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Escape The Depths
Escape The Depths
By jag and robert626
View on ldjam.com
| Category | Rank | Score | Count |
|
|---|
| Overall | 197 | 3.85 | 39 | |
| Fun | 174 | 3.78 | 39 | |
| Innovation | 433 | 3.25 | 39 | |
| Theme | 415 | 3.71 | 41 | |
| Graphics | 317 | 3.89 | 41 | |
| Audio | 293 | 3.54 | 39 | |
| Humor | 572 | 2.44 | 31 | |
| Mood | 290 | 3.81 | 39 | |
Comments
wind1e
2025-04-08 02:07
Overall I had a very fun time! The graphics were very nice to look at and when combined with the lighting made this a very visually satisfying experience. Similarly, the music really helped tie the whole experience together. I think I see what you're going for with how sensitive the controls are, but it just went a bit too far for me. The rings were decently forgiving which definitely helped make up for my lack of finesse. I do also appreciate that I could play this game with just my left hand, freeing my right hand up to pet me cat while I played. Maybe that's why it took me 10 minutes to get past level 3... Speaking of which, the difficulty spike between levels 2 and 3 felt pretty huge. The intensity of the gameplay also felt good, there's constantly a very strong sense of urgency.
jon-wake
2025-04-08 04:06
Wow, this is a fantastic submission! The graphics are great, the soundtrack and audio design/ foley is great, but my favorite part had to be the controls! Precise, exact, and responsive, I instantly got a feel for how to operate the ship, which let me get straight into the game without hesitation! And all with only two people, very impressive. For future builds (I would seriously consider continuing this project for a full release if you're able) it would be nice to have the camera movement further polished. At times it felt a bit jarring when navigating the levels. Great game!
Love the lighting, the ship controls are a bit frustrating but pretty good. What bugs me is when I turn and the ship dips so much! Interesting also how the strategy is not just to fly into all rings, I found a lot of paths were not worth the detour to get the ring which added some more DEPTH (get it?! -sorry-) to the game play
ace17
2025-04-08 05:09
No web version ? Too bad, this one seems really fun :(
amazing job！
jag
2025-04-08 05:31
@wind1e I'm so glad you had fun play the game! I've tuned down the difficulty a bit to help from levels 1 to 4
@jon-wake Wow thank you so much! Thank you for playing the game, I'll definitely be using the flight controller again. If you don't mind, could you let me know what you feel is wrong with the camera, I can make improvements to it to help
@katastudios Thanks for playing the game! I've gone and reduced the sensitivity of the ship in V1.01, I think it was a bit too sensitive before, it's one of those things you don't notice playing your own game a thousand times, so you need someone to point it out to you. If you find the time, please try v1.01, I hope the controls are less frustrating now
@ace17 I'm sorry! This game is made in Unreal Engine 5, so there is no web version :(
@hollowheartedcabbage thank you!
@jag "it’s one of those things you don’t notice playing your own game a thousand times" - hahaha yeah I feel that!
nescre
2025-04-08 07:26
This was a lot of fun! I liked the difficulty progression - doesn't really start to overwhelm you until you get far enough along to be comfortable.
The Y-Axis inversion option was a much-appreciated touch. As someone used to Star Fox, holding down to rise is burned into my memory.
I'd say the only bit I struggled with a bit were turns - I found the camera rotation would consistently throw me off & disorient me. I also noticed that smashing into a ceiling above you can sometimes get your camera stuck - though this was inconsistent.
Awesome job overall dude. Glad I got the chance to play!
wheelsx
2025-04-08 14:51
There are people who want to push forward to go up and pull back to go down? I had to change a setting to make it how planes work? That's so weird. Everything used to be "inverted" except we called it normal back then. What everyone calls "normal" now didn't even exist most of the time.
Once the max speed increase happens, it's more fun, but the difficulty ramps way up. I found it impossible to get past level 6 or so, the turns were just too tight to take at the speed necessary to get away. But maybe I was trying too hard to get all the rings even when I knew I didn't need them.
And for anyone interested, if you turn around to look at the evil, it's a red light effect that shines on the walls. You didn't stop me from turning around, so I had to do it.
disvent
2025-04-09 18:10
The game feels nice to play! Honestly, when I played through the first level, I thought the main mechanic felt kind of like Sonic — like, the rings are your HP. Actually, it even felt like the gameplay would fit perfectly as a mini-game in a new Sonic title, maybe something where you get to fly Tails’ plane.
The visuals are awesome, and the music really sets the right mood.
On the downside, I didn’t quite understand what the rings actually do — I didn’t really notice any change in speed. Also, the game felt a bit stretched out. I think it would be better if the repetitive parts were shortened, and all the unique sections were combined into a single level with checkpoints.
xen3x
2025-04-11 02:30
No complaints, this game was a lot of fun!!! I played it the whole way through.
controls are a little bouncy but i loved it! reminded me of Star Fox 64
Really cool game, love the look of the red light slowing catching you. I also really like the general design, where you aren't punished too harshly for mistakes, and are instead encouraged to keep going and refocus on getting your speed up. Controls nicely, and offers an inversion option which is great to see. Beyond that, lots of levels that are actually meaningfully different? Nice. This is a great entry, congrats!
