Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD48 → Resurface
By anchorlight
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 447 | 3.46 | 33 | |
| Fun | 667 | 2.96 | 33 | |
| Innovation | 360 | 3.38 | 33 | |
| Theme | 271 | 3.85 | 33 | |
| Graphics | 302 | 3.67 | 33 | |
| Audio | 136 | 3.75 | 33 | |
| Humor | 287 | 2.90 | 27 | |
| Mood | 54 | 4.08 | 32 |
Wow, this is awesome. I absolutely adore the visuals and audio; the aesthetics are just so much more polished than most people manage with LD games! (Minor thing, but that huge bass drum sound when you bump into something is a wonderful touch.)
It would be really good to be able to player with a controller, though-- there are a lot of controls to keep track of!
Awesome work!
@otresnjak Thank you for checking it out! I poured a lot of time into the aesthetics to get things just right and I hope that the later areas reflect that. Unfortunately, QA for those later areas... well, let's just say I've got a really long list of things to take care of for 0.124. If you get really frustrated slamming your head against a certain doorway and wondering why you can't fit, it's not just you :stuck_out_tongue:
As for Controller support, I'm using Unity's default Input system with Axes and buttons so IN THEORY controllers should be pretty much good to go. I unfortunately stripped most of the default inputs out for the interest of time, and it does count as a new feature. That said, getting controller support going should be a very simple task once the Compo ends. Stay tuned and I'll probably add it! No new features yet unless they're 100% critical as per compo rules, but I may code in the special features to save time when it's all over.
I highly recommend switching to the latest version as soon as it releases, as unfortunately the main objective is going to be a little problematic with one of the nastier bugs that slipped in. I'm pretty new to 3D environment workflows, which shows in some of the more glaring technical problems I found just hours after ship.
The sound effect you're talking about was one of the last things I added to the game, and every time you get knocked on your face while trying to get through the tighter spaces it still gives me a good laugh. The one thing I felt the game really lacked was an underwater feeling, and for me that SFX is what kind of carried it back into that territory.
Wow, this is nuts... I love it. Didn't manage to get very far on my first 2 playthroughs, so going to come back to it later and have a few more attempts. Visuals are crazy and love the 6DOF< great audio too, really ties the whole experience together. Great job man!
can't see sh!t
@msipp27 Which area are you referring to?
In an ideal playthrough, the lights _should_ guide you to areas that are visible enough even in Exploration Mode. It's really tough to navigate the pipeworks no matter what you're doing, but the longer-range flashlight and the glowsticks are both pretty useful in marking your way.
I'd be happy to help as I know the level layout isn't exactly optimal.
i meant in general.
You may be able to navigate easier in Interaction Mode (right-click); you won't be able to tell colors apart or turn the camera, but even the darkest parts of the map will be closer to normal colors. You also have a flashlight, but the default one is very short-range and narrow; once you find a few mementos or loot a few boxes, you can buy a much better one.
You may like the later areas of the map better, as those have neon decorations that are still working and are generally well lit.
Wow! The scope of this is wild for a game-jam game period, let alone a compo one. I had a pretty hard time navigating with the lighting, even in interaction mode, but I did manage to find and salvage a couple of items. Some kind of highlight to make interactive things stand out from non-interactive ones would have been nice, but… 48 hours :smile: Great work.
@mahalis Hm, yeah. That thought crossed my mind some time _after_ the game shipped. I definitely agree with you, there's nothing telling the objects apart.
You're actually supposed to tell the difference based on music. There is a Cello solo that's entirely 3D audio; that audio was also going to be the only thing that outright ignored the muffled audio filter, for plot reasons :eyes:. The problem is the code behind it isn't working. I've tried to fix it, believe me. The Mementos List was a last minute attempt to make sure players weren't 100% in the dark on what they were looking for, and by last minute, I mean it was one of three additions I pushed to the game minutes before I made the first Windows build.
I fear I didn't get it at first I went to the engine room and refilled my o2. After that I swam around for a while and I think I clipped through a wall.
