Out Of My Depth by okuar

Hey everyone!
So… this is a remaster of a game I saw about 10 years ago. Yeah, I know how weird that sounds — I just don’t remember the name of original game, and no matter how hard I searched, I couldn’t find it again. Maybe I just dreamed this concept — I don't know. But the idea really stuck with me. It felt super conceptual and oddly perfect for this jam’s theme, so I just had to remake it. I’d also love to see the original again and know who created it.
About this game
Essentially, this is a sort of haiku or poem in video game form—a short piece where nothing is superfluous. The gameplay lasts less than a minute.
Why I did it
I've been wanting to try out Godot for ages, but I never got around to it — until now. LD was the perfect opportunity to dive in without overthinking the idea. I just wanted to mess around with the engine. Also I set myself a challenge: making a game entirely on a tablet. I didn’t even have a keyboard or mouse, so I had to navigate using only a pen. Sure, it took a painful 4 hours of tapping on a tiny screen, but it was really fun.
Hope the game brings you as much fun as it did me! Have a great Ludum Dare!
Cheers!
| Link | https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Rb50UoeiOKBq3Lf2d4NigHk773x73P6R/view?usp=sharing |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/out-of-my-depth |
Ratings
| Given | 53🗳️ | 27🗨️ |
ha-ha! yes, this is exactly the mood i've got - idk why but i loved it :)
thanks! i'm glad that you appreciate the idea too
I don't think I've seen the game you based it off, though I did once play a slightly similar about moving a black square. Unfortunately, I have no idea where to find it because I only know it from an old ExtraCredits video on YouTube. The game was called Isolation, you advanced up across a white screen. There were other black squares, some alone, some in small groups. The end result was that even if you tried to interact, nothing would happen and the game would end once you got to the top of the screen and show you a statistic about Korean middle school students feeling isolated. It's probably not the one you recalled, though. You might try a Reddit. I recall they have threads on trying to find random games like that.
Could it be
Someone else who's played my favorite "move right" game that the creator took down from the web years ago!
*plays game*
Nope, this is a very different game. Still, I'm very impressed how much storytelling can be told with so few pixels and changing velocity!
(For the record, the game I remembered was called The Shaman. It came out a bit after the indie darling Passage, another "move right" game. In The Shaman, as you walk right, words appear discussing how you are on a journey to see the Shaman. Words about missing your beloved, and what the villagers had to say about the Shaman, and the powers the Shaman is supposed to have, what you sacrificed to make this journey, wondering if you will even find The Shaman. Then, when you finally reach a cloaked individual, the ambient music goes quiet and...
...
...
"The Witch Doctor" starts playing, sped up and speeding up faster, repeating Ooh Eee Ooh Ah Ah, as an image of the Alvin and the Chipmunks movie poster slowly fades in, as the quality of the song deteriorates.)
If you want to make it a game, it should have selection somewhere :D (well, technically, if you have two buttons in the end "do you want to win" or "do you want to lose", that would still technically be a game, if you want to push your artistic limits while still making a "game")
Cool athmosphere!
One thing that might have been cool to add was that since it appears to be a top down view, to have the blood be a trail behind.
I’ve tunneled for seventy-nine nights now. My fingers look more like cracked stone than flesh. The spoon I stole from the mess hall snapped three nights ago. Since then it’s been fists and nails. It hurts. Everything hurts.
But pain is different now — not punishment, but progress.
The guards don’t know. They think I broke after the solitary. And maybe I did. But broken men are the best at slipping through cracks.
I found the gap behind the sink. Just wide enough for my ribs if I exhale all the way. Past it: old stone, damp earth, and something that smells like freedom — or rot. Hard to tell the difference anymore.
The plan was never to escape in a blaze. It was the slow kind of escape. The quiet kind. I memorized patrol schedules. I watched where the floodlights don’t reach. I listened for when the dogs sleep and when the night guard pisses behind the utility shed.
I was going to make it.
Tonight I broke through the last layer. There was light — moonlight. God, I forgot how pale and gentle it is. I stuck my head out just to taste the air. It didn’t smell like rust and soap and sweat. It smelled like pine.
I smiled. For the first time in years. I smiled like a man seeing his child born."
@p-r - so cool! Did you write it?
Then as a player I realise I actually don't mind a more abstract, shorter game - something that stops you for a few minutes and gets you thinking.
Kudos for that, it's great to get something that both gets you thinking about your approach to game design and also gives you an interesting experience.