FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD29 → DIVE

DIVE

By lars-faust

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CategoryRankScoreCount
Coolness1100
Graphics764.18
Innovation3093.43
Theme3243.53
Overall3983.33
Audio4472.93
Mood4743.07
Humor8302.05
Fun8432.70

Comments

gikdew 2014-04-28 08:29

one of the best ones out there, the graphics are smooth and the game is very polished!

shire 2014-04-28 08:29

Cool looking game and pretty fun but it's really hard to see because the assets are so small

towelking 2014-04-28 08:30

Fantastic water effects and visuals all around. It took me a moment to realize I had to be moving to turn but once I got that I enjoyed running from the mean fish and grabbing the other things. The power of the gun was tweaked very well which made the game less about blasting and more about dodging.

spierek 2014-04-28 08:30

It's a shame that everything is so small, because the game looks really great! :c

celt 2014-04-28 08:33

cool idea with the stages, score was a miserable 6 after a view tries :)

customphase 2014-04-28 08:33

Neat and clean graphics. Gameplay-wise its a little too simple for me. Also had some issues with menus, and text sometimes is hard to read.

lars-faust 2014-04-28 09:01

Thanks guys.
I guess you can make it bigger by going Fullscreen in the Web-Player (right-click) or downloading the standalone. I presonally thought the size was fine for these kind of low-poly models.

primaerfunktion 2014-04-28 09:24

I've seen your blog posts and was really looking forward to play your game. Although I found it to be quite challenging it was really enjoyable. That's a greate game you've made here!

slashee-the-cow 2014-04-28 09:29

Looks good (if a bit small). Sometimes I couldn't go up/down layers? Plus, you need to make going from dying to playing again quicker - if that didn't take so long I might have played a few more games.

lars-faust 2014-04-28 09:35

Yeah, there is a 6 seconds block to change layers after going up or down. That is to prevent the player from just skipping through an enemy type and thus avoiding it altogether.

honcho 2014-04-28 10:50

Really small and hard to see. Controls were a bit sticky and was unable to really hit an enemy with my weapon.

oatsbarley 2014-04-28 13:22

Really nice graphical style and an interesting mechanic. The audio is very fitting, although the ambient background sort of clashes with the lo-fi sound effects.

I had a few issues:

The menus before and after the game are incredibly sluggish, which makes the game a bit more frustrating than challenging. It's a pain to have to spend 10-15 seconds paging through screens just to try again. It's quicker to refresh the page than it is to wait for the end game screen to move on.

If you run rings around the enemies a few times they bunch in the middle, and stay there when you've left the layer. It makes it trivial to get fish once you've done that. If I had to suggest a fix, maybe just making them roam randomly when you're not in the layer would solve the problem?

The enemies all seem like they have the same mechanic but at differing speeds. I might be missing something, but it makes having more than 2 layers kind of moot, since you could just flip between the two. Having different enemy mechanics for each layer would make it a lot more tactical, I think.

Anyway, great entry! You gave a detailed comment for my game so I wanted to do the same. Nice job!

lars-faust 2014-04-28 14:01

@oatsbarley: Thanks.

Yeah, Slashee the Cow said it as well, the menus last too long. I agree, i shouldve just programmed a shortcut that skips the whole instructions and title screen when restarting.

As for the enemy-AI:
It is indeed very simple and running circles around enemies is just one way of outsmarting them. Another is to already align yourself properly on another layer, then drop down/up and just shoot everyone without any problems. However, i did not want to make the enemies frustrating by giving them the ability to shoot back or make them move too quickly. They are also usually, at least in my experience, dead before they really mass up in the middle. When you then switch to another layer they respawn completely randomly.

The differences between the dark fish are simply:
1: Low HP, normal speed, gives 1 point.
2. Very low HP, fast speed, gives 2 points.
3. High HP, slightly faster speed, gives 3 points.
4. Tons of HP, normal speed, gives 4 points.

Knowing that, it is wisest to just change between layer 3 and 4, but if one would struggle beating these enemy types, he could also stick with the easier types up top. That at least was the thought behind it.

Thanks for the detailed comment.

tijmentio 2014-04-28 15:44

The visuals are, despite being on the small side, super rad! And the concept is very nice as well!

szrapnel 2014-04-28 16:19

Game looks great, but the visuals are to small.
Also game menus swapping takes ages! :)
I love the clean, estetic theme!

sunr1ser 2014-04-28 19:15

Absolutely love it! But as others have said, it is a little too small, I would have like to play the the windows version, but it gives an 403 Error. Same with the source

lars-faust 2014-04-28 19:32

Thanks for reporting the dead links, they are fixed now!

okeedokeben 2014-04-28 20:30

Beautiful presentation, fun game!

adamwoolridge 2014-04-28 23:38

Buggy, but very nice style! Wish it was a bit more zoomed in so I could see the nice art better :)

terraco 2014-04-29 00:09

Gameplay leaves something to be desired but it is presented really well. It's sharp, neat and I want more.

louiscarl 2014-04-29 05:28

Really beautiful!