@Sode Hm, that doesn't sound good. Can you roughly describe the area you were in when you passed through a wall? A few of the meshes have "collision" but let the player through anyway, I have to basically patch in little box colliders wherever they didn't work. I was so sure I got them all, too!
Your actual goal is to look for the items that are on your list (hit Shift for some vague hints on the objects you were looking for). As a general hint, you definitely passed one or two based on the places you went to.
this game had many introduction screens. Maybe too many of them, when interest stopped even before getting to the actual game... at 3rd introduction screen, I was already tired of reading the text...
The atmosphere in this is great, though I have to confess I wasn't able to see much of it. Once the lights went out I kept getting stuck in corners and not being able to find a way out, and I have problems with motion sickness so I couldn't try for too long. Wish I'd been able to see move of it because it really piqued my curiosity.
@taft-punk The general consensus is that the opening area is poorly lit, and the un-upgraded flashlight was something I changed last minute for game balance. I get the sense that I may have turned down the lighting via post processing afterwards, causing the flashlight to be even less effective; I'm still trying to figure out how to properly address this as I'm not entirely sure it's acting as intended anymore.
There is still supposed to be a very faint light after the lift flies off, but again, it may not be strong enough. I also recommend that you play the Windows version, as I have just removed the WebGL release due to Point Light problems.
@tero-pulkkinen The tutorials were something I made about an hour or so before submission, and I think you can tell. In retrospect, I wish I'd put more time into this as the controls lack an explanation for Interaction Mode. It's not a bug as much as documentation error, so I won't be fixing that until after LD ends. I appreciate the feedback!
So the game was good, I would like the difficulty curve to be a little easier, was hard to go down narrow area to get objects because it was dark. This is honestly a really great start to what I think could be a bigger game for sure.
Cool!.
First of all - incredible result for the Compo. I've got only 5/7 items, but was able to finish the game. There are some thoughts that I have (nobody asked for advice, I know, but I just wanted to share :D ): 1. Lootig mechanic and "buying upgrades" mechanic were a little bit useless, in my opinion. I finished the game from the second try having only upgrade for air. At the same time you could save that time to make it "single run" game but with oxygen in some places to make it more tense 2. I understood that having cello was thee main mission, and it could be frustrating to get bak, but I would like to have an option after I found it - continue my exploration or go to surface. But these are like not really important thoughts, because I loved the game - I liked the controls (and this is from the guy, who had hard time in Outer Wilds :D ), and I loved the atmosphere. Good job!Untitled2.png
I appreciate all the feedback!
@simpathey First of all, thank you for playing my game on stream! The build you played is a lot harder than the last one published. I messed with the material of the Pipeworks area and shrank the layout of the pipes to make it easier to traverse, as the severity of players getting stuck on said pipes made the entire last half of the game basically unplayable. I think you'll find the latest versions to be a step in the right direction (arguably too much so) for a less punishing air system. Also, the Pipeworks area isn't nearly as bad anymore.
@badabooom63 All very fair criticisms. On the other hand, the build YOU played was made a lot easier by these changes. I agree with your opinions-- I completely forgot to add more boxes to the later areas, and as a result my game has a severe problem between hot and cold difficulty. Either you have an intro segment that's agonizingly difficult (see 0.1254 and before), or you have a game that's a breeze the whole way through.
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Some of these problems come from post-launch changes. For example, the Air system was easily exploitable (you could infinitely click them due to a scripting bug), so I simplified it. The simplifications made it much harder to actually refill air, and from this point on players struggled to even make it up to the first lobby/"Fountain Room." I had to make other changes to compensate such as expanding the air meter. The shop menu also had prices drastically reduced, for example the air upgrades used to be $2000/$3000/$4000. I'll take the fact that you finished the game as a sign that I'm on the right track, but the next hotfix will probably walk some of those changes back to a happy medium. Other changes that impacted your playthrough include a much stronger default flashlight that's almost on par with the old upgraded flashlight and a bugfix for the rusty metal materials that makes them properly glow when making contact with the flashlight.
