Kind of deep waters by 7uc4s
⚠️ The web version is not optimal. For a better experience, use the executable.
Known issues on web: * Long loading time (30 second-ish the first time you start a new game). * Pixel art graphics might look worse because of stretching. * Tilesets might not render at all. (try disabling web extensions and emptying your browser's cache)
❔ DESCRIPTION
Kind of deep waters is a deep sea exploration game with procedurally generated levels. Carefully maneuver your bathyscaphe (i.e. a fancy word for submarine) to descend into trenches while avoiding dangerous creatures and obstacles. As you go deeper, the environment will become darker and will force you to use your light projector to progress safely. Collect treasures to buy upgrades and explore even deeper! What secrets will you unveil in the depths?
📋 INSTRUCTIONS
- Your goal is to reach the bottom of each level.
- If your air depletes completely, you lose.
- Violently colliding with obstacles or getting hit by enemies will damage your hull. Hull damage translates to increased periodic air loss.
- Collect air bubbles to restore air.
- Collect pearls for money that you can spend to upgrade your bathyscaphe.
🕹️ CONTROLS
Mouse & keyboard * WASD or ARROW KEYS: move the bathyscaphe * MOUSE : move the light projector
Joypad * CROSS or LEFT STICK: move the bathyscaphe * (sadly, we didn't have time to implement light projector movement and UI navigation with joypad)
💡 NOTES
- Yes, the game is kind of hard. That's why we decided to allow access to the shop (and not losing progress) even if you lose.
- There is no pause feature.
- You can only access the settings from the main menu.
- All progress is lost if you leave the game.
- On rare occasions, it might happen that the path is blocked, such that you have to hit a naval mine/sea urchin to go through. Sorry about that! (or not :smile:)
🎖️ CREDITS
We're a team of 4 friends irl. Most of us are experienced in programming and some even in game dev, but we're teaming up on a project for the very first time! * 510 ("sketchy" game designer, project structure ~~manager~~ criminal, "tying everything together" engineer, "fishy" artist, annoying perfectionist polisher artist, blip-blooper, game page redactor, balancing complaints issuer) * 7uc4s (LD jam host, insane map generation coding machine, sub-nautical physics expert, particles enthusiast, draft artist, jokes writer, explicit git committer) * fullbuff (creature movement engineer, bathyscaphe upgrades officer, Perlin noise enthusiast, overzealous tester, algae artist, blip-blooper, DJ) * maximence (rocky tile set designer, draft artist, UI artist, "UI don't need me for this project")
Special thanks to our other friend ploufboum who joined us during the jam and helped us by improvising some music.
Tools used: * Godot Engine (game engine) * Aseprite (pixel art graphics) * BeepBox (music) * Audacity (music and SFX post-processing) * Bfxr (SFX generation) * ChatGPT (coding assistance and generation of the sprites we didn't have time to draw, notably the items you find at the end of levels)
📷 SCREENSHOTS
| itch.io | https://7uc4s.itch.io/ld57-kind-of-deep-waters |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/kind-of-deep-waters |
Ratings
| Overall | 315th | 3.705⭐ | 63🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 275th | 3.615⭐ | 63🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 640th | 2.934⭐ | 63🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 45th | 4.336⭐ | 63🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 430th | 3.664⭐ | 63🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 348th | 3.426⭐ | 63🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 522th | 2.618⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 450th | 3.542⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 103🗳️ | 149🗨️ |
We thought about the level continuation thing, but we were lacking additional tilesets/enemies (that had to be cut off) to have some kind of variation as you go deeper. So, restarting from the surface seemed a bit more refreshing. Also, it made more sense to be able to buy upgrades if you leave the trench =)
@jnur Thanks for the comment! I agree, the balance might lean a bit too hardcore.. we’re big fans of tough games. We also made the ship intentionally sluggish at first to make upgrades feel more impactful and to give the retry system more weight. I really like your idea of giving the light another purpose, thank you.
@jim-jagers Man... thanks for that comment, it really warmed my heart! Glad you enjoyed it. We've spent quite a bit of time playtesting and tweaking the upgrades. Personally, I also really liked the darker part of the game and the meaning it gives to the light upgrades.
@franco-kikkas Crazy, right ? I felt the same while playing the game, even-though I know the pattern is fully "random". You would have loved the original fish (before we toned them down), it was a nightmare 😂 The fastest one is actually called fish-furious as reference to the Fast & Furious movie.
@catusfelony Yeah you're right on the level generation, that it's a bit clumsy, especially if coupled with some bad luck on the rng :( thanks for the comment though :thumbsup:
It's quite difficult as others have stated, but I wouldn't say it's "too hard" just "challenging".
Definitely 5 stars for this one, this is my favourite entry this jam so far!
Another good point is the shop between each run, kind of addictive !! As well as random generation of levels (even if sometimes it conducts to little rooms we cannot go to :p)
No real bad points, good job ;)
Sometimes generator creates very interesting rooms without any exit ^_^
Nice game! Reminded me of the very old DOS game called "UGH". It had similar mechanic ^_^
I think there's a bug when the hull meter is blinking. It doesn't stop blinking as the ship is repaired. It's ok, because by the time that happens, I'll ram through whatever to get oxygen.
It's fun. Well done.
Thanks for playing!
I think as a result there are too many sources of difficulty, rather than just the game being too difficult. Light navigation, oxygen management, the deliberately tricky controls, upgrade management, and obstacle avoidance. I'd probably focus on one or two sources of challenge and cut others! I'm also not a fan AI generated content, but in this case I do appreciate that you stated pretty explicitly that you used it, and what you used it for, and it's pretty minor here. On the whole really solid entry, well done.
Well polished and great execution: good job !
I loved the progression. I think it was a bit too easy to get hit, maybe you could decrease the size of the collision area or make the first levels easier?
The gameplay itself wasn't very innovative: pretty classic and no surprises. So if you'd like to continue working on the game I'd try to come up with some unique game mechanic. But the level generation and buying upgrades, and darkness were super cool. Solid and fun entry!
@christian-zommerfelds I can understand that a purist would not call it true pixel art haha! We actually had dithering in the air bar gradient at some point and it didn't look that great. With the darkening background, the particles, the shaders and the reliance on lighting, limiting the number of colors should've been a conscious and very early artistic decision and it would've been really tricky to achieve as a whole. Anyway, the game isn't really lowres enough to look great this way imo. The more "modern" approach looked quite nice to us (and maybe implied less work haha).
@lizz We actually implemented air loss out of water, because you could easily strand yourself and get stuck (it was also pretty fun to do with a mine haha!). So, we needed an easy way to end the game in that case. We didn't expect players to want to go back for air =)