Really cool game, I wish the controls on controller were a bit less sensitive as turning fast is pretty nausea inducing, but other than that it's fun to fly :smile:
daniel
2025-04-12 17:18
Pretty fun game! Controls and gameplay were solid, and the music really stood out to me as excellent and helped to pull everything together well.
duke-ua
2025-04-12 20:14
Really nice work! The controls felt smooth and polished, flying around was genuinely satisfying. I also liked the minimalistic art style; it’s clean, readable, and works really well with the fast-paced gameplay. The music and sound effects added a lot to the experience too. Great audio choices!
One thing that threw me off a bit was the camera being centered right behind the jet. It made it a bit harder to see upcoming obstacles or plan ahead, especially when navigating tight spots or those floating rings. Speaking of the rings, I wasn’t totally sure what their purpose was. Maybe I missed something, but they felt a bit arbitrary during my run.
I also found myself wanting more control over acceleration. I get that it’s probably automated so players don't just hold the button the whole time, but still -- being able to manually manage speed would add a nice sense of agency, especially when you’re trying to outrun the Evil. Right now, it sometimes feels like it catches you without much you can do to fight it off, which can be frustrating even when the rest of the game is solid.
I had a good time playing it overall. Great job!
[Thanks for submitting your game to stream!](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2430455310?t=05h07m56s)
For lack of a better word, I love the "elasticity" of these controls. :sweat_smile: The way the ship accelerates from point to point when I move it around with the analog stick makes it feel super responsive and fun to mess around with.
Nice job!
I love it! Getting heavy N64 vibes from the graphics.
I really struggled with the movement, it felt way too jittery. The fact that each level was the same was a bit of a dissapointment. The concept is cool felt satisfying!
svenerik
2025-04-13 12:04
Gameplay was solid and lovely aesthetics! My only gripe was that sometimes it flips to darkness and then suddenly back, so that sudden light change annoyed my eyes at times. Solid work!
naks
2025-04-13 21:39
Cool game, feels nice. Could use some additional mechanics
dreo
2025-04-14 00:05
Very nice!!!
I made it to level 7, where I started feeling a bit tired. Beting level 5 was really exciting and challenging for me!
I really liked the flickering effect. It's genuinely scary — you never know what obstacle will pop up next, and you have to react fast. I think it adds a lot to the gameplay. On the other hand, it can sometimes lead to unfair situations.
I like the use of light in general — the rings not only boost your speed, but also help you find your way in the dark, and that’s really cool.
Overall, a really solid entry!
k48uto
2025-04-14 10:41
my tension increased with each second that I looked at the indicator of the approaching evil. it never caught up with me, but I remained in tension. it did a good job of conveying the feeling of pursuit. good job.
ellaris
2025-04-17 15:20
Cool game, the levels felt a bit too long (got almost to the end of 4th).
- I think some particles at the wings or engine would give a better illusion of speed since the ship feels quite slow at first, also making the rings red parts shine in the dark would be nice. - I liked that if you missed the ring there was still an alternative path around the pillars (the small space) - I feel like level 2 was harder than 3 and 4, I had to retry it several times. - Cool enemy effect but it seems to turn on a bit too fast, if you get all the rings on level 2 evil still shows up on your tail - level 3 small space ship cover almost all of it and it's hard to see what is in front, but there is barely anything so it's quite easy.
braeden
2025-04-17 19:06
Love seeing other Unreal Devs on here!
Reminds me the star wars trench run! I had to crack out the controller for this one. Controls play so much better on gamepad! I had a lot of fun with this one but I couldn't get past the 4th level lol. Definitely a skill issue :sweat_smile:
I think the controls could still use some tweaking, The turning was very sudden, too fast for most of the course, but then still not enough for some of the tighter corners. I think it would feel a lot better if you spaced things out a bit more and then had the turn towards the desired direction by every tick by a small amount. Increase that amount depending on how far the user is pressing the stick. That way the user can make smaller adjustments because I found myself just tapping the stick to turn rather than holding it down.
That being said, really awesome job guys! :thumbsup:
Also, you have to let me know how you did your tunnels. Was it procedural, or did you manually lay it out using a tile set? Similar kind of environment to my game so I'm curious :laughing:
Solid entry with a clever use of the theme. Many projects for this LudumDare session made something about "deeper progression" in-game. It seems to me that it's not the first thing when I consider the theme "depths", but why not? This project reminds me of an old game which is named "StarFox". There is the same sequence, and the same neat aesthetic. The controls work well as expected. I had fun playing. Thank you for this short travel in the cavern. Thank you for rating my own project. I wish you the best ++
Loved this game! I played this on stream for an hour and 37 minutes in one sitting. With some tweaks to the camera I feel like this could be a super satisfying experience. I love games where you fly and I love games where you go fast, so here I am giving all 5's to a game where you fly and go fast. It really is that simple. This game is ripe for expansion and I'll definitely be back for this one with a controller. Rename it to "Evil Cometh"! Thanks so much for submitting, perfect streaming game
https://www.youtube.com/live/kSaTrhFTAjQ?si=sc40lLqeQNVZaZ3w&t=7042
johneyd
2025-04-23 11:58
Wow! Very exciting game! Addictive from the first second. And awesome graphics I like it too. Great job!
I was not expecting this type of game. I was awesome! I like the responsiveness of the controller and would recommend a smooth damp when turning so you can feel a bit of tension. I like how you were adding concepts and mechanics the futher you went into the levels. I would like to have a barrell roll option to increase juice on it, or have it happen once you reach the total rings you need.
Overall really fun, responsive, and with nice background music! Well done!