This is a really good game, although I was stuck on the fifth level or something. I would also say that it would've been a good idea to opt-out of audio if you don't have any.

This game was really clever and I really want to know how you did the rope following the player, the levels were really hard however, I couldn't figure out how to do the first ladder puzzle the right way so I timed picking up dropped weights to keep my upwards velocity, allowing me to move up, and then physics launched myself down with the ladders. Overall a really cool game concept which I am jealous I didn't think of!

Nice Game!. I like the way the hose is made. The mechanics of the weights is great. I wish I had sound, I would win a lot.

There are only five levels and the last one is waaaay harder than the rest, so that feedback certainly makes sense! It's certainly possible though!

I had intended to exclude the audio category but had some submission issues and no longer have the option to take it out.

Thanks a bunch for playing!

Nice puzzles!

You need to make the html5 version. Otherwise, people need to solve an additional puzzle to start the game. :slight_smile:

Really unique concept for a puzzle game - I've never seen anything like it before.

The way weight works wasn't intuitive to me. I assumed that I was either 'heavy enough to sink' or 'light enough to fall' and only after quite some time that it was possible to be at an 'equilibrium' weight where you neither sink nor fall. I also didn't immediately realize that treasures contribute to your weight, and had to do quite a bit of deliberate experimentation to figure out that treasures contribute 0.25 of what weights contribute to your total weight.

The somewhat awkward thing about treasures contributing a fraction of your weight means that those 'equilibrium weights' can only exist if you have a number of treasures which is a multiple of 4.

I also found a way to cheese the game (which it sounds like taximan also discovered a version of) - it's possible to drop a weight, become buoyant enough to start rising, and then grab the weight before it falls below your hitbox, causing you to fall again - if you repeat this over and over, you can 'swim' indefinitely. But due to what I noted above, this only works if the number of treasures you have is NOT a multiple of 4 - if it is, instead of switching between "rising" and "falling" you'll just switch between "rising" and "neutral" (and if you switch from "rising" to "neutral" weight while already rising, you'll keep rising - not sure whether that's intentional or a bug). It also seems exceptionally difficult/impossible to do if your weight is a multiple of 4 minus 1, since you get so little rising speed.

I got stuck on the final level (or what I assume is the final level because I went off the top of the screen instead of going to the next level) for quite some time until I had figured out the weight mechanic, since it seemed necessary to know how to make your weight neutral to get the top-right treasure, but I was indeed able to beat it without cheese.

This is surprisingly tricky considering the simple mechanics. Innovative gameplay! I thought it could do with some clearer mechanics, I found it difficult to understand how many weights I would have to drop in order to float etc.
But with some clearer weight feedback, some faster movement and some tutorial levels that explain the mechanics a bit I think this would work really well as a full length puzzle game. Great work!

Really cool. I liked the weight mechanics.

@empty-set Thank you so much for the detailed comments! I hadn't realized the indefinite "swim" mechanic, I'll have to think about a way to solve that (or utilize it more intentionally, even!). I definitely had plans for doing more with the fact that treasure has weight too (and can be dropped, like the weights). In a longer version, I think there could be narrative implications of the fact that the treasure weighs less than the weights.
Putting the player in a situation where they have to reluctantly leave treasure behind so they can continue, etc. The rest of these comments apply to you too :)

@felixmreeve I had thought about including an explicit buoyancy value in the UI but ultimately decided against it. I think that was the wrong choice for the game this ended up being. Originally I had ambitions of psychedelic horror, creepy-game stuff, but obviously that would require sound and a lot more. The puzzle game it ended up being definitely would benefit from more explicit feedback!

**LAST LEVEL SPOILER/SOLUTION WARNING FROM HERE DOWN**

The "intended" solution for the last level is to get the 4 treasures in the top left, drop weights to equilibrium to get the top right one, get the bottom right ones with the weight from that treasure, and drop weight to go back up. I think it requires you to have left weights strategically positioned to grab after that ascent, so you can go back to the start.

That's a REALLY steep jump in difficulty, depending on a couple new tricks that the player probably hasn't figured out yet. At the end of the compo, I was trying to prove that the mechanics allowed for a complex enough puzzle to justify expanding on the game afterwards, but I think I went a liiiiittle too far! :)

I definitely should have included a level that teaches you that you can reach equilibrium, at least. But I had already just taught you about ladders in the 2nd to last level, so I didn't want two "tutorial levels" in a row. Consequence of running out of time and not having enough puzzles!

Once again, thank you so much everyone for your thoughtful comments!

This is a cool puzzle game, I will admit that I read the first line of your post on how to beat the last level and it immediately clicked, and yeah I think having an extra tutorial level would have been worth it, as the only thing that really caught me out was equilibrium.
Not sure if I beat it though as when I returned to the start nothing happened.

I really like this game mechanic and i feel it has tons of potential. I definitely would appreciate an undo or rewind button to make things a bit less tedious since I got stuck at the second level. Great idea !

Good puzzle. I love how hose works

@fueelin I can totally see how with a lighting engine and some tweaks this could become a great atmospheric puzzler. Have you played The Swapper? I could see your game becoming something similar if it were expanded upon.

@hruhf Yes, you beat it! I realized after I finished that there was no way at all to tell you had beaten it, my bad!

That last level is really interesting and really hard. Definitely agree that some more explicit information about your buoyancy would be helpful.

Really great game. The hose length as a puzzle mechanic was awesome and fit the theme perfectly. Nice job!

Good job with salvage, it was a great idea to use the weight and puzzle mechanics, you can spend some time playing! I invite you to play our game if you haven't played :)

Very cool puzzle mechanics. They interacted with each other in interesting ways and the puzzles themselves introduced the concepts naturally.

Really fun game. I spent a lot of time on the last level so good job with making it a challenge!

This is great game, i like puzzles that can break your mind. Good job!

There were some fun elements, but also some confusing ones. A tutorial would have really made it better.

Very funny mini game, like going down in the water to find treasure, is quite funny and entertaining.

Very simple mechanics which you've built some pretty deep levels from, gotta appreciate that. I also appreciated the little touch of the window resizing to the level size, I found it charming.

I also liked the mechanics a lot. It's very unique and makes it a cool puzzle game

I like puzzles, and your game is funny to play

Really cool game, i love the hose mechanic. it may had been nice if there were sounds cause its making the game look a bit ""plain"" but anyway, love it good job!

This is a really cool puzzle game. I definitely would not have figured out the last level so I'm glad I didn't spend too long agonizing over it :sweat_smile: but I did manage to beat the rest.

I think that the weight mechanic of the gold pieces is interesting but would probably need to be communicated to the player better. I think really all this game needs is a couple more levels to really have a learning curve for all the possible mechanics.

Note that I did realize when looking at the last level that I really needed some way to move over to the right without changing in height... but I simply had no idea what I could possibly need to do to do that. So I think that the level design does communicate a lot about what needs to be done even if I couldn't figure it out.

But yeah, really neat puzzle game. It's hard to articulate exactly what, but it just seems like a unique sort of puzzle game--something rather novel.

Нелегкая работа водолаза связана с постоянным риском. Ура водолазам!

Спасибо за игру, необычная идея головоломки ^_^

One of the greatest games that I have reviewed so far. I had a lot of fun playing it, and could not quit before finishing last level. I do not know if it is a bug, but on last level I did not get any "game finished" screen, just went outside of the screen with 7 treasures.