun! Only minor criticism is the difficulty curve felt a bit steep, as it started out really easy before getting really difficult.

Woooo I really love it, I managed to score 456 by holding the down button. We're starting to panick when we're running out of air

A simple game which was fun. Nothing more to really add other than that. It was nice to play and did have a decent air of on the fly strategy with trying to get air bubbles. It was a nice game overall. My high score is roughly 286

It's the highest level of digging games.

Well, it's very basic here. But basic is cool sometimes. My hand hurts a bit but i dig and dig a lot. It's nice to see Pico 8 in this Jam! I had some fun. Give it a try.

Really fun game. I managed to get to 257 depth. Good job :)

Very cute little Pico 8 game! Really appreciate how fast paced it is! Also that art style is just plain cute :)
Overall a really nice little game to pick up!

This was so much fun and it made my heart racing. I'm... diggin' it.

Hello! I love that you made a Pico-8 game! There is something so soothing about the small resolution and the true pixel rendering. I think your game was very fun. It's works and is smooth! I didn't find any bugs. Overall fun game!

very nice, the air mechanic made it so i was always moving and it was great of you to add sound effects and background color changes

It flows really well and I find the art super appealing. There's a lot of games with this mechanic in this jam but this one feels really good and is lots of fun.

Really fun!
gets more challenging as it goes along as oxygen gets less and less frequent
only issue is you can just hit down really fast and get quite a high score

I recommend not to decrease the air by time, decrease by move instead. That will more strategic, so it's not depend on how fast I press the keyboard.

So cool. Love the changing palettes. Score: 210

I had 228 on the first try and 230 on the second try. Good fun, I quite enjoyed that!

Well done, the mechanics are simple but neat. Enjoyed digging until the bitter end.
No bugs at all, just air bubbles :D

Love to see more PICO8 games! I enjoyed the pacing of the game and the two mechanics worked well together. Could have been nice to have more various features as you went down, like a completely solid block or a powerup that makes you dig faster for a bit. It did seem to get impossible right towards the bottom, as well.

Got to 341 depth! Really cool simple game!

Very good sound choices and the ability to change the color is brilliant. Graphics is very simple but well-made and everything feels quite polished.

I wonder, do you use up air faster when you're digging? I thought that that was the case (and it would make total sense!) but I might have just imagined it.


Really like this game, has a real sense of urgency to get down! Loved the fact that the air decreased in realtime whilst the movements are turn based. Think something that might be cool would be to have certain blocks you can't mine through

I love these arcarde games!

I could spend hours playing your game :smile:

Great art, music and game overall! Congrats!

I really engjoy this game. It make me feel like I can get depther in next round. :laughing:

Simple but really fun ! I did 393 on my first run but havn't been able to beat it since ^^

Aww amazing and minimalistic! I love it! I got around 400 as my record and I played a few times. The game is addicting and I like the color change feature. One of the best ones I played so far!! Now I want to make a pixel art game...let's go to work...

What a simple but fun game. I included it in my compilation video series of a bunch of LDJAM games!
https://youtu.be/joQCxT9jLww

Nice little game!

Minor feedback, I wonder if Highscore could be updated whenever your current depth is greater than your highscore, since its your new Highscore

@cary-stanley That’s not a bad idea, it could for sure. I might add that in assuming that’s something that would be allowed since it’s not technically a bug.

Cool!

A very good game! I love the concept, and you executed it perfectly. Simple but fun, and the title you gave it is just perfect, I don't think I've ever mashed buttons for that long in my life. I did one run and got to 623, and by that time my hand was absolutely dying lol. I love it, and it's a very nice touch that you can change the color palette :)

@peculiarcarrot Wow that score's impressive! Sorry about causing you a repetitive stress injury haha.

@ryannielson Totally worth it, the game was a blast :)

Simple sounds and graphics but extremely effective!

I was quite literally holding my breath for the whole ending and I'm pretty sure my folks think I was playing osu! again lmao.

Really effective and most importantly fun entry that made the theme work perfectly. Graphics were simple and made it easy to understand what to do, and the sounds also worked super well and were satisfying without blowing my ear-drums out which was super nice. I managed to get around 300 on my second try, but it's 3:20 am in Finland right now so I don't think my flat would appreciate if I smash my keyboard any more lol. But anyways super nice working and polished, I'll definetely come back to rack some attempts and get to 500 :laughing:

I really liked the game play. If was very intuitive and just felt right. Obviously there could be several upgrades but I'm really impressed with the polish on this. The menus worked well and the transitions were smooth. Overall a great experience. You should be proud of this.


