Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Goiaba Games
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 57 | Depths | SquidVenture | jam | 255 | 3.77 | 4.06 | 2.70 | 3.40 | 3.52 | 3.26 | 3.47 |
Very interesting concept, I just wish there a fullscreen option because it's kind of hard to see even with the zoom feature. I tried Hot Air Balloon, but I found the main mode to be more fun, because you have more control over and the game is faster.
The game is really charming, the low-res graphics and small screen make it cozy, though the music is sinister. Since the screen is small it makes it hard to see where you're going, it's easy to fall to the next stage when you don't want to, so you have to replay the game a couple of times to memorize the level to collect all the gold. Of course, that's by design. Anyway, really well done, good job!
Your game seems great, but it's not working on my computer. The background is visible, I can hear sounds, but all the objects are invisible
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Pretty fun! The levelling up makes you want to keep playing (the level up jingle is really nice, btw). Only criticism is that you die kind of suddenly to the bigger fish just by touching them. I kept increasing my stats but I had no idea when it was safe to confront them, I kind of just touched them and died. A little bug is that if you go up a lot the background image of the ocean ends. Overall, it's a really cool idea well executed, with nice graphics. I think there's potential to polish it up more and make for a very addictive and fun game!
Really atmospheric, I didn't see much purpose to drawing on the map so I didn't really draw on it and just kept exploring the enviroments. Loved the little mystery jingle when you discover a new location, it adds to the overall feel. I really enjoyed exploring and wish there was more interesting things to discover or more of a story, but that's just personal preference. Kind of a shame I didn't really use the map feature, but I went with was natural to me as a player.
Great job!!
Everything in this game is very high quality and very polished, and somehow it's fun even if you don't understand 100% of what's going on. I don't have much to add, just congratulate you on an amazing job!
This was really cute and fun. I love the premise and the little touches like the viewer commentary at the end. The game is relaxing but at the time you can compete for the leaderboards if you want to. Great job!
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!
I love the graphics, there's some kind of style to them, kinda wish I could explore and see more characters and enviroments in this aesthetic, though that's not what this game is about.
It's pretty fun, and frustrating, like those climbing games streamers love. The movement is a little inconsistent, if you keep pressing spacebar the character seems to jump more than it should when near the platforms, not sure if it was intentional. But the challenge is fun.
Good game, great job!
This was really fun and creative. Just the ending was a bit anticlimactic
I really like the ominous mood of the game. The ending made me replay it a couple of times to see if there was more to it, but unfortunately I wasn't able to uncover its secrets. My best guess is that you have to kill all the bats before reaching the end, but I died in the attempt. In another attempt, I just dug straight down. That's something the player can do if they want to, it doesn't really matter except that speedruns of this game would be quite boring haha.
I agree with another comment that said he didn't see a use for the lights, I also forgot about them until replaying it. One thing I kind of missed is having a reason to explore instead of just digging down, maybe something to collect or some hints that add to a bigger puzzle. Just throwing ideas out there.
Anyway, your game is really cool and I think you did a great job.
I'm not sure what's going on but my worm sure defecated a lot on the baby demons haha
The art is really cool and unique, there's a story to the characters and the boss fights are nice. Great job!
The atmosphere and graphics are really nice. Did you make the font yourself? The font is a nice touch. The game has a scary mood overall, it could become something really interesting. Nice job!
Nice first entry, pat yourself on the back because you made a game!! There's a few easy things that could be done to make it more polished, here are my suggestions: - there should be a way for the player to avoid enemy fire, so the outcome of the game depends more on player skill. Maybe a duck or a dodge button? Just make sure the player can't avoid ALL enemy fire, the player has to have nice timing to dodge it - the bullets are hard to see, making them bigger and a more constrasting color like white would make them more nitid - the ammo count is also hard to see, make the text white because it will constrast nicely with the brown background - if you add hit effects like blood, or make the enemy blink when it gets hit, or make a death animation for the enemies, it will make the gameplay more satisfying. The player character should also react when getting hit
Btw, the sprites are really charming
Incredibly innovative, never played anything quite like it before. I love the animations of the little guy and the isometric graphics. Gameplay wise, it's a bit lacking, it feels a little random and didn't inspire me to keep replaying. Overall, good job and I hope you keep making games.
