deCompression by Sagamore
Description: The depths of the ocean hide more than just darkness. Wake up as the captain of a bathyscaphe that has found itself in the epicenter of chaos: your crew is split, the control systems have been hijacked, and you are underwater. You have to do more than just escape - you have to uncover the secret of the Dive mission, which could change the fate of mankind. But be careful: everyone lies here, even the shells.
Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfmMqRx7qNs
Screenshots:




Features:
🔹 Surrealistic plot
🔹 Dialogs with consequences
🔹 Underwater puzzles
🔹 An atmosphere of absurdity
🔹 Multiple endings
Warning! The game contains:
🔹 A sea devil who craves your trust.
🔹 A girl crying in the corner (but don't believe the tears).
🔹 Shells.
Go down to the bottom. Save the world. Or get burned. The Dive mission begins... while the bathyscaphe is still afloat.
Special thanks for our artist deku_skrab, who is not registered in LD website :)
DeepSeek was used for localization
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/decompression |
Ratings
| Overall | 242th | 3.793⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 305th | 3.571⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 359th | 3.362⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 326th | 3.862⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 137th | 4.276⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 284th | 3.556⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 84th | 3.889⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 102th | 4.125⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 28🗳️ | 49🗨️ |
There was a small bug with the bathyscaphe control panel, but apart from that I had fantastic experience :)
In terms of gameplay, I liked the puzzles that were there, but I found myself wanting more. The intro puzzle and detail-rich environment had me expecting more in-depth escape room-esque puzzles that never came. Instead I mostly just followed waypoints which was pretty unsatisfying. The puzzles are the core of the game, and they make you feel like you really are in the submarine figuring things out - I think you should commit to making some more weighty puzzles!
I also found the narrative a bit unsatisfying. The mystery of all these strange characters contradicting each other was built up well, especially with how all of them refused to tell me what was really going on. At the end, though, the TV did tell me what was going on, and it was kind of a let-down. Something vague about humanity's future without any real narrative stakes. I liked what followed with choosing who to trust, but it would have been nice to be able to go around and talk to people again to figure that out. (That would've been a great time for a larger-scale puzzle like I mentioned earlier!) My choice had no real impact anyway, because as soon as I entered the escape pod, the game just cut to an end screen. Satan didn't even say anything after I chose him! I did like the story, but in my opinion it was a lot of cool setup without much payoff.
Overall, this is a delightfully weird game with a very skillful setting and atmosphere, and very professional for just one weekend. Great work! I think with some more depth to the puzzles and a proper conclusion to the story (even if it is an open ending), you could fully take advantage of all that great world-building.
I too would like to do more and refine this game to the size of 2 hours of gameplay. don't know if the team would agree to that