This is all ignoring the fact that I'm just putting postjam bandaids on an inherently unbalanced design. I'm not actually fixing the game, for the sake of preservation. Redesigning the pipes area didn't end up turning the area into an interesting maze, I just stretched the obstacles differently. I didn't actually fix the problems with my mechanics, I just made some numbers higher. I feel that to do anything more would be unfair for LD.
The major design flaw here is that you have to get through a really complex maze of rooms that are sometimes a struggle to enter just to get back to the upgrade station, all at a blisteringly slow pace. That design choice basically means you either don't need the upgrades to progress or you will have a nightmare trying to get through the game-- there's no in-between where the upgrade system feels both necessary and fair. I feel comfortable altering balance to make the game playable, but to actually change the position of items or otherwise add new features to the level would be too much for an LD patch. I'll see what I can do about some proper difficulty after LD ends.
The defeat/victory screen was put off until the last minute while I was working on the final rooms of the game. I think you can tell as it's very rushed and doesn't offer a lot of options. There's also a bug I have to correct, as $10000 is a placeholder value that is overwriting the actual monetary value you had (it only happens on victory). It would be easy to add a "Keep Exploring" option and originally there was supposed to be an "End Game" button when Resurfacing, but I forgot to implement that until I had no time left and phoned it in.
I'll try to search for a happier medium between the 0.126 rebalancing and previous releases. Once LD ends, I'll actually add a second point where you can enter the AirLift and implement some upgrades that didn't make the cut, like portable air tanks and a power cell that lets you power on parts of the ship. Thanks for the feedback! I figured the balance would still need a little more fine tuning. :laughing:
Wow, very, very impressive! Incredible that you managed to put this out in 48h!
I love the atmosphere, I love the way you move around in total 3D, love the graphics and audio. I could only grab 2 mementos though, as I couldn't find anything else in the first two rooms and did not find anywhere else to go? I tried to go along the pipeline but both seemed dead-ends to me.
Overall, a fantastic experience for sure. I'll gladly keep an eye on any future title from you, as I think this concept fully-fledged out could be something special.
Congrats!
@anchorlight while I understand, that you cannot do big changes in the build since it LD, it would be great to see post-post-LD version, I really liked the concept, atmosphere and controls
@linky439 Thank you for the kind words! The Pipeworks are the path ahead, but as you're probably now aware it's the single greatest fault point in this game-- and that's AFTER the patch that made them easier. There are also other pipeworks areas that are sealed off, such as above the entrance; that's just bad design on my part, and I'd love to actually put something there in a postjam build.
The default flashlight isn't quite as powerful when it comes to range, but when you exit the pipeworks you should be able to look around. The Interaction Mode wasn't originally designed for this, but it's sort of turned into a great way to get your bearings in darker areas. The fact that you already saw the Pipeworks means you're on the right track. If you find yourself crashing into objects and getting lost, the Glowsticks are a great way to mark where you've been (but there is a small collision bug with them that I haven't gotten around to fixing yet).
@badabooom63 I definitely agree with you now. There's a few ideas running through my head on ways to spice up the gameplay and properly add the survival threat/tension I originally wanted, so hopefully I can get back to that in 20 days or so. I know I said that before with LD47, but the difference is this game leaves a far stronger foundation to build on.
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As a side note, v0.1265 just released and should tone down *some* of my rebalances with a slightly weaker starting flashlight (still stronger than original builds), some visual fixes (the AirLift actually comes back down to the ship on time now!), and some audio balancing work that some people will definitely appreciate.
Small side note: When your volume is a float between 0 and 1, be careful not to set it to 100. Lessons were learned.
Solid entry. This game is not compatible with ADD but that's not to say it's not a good entry. Check out my playthrough on my twitch vod. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1004320749?t=00h20m51s
@josephdevelops Thanks for checking it out! ~~Apologies for asking but what does ADD stand for?~~ (I was thinking computer terms, my bad) I'll take a look at the VOD in a bit.
