FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD57 → Inbetween the Depths

Inbetween the Depths

By keith-wang

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall5773.3554
Fun3533.4854
Innovation5453.0953
Theme4643.6554
Graphics6733.0854
Humor4952.6651
Mood6013.3054

Comments

pavlov36 2025-04-08 03:58

Relax and simple) Like the game atmosphere

dzr118 2025-04-08 03:58

A cute premise for the game, the sharks are adorable! I wasn't very good at controlling my harpoon though, I wish the fall off was a little lower to make aiming while moving a little easier.

keith-wang 2025-04-08 09:24

@dzr118 Thank you so much for the feedback! Sorry about the harpoon, the idea was to give it high gravity fall so it is only good when firing downward. Didn't turn out too well though, I have to admit.

zjuwindking 2025-04-08 10:11

Interesting game! But the gravity of the harpoon is a bit high~hhh

tomas88a 2025-04-08 10:15

lovely graphic,like the vibe, good job!

keith-wang 2025-04-08 10:40

@zjuwindking Thanks for the feedback! The idea is to make it only useful when firing downward at the beginning, and it can be later upgraded to have a high speed and less fall. But that part did turn out to be a little confusing.

placeholders 2025-04-08 11:44

really fun little game! all the mechanics really worked with each other, and it made the gameplay fresh and intresting!

osh-studio 2025-04-08 12:07

Nice ambient sounds and cute sprites! found a bit hard to get the hang of the controls, but loved the look and feel!

soul-grinder 2025-04-08 12:10

Really fun relaxing game, the upgrades were nice and plenty too. I know you probably didn't have time to add more, but I think it would of been nice to be able to spend gold to unlock the next level with new background and enemies with increased hit points or a boss shark or something. I played it until all the upgrades where maxed and would of kept playing it if there was more to spend on or unlock lol, great stuff

keith-wang 2025-04-08 12:14

@soul-grinder Really glad that someone maxed out the upgrades. Yeah, I would definitely add more upgrades and enemies if I got the time. Thank you so much.

zedgame 2025-04-08 13:02

While brutal at first, it quickly becomes satisfying, nice work!

verttixpertti 2025-04-08 13:13

First I didn't think I would play the game for long but then I ended up maxing everything out. I love these games where your character gets stronger throughout. There were some design decision I didn't think were great though and I would have hoped for the game to be more difficult, because you could just float at the top and shoot the fish without much danger.

croxx 2025-04-08 13:20

cool dynamic game with character progression

keith-wang 2025-04-08 13:26

@verttixpertti Thanks for maxing things out. Yeah I realized the floating issue. I tried several things to resolve the issue like increasing the difficulty by a bit and have coins falling to the bottom. But still nothing really prevents you from floating and shooting. Thanks for the feedback.

genesis 2025-04-08 15:40

The core loop is very fun. I didn't really understand the sinking versus floating mechanic.

albieg 2025-04-08 18:26

so much fun! really intense having to flip back and forth beween sinking and floating, especially when theres lots of fish about!

jackofcups 2025-04-08 18:44

Once I grasped the central gameplay loop it was quite fun! I'm dumb so I didn't understand immediately that I was drowning to death. Once I knew that, bobbing up and down was strategic, fast, and enjoyable.

keith-wang 2025-04-08 18:59

@jackofcups Thanks for the feedback! I myself found it was easy to forget about the oxygen and just drawn myself. Added flashing red at low oxygen, but didn't work too well.

senkoso 2025-04-08 19:43

I like pumping games and designing fish 💗

zenorke 2025-04-08 19:45

I struggled a bit with the controller but its was cool! Great work!

keith-wang 2025-04-08 19:50

@zenorke Oh, sorry I didn't make support for controllers. I used input axis for movement so that part should work.

siilicac 2025-04-08 22:23

the idea is cool! it took me a second to realize the harpoon would reload itself in a second but once i did things went pretty well, the sound and art made it really satisfying to take down the fish (they look like piranha's to me lol)! good job!

bene-labs 2025-04-08 22:24

Fun game with a nice game loop!