This so reminded me of minigames from pokemon stadium and well those are fond memories! I like the sound and the look. The mechanic did become just smashing the arrows as fast as I could mindlessly after awhile, so maybe more hazards later on?

That was pretty fun. The sound effects were pleasant and made me smile, especially breaking the stone blocks. It's a simple idea, but effective and tense. Has some Downwell vibes, which is always a good thing. Seems like something you would play on an early handheld device, or maybe a T1-83 calculator, nice retro vibes.

Simple and enjoyable. I like the minimalist visuals which communicate the game's information very clearly. The controls are nice and snappy, although mashing that fast made my hand start to hurt by the end. I do feel that the game could use one or two more elements to spice things up, but the game is good for what it is.

Simple, smooth, and easy to play! I definitely agree with some of the notes that playing for too long would make your hand hurt - mine started to get sore around the end, but I did enjoy it while I was playing it! The sounds were easy but soothing and satisfying to listen to as you descended, and all of the art assets were very straight forward and easy to read!

One of my favourite things about this game is that you gave players the option to choose their colours at the start! It's such a small and simple thing, but I'm such a sucker for any kind of games that allow and encourage player customization - it really makes me smile to see in a game!

This also allowed for the option to spam the button while you were mining, which I naturally took. Who doesn't love mining in a rave? ☆☆☆☆☆


This game is fun to play.

nice game though, simple and good looking art, good concept, wish u luck in future jams!

Nice style. Good job!

Nice game pretty nice graphics

Overall a great game, but I would love to see more features tho.

Fantastic compo game!

Art is simple and clear, audio feedback is great, rules and controls are very intuitive.
At first, I thought that just mashing down would work, but as you get deeper the scarcity of oxygen bubbles forces you to move left and right, that's great!

Thanks for the game 💕

Also my hand hurts too much after my first try to do another one haha

Pretty cool!

Oh woah, lots of comments haha.

It was a fun little project, and I had a blast playing it, but it's not something I'm drawn to play again. Some kind of shakeup in the gameplay would really put it over the edge. But for a compo, this is something to be extremely proud of. The art and sound were both clever uses of minimal aesthetics.

Awesome to see a PICO-8 game here! Love the minimalistic art and design choices. I made it to 228 m on first try, I'll definitely play it again! Very satisfying.

Very nicely polished arcade game. It might have been interesting if you could have worked the colour into the gameplay rather than just for aesthetics.

The game style as really well done, can be a pretty frenetic, but also can break some keyboards D:

Made it to 630. Simple but fun, some added dangers/enemies could make it even more interesting.

Great game !

Cool game! Simple and well exctuted.
I like the one-bit style.


I wonder if anyone beats this. My hand is dying.

Reminds me a lot of Mr Driller, very fun game! Would love to see some other modes and such.

@exewin welp I tried


Very fun game. It's just a perfect jam game, everything is very simple yet result in a very fun time. I love it.

Hey i went only until 214! hhahahaha solid game, I loved the mechanic to change palete, never played a game with that before, good concept ;)

yesss love seeing more pico-8 games :D

I like the graphics a lot (I played this game because of the thumbnail), and the palette swapping is a nice touch. The mechanics are nice and simple (maybe a bit too simple? I played one run and then was done) and overall this is neat, tiny, well-executed game. nice job! high score: 419

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1007659333?t=01h26m45s

@pancelor Thanks for checking it out, and thanks for the feedback. I thought about adding some more block types, but I figured because I wanted to focus on speed I'd keep it as simple as possible. Things to think about for a post-jam version though.

It was actually my first attempt at using pico-8 and I liked the two a lot. The limitations really helped me get this thing done in time.

tbh, my best run when i was holding down Down^^ - that said, the graphics were nice and clean, always happy about a pico 8 game

Fun game! I had a couple of times where I was frantically trying to get to an air bubble, just to reach it just and time, my higscore is still only 256 :sweat_smile:

I was doing fine, plenty of air while moving down, then 1 air ever so often, maybe this transition could be smoother. Aside from this, I really had fun. Good game.

Nice addictive game. I really like the simple controls, the web version even works great on my mobile.

Ah man, this is the game that everyone who were low on time wish they thought of. So simple yet aesthetical. Maybe personally I'd prefer if air loss was turn based so it could be more of a chill and tactical, but I dig this as well. Sound effect when hitting tougher block is hilarious. Having bubbles of deadly methane gas here and there could diversify the challenge, but I guess you were going for simplicity.