Unfortunately based on the time stamp, you might have _just_ missed the new patch today.
ADD = Attention Deficit Disorder
@josephdevelops
Okay, I watched your VOD. A few comments:
- You had a pretty rough first few seconds, but I don't know if I can fix that. It seems to stem from letting the game fall out of focus as it starts up. - I have no idea where the performance problems are coming from. It runs great on my Linux system, but Wine/Windows builds have some really odd framepacing. Until I figure out why this is the case, unfortunately I won't have any good answers for you. The game does run at native resolution, but as the game's default view runs at 512x384 I don't think it's a graphics card issue. My guess is that you're hitting a CPU bottleneck from livestreaming at a high quality and having lots of dynamic objects on screen (already-intensive scenario + poorly optimized game). I have a system that I'm developing to reduce the amount of physics interactions happening out of sight, but it's on the backlog for postjam. - Your complaints about the loudness of the game are valid, and were actually the focus of the 0.1265 Patch that released after you played. - It clearly took a while to figure out Interaction Mode. This is pretty common among playthroughs I've watched, and it's entirely down to the fact that I did a poor job introducing the mechanics. The only way to fix this would be a tutorial sequence, which I will add postjam. The idea is the same as proceed, I wanted to use the mouse cursor to interact with objects in a unique way. Just like that game, I didn't explain it in-game and as a result you can easily miss it. - You found another missing collider... NOOOOOOOO! Does it ever end?! - The airlift caused a little confusion when it showed up because it took way longer to arrive than it should. This has been fixed in 0.1265.
I definitely appreciate you checking out the game, even if it decided it didn't want to play nice today. :laughing: Hopefully I can do something about the collision issue at the very least.
Would love to see more of this idea refined and developed. Really neat concept!
Fantastic entry considering it was compo! Perhaps in the future it would be wiser to focus on a smaller level with more stuff to do. This game felt enormous! Kudos for attempting such a feat. I loved the radio chatter by the way :D
Really hard to coordinate myself in this game, if it was easier, exploration would be much more fun
[First play through] Very cool idea. the control scheme is more intuitive than I thought from the description. The major issues with this game are obviously due to time constraints rather than poor design. I know the dev is actively working on this one, and I'll definitely be checking back to see where this one goes.
Thanks for bringing it by the stream. Here's a link to the VOD: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1003360373?t=2h30m22s
Here for the banana
This mood feels so...triple A. The game feels is very on point, the whole idea of a "Heavy Machine" was delivered.
@kuviman Yepp i had the same issue ..i couldnt coordinate and so navigating the place was a pain :( ...Well... The graphics are Really cool tho and the sound design is just amazing... . This is definately a cool game, and it was made in 48 hrs????... Although a lot needs to be fixed, but overall nice game.. i probably just need to get used to the control and ill be fine.
For everyone that felt the movement system and collision were ruining the experience... 0.127 launches in a few minutes, and I hope it's enough to turn your experience of the game around.
To sum it up briefly: - DOF tweaked so close objects don't blur until they're RIGHT in your face - FOV Slider and Crosshair added after complaints of motion sickness - Fixed an old menu bug that zoomed it in - Flashlights are now marked as Important in renderer - Glowsticks are cheaper, Overpriced Flashlight bug is fixed - Player Collider is smaller and closer to camera object - Player Rigidbody no longer rotates at all (player is always in full control of movement) - Some other minor things, check the Itch page or readme for full details
https://anchorlightforge.itch.io/resurface/devlog/249781/resurface-0127-release-notes-yesthisisthemovementupdate
Thanks for sticking around!
Good effort! I appreciate the scope for a compo game. On my first three playthroughs, i went through the entirety of the tunnel on the right without noticing that there's a quick entrance to the engine room. The speed of the player could really use some sort of 'boost' function or upgrade, otherwise it's just frustratingly slow, would've loved some sort of 'shared battery' mechanic where the different features share the same resource pool! The glowsticks seem to not be an actual lightsource, not sure if this was intended? If so, what is their purpose? I would definitely love to see something like this fleshed out. Good job!
