Deep Dive by mharitsnf

Dive Deep into The Deep Sea Temple and collect all the treasures you can find there! You don't need to worry about drowning, but the water will try to pull you up all the time... unless you bring the treasure with you. And then, bring yourself to the portal with the treasure to win!
Controls: - WASD to move - Space to jump - Semicolon (;) to drop treasure - Semicolon + A/D to throw treasure - Esc to reset level!
Logs: - 09/05/21: Change logs for Deep Dive
| Link | https://arsith.itch.io/deep-dive |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/deep-dive-5 |
Ratings
| Overall | 977th | 3.481⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 692th | 3.481⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 205th | 3.923⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1488th | 3.135⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 1443th | 3.06⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 14🗳️ | 13🗨️ |
I wasn't sure how much I'd like the inverted platforming but it worked very well. The switching was used in a clever way and really made me think. I found the difficulty to ramp up pretty quickly, but it was very rewarding to complete levels.
I'm not sure how much I like the spikes destroying the treasure. I understand it might be necessary but it was frustrating at times, especially when I was carrying it. Of course this didn't stop me from enjoying the experience.
I had an issue with the treasure moving through colliders and getting stuck. It never caused me to be unable to finish a level, however.
Great work on the game, I had a lot of fun.
I had fun moving through the levels, and the difficulty ramped up quite a bit.

Visuals were nice, and it was clear what I had to figure out to solve each of the levels I played.
Does the game have music? This game would be infinitely improved with music.
I love the gravity switching idea, It's seriously brilliant! Honestly this game just has a really cool idea surrounding it. As others have mentioned, some music / sound effects would've been a nice touch, though it's no big deal. I definitely would like to see more of what the game had to offer, but with just how precise everything had to be with level 4, I can only hope levels after it can find difficulty in ways other than precision platforming. Maybe some cool puzzle segments where the treasure needs to weigh down a pressure plate opening a door or something, and then you need to find some way to retrieve it and still make it to the other side of the door.
Anyway, it's a cool game. Nice work.
@100th-coin Thanks for playing and for the feedback! I have received some complaints regarding that level, as it became a massive obstacle for a lot of people as well. I have been working on that level to alleviate the difficulty curve and I hope it does the job well.
There's some very clever level design here, which unfortunately is buried in a lot of unnecessary execution challenges. I honestly feel like this game would feel better as a puzzle game and not a platformer game. I don't feel like anything is really gained from having the green and yellow barriers kill you, for example, instead of just acting as one-way barriers that block movement.
The spike obstacles seem to be placed in "annoying" locations that don't actually add to the puzzle or level design but just serve as what I'm going to call an "execution test". The top-most spike in the final level is a great example of this -- from what I remember it doesn't actually impede your path (if it really needs to, it could simply be replaced by a block), and simply serves as a "gotcha" to make maneuvering through the level more punishing. Imagine the feel-bad moment when the player does everything correctly in your level, but mistimes that particular jump slightly, and thus gets the very corner of their sprite caught on the spike.
I will add that the "trick" for level 5 was also pretty unintuitive! I wouldn't be surprised if I was the only commenter who actually finished the entire game!
What bothered me most was the choice of key to throw the treasure. In my keyboard, I have to press 2 keys (shift + colon) in order to get the semicolon. Usually you want to use a letter because it's more universal.
I agree with some of the other comments, I enjoyed more the puzzle parts than the precision parts. Still, it was fun while it lasted. Keep up the good work!