I tried falling on the edge, and I really liked how the submarine passed next to the score on the game over screen. So much attention to details!

techblogogy 2014-04-29 09:40

Very nice game

friken 2014-04-29 14:05

The graphics are really nice. Id like to see if more could be done with it!

binary_girl 2014-04-29 15:54

love the gfx ..good job man :)

paperblurt 2014-04-29 16:20

The isometric view is a fun touch and I like how you work with levels.

Good job and nice graphics!

rylgh 2014-04-30 04:23

just lovely... i like how the bottom layer was like the deep sea, and how minimal everything in general was (even the source)

christinaneofotistou 2014-05-01 12:27

very beautiful, love the minimalist design!!
I could use a zoom-in button, but it's lovely-looking!
I needed the controls to be less punishing, but that may just be me

danman9914 2014-05-01 15:06

This game is aesthetically gorgeous. The graphics aren't just well produced like many other entries; the design is also unique. The gameplay is a bit simple but who cares when it looks this nice?

dector 2014-05-01 20:42

Good entry. But items are really small for me. Perfect in others.

moonmagic 2014-05-02 04:57

Gorgeous water and enveloping Water Sound made these delightful bath experiences. Tiny friendly submarine that I want to hang out with.

thorig 2014-05-02 21:53

The presentation of this game is really nice. Good entry!

shadow64 2014-05-03 02:02

I liked this. I did think the game was too small (it was tough to see) and I'd like to be able to reverse - if that's available it wasn't working for me.

I also think you should probably add a counter and a health meter, just so that we know what our score is. I didn't even realize shooting the dark fish gave you points so much as it just kept you safe. Until I read that, I didn't understand why anyone would venture to the lower levels and not just swap between one and two.

Also you should probably let people know that you can't switch until you empty a layer. I thought that was going to be a tactic and I got killed for trying to jump down when I was in danger.

Overall a nice original game. Thanks for sharing! And thanks for playing my game and commenting. :)

jupiter_hadley 2014-05-03 05:11

Really nice looking game and very fun! I included it in part 10 of my Ludum Dare compilation video series, if you'd like to check it out :) http://youtu.be/vjBlRj2wHy8

dreii 2014-05-03 05:58

Beautifull, very well polished!

geekdrums 2014-05-03 06:00

Really cool graphics, but hard to play well.

lars-faust 2014-05-03 09:05

@shadow64: Thanks for the comment.
You can switch before emptying out a layer, there is just a 6 seconds block after switching, so the player cant just quickly switch two times in a row skipping a whole layer.

And thanks for all the other comments so far as well.

make-a-game 2014-05-03 14:31

Really cool arcade game and loved the graphics. Unfortunately it only accepted input from the Right Ctrl and none of the Shift keys worked to bring the sub to the upper layer. I almost missed the Q and E controls in this page, those should have been the defaults.

ehtd 2014-05-03 20:56

Really cool graphics and feel, but hard to play

alexrose 2014-05-05 00:05

Wooow, I really like the aesthetic for this. The meshes are great, it really has that isometric Wetrix feel to it. The ability to switch layers is really cool too, and fits in with the theme really well. The bad guys are cool and interesting too.

My only (minor) criticism is I wasn't completely sure how much damage I could take, but that's trivial to implement and, 48 hour jam, not everything can make it in, so it doesn't detract from a great entry.

Nice one.

csanyk 2014-05-07 04:52

The controls weren't very intuitive. I'd suggest using WASD to travel on the plane, and Up/Dn arrow keys to switch depth.

It's an interesting game, I haven't seen too many that use a "3D Chess" sort of play field. I'd like if the objects were a bit larger so I could see them more easily. Also, I read in the instructions that you shouldn't fall off the side, but when I did it, it didn't really communicate to me that I was doing something wrong. This should be made more obvious.

Overall very good.

lars-faust 2014-05-07 20:31

@csanyk: You should be able to use WASD and Q/E as controls.

jorgemoag 2014-05-07 21:56

Very good entry, although it's hard and I didnt understand how to play at the start.

teesquared 2014-05-17 16:37

Movement and aiming was a challenge. Having all the levels on the screen felt a little cluttered. Overall, great game and it kept me playing. Very creative interface and theme.

degtyarev 2014-05-19 20:51

Cool entry! Game scene is a bit too small to feel the mood, but I love that visuals!