Abyss Ascent by T90.

[raw]
made by T90. for Ludum Dare 54 (JAM)

Abyss Ascent

Hi everyone! It is already our fifth attempt to participate in LD and just as usual, we bit more then we could chew. We wanted to create a dark, tense and atmospheric game with focus on inventory and task management while delivering the story through AI generated imagery and Visual Novel style dialogues.

QUICK NOTE: ldjam.com website has misconfigured headers, so ^ iframe with the game shows error about permissions.

You can play either on Itch (link) or by following this direct link to LDJAM CDN.

1.png

3.png

However, we managed to implement only the first two scenes of the story and basic concept for the tasks and inventory. So... Demonstration of intent, I guess.

We may try post-LD development and actually make a complete game.

Controls with mouse.

2.png

4.png

5.png

6.png

7.png

Ratings

Overall 860th 3.224⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Fun 889th 3⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 858th 2.983⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Theme 981th 2.948⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 720th 3.352⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Humor 818th 2.326⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Mood 250th 3.897⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Given 31🗳️ 36🗨️

Feedback

Kinami
02. Oct 2023 · 23:16 UTC
Very nice game! 😄

This has a lot of potential! I'm really impressed with how well the art works together with the gameplay. You really nailed the atmosphere! I wanted to read more!

Looking forward to the post LD patch! 😊
biospheremusic
02. Oct 2023 · 23:20 UTC
Atmosphere and art direction is great, looking forward to post LD patch.
zerohalogen
03. Oct 2023 · 11:41 UTC
really atmospheric game, nice work
Teto
03. Oct 2023 · 22:56 UTC
Noooo! I want to know what happens next! Looks like the start of a really great story! The atmosphere is great and the little bit of world lore sounded really cool and immediately engaging. In that short time, I wanted to know more!

I would say it wasn't quite clear that I needed to click and drag to allocate people to tasks so I was a little confused for a second but got there in the end! Having done the top task first and getting story, I also got confused when it felt like nothing happened when I allocated the second couple of tasks but then I noticed the times had decreased. Some kind of audio/visual indication that something had happened would have been really nice. I feel like it's the basis for a cool mechanic and I would have loved to be able to have more challenges in managing people, tasks and making choices on what to do and what to keep in my inventory.

The characters and backgrounds are really cool and well used. The shaking of the background was a really nice way to adding some movement and making the surroundings reflect the happenings in the story. Really tiny point would be that I would have moved the characters down a bit as I felt like their head should be more central (although that's just a really tiny random point and just my preference aha).

The UI was cohesive and choice of font fit the vibe really well. I really dislike making UI so congrats on getting it all working as you intended! The icons do take away a little from the overall aesthetic of the game so I feel like using premade sprites would have been worth considering to fit better with the AI generated graphics. (I just wish you had more time to write story :P lmk when you release a book set in this world)

Overall, a great start on promising game mechanics that fit well together and have the potential to make a really interesting game! Vibes are immaculate. 10/10 atmosphere.
Ynnon
06. Oct 2023 · 13:39 UTC
interesting plot of the story, graphics and sound create a good and suitable atmosphere, i liked it!
MAR Zockmeister
06. Oct 2023 · 13:50 UTC
I really like the atmosphere, especially the background music and the shaking when the elevator runs. I think the beginning is a little bit too much text without interaction, e.g., maybe the user should decide if the elevator should be opened for Iris. But the task assignment felt promising. Also the character graphics did not really match the story, e.g., Iris looked to clean. It might improve the atmosphere if there were different character images depending on the situation but I know, there is not much time in LD. :wink:
PS: I did not rate graphics because for me, using AI generated images is similar to using assets from somewhere. I know, it could be quite difficult to get good outcome. But I still would not compare this to really modelling or painting graphics by yourself.
ellaris
11. Oct 2023 · 09:55 UTC
- Interesting premise but very short
- The very beginning has the character on a black background, which is fine taking into account the time constraint, but could use a little display of urgency to the player, like some sound effects or even the character dashing from side to side. The music wasn't enough to convey the idea of danger and running away from a flood, it was nicely done later in the elevator with the background shaking.
- Fixing the elevator presented 3 choices, 2 of which seemed identical, It would be nice to differentiate between them or at least give a little context before the player has to make that decision.
DTRMGiraffe
19. Oct 2023 · 20:45 UTC
I thought the plot was a great way to start off the story. I was confused at first as to how to assign tasks to the characters, but once I got that figured out, I was moving along. I found the decision making to feel like it was mostly off of luck, rather than my actually decision making. With more development into the story and decision making, I can very much see this becoming a real title. The writing was good, but I would suggest more time character development, before everything breaks out. The fact I'm curious as to what happens next makes me want to keep playing. I'd encourage you to keep working on this!