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Waterborne: Immersion's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Fun | #8 | 4.769 | 4.769 |
| Scariness... | #12 | 4.538 | 4.538 |
| Overall | #15 | 4.246 | 4.246 |
| Halloweeny? | #18 | 4.538 | 4.538 |
| Candy!! | #37 | 3.615 | 3.615 |
| Monsterous! | #73 | 3.769 | 3.769 |
Ranked from 13 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Log Line
A group of friends looking to have the best of days find themselves in the middle of one of their worst
Content Warnings
Some mild jump scares and a general sense of dread/tension throughout.
Team Members
lazytiger - Sole Developer
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Comments
WOW! So well achieved, from ambientation to suspense, and art as well! Amazing! That ending was awesome, as well as the plot twist. I got a B rank... looking to get a better one in my next run haha. Also, loved the RE references as well as style! Pretty much a great game, gonna have to try the prequel!
Thank you for your kind feedback!
B rank hey? Let me guess... you drank the water? :D
It's really nice to see someone mentioning the RE references. I feel like they generally don't land with the broad VN demographic, so thankyou for confirming there is at least SOME crossover out there :D
I'm trying to get through as many fellow jammers games as I can. Got yours on the list.
Haha, I tottaly did. Got the S rank later in the replay, the skip option makes it easier lol
As for the RE references, I sadly couldn't do any in mine, but heck do I enjoy RE type puzzles and vibes, and you captured that perfectly. Also, great choice in the classic music. And the Thriller music as well, pun intended :P
Also, no obligation to play mine ;) but thank you!
I think pretty much everyone who has given me feedback has admitted to drinking the water. You all just can't help yourselves :D
I love me some classical music! Especially how copyright free it is :D But cheers!
Well, this is officially my favourite of all the games from the jam that I've played so far ^-^ Honestly, it's almost as though someone who knows me way too well made this for me as a gift xD That's how much it hit the spot, haha. I would've played it sooner because I remember playing the first Waterborne during last year's jam and loving it, but I've set off on my mission to try and play everything again, and I was largely going by random order. I was absolutely looking forward to this though cos I figured I'd like it a lot. Well, that's an understatement because I adore it <3
Having those sorts of escape room vibes in this story combined with the beautiful art and atmospheric SFX was just *chef's kiss* :3 And while I usually can't stand puzzles, I thought the ones here were pretty fun and not tooooo difficult! Plus having the solutions within the game is a great idea as well for anyone struggling, so that's appreciated too.
Also, loved the bits of humour and all the references here and there :D
As much as I would love to gush about the story, I don't want to accidentally spoil anything by saying something clumsy >.< I will put a little note below and be sure to edit the version of this that I post on the game page. Just know that I thought it was brilliant, enjoyed it immensely, wish that I was Alex, and that it's going straight on my recommended list ^-^
- !!!POSSIBLE SPOILERS BELOW!!! -
(DO NOT READ BEFORE PLAYING)
I'm OBSESSED with scare attractions and, to an extent, escape rooms, haha. Along with all things horror! The only reason I don't do more escape rooms is because I only have my dad and 1 friend that I get to see in person, and she's not a huge fan of em, so I would never drag her along x3 + with my social anxiety, not having a full team of people to go through escape rooms with basically destroys my chances of doing them because it's too stressful for me to try and team up with a big group of strangers >.< So I tend to only go to those when I know small groups are allowed. But every Halloween, I go on a big scare attraction tour of the country, haha. I save up all year long to try and afford to do as much as possible. And, I'm the type to seek out more and more extreme events when they appear, haha. I've been to several that required you to be 18+ and sign waivers, but I like all kinds of scare attractions pretty much. Just can't get enough of that stuff :P So yeah, I'm pretty sure you can imagine why I loved this so much, haha.
And thank you for double posting here! I've been doing that too because it really annoys me it's not an automatic thing.
I have your games sitting in my download folder. Keen to check them out.
Speaking of, did you perchance see the easter egg nod to your Spooktober entry in my game? ;)
Yeah, I've been trying to post less rambly versions of my jam comments on the regular game page comments cos I feel like way more people on itch must look at normal comments! It would be handy if it was automatic though.
Well, I hope you end up enjoying them if/when you play em :3 I'm almost certain you won't love them as much as I love yours though xD I don't even have the words for how happy playing yours made me today <3
Wait... what?! :o I'm guessing I probably didn't x3 I know I didn't get many achievements on my first go through, haha. Just opened up the game now for reference, and I only have 6 out of 17 so far x3 So clearly, I have much more to discover! The first one I got was the one for drinking the water because I can never resist choices that seem dodgy as heck xD And then I immediately laughed out loud when I saw the name of the achievement pop up :D
I see some of them are things I can quite easily do on my next playthrough, but others look like I'll need to poke around more and make some different choices! I didn't really save on my first play because I was just trying to go completely blind and stick to all decisions made without the temptation of reloading. I was confused as to how I got the one for renaming the protagonist, but then I remembered that I accidentally hit spacebar and added a space to the end of Alex x3
I don't have the ones for the Halloween message, easter eggs in Claudia's video diary, or the one for Spooktober easter egg yet, amoung others. Actually, even just seeing the name Claudia made me smile just cos I've been listening to Vukovi's song C.L.A.U.D.I.A a lot during the jam, haha.
