Deep Diver by Valandre 2014-04-29T09:38:00
One of the best I've played yet! Graphics are great. I love the pump animation! I didn't realize I could just mow down the sharks to start with though.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Boltz Interactive
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 34 | Two Button Controls / Growing | Balloon Adventure | jam | 682 | 3.14 | 2.95 | 2.73 | 3.73 | 3.64 | 2.72 | 3.20 | 41 | ||
| 2015 | 32 | An Unconventional Weapon | Alien Death Run | jam | 1007 | 2.50 | 2.53 | 1.95 | 2.11 | 2.06 | 2.47 | 33 | |||
| 2014 | 31 | Entire Game on One Screen | CirKill It | jam | 524 | 3.19 | 3.07 | 3.00 | 3.90 | 3.39 | 1.79 | 3.15 | 54 | ||
| 2014 | 29 | Beneath the Surface | Paddle Battle Pegasus | jam | 446 | 3.09 | 3.18 | 3.47 | 2.67 | 3.02 | 3.12 | 2.10 | 2.67 | 70 |
One of the best I've played yet! Graphics are great. I love the pump animation! I didn't realize I could just mow down the sharks to start with though.
Lol, love it. Really like the mirrored relative controls on the head.
Very unique approach. Something really different.
I really love the minesweeper mix. Maybe I'm looking at it wrong, but I keep having spaces with "0" blow up when I dig them. You could make it slightly more PC friendly if you hat space or tab toggle between prospect and dig modes.
Really liked the art style. I think it would have helped if Alex could break a block by walking into it instead of having to click, walk, click, walk...
I think this game has potential. I agree that music would add a lot to this game, and without the tutorial, I really didn't know how to keep the population alive.
I like that you start with a simple space, but as your area grows, you end up with exponentially greater area to expand to.
Definitely could feel the tension from the dim lighting and strange sounds. Don't know if it was a bug or something with IE, but I couldn't walk and turn at the same time.
I liked how you hold the shovel when the button is down, but don't swing it until it is released. That gave it a nice connected feel. Maybe add a charge up if you hold it long enough that knocks near by enemies back? Good work!
All I get is a sound file and a blue/green background.
I love the seaweed, that the food interacts with the bubbles, and that you float to the surface when you die.
This was good. I love your spin on the theme, one of the best I've seen yet!
I really wanted to try out this control style, but the game crashes on start. Win 7 64 bit.
Thanks guys! We worked really hard to get the feel of the vortex drag just right.
@SoupWithBits Yes! we thought so too after the artwork had been created. It went on our todo list if we had time left over.
@GarethIW The scoring is explained above.
Score = banked chest values + coins in left chest
Basically, when you collect the target number of coins (left chest) you bank them on the right. If you die, you can sacrifice a random banked chest in order to continue, or lock in your high score instead. If all 3 chests are banked, the lowest score one is replaced with the new chest.
@Crowbeak I agree. It was a side effect of the way the vortex physics work. The ship actually starts facing right, but is immediately pulled to face the center. I might be able to add a delay before the physics kick in.
@CDK Thanks for the feedback. It could definitely use some balancing in the long game. Right now I think it stops feeling "worth it" since the chests only increment by 5.
@GrooveMan Thanks! I know it needs a little balancing in the long game, but we really hoped it would bring a heightened sense of risk and reward to the more bland "high score challange". At the same time it serves to reduce a little stress from the completely unforgiving sea monster collision.
@Mekuri Glad you liked the tentacles. Our first priority was making the vortex feel solid, the second was forcing you to do something more engaging than just spin around it.
@dylanwolf Glad it gave you a good challenge!
@baykush_figtree You've discovered my inspiration! Multiplayer would be fun. Maybe a slightly larger pool, and a knock-out style mechanic?
@cavf88 Thanks for the feedback, we tried hard to get the controls solid. Good to know it paid off!
@ThingoStudios I'm sorry that was frustrating. That's good feedback though. It's a bad side effect of the vortex mechanic. I tried to fix it yesterday and my hack didn't work. It's definitely something we will change in a future polished version though.
@blockbot I've been pondering the best way to port a solid feel to mobile. Do you have the ship pulled towards your finger, or implement left and right on each half of the screen? Thanks for the feedback!