@homeworld Thanks for the feedback! A few things:
For one, level design is easily one of the weakest points of this game. Besides the room scaling issues, there's a distinct lack of signposting. Can you tell the breached storage room and pipeworks were the first two scenes I made? You can see them in their more or less completed state at the end of my Day One blog, and a final pass would have given them a lot more clarity. You probably passed the Engine Room because I threw it there to fix a gap in the wall, then made the ladder path as a compromise. I thought making the ladder glow would be enough, but I failed to account for the fact that you can only see that ladder at some very specific angles.
For movespeed, you're right. It was my plan from the start to add a boost function, it was at first going to be tied to air canisters; you could collect them then either use them or expend them for rapid movement. Sadly, I got sidetracked and didn't even get enough time to implement it into the movement system. To actually increase the move speed would be a design decision, so despite how much I badly agree with you and want to change it, I plan on getting that one post-patch.
As for glowsticks, they don't light up the scene... but they also NEVER despawn and are almost always visible. Originally, the whole game looked a lot closer to the Pipeworks, so ~~until you got the power on in Engine Room... wait, that didn't get implemented~~ until you reach the more decorated and functional rooms towards the end, the idea was that you would need them to guide your path and know which way gets you back to the Resurface point. They used to also be one of the only objects affected by gravity, further increasing their usefulness by showing you which way was down. I hope that a little bit of polish can make them more useful.
Useful or not though, I really like them: Screenshot from 2021-05-03 23-45-29.png
I do have a few ideas on how to continue this game in particular, so stay tuned! I'll try to have a clear and descriptive vision for the future of this project some time in the next two weeks.
Congratulations on your game, it became a mix of real simulator with arcade pattern, in future upgrades I recommend working a little on modeling and texture to differentiate between scenarios and objects, a mini map would help, and maybe an object to buy that will speed up the character , a big hug, and I await your evaluations regarding my game.
@etrealjunior Thank you for your feedback! As it stands, my postjam plans will radically shift the direction of gameplay to a nice in-between of the slow movement system it has now and a heavily streamlined reinterpretation of the Resurfacing system. As for environment art, you're 110% correct; there's not enough landmarking, especially in the opening areas. Future rooms will be designed with a properly modeled pathway on floors and distinctive colors per area.
I hadn't planned on a Mini Map, but it really depends on how the new mechanics play out. It might be a cool addition depending on implementation, so we'll just have to see on that. As for character speed, there's two huge changes planned that I think you'll like a lot.
My LD experience is going to be on pause for a few days while I take care of things on my end-- I'm really amazed I even got the last patch out before Friday as planned. All that said, I'll get back to your game some time this weekend and let you know how it goes!
@anchorlight You have an excellent project in hand, if you give it the right cut you can reap good results from this work, continue to work on it and enjoy the feedbacks that are very important, good luck my friend.
Man, this was too good! There are some QOL and some level wierdness here and there, but it was honestly a pretty solid experience. It was especially fun hanging out with you on stream!
Speaking of, here's the VOD of when we played: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1020802507?t=02h17m00s
As promise, I finally had time to play your game on stream :) Here is a link to the correct place in the video: https://www.youtube.be/watch?v=Sx1MQ445u7k&t=2120s
What a pretty game! I wish I could have explored this sunken ship without having to worry about my oxygen. Maybe you could consider a sandbox mode just to relax around.
I made the mistake, I presume, to not buy extra oxygen tanks as my first purchase, I think it doomed me. As said in the video, it would be a great addition, if the shop could give info on how much extra second each level of tank can provide.
Other than that, simple controls, nice athmosphere, but I wasn't able to understand anything about the voice speaking from time to time because there was too much distortion applied to it. Maybe it's by design.
Amazing entry in the jam! Congratulation