FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD48 → Unfathomable

Unfathomable

By tjm

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall4873.4125
Fun6373.0225
Innovation3143.4525
Theme2783.8425
Graphics5723.2125
Audio5432.9125
Humor5702.0625
Mood5483.0825

Comments

bungalow 2021-04-26 11:46

This game is really really cute! :) I'm in love with the use of pictures as the background! Really gives every level a nice mood. It's got responsive controls and intuitive gameplay, awesome job!!

mdotedot 2021-04-26 11:46

Nice those out-of-place textures. I like the way that I barely seem to reach the target. 'Feels' good.

snesgaard 2021-04-26 11:50

Very interesting mechanics and take on the theme!

falcon-lc 2021-04-26 11:51

The game is really interesting I think, and the physics of the character is really cool to play, even if it is difficult to handle, it brings some challenge

sashabox 2021-04-26 11:53

Really creative, nice design. I rate this 10/10.

hotpaw 2021-04-26 11:54

Litterely first thing that happened was me bouncing up on the cliff and getting stuck and had to restar. 2fa1ecd87c61fcbc2ca197cb2eb05ac4.png Then i managed to play some more before i couldn't move upwards any more, the controllers didnt feel so nice because it felt like i had to brute force them to be able to get deeper and then i couldnt get up, maybe i misunderstood a mechanic. I was really looking forward to exploring but it happened over and over, please ping me if there was a misunderstanding , wanted to be honest so you don't lose rating because of a bug!

wongkongphooey 2021-04-26 11:54

Nice job, you created a cool atmosphere and mood that suited the game. The puzzle elements were easy enough to not get stuck, but hard enough to need to give them thought. Well done!

hilkojj 2021-04-26 11:55

The game mechanic is really interesting compared to most sea-diving games!

voxel-forest 2021-04-26 11:55

That a very nice game, very cool idea to use weight to be able to dive deeper. And it was very fun and a strangely good idea to use grass photo for the undersea background.

axeltherabbit 2021-04-26 12:07

Well done, I love the graphics mixed with photographs in the background, and the really nice end scene.

The game is well balanced, the checkpoint are well placed and they don't make the game too frustrating.

I also like the "exploration" and the enemies design

@hotpaw you have to find and grab the little "pills" to go deeper, it's part of the mechanic, it's not a bug

hotpaw 2021-04-26 12:09

@axeltherabbit ! thank you for explaining, why couldnt i get up from the depths, was i too heavy?

roboolet 2021-04-26 12:14

Nicely polished game, really like the intro sequence. I thought the pictures in the background were a bit jarring at first, but i warmed up to it eventually. I feel like the game was a bit too easy though, since dying has no real effect other than setting you back, i just ended up brute-forcing my way through the enemy bullet patterns

axeltherabbit 2021-04-26 12:16

@hotpaw yes, at one point you will take "pills" that make you lighter

tjm 2021-04-26 12:16

Thanks for the kind words, everyone!

@hotpaw You're right, I should probably have made the cliffs on the first screen a bit higher since I haven't taught the player the "return to checkpoint" button at that point! For the rest of your comments, it's hard to say whether you were experiencing a bug or not; the controls are definitely intended to feel like a struggle to descend, with many tanks only just reachable - and once you have them, it's deliberately difficult to get back up again. It should always be possible to collect all tanks, though (except on the screen that deliberately traps you to teach the "return to checkpoint" button). But with all that said, you may well still have encountered a bug! There may be edge cases I didn't find in testing where collecting tanks in a certain order traps you; unfortunately it's difficult to test every path in a game like this without watching other people play it. Hope you were able to find some enjoyment in the game in spite of that!

hotpaw 2021-04-26 12:18

@tjim solid, i will try it again with the new advice!

tjm 2021-04-26 12:27

@roboolet Thanks! Difficulty balancing for a jam game is always a tricky decision, yeah; if you go for difficulty it's easy to make it too much for people (I should know, I'm one of the people most of these games are too difficult for!). I decided to go with making it easy (or cheeseable) enough that anyone can complete it, so as many people as possible get to see the full game. People who want to challenge themselves can always try to play through without getting hit!

justin-c 2021-04-26 13:00

I really like the art style. And the buoyancy mechanic is unique and interesting.

pd-dev 2021-04-26 14:21

I quite like the concept of your game. It feels quite unique and I don't remember seing something similar before. The pictures in the background look really good, but I don't see them fitting the underwater scene.

tjm 2021-04-26 14:39

@pd-dev Thanks! I wanted to use proper underwater photographs, but it turns out that's not really achievable with no specialised equipment and only 48 hours notice! :sweat_smile: I experimented with filters for the early stages, but the effect was weak enough that I decided not to bother for the later ones and just tried to go for an impactful look. Thanks for playing!

incd021 2021-04-28 13:01

Gerat idea.. Don't think I have seen that in any of the other games I have tried.. I like it :) Allround a solid game, grat job :thumbsup:

katsuhira 2021-04-28 13:39

Sometimes it is a bit hard to see where the exits are. Other than that neat little game!

eugenik 2021-04-28 13:45

Cool game!.

le-slo 2021-05-05 09:06

Interesting buoyancy mechanic that however feels sometimes frustrating because of the slowness of movement. I would like to see something similar in a more exagerated way in smaller levels, I'm seeing some potential for "platformer" puzzles, where the pills need to be taken in an specific order, while currently the game is a collectathon, where you can go to the next area once you grab all the pills (yellow area was the most interesting). Also enemies were really hard to avoid, they shot a lot of bullets in very big arcs or with a randomness that made them even more lethal, fortunately the pills wouldn't respawn, so dying felt less punishing.