Line by morrilet

Dive as deep as you can, but be sure to keep an eye on your oxygen line - the local wildlife can be a little aggressive.
Gameplay
Descend as far as you can without letting anything cut your oxygen line.
Turtles will stun you, but fish and spikes will break your line if they touch it, so watch out! You can slow your descent by wall-sliding or jumping off of platforms, should you need to.
Controls
- W / D or Left / Right Arrow to move left and right.
- Space to jump.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZOpsso5e3w

Credits
- Ethan Morrill-Ploum (morrilet)
- Programming, art and design.
- Noah Century (Noah_Centy)
- Music, custom SFX.
- Catherine Maggiori (catmaggiori)
- Additional audio curation.
| Link | https://morrilet.itch.io/line |
| Link | https://morrilet.itch.io/line |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/line |
Ratings
| Overall | 1348th | 3.266⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1206th | 3.152⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 977th | 3.152⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 682th | 3.818⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 1347th | 3.242⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 1063th | 2.955⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 1362th | 3.152⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 28🗳️ | 43🗨️ |
@totteriludum I think there's some value in thinking that through. Definitely an interesting experiment to see how that'd work!
@nardandas Yeah, the music gets gradually more complex down to 850 meters, but that leaves a lot of room where it's just on repeat. Totally get the death bit, too - I think the enemy / movement balance could have used a little more time in the oven. Thanks for the feedback!
@cam-moore Thanks! I'll have to give your game a try!
Nonetheless great job!
@michaelyount I wasn't sure how such low gravity would play out but I'm glad it got the effect across. Thanks for playing!
@hippolytea Noted - adding some collectibles to reward players for slowing down is a really good idea. Thanks for the feedback!
@johny0911 You and me both. Thanks for playing!
@yorsh Totally. Originally the level was going to get darker and darker with bioluminescent coral as you went down, but 72 hours is only so many hours. Glad you liked it, though!
@twbst Hah, that's a new one. Never saw that in testing but I'm glad you got to hear the audio regardless!
Good job !
@havok06 Ah, noted. Thanks for the feedback!
My first run, I immediately ran into a bug; as soon as I jumped against the wall this happened...

After thinking about running up my high score for a bit, I decided to try a fair game lol. I think the main idea is a good idea, but it does get kind of boring quickly. I just avoided landing on the ground and fell deeper with little risk. With that in mind, maybe forcing the player to find oxygen refills would help activate the gameplay a bit more, and introduce some risk v reward.
There's a lot of potential here to build on. I think shooting would be a lot of fun with something like this (Downwell), that way there's some more defense against those sword fish, and just more to do at any moment. Jumping on enemy heads could also be fun! (Downwell)
Visually, it looks good. I like everything, but the colors are drab and dull, and forgive me if this is out of place, I thought this would look much better with a "better" color pallet.

Overall this is a good playable entry. Good job!
@ismael-rodriguez Oh, oxygen refills could be really cool! I originally didn't want to add shooting because it felt too close to Downwell, but I agree that there's not much to do outside of fall and wait. Jumping on enemy heads might be the way to go. That mockup looks awesome, too! I was thinking originally of darkening the level and making everything glow (time constraints), but flipping into neon like this would be super cool. Thanks so much for the detailed review, and thanks for playing! (P.S. I just played you game and I was floored. Left you a review - great work!)
@doctortm Thanks for playing!
I've not read any of the comments so I write my review as a pure first experience.
The game is simple and linear descend lower into the depths of the sea while evading hostile animals.
The art style is simple and everything is clear. The oxygen tube is painted orange so that it can be distinguished from the environment. This is nice because you only need one hit and it's gone.
The music is a little bit jarring. Maybe some ambient would have been better instead to promote the feeling of isolation and darkness that one could expect from going to such depths. Maybe have some breathing sounds to add to the immersion.
I saw two kinds of enemies. Some kind of swordfish that attack with a delay. They force you to just keep going instead you'll lose the oxygen tube. The second ones are some kind of turtles that you don't want to step on. I was expecting that jumping on top of the enemies would kill them. This wasn't the case.
I found the best tactic is just to head down as fast as I can. Usually sticking to the far right(see image) in the "Sweet spot" where the level generation does not seem to generate too many obstacles. The game became super easy as the challenge didn't seem to scale as I went further.
The best part of the game was scaling the walls to slow down the descent. This could be something worth investigating and turn into a more meaningful game mechanic. Now it seems to serve no purpose. Maybe you could add an oxygen resource that the player needs to collect to maintain the descent. Scaling the walls could allow the player to jump the farther the longer the player scales. This could give the game more tactical depth.
Overall nice entry. Well done!
@keppu Hey, thanks for taking the time to write this whole thing up! Hearing it from this perspective is really helpful, and I think you're on to something with adding some extra mechanical bonus for wall sliding. Originally it was meant to just slow you down to avoid enemies from below, but that behavior didn't really come through in the enemy designs. A horizontal speed boost could be really good addition here. Thanks again!
It would be nice to have some kind of objective other than just getting as deep as you can, maybe collecting something like coins or even oxygen tanks! Maybe even a story, hmmm how about that guy dropped a wedding ring right before proposing and now he needs to go get that wedding ring before his rival does it hahaha!
Good Job!