I've been streaming Demo Day games and only going for about 10 minutes each. I was terribly curious what would happen after I got the ice laser, but I was already out of time. I'll definitely be coming back to this one.
Loved the atmosphere of this! Very clear controls, I think the only time I tripped up was with the dash, for some reason I couldn't get that it activates on spacebar release and you charge it by holding spacebar (but that was more me being a brainlet, really).
Story worked well with the game I thought, the christmas theming and the tree ending gave it that wholesome quality that was already mentioned in another comment. I think this type of story probably lends itself better to an underwater exploration game than something less comfy, I dunno.
The look of the game is just insanely cool. Hits a perfect balance between nostalgia and modern. I'm a huge lover of the ocean. I dive a lot, and Subnautica is one of my favorite games of all time. I saw one of the streamers play this and was instantly like, why the fuck haven't I played this yet. Which leads to my main criticism: the capsule art was indecipherable to me before I know that it was a little submarine. I get now that the "In the Drink" is a phrase for being in the ocean. But I am basically your exact target for this game, and I completely missed this one. My point being, when you put this on Steam, it feels like it should be a lot more clear (from the capsule art alone) that this is an Ocean/Submarine game. Make it crystal clear for dummies like me.
The game is really charming, and movement and all that feels good. I do think the story could use a little more room to breathe, but that depends on what you're going for in terms of speed I guess. It just felt a bit hurried, "Hmm, there might be life out there", to "Hi, I'm an alien life". The game made me want to immerse myself in this world, explore the submarine, "dive" into the world. Instead it kind of grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and shoved me in. In the first 10 minutes of the game you already create a bunch of cool moments, let those moments shine. Discovering alien life underwater is cool, give it the space to be a cool thing, not just a rapid push into the next objective.
I also wish there was a bit more of a thematic connection to picking up the chits. By itself, it doesn't really do much, just kind of standard video game hokum. But what is your role as a submarine person? What is your mission? Research? Let the chits be research data or something. It's another instance of this world begging me to be immersed with the visuals and sound and movement. And then rebuking me for it.
Anyway, very cool, glad I ended up checking this one out.
Thank you for playing and leaving feedback, the capsule art and name definitely need work.
I agree that the game needs more space for immersion, I got too worried that players would be bored floating around with nothing to do, but perhaps setting up the goals more clearly would alleviate that. I was going for a Metroid: Prime feel but ended up closer to Banjo-Kazooie.
I'm glad you're so interested in the game, I was wondering if I should develop it further or not as the response hasn't been very vocal, but maybe the capsule art and poor writing is to blame for discoverability.
Enjoyable, short and sweet experience. The variety in activities to progress reminded me of older adventure games I've played. Visuals and audio are good for the aesthetic. The story was unexpectedly wholesome, really thought it would be a twist with the last guy released being evil or something. Only gripe is the lack of any options beside look sensitivity.
Driving around the submarine somehow reminded me of ecco the dolphin back on the dreamcast. It has lots of soul and a comfy feeling. I was stuck at first with the guy giving me the dash ability (thankfully there was the unstuck function) and just found the snakey bois afterwards. Maybe i needed to go there first?
Very fun cute little game, I was expecting a bit of clunkiness given the ps1 aesthetic but it was surprisingly smooth. The level design was good in the sense that my next objective was always intuitive without needing any special direction. I also thought the little touch where the drums fade in when you collect the triangle things or smash things with the speed boost was very cute. All in all a nice experience.
One weird thing I did experience was that windows told me the game was trying to access the internet when I left the starting room. I don't know if this is intentional but the game worked fine for me with it blocked, but a popup like that in what appears to be a completely single player game does seem quite sketchy, so if that's not intentional then I would highly recommend looking in to what causes that to happen, or if it is it'd be nice if it was made clear somewhere what it uses that for.
Thanks for playing. Sorry about that prompt, it's apparently built into newer version of Unity and I couldn't find a way to disable it even though all the analysis and connection stuff is disabled. I will look into it again.
