Really interesting! I also used PICO-8 for this compo, and I think we both ended up with sorta similar game! Great submission!

Thanks @eboatwright!

overall, it was a very fun game, but the graphics and audio could be improved, also, some parts of the game were harder than others, so i recommend keeping a good diificulty curve.

I love the aesthetic and the graphics of this! Really charming little game. I found it quite difficult at first but soon got the hang of it.

Once or a twice I had a disagreement with a rock and couldn't move, but a minor issue!

Yay PICO-8!

Lovely idea, great visuals, and fun to play! It did take me a while to figure out I could use the arrow keys instead of just Z. Might be good to document the controls more. :D

Could use some visual juice improvements, but overall very nice work. Also, those damn bullets seem to kill you rather abruptly and unfairly :/

@corruptedcomputer thank you

@substr yes the rocks have tiny black holes in them hahaha. thank you for playing

@otresnjak that's a good point. I updated the itch page thanks

@the-neon-shark it's a fish eat fish world out there Neon Shark! I agree it's abrupt and if I were working on this more I'd definitely improve that

nice game, pico8 is wonderful isn't it? I like that you don't lose immediately when you run out of hearts but have a chance to get your breath back

I love the mechanics! The fact that you float back up really adds to the feel of the crushing pressure of water as you go deeper!

Interesting gameplay, it fits the theme really well! I liked the cute graphics too. It was quite fun as well, I managed to reach 1284m. Sometimes I got stuck in rocks, or it wasn't clear why I couldn't move down although I still had hearts. The arrows that go up could also be more visible (there's not much contrast with the dark blue water). Otherwise, pretty good game!

i liked the physics, the hearts being the swimming counter was a little bit confusing though

Super nice game!

I also love the "bubble to breath" concept, which I also used ... with a twist : you have to make them breathable first.

That said, yours has a level of polish that I won't match soon. The small sprite for the diver is specially nice.

fun! The fact that hearts are the number of dives I have left (instead of health) was confusing, but after I figured out what the game was I had a good time playing. always good to see more pico-8 games :D

(btw, I think your itch.io game is embedded at a bad size; it’s skewing the pixels in the font if you’re not playing in fullscreen. If you change it to 750x680 that should fix it – that’s the [recommended size (search for itch.io)](https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php?page=manual))

Nice mechanic, I enjoyed. Very good graphics, I just missed a music! good game