Cool game

This game is much more deeper than I expected (pun intended). I expected something like scanning three fix and we are done, but I really felt like I truly wanted to explore and every time I found a new species I got really excited. I didn't expect much when I saw screenshots, but I was positively surprised.
The only thing I kinda miss is the lack of sound. It could have been such a great and relaxing experience had it have at least some ambient sound or simple music. But I understand it was COMPO, so no hard feelings there :)

Overall pretty cool game and relaxing experience. Loved the graphics, as they are simple, but polished enough to evoke pleasant gameplay.

PS: I found every single thing except for those god damn turles hahahaha

Love the art on everything, if this game had sound and was bigger/fleshed out id play that whole thing.

I did a whole run of the map trying to find the last fish, only to find id already scanned it, it just looks exactly like an un-scanned fish :') if that was an intended troll you got me good.

Found a bug to keep the scan on while you move, I'm claiming it as the first speed run strat.

Really like this game, honestly it remind me the theme **deeper and deeper** of the LD48 (and also my submariner's game ^^).
The graphics are very stylish, the water is simple too simple there are moment with the background was only one color and there is no impression of movement (if there are not bubles).
We are rapidly lost, with out map, i like the idea to collectionnate the different species of the ocean. But i have a suggestion about the log (see the screenshoot), because it"s difficult to see imediatly who is found or not.
Great job for a COMPO GAME.
*PS : And that can made a good mobile game too ^^.*

Thanks a lot for the comments and the kind words, I really appreciate it.

You're right about the dark fish looking very much like it's not scanned. Sorry! I think your suggestion makes a lot of sense @robowarrior1982. Thank you for taking the time to make the mockup!

I like your comment about the background too. Perhaps some background elements on another parallax level would give a better sense of depth, and let you know which direction you are moving when there are no obstacles around.

The suggestion of adding a map also makes perfect sense, thank you! That would have been a good way of making sure the player is not lost.

@vidarn It's because i have encounter the same problem with my LD48 entry, so i can easily should give advices about that. https://robowarrior.itch.io/adventurer-of-the-deep

Beautiful and chill graphics, I had a really nice time playing this.

- Love the way the background subtly darkens as you get deeper. Feels eerie
- Some chill ambient audio and SFX would really tie the atmosphere together
- I wish I could press a key (or right click) to scan instead of moving the mouse down to the screen button

Overall beautiful work, agree with @robowarrior1982 that this could totally be a mobile release with some polish and more content.

Cute game, but I couldn't scan! I included it in my Ludum Dare compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://youtu.be/v0i3VE06y_Y

Really lovely game. There's just so much life down there isn't there. I really wish there were sound effects. I just feels like it's missing something and I think sound effect would really help with that.


I couldn't find the last fish. I went down and back up and down again looking around. I must have missed it somehow. :(

But it's a charming game! I love all the animations flourishes you put in: the scanner animation, the tweens on the icons, the bubbles near your mouse cursor.

How did you make the level? Is it one giant illustration zoomed in?

Well that was really nice and relaxing. Well done! I found everything including the giant turtle. Some atmospheric background bubble sounds or music would've been nice but other than that it was great!

Thanks a lot for the kind comments!

@jupiter-hadley Thank you for playing the game on your channel. I always look forward to your Ludum Dare videos. I'm sorry the instructions were unclear. Thanks for pointing that out. I've updated the instructions to try and make it more understandable for future players.

@ian-kettlewell I'm glad to see you enjoyed the game enough to go hunting for all the fish :blush: .
Regarding the level, I drew a few pieces (walls, floor etc.) and combined them to form the environment. Here's a screenshot from my editor showing me placing one of the rock pieces (also featuring that last fish :wink:) 

@n-o-games , @cogcomp Thank you both! Yes, you are perfectly right about the audio. I will definitely make sure to find time for adding some sound next game jam. Thanks for playing the game!

Nice n simple game. I really like the art in it though I really with there was some audio to go with it. Once I found I could drag over scanner button and the scanner would just stay on, it became a much faster experience. No idea if thats what you intended but it really did make it easier. I did manage to find all the stuff on the boards though I did have to retrace my way back up to find that small fish off to the side. Great little exploration game :D Well done!

I love games about being under water and exploring stuff, the art is simple and soothing, I could see myself exploring and finding creatures all day

@blurdeblah you’re right, I think the controls were adding a bit of unnecessary friction to the game. I’ve made an update so that you can use the spacebar or right mouse button to scan. I think it plays better that way, thanks for the feedback!

@velvetlobster i love how fitting your username is to your comment 😆 Thanks a lot for the kind words!

Looks gorgeous, really nice vibe.

Really fun game! I also couldnt find the fish that Ian missed so I also think that may be a call to put it in more suitable place :D I really enjoyed controls and graphics which were soothing as the game itself. I really liked it. I would only add some audio in the future and option to read about the fish and corals found. I dont know if there is end to this game, cause I couldnt find that one fish, but other than that there is no point other than collecting if you cant find out anything about the fishes other than their appearance, but seeing how you wrote it all in such a short time its only a suggestion from me. I had fun with this one :) Very relaxing. Great work!


