FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD57 → Sinking Hope

Sinking Hope

By nuin, rathwell, ten10gu, Wildan and Asim

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall3993.6141
Fun5523.2041
Innovation4203.2641
Theme1524.1241
Graphics4033.7441
Audio1623.8041
Mood774.1741

Comments

patatje 2025-04-08 20:57

The ambience and mood for the game is fantastic! I also love all the sound effects and other small UX things (that little crosshair that appears when you aim your trident for example). unfortunately i wasn't able to find any ship pieces in my playtime. but atleast i got eaten by gigantic seamonster so thats neat. Great job with the game! :)

broco 2025-04-08 22:35

Scary BIG boy! OMG! I played both versions, the one from the jam and the one from the fixes. At first I wasn't sure what to do, I just swam aimlessly until big boy come get me. I thought it was missing a lot of stuff. But then I played the post jam version and oh boy! This is such a nice experience. Swimming feels good, killing those damned fishes feels great. And in the end, after fixing the submarine and getting revenge on the big boy! Man, that felt awesome! Loved this version! Thanks for sharing it! My rating goes for the jam version tho, but I really loved what you created!

engoneer 2025-04-08 23:00

I won't lie I'm not usually a big fan of this kind of game loop, I have bad history with trying to find random objects based on a beeping item(Don't Starve's adventure mode), but I did actually jump when the big fish creature arrived.

floppynub 2025-04-09 02:20

This game was spooky as hell lol great shader work, I especially liked the caustics on the sea floor! It was a bit hard to see and navigate, I think you could stand to brighten things up just a touch, but obviously not too much so you can preserve the spooky vibes.

arenavgust 2025-04-09 06:22

I really scream at first time, nice game !

scoobysnacks 2025-04-09 08:27

All hope is not lost! I failed a few times but the submarine ride was worth it.

axlplosion 2025-04-09 08:51

Oooh, I really like this one. The gameplay was not complicated at all, just really enjoyable and really immersive. I actually got scared a couple times, and it felt really good to get into the submarine at the end. Kind of feels like a sequel to Iron Lung! Fantastic work.

maslinka27 2025-04-09 09:12

Nice concept and i like the ambient

c0smic 2025-04-09 16:59

Loved the game idea and style well done

matthewdrake 2025-04-09 22:34

Very creepy atmosphere, I probably should have read the description because I didn't really know what I was meant to be doing so I kind of just went looking for the source of the beeping and thought the gameplay ended with the giant fish swimming at you. Nope, I was meant to be looking for parts. Whoops xD;

helloimbenjamin 2025-04-10 07:53

I really loved the concept—such a creative idea! The art style fits it perfectly. I’d love to see more like this in the future. Amazing work!

dandee 2025-04-10 08:57

Love me a Ludem Dare horror! Well done guys!

sharky3188 2025-04-10 09:51

Good atmosphere, i really liked the feeling of throwing the trident and swimming around. I wish the radar/compass was a little bit easier to use, but overall a good entry.

bene-labs 2025-04-10 10:46

Cool game with a really nice atmosphere!

alex-niemeyer 2025-04-10 19:30

As a fan of horror, this game is pretty great! There is so much to love about this game, the game play, the graphics, even the use of outlines to help you retrieve objects and locate your sub. I am a big fan of the soundtrack! It really nailed the ambience and it was very nicely designed and mixed as well!

My only nitpick is that, at first, I tried to press "E" when I had the sub parts to the sub in general, and it kept dropping the parts. I didn't realize until later on I was supposed to press "E" on the light sources. I didn't realize it because I thought those were just emergency flares for added ambience.

Other than that, I really really like this game, great job!

nuin 2025-04-10 19:41

@alex-niemeyer Thank you! Yeah it was hard to make that clear enough, ideally there would have been an outline of where you're supposed to place the part, but I couldn't get it working

flinge 2025-04-10 20:39

You absolutely nailed it. This is the first jam game I’ve played with such a strong creepy atmosphere. That underwater darkness — and then that massive thing suddenly appearing behind me… you really managed to scare me. Which means you did your job right. Fantastic work!

rincs 2025-04-11 09:36

I rated based on the jam entry, but I'm glad that I also played post-jam. DEFINITELY a nicer experience overall. I just don't want to toss my trident, okay?! I'm scared XD!!!

nuclearextravaganza 2025-04-11 18:39

tbh for me gameplay was a little confusing ;( but dear god graphics and atmosphere are great!

nuin 2025-04-11 18:52

@nuclearextravaganza Yeah having no time to make a tutorial was rough

nuclearextravaganza 2025-04-11 19:01

@nuin you did an amazing job nevertheless :)

katastudios 2025-04-11 19:42

very awesome underwater atmosphere! Loving the murk effects!

saryah 2025-04-12 02:44

Very atmospheric, and a good idea for this jam. I died a lot but I enjoyed doing so. XD Nice and polished entry.

jake-g 2025-04-13 00:41

I think this might give me nightmares and definitely reminded me a bit of Subnautica. It really achieves the mysterious underwater, "I don't know what's lurking 10 feet away" vibe. Great submission!!

byebye 2025-04-13 09:07

Very cool atmosphere! You constantly feel uncomfortable in this game (in a good way).

pierogo 2025-04-13 19:51

The atmosphere is absolutely off the charts, giving off Iron Lung and SOMA vibes for me. Very fitting graphics style, great use of particles and perfect sound effects - all of those fit so well together I felt like I was playing a much bigger game than this.

Not so sure about the gameplay though - I didn't manage to find any pieces in the 15 minutes I put into this game, not sure why - I was constantly checking the radar but to no avail. The few jumpscares I stumbled upon were very nice though.

bongard22 2025-04-13 21:25

Had a great time playing through this game here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2429489125?t=1h7m23s

I would love to be able to hear the fish sneak up on me to some degree. Just taking damage out of the blue felt bad.

Once I knew the fish were there, however, I really enjoyed the combat. Spear was fun to use and it felt so good to nail a fish with a spear throw and watch it blow up. The whole sub combat section kinda blew my mind that you were able to get that in. Well done!

nuin 2025-04-14 04:17

@pierogo The radar actually leads to fish that ate your parts, so you have to kill them. that wasn't explained in the jam version so I can understand the confusion, thanks for enjoying the atmosphere though!

nuin 2025-04-14 04:18

@bongard22 Yeah I agree that's one thing that's very lacking is the enemy sounds. I couldn't believe I managed to get the sub combat in too haha, it was during like the last hour of the jam

cure 2025-04-16 09:30

This is SICK! I loved feeling so overwhelmed the first time I saw the leviathan, super impressive what you managed to do with this in a game jam.

`https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FrSnqDGyks&t=4748s`