Thanks guys! The coins could definitely use some balancing. We wanted it to be challenging, but not to a boring extent while easing in to the concept of the chests. The coins do actually spawn faster as you complete more chests, though the increment is fairly small. Maybe we could extend the life/timeout of the coins so more stay in play at a time?
We really wanted the coins to get "sucked" down the vortex, but ran out of time to get that added to the physics calculations. Excellent feedback!
Reminds me of the old Adams Family NES game.
That's a great game for your first shot. Keep it up!
Kind of hard to control the jumping. LOVE the pixel art!
I liked the parallax clouds. It was kind of hard to know when a leap would or would not kill you close to the bottom though.
I like the whale sounds. :-)
I love the parallax cave graphics.
One of the best I've played so far. Brilliant design. I love the art. Sometimes it was frustrating to no be able to fold a page and not have feedback on what was preventing it.
I just get "Default Property warnings and errors:
Error: CDO Constructor: Failed to find /Paper2D/MaskedUnlitSpriteMaterial"
and 7 or so similar errors on startup.
Not sure how you get more energy. More instructions would probably help.
@zillix We've got the art for "boss events" but didn't have the time to squeeze it in before the deadline. Hope to have it in a post-jam version though.
We'll have to explore the offense vs. defense game play with the trail more!
Drop box link is dead.
I could hear the narrator from Bastion. Best I've played so far and most innovative take on the mechanic. Very fun, and the puzzles were actually puzzling.
Took a bit to figure out combat. I'm not sure how to get back to the battle from the help screen.
That said, I loved the slo-mo combat. It gave more of the feel of a captain issuing commands to a capital ship. Great work!
One suggestion would be for shorter commands for the weapons. Just their # or W1 W2 W3.
30,726. I love how he turns and waves looking so happy after each level. The only problem was hamburgers that kept spawning too close to dodge the obstacles after them. I think they're fine where they are, you should just be invincible during that little sprint after picking on up.
Good stuff. I only tried with mouse and keyboard, but it was kind of a pain to manage the camera and try to get the pieces around.
It would be nice to either hold a key and have the block spin quickly around, or have the camera swing around to the next block when the current one has touched down.
If it's not apparent to anyone else, you have to click on "View Raw" on the github page to trigger the .zip download.
The player seems to move way to fast to allow you to aim. I like that you life refills after you haven't been hit for a few seconds, but since the shield can stay up longer than that, it's really pretty difficult to die.
There are some interesting subtleties like being a white square trying to hide on a white background while trying to break line of sight with a color.
several of the levels I generated had no solutions (stuck in a box) or little to no white light (so no challenge). Making the levels a bit less random could lead to some interesting though.
I like the idea. The problem was with the random platforms you can't always get to the coin. Also the intro banner telling you it's about to start sometimes hides platforms that you need to memorize before the lights go out.
When I tap R to restart, it kicks into full screen mode, but doesn't scale well. The numbers to line up to their icons, etc. Cool idea though. I wish the frequency of boots was higher so you could go deeper into the levels. Maybe reward more steps per boot, but have boots less common on lower levels?
So creepy, nailed it!
Sorry, I didn't include the "Super Jump" (Jump while ducking) in the description. That should get you over those long spike areas or let you jump up onto a platform.
Great art/mood. I like that you can fall slow or attack, but you can't have both at the same time.
Also the phone ring instructions were a nice touch.
I love your parallax hills!
Web link on IE give "bad file length" error and won't start up.
Well laid out, the timing has to be perfect, but it's what lets you know you're on the right path, or the wrong path.
Made my way here from http://etodd.io/ checking out your dialog tree. Nice game!
Thanks for the feedback! It is rather easy as the game is intended to be relaxing or to keep a 5 year old busy.
It is DEFINITELY not set to be played with the mouse.
Great Backgrounds and the site was a nice touch. While ultimately 2 button controls, i think the game was harder for it, but not more rewarding. It didn't seem to complement the gameplay.
Loved the neon color splash choices.
Great tension trying to balance left and right attacks.
"Flash Sales" on upgrades are ingenious. Great idea.
Color cycling is a little nauseating, I suppose it helps a plain square feel less plain though.