I think displaying a high-score of the most enemies you killed in one run would go a long way, but buying upgrades was fun regardless

she-wrote 2025-04-08 22:25

The audio’s nice and the way the fish mouths move is funny. Timing the shots and landing them feels great. Well done!

majomirez 2025-04-08 22:36

Loved the game! it's simple and fun, I specially liked the upgrades between runs. The cyan background color may be a bit too saturated and it took me a while to understand the health bar is the oxygen tank, but overall it's pretty good! Good job

jordanfb 2025-04-08 22:37

very fun! I maxed out all the purchases, eventually I got to the point where I was faster than all the fish and could just swim past them holding right then entire time spamming the OP air bubble gun. I enjoyed aiming the harpoon, I just A) rarely used it during early game since the bubble gun was faster and B) had difficulty switching back to the bubble gun if I missed a shot. Maybe with some higher level enemies that require both weapons to kill them it would force me to use the harpoon more. It's a shame I had to be forced to because there's something really nice about aiming it at a far away fish and hitting (or missing, having it wrap around the screen, and then hit them on the way down). Nice work!

EDit: I used the bubble gun mostly because it was easy to just stay at the bottom and shoot it off to the sides, and the reload was much faster than the harpoon so if I missed a shot it wasn't such a problem.

johncoffee 2025-04-08 22:55

i think this is the most fun i had this rating season. very well done. Sometimes the controlls glitch out when fast turning and the diver swims backward, but thats ok in the timeframe.

keith-wang 2025-04-08 23:53

@johncoffee Thank you so much for liking it and for the feedback! Will test that out later.

keith-wang 2025-04-08 23:54

@jordanfb Thanks for the detailed feedback! Having high level enemies that require both weapons to kill is a great idea. Might add that in the future development.

apt-prose7 2025-04-09 03:41

For a beginner the game is very good

gwendalg 2025-04-09 10:45

Very addictive game, nice concept, well played

aynu 2025-04-09 10:46

A master piece!

fancyreckless 2025-04-09 11:00

Pretty fun, reminiscent of incremental games. love the upgrades. Sinking down felt a bit tedious at first, but coins falling to the bottom and disapearing after a while motivated me to move down. Sometimes it felt like I died without shark touching me. maybe I ran out of oxygen, not sure.

d0vid 2025-04-09 11:23

Very fun, nice controls, switching from one mode to the other feels very natural and the two weapons are both satisfying to use

I died often due to not noticing my oxygen was low :D

skosnowich 2025-04-09 15:34

Nice game, the harpoon felt pretty useless to me, so I just stuck to the ocean floor and bubbled around. After all I needed to be there anyway to collect the coins, so no use in floating at the surface. As there was no real penalty for drowning, I just stayed there until I died and could upgrade my stuff. Felt hilarious with all the upgrades on max level, especially after I found out that the map loops around. :smile:

tunasandwich 2025-04-09 15:35

I almost gave up at the beginning because the control of the harpoon and the fact it doesn't reload very fast were frustrating to me. But I am glad I pushed a little bit because once some of the upgrades were done it was fun and relaxing to play !

goiaba-games 2025-04-09 22:54

Very cool concept, with the harpoon and the bubbles making you descend or ascend. I feel like the gameplay of fighting the fish could be a little more satisfying, but the meta-progression is fun and keeps you hooked on playing. Good work!

gaspar 2025-04-10 07:47

The bubbles feel overpowered compared to the harpoon. Also, movement gets a bit jittery at max upgrade level. Otherwise, it's a great game that makes you want to max out all your upgrades!

scoobysnacks 2025-04-11 10:25

i think it would be better to hold to raise than switching. I like how you hp bar is oxigen tank and you can heal just going up, good design.

toreskovic 2025-04-12 22:20

Super solid entry. Loved the two modes / weapons, metaprogression felt nice. I had quite a bit of fun and ended up playing for quite a bit longer than I thought I would.

natalia2208 2025-04-13 08:10

It was intense, but engaging! :D

thegrottman 2025-04-16 20:10

Really chill, perfect for some timekilling, and yet engaging enough so that you WANT to continue playing. Awesome!

olddog 2025-04-17 10:12

20 mins to get all upgrades !!!!! really interesting game ,I really wish for more content to play!!