Comments
I've been streaming Demo Day games and only going for about 10 minutes each. I was terribly curious what would happen after I got the ice laser, but I was already out of time. I'll definitely be coming back to this one.
Loved the atmosphere of this! Very clear controls, I think the only time I tripped up was with the dash, for some reason I couldn't get that it activates on spacebar release and you charge it by holding spacebar (but that was more me being a brainlet, really).
Story worked well with the game I thought, the christmas theming and the tree ending gave it that wholesome quality that was already mentioned in another comment. I think this type of story probably lends itself better to an underwater exploration game than something less comfy, I dunno.
The look of the game is just insanely cool. Hits a perfect balance between nostalgia and modern. I'm a huge lover of the ocean. I dive a lot, and Subnautica is one of my favorite games of all time. I saw one of the streamers play this and was instantly like, why the fuck haven't I played this yet. Which leads to my main criticism: the capsule art was indecipherable to me before I know that it was a little submarine. I get now that the "In the Drink" is a phrase for being in the ocean. But I am basically your exact target for this game, and I completely missed this one. My point being, when you put this on Steam, it feels like it should be a lot more clear (from the capsule art alone) that this is an Ocean/Submarine game. Make it crystal clear for dummies like me.
The game is really charming, and movement and all that feels good. I do think the story could use a little more room to breathe, but that depends on what you're going for in terms of speed I guess. It just felt a bit hurried, "Hmm, there might be life out there", to "Hi, I'm an alien life". The game made me want to immerse myself in this world, explore the submarine, "dive" into the world. Instead it kind of grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and shoved me in. In the first 10 minutes of the game you already create a bunch of cool moments, let those moments shine. Discovering alien life underwater is cool, give it the space to be a cool thing, not just a rapid push into the next objective.
I also wish there was a bit more of a thematic connection to picking up the chits. By itself, it doesn't really do much, just kind of standard video game hokum. But what is your role as a submarine person? What is your mission? Research? Let the chits be research data or something. It's another instance of this world begging me to be immersed with the visuals and sound and movement. And then rebuking me for it.
Anyway, very cool, glad I ended up checking this one out.
Thank you for playing and leaving feedback, the capsule art and name definitely need work.
I agree that the game needs more space for immersion, I got too worried that players would be bored floating around with nothing to do, but perhaps setting up the goals more clearly would alleviate that. I was going for a Metroid: Prime feel but ended up closer to Banjo-Kazooie.
I'm glad you're so interested in the game, I was wondering if I should develop it further or not as the response hasn't been very vocal, but maybe the capsule art and poor writing is to blame for discoverability.
Enjoyable, short and sweet experience. The variety in activities to progress reminded me of older adventure games I've played. Visuals and audio are good for the aesthetic. The story was unexpectedly wholesome, really thought it would be a twist with the last guy released being evil or something. Only gripe is the lack of any options beside look sensitivity.
Driving around the submarine somehow reminded me of ecco the dolphin back on the dreamcast. It has lots of soul and a comfy feeling. I was stuck at first with the guy giving me the dash ability (thankfully there was the unstuck function) and just found the snakey bois afterwards. Maybe i needed to go there first?
I would love to see more of this! We need more ocean exploration games.
Very fun cute little game, I was expecting a bit of clunkiness given the ps1 aesthetic but it was surprisingly smooth. The level design was good in the sense that my next objective was always intuitive without needing any special direction. I also thought the little touch where the drums fade in when you collect the triangle things or smash things with the speed boost was very cute. All in all a nice experience.
One weird thing I did experience was that windows told me the game was trying to access the internet when I left the starting room. I don't know if this is intentional but the game worked fine for me with it blocked, but a popup like that in what appears to be a completely single player game does seem quite sketchy, so if that's not intentional then I would highly recommend looking in to what causes that to happen, or if it is it'd be nice if it was made clear somewhere what it uses that for.
Thanks for playing. Sorry about that prompt, it's apparently built into newer version of Unity and I couldn't find a way to disable it even though all the analysis and connection stuff is disabled. I will look into it again.