Nice game, you actually have to pay attention and memorize the layers. Making it quicker to switch between them would be good. Awesome work!
Congratulations - you actually managed to give me a mini jumpscare with those fish-robot monsters, haha! I was reparing the pipe and thinking they were pretty easy to avoid, only to look to the right and see two orange eyes staring right at my face! That was fun.
Contrary to what some of the others said, I didn't mind the controls, I think you successfully captured the feeling of controlling a small submarine in the ocean depths and this kind of game needs to be slower-paced.
However, most of the challenge of the game, to me, came from figuring out the HUD. I read your description about the ping, and I left the submarine multiple times when I heard consistent pings before I understood the sub pings when it is near walls.
The arrows and the circle are okay to understand height, but the rectangle getting smaller when you are near the leak also took me a while to understand. I'm not sure what the better design decision would have been here, but I have a feeling there's ways these could be improved to be better game mechanics or more interestings parts of the experience. Maybe if it took inspiration from actual submarine controls to sell that feeling even more?
Overall, I really enjoyed my time with it. I appreciate the details like descending into the ocean at the beginning, the way the monsters animate and react, and the graphics and mood of the game. It actually reminded me a bit of Outer Wilds. I'm amazed you managed to create this in 48 hours.
Great job!
This game is really cute, I love the art and the backgrounds! It would be cool if you didn't have to scroll the mouse from the top to the bottom of the screen when jumping from one screen to another, it's a little awkward. And I didn't really find a use for the SHIFT key since you have to be fast to avoid the projectiles. But the game was enjoyable. Well done!
This is really cool, simple concept that was executed extremely well. Feels fun and satisfying to control, makes you want to keep playing and do better. My only complaint is that since the view is very zoomed-in, sometimes it feels like you don't have enough time to react and make decisions and you depend a lot on luck. I'm not sure if procedural generation makes sure to always give the player a way to make it to the end, maybe my strategy just sucks.
Great job for all involved!
Thank you for the feedback, @swooty!
About the levels, I was afraid the game was too short and easy, but I also didn't want to risk boring the player by making levels with repeated ideas. I wouldn't be able to work on it today, so I scrapped the boss fight I was planning and ended up adding a few more enemies in the last levels, I guess that explains the difficulty spike haha. So your feedback about this and on getting stuck on corners is invaluable, just goes to show how important it is to playtest your game with others.
I'm glad you enjoyed it, though. That makes me happy :)
@antti-haavikko Amazing time!! I will be sure to make restarting easier next time, the R button works only after 'Thank you for playing!' appears, so I'm not sure if that was the problem or something else. The timer only starts after entering the first room, so at least reloading the page didn't impact your time. Oh, the skip you found in that room is the only one there is, I'm amazed you found it!
About the levels, I kind of regret not making more levels now because the game is so short the player doesn't have enough time to enter the 'flow' state. This kind of feedback is really important because to me it's difficult to know what the right balance for pacing is, however by making more levels I think this could be one of those games you get into the 'zone'.
Your design tip makes perfect sense to me! It increases risk/reward and adds another layer to the gameplay, making players and speedrunners be more strategic with their shots.
Thank you for the feedback and for playing the game, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
@finntastico @advarsky @whateverdat thank you as well for playing and for the feedback! About making shooting left and right separate buttons, it could be a good idea, it is a little awkward at times to change shooting direction. I would have to test it and see what works better
@peppersalt07 @khaotom :)
@un-kirik I've uploaded the download files again, does it work now?
Really love the humor and graphics of the game. Little guys with blank stares accept their fate as they descend with their office chairs into the core of the earth. Where exactly are they going? Why are they doing this? Why are their buttocks so pronounced? We may never know.
Gameplay was a little too hard for me. I swear I tried to make it to the bottom but I had to call it quits at some point. Maybe if the game had some music, more lenient controls and a score that keeps track of how far the player managed to go, the game would be more encoraging to players. T'was fun, though.
Good job!