It looks like I found all the species, but the game didn't stop and didn't say anything.

This is a really pretty and relaxing game. Some underwater sounds would make it even better.

@tigerfinch I'm glad you liked it, thanks for the comment!

@janku Thank you! I think you're right. I've added a fish of that type to a more easy to find location. I hope that's allowed by the rules as a minor fix. I also changed the color of the fish that @mook and @robowarrior1982 mentioned.

@pev Thanks for playing! Good job finding all the species! I really wanted to add some screen to show when you found them all, but I ran out of time :sweat_smile: I'm a bit hesitant to add features during the voting period, but if I make a post-compo version, that's definitely something I will add!

@flying-dog-fish Thank you! I agree with you regarding the sounds, and that's something I really need to focus on in future game projects.

Some good things going on here. Took me a few to figure out what I was supposed to be doing. Laid back game was kind of a nice pace. Nice job.

This is super cute and I love all of it! The fish are really nicely done and I love the overall vibes. Scanning things really gave me subnautica vibes only nothing was scary!! I also really like the hand drawn look to all the UI aspects! Good job (:

I didn't expect the world to be so big , and I wasn't able to find everything 100% but I love the submarine and atmosphere! I'd love to be able to see a screenshot of the entire world at once, just for my curiosity haha.

Overall, really well done!

Really refreshing concept ! I managed to find all of the species. Too bad there wasn't any audio in the game but congrats !

Really cute game and impressive for a compo! I enjoyed the graphics and backstory a lot =) It seriously made me want to take another trip to Hawaii lol.


Thank you for sharing your game with me on Twitch (MsMiaChar). The playthrough can be found at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1451579897?t=00h22m07s

@simplepotential Thank you for the comment. I'm sorry if the instructions were unclear. I find it difficult to make games be intuitive to pick up. As the developer you already know how you things to work, and it's hard to imagine yourself in the shoes of a player who's new to the game. That's why it's so great to have people point out when things don't make sense!

@sarah I'm glad you liked the game, thank you for the kind feedback! Here's a map of the whole level [[SPOILERS]](https://www.vidarnel.se/games/ld50/map.png).

@kerdelos Yeah, I would really have liked to add sound. I'll make sure I'm set up to do that next jam. Good job on finding all the species! I'm happy you enjoyed the game.

@charq I wasn't able you make the stream, but I watched the video with a big smile on my face, it was really fun to see you play the game! Thank you for doing that. Also thanks for the good feedback, like the flashing screen. I want the game to be accessible and I totally see how the flashes could be something that makes people uncomfortable. I'll make sure to do something about that. I also like the idea you had of a minimap, which would help players avoid getting lost. By the way, I think the music you played fit the game very well. Good job having that prepared :grin:

Ooooh, thanks a lot for posting the screenshot of the whole map!! It looks super cool, very nicely done :3 I love building out maps like this, so it's always really interesting to see. <3

I had a feeling I missed a spot around the middle \o/

Very chill and atmospheric. The art style is simple but visually pleasing and made it satisfying to find new things. I had the same problem as some other commenters where I couldn’t really tell the difference between some of the scanned and unscanned items in the logbook, especially the striped fish, whose main color blends in with the logbook so I thought it was just showing the stripes as a hint that I needed to find a striped fish. That might be a good suggestion actually – instead of showing the entire outline/silhouette of unscanned fish in the logbook, just show a partial shape or single characteristic as a clue and then fill in the entire thing when the player scans it.

Quick question, what engine/library did you use for drawing graphics? Just wondering because your game actually looks nice and sharp on my laptop’s high DPI screen, unlike the usual Unity/Godot/LibGDX web builds that render at low DPI and end up blurry.

Really cool game. The art style gameplay work really well together. Nice work.

@sarah you're welcome! I agree, building levels for other people to explore is so much fun. I used to draw maps on paper when I was young, so I guess it's something I've always enjoyed.

@dalep Thank you! Yeah, using the same colors for the log book as the environment wasn't great for readability. I love your idea though. Showing something characteristic of the fish as a clue would be more mysterious, and would add another level to the exploration.

I used my own little library for making games. The code is hosted on my web site (I call the "engine" satin and it can be found [here](https://www.vidarnel.se/code/dir?ci=tip&name=satin)). It's quite limited and completely undocumented. Honestly it's probably only useful for me, but I find myself quite productive when using it since I know how it works and what is or isn't possible to do with it. The graphics system is something I've experimented with lately and for this game the art is drawn using flat shaded triangles rather than bitmaps. It seems the browser is doing antialiasing on them automatically, which was a nice bonus. Here's the wireframe of a fish, showing how it's built with a triangle mesh, only in 2D.

I have a tool (which is, again, very simple) built into my engine that allows me to draw these images while the game is running. I built it out of frustration with having to spend time exporting and importing sprites over and over again.

@projectaroid Thank you so much! I'm glad you liked the game :blush:.

This was a very cool game visually with a relaxing exploration vibe. I really missed having no music or sound effects but that's my only complaint.