Descender by salamandur
UPDATED: Now there's an HTML/web version on Itch! https://tristanklintworth.itch.io/descender
You are the Descender. A free diver with infinite curiosity and a pathetic lung capacity.
Explore various underwater areas and encounter different prickly wildlife as you dive into the depths with ten seconds of air. What will the Descender find?
Controls:
MOVE - WASD Dash - Space (after unlocked) P - Pause


For anyone wondering, there are 57 pearls to be found.
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/descender |
Ratings
| Overall | 907th | 3.186⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 933th | 2.972⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 899th | 2.943⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 434th | 3.806⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 875th | 3.129⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 402th | 3.456⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 802th | 2.417⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 528th | 3.514⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 27🗳️ | 47🗨️ |
"Uh oh!
If you're seeing this error, it means I can't find your index.html file.
This usually means you created your .zip file by zipping the entire folder, and index.html is somewhere like MyGame/index.html. If you recreate your .zip with index.html file in the root, this error should go away.
See the embedding guide for more details. ludumdare.com/resources/guides/embedding/
404 Not Found"
Let me know if I'm doing something wrong?
Just checked the web build, and it seems there is actually an indicator! I played initially with the windows build, and the air indicator does not show for me.

Probably the most glaring thing I encountered is the collision between the diver and pufferfish is off, like two divers heights distance is a hit.
Feedbacks :
- hitboxes of ennemy is WAY too big :3
- collectable games aren't really fun
@defilerzero thanks! yeah good note, thats definitely a glaring issue that we should have fixed earlier
@walaber this sort of mechanic (and improved collision with tiles) would go a long way for improving game feel, definitely noted. thanks!
Thanks everyone for the great feedback! :D
I liked the air mechanic, and unlocking the dash ability felt great. If there's one thing I think could be improved here, it's conveying status information to the player. For the first three times I played, I didn't even notice that the air meter was on the diver sprite itself :sweat_smile:
I also wasn't clear on how many hits I could take from enemies. And as others said, the hitboxes felt a tad too big (or maybe they just move too fast).
Also as others have said, the last ditch mechanic was a really cool concept, but I would like it if either it timed out faster once it was clear that I was dead, or the ability to quick-reset manually.
Great game overall!
It was definitely a good choice to keep player progression when dying, since you never know if the direction you take will lead to air bubble in the time you have left, and that time is pretty short in any case.
However, it encourages to go for missions where you get all the bonus you can without planning any return. It's not really a problem, but I'm not sure it's the intended player behaviour.
Overall a super nice entry :)
nice entry mate :)

@chocolat-endive I hadn't heard of Aquaria but it does look great with a similar vibe! Yeah we went back and forth of that but settled on it being kind of fun to have some situations where its just a suicide mission for "loot". We didn't wanna make the game more annoying than it already can be haha. Thanks for the feedback!
@harry-alissavakis Thanks again for playing on stream, we liked how it spawned a discussion of good game design principles. Next jam we definitely know now to leave more time to design levels.
@fiordarancio Thanks! Agree that there is too much time between initial drowning and respawn. Quick resets are good :)
@nardandas Definitely! The levels are a bit hard to read right now, particularly the last one. Hopefully you found the flippers which makes the enemies almost trivial, but you're right, without that "weapon" then playing around the enemies can be kind of slow and tedious. Thanks a lot, glad you kept exploring!
@merlinperlin That was intended, thanks for playing :)
@faust-mi Interesting reference, I didn't even know it existed. Also funny, on the wiki page that swimming level is specifically called out as a negative haha. Thanks for playing!
@raphiell @amberfall92 @redneb @chriswiseman Thanks everyone! :)
@faust-mi I totally got this vibe when I was playing. Unfortunately, I remember getting really frustrated with that level growing up.