Very cool little game, might see it as carrying ecological message as well, "the real treasure is the fresh air".

very simple and fun. love the combination of digging and searching for air. getting to change colors is a very nice touch

Didn't really expect to see a game made with PICO-8. I love this kind of minimalistic pixel art style. It was definitely a plus to have different colors. You could use another sound effect for the rocks. My highscore is 219. Good job!

I got to 223. I really love the aesthetics. I think the game could benefit from a bit more variety. I dont know if it was your choice or lack of time you did not implement more "items". There could be something that at first glance resembles an air bubble, but does effect you in other ways to mix up the challenge.
Nevertheless really great overall!

@ryannielson oh wow your first pico-8 game? impressive work! it looks so so stylish

1077 personal best, simple game but so effective ! 10/10

nice simple game, would love to see maybe a little bit more in terms of mechanics but it is pretty great how it is.

Sometimes less is more. The art is so nice and minimalistic. Gameplay was maybe too simple. Maybe you can add more different obstacles like explosive mines.

One of my favourite games from this jam for sure, there is just something about it that I really like but don't know how to describe. I like that you stuck to the really minimalist art style. I tried doing that as well, but I didn't do as good a job as you did. The only thing I can nitpick is that the highscore system doesn't seem to work, at least for the html5 version of the game. Tremendous Work!

I found this to be really good fun. It was a good decision to keep it focused on digging and getting air making it fast paced and frantic. High score was actually last score from previous attempt. Would be good to get an actual high score to beat. Sweet game overall.

@spadekhemoglobiny @super-hadoken I'm glad you both enjoyed the game. Thanks for pointing out the issue with the high score system, apparently I wasn't checking against the previous high score before setting the new one. It should be all fixed now. The high score won't persist after closing the game, but it'll work as expected as long as the game stays open.

Nice entry, mostly focused on simple yet challenging gameplay.

We even both agreed on the Pico8 and "grasp for air" concepts for the win!

Well done!

Simple and highly effective. The highly responsive nature of the game and the cute audio kept me going! Well done! I was hoping to encounter new types of challenges as I went deeper (maybe 280 wasn't deep enough to find new content).

Pretty fun game! it felt like it was a bit too much button mashing and a bit too little strategy, but overall it was really fun! Maybe it could benefit from adding more dangers when you get further down or introducing some other new elements along the way? For a game jam game it's really nice however! I liked the way you could change the color scheme and how it changes automatically for every run, it gives the game a fresh look every time you play!

Great job!

got like 250 the first time :) Real simple and easy to understand, that's what a loved the most out of it. Once I got the rules, I was able to zone out and go for the gold. cool game!

Very simple game, pretty fun. Nicely executed for compo.

[Disclaimer](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/so-so-phia/done-with-compo-i-might-yet-move-to-jam-if-i-feel-like-it)

**Overall**

I'll start with overall, since the parts of the whole work so well together. I consider your game to be a specimen of Pareto principle at work. I sometimes forget how much can one achieve with minimal resources. I'm in awe. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this is a perfect game or anything, but I do consider it a work of art. I have to actively force myself not to give it a too high of a rating because of it's simplicity, but the simplicity is really the thing that amazes me the most about your game.

**Fun**

I do not like the fact that the character works 'on key down' and not 'on key pressed'. My hand hurts from playing. Other than that, it's simple, yet fun. I think the game works as it is. I wouldn't add any additional powerups or whatevers. It's simple, and it's effective as hell - a great game-jam game.

**Innovation**

It's a pretty generic fun little game with a tiny little twist. Not much to say here.

**Theme**

You used the theme which is nice, but since digging deeper was my first idea right out of the bat, I see this as a very simple usage of the theme.

**Graphics**

I totally adore that you achieved what you did with 3 colors and 3 6x6 sprites. It is a bit mind blowing to me, and I'm holding myself from giving you 5 stars for graphics. I went with 4 because I think higher craft should be rewarded more (like painting and stuff). But I'm not saying that I think this is easy to pull off.

**Audio**

You have four very basic sounds in your game, and they work so damn well with your aesthetics. To me, your game is very confusing rating-wise, and audio is the hardest part to rate.

**Mood**

You've got that 2-bit feeling really well, and what I kept myself from giving you in other categories because of simplicity, I'm giving you here. 5*

---
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Nice game, I liked the graphics.

Simple. Polished. Very nice. Great entry!

Nice little game! My hand hurts because of constant key pressing, but I had a lot of fun playing. Good work.

Cool game! I really like the simplicity of the game. The added palettes are a nice touch, and I like the simple audio. It would be great if there could be some progression in the game, like enemies to avoid, or a weapon to destroy the blocks. Great job!