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Lifeline's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Use of the Limitation | #17 | 3.846 | 3.846 |
| Concept | #30 | 3.769 | 3.769 |
| Overall | #30 | 3.538 | 3.538 |
| Enjoyment | #32 | 3.462 | 3.462 |
| Presentation | #67 | 3.077 | 3.077 |
Ranked from 13 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Team members
Eschen
Software used
Unity, Aseprite
Use of the limitation
Expending oxygen is the only way to move. If you run out of oxygen, you die.
Cookies eaten
2
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Comments
Legit it was so much fun progressing through this. Very specific itch this game scratches. I just wish there were sound effects and music. 10/10 idea if that were the case. I hope you progress this to completion cuz it's a killer game so far.
It's incredible, man. When I first played, I was pretty distracted w/ my own jam. Now that I've gotten a chance to dig my teeth into it, there's so much to love. The progression feels so satisfying, and hurling up to the surface with just a drop of Oxygen left feels exhilarating like Subnautica. Very cool that you built it all yourself, but I'd expect nothing less. I couldn't find a single bug, so nice attention to detail.
On the constructive side, I think a gradient background would go a long way to make the depth real to players, the gems could be a different color to better differentiate as a pickup. Mechanically, I thought it could be more fun with even a little more default oxygen still. I noticed that the shop items are nice and cheap, but I assumed I'd have to save up more at first, so maybe just some guides for the user like "You have enough to go buy something at the shop, go do that dummy"
Trying out the pipes now, I get it, I actually like this mechanic much better in 2D than Subnautica's pipe system. Fantastic stuff.
Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it. That shop hint is a great suggestion. I forgot to think about the fact that the player doesn't know the upgrade prices in their head. The background actually does change color. It's a script that changes the entire background color depending on player depth. Maybe it needs to be more noticeable?
Ah-- maybe. I have flux on my display at night, so it was probably just not as noticeable on my screen.
Really sick game with a solid core loop and quite a bit of meat on its bones. I think adding some kind of textured background would add a lot :)
This is a really great game. I love the idea so much. The balancing and level design is great.
And definitely that best use of the limitation I saw so far. Thanks for creating this.
I could play this for hours and would love to explore the map.
I was only sad that there is no music and also would have loved to if the "eggs" would have been in the same art style as the rest. Besides from that: awesome!
Such high praise, I'm happy you enjoyed it that much! Yeah, the gems are just some sprites I searched for online once I got tired of drawing :D Gonna go back to sticking with programming and design in the future. Thanks a lot for your feedback!
Awesome game! Feels like a minimalist Subnautica. I love the tension between wanting to explore and go deeper, but needing to surface for oxygen.
One thing I would love is an indicator for the shop location, and I think the pipe placement system could use a bit of polishing. It's hard to tell what my max placement range is. But once the pipes are placed, it's a really cool system.
It seems like the acceleration is capped, but I think that a player willing to spend a lot of oxygen quickly should get rewarded with more acceleration than is currently allowed.
I also think some basic sound effects would really add to the liveliness of the game.
I love the darkening of the water as you descend more and more.
I also think the level of difficulty is pretty good. Gems are hard to reach but feel very rewarding. And death seems appropriately punishing. I got kind of stuck in the progression though, possibly because I threw away too much money on dangerous trips downward, and gems are rather rare. Do gems respawn if you die while holding their money?
All that said, great game! I had a blast playing it, and I would love to see more.
Glad you liked it! The darkening effect was totally a last-minute addition, good to know it was worth it :D I'm also really happy you liked the difficulty, I was worried it might be too hard.
The gems don't respawn, but the money you have is left where you died. But yeah, the way the death mechanic works right now you can kind of get soft-locked if you're unlucky. I didn't manage to come up with a better solution, since I didn't want to have the player lose any money permanently. Respawning the gems might have been worth considering more seriously.
Lots of helpful feedback, thank you for writing this!
That's a really good concept ! That remind me a lot of subnautica, but in 2D ;)
The things that I liked :
- Building pipes was really fun, I think you should more concentrate on that
- Getting gems in the ocean, going deeper and deeper with the upgrades was cool
The things that you can improve for maybe a released game :
- The movement and controls, by manipulating character we feel like moving a huge spaceship, I know that the boost thing come from the theme, but it can be improved (by adding a better acceleration with a greater damp for example)
- The graphics, it's not your fall we are not all good at that, but consider asking someone to do it, or maybe just play with the post processing of the engine, light, shaders...
Thanks a lot for your feedback! True, the character is probably a bit more sluggish than they need to be. I'm definitely going to work with a team again in the future, this was a bit of an experiment for myself :)
It's a nice game
Nice concept!
Funny little game! Cool use of the theme!