But yeah, I'm guessing I missed that easter egg nod one way or another >.< If it happened to be during the general story progression and I managed to miss it, it's probably because I'm a massively oblivious idiot and things fly over my head pretty easily, and/or because I was getting way too excited and pretty much losing my shit over the whole thing as it went on xD
I can't remember the exact numbers, but I think it said I had seen 12xx out of 14xx of dialogue.
Since I'm trying to play at least a little of every game, I figured I'd stop playing each one when I reach a proper ending, and then return later to see the rest. With yours, I was tempted to go straight into another playthrough after the very end caught me so off guard xD I think I actually said something like, wait, what?! Out loud, haha. But I decided not to because I figured it might be good for me to return to it in November when I know I'm gonna need some cheering up. Making stuff for Spooktober in September helps keep my silly brain occupied, and then playing the games + going to scare attractions in October does the same thing. And then every November, my depression just comes crashing back down on me because 2 of the things I love most in my life are gone for another year T_T I figured playing through the rest of your game might help stave off those crappy feelings a little while longer with how much joy it brought me going through it the first time :3
Buuuut, now I'm even more tempted to just have another go tomorrow xD I guess it won't hurt if I try to unlock everything in October and still go back to it in November for another replay ^-^
Oh man, I feel like such an idiot. I stopped typing and I could hear this really distant dripping. I paused for like a minute trying to work out where the sound was coming from. Sat there thinking, it's like the game is haunting me o.o Then I realised it was because I still have the game open in the background from looking at the achievements list, and my earphones are still plugged in and resting on my desk >.<” Gosh, I'm dense x3
Yeah it definitely would. But I assuming there must be some reason behind why the game page and jam page are separate.
That sounds like a challenge! :D And you are so nice!
Don't worry, there wasn't much chance of you finding it the easter egg. Definitely not on your first playthrough at least. The in game clue was "Spooktober 2022 alumni can be found STARTING at 20:22 *wink*" if that helps :D But yeah, definitely don't feel bad. I packed tons of stuff in there and I think only 2 or 3 have been discovered.
Haha! I'm the same, I always want to see the result of an obviously bad choice :D
Totally understand not having time for a replay. There's so many awesome looking jam submissions to get through. I think I've only play 4 or 5 so far. I'm so behind!
I understand the crashing feeling! I emotionally crashed super hard a few days after the jam ended. And I'm pretty much only just starting to feel like I'm coming out of it now. But it's good you can pre-empt that you will feel that way and prepare for it. Also, can't tell you how happy it makes me to think that something I've made could possibly help deal with those kind of feelings. That is so awesome to me.
Haha! That's so funny about the dripping thing. I could never quite decide if the sound effect was more annoying or creepy. It's probably more on the annoying side :D
Anyways, thanks so much for all your interaction! Once again, you've absolutely made my day!
Ahh, fair enough! There wasn't much chance of me finding it yesterday either because I didn't have time to play anything at all x3 I don't know if I'll get to today either >.< got so much stuff to sort out, haha. I was in the middle of playing Iridescent Descent on Tuesday evening when I had to go start dinner, and I haven't been able to play anything since.
I saw that hint though while I was playing through the first time and thought, hmm, interesting :D At the time I thought, I must keep an eye out, and then I kinda just got so absorbed in the story that I forgot to be vigilant for secrets, haha. Definitely gotta go searching when I can! I wanna find everything x3 I love it when devs hide little bits all over the place ^-^
Yeah, as much as I desperately want to play everything from the jam, I don't know if I'm gonna have the time to >.< I mean I guess I can carry on past October, but I was hoping to leave everyone a nice comment of some sort and a 5* for being awesome and making spooky games!
That sucks you crashed :( sorry about that. I'm glad you're starting to feel a little better now though :3 I feel like even if you try to be healthy with how you work on a jam, if you had a tonne of fun and enjoyed yourself a lot, some kinda crash is almost inevitable because it's never great when things that make you happy come to an end >.< I've started referring to it as post-jam blues x3 I keep going up and down since that stage of the jam ended. One day I feel okay, the next I feel like crap. But every time I've had a chance to play something from the jam that's been brilliant, like your game, it's really cheered me up for the rest of the day ^-^ So yeah, thank you for that!
I actually like the dripping! I think it's perfectly eerie :D
Thank YOU for yours and for making such an epic game <3 You may well have saved my November from being completely bleak x3
It would be super nice to get through all the games in October, but yeah, it ain't going to happen. I will try to get to them all eventually though even though the vibe will have trailed off down the track. Would still be nice.
Speaking of, I couldn't get your games to work on my Mac. Kept saying I didn't have permission to open and to contact the administrator. I'm pretty sure it's a 'me' problem rather than a general one with your games. I'm grabbed the Windows version and am going to dust off my bootcamp install to try them out :D
And yup, post jam blues sums it up perfectly. Why do us creative types have to be so susceptible to this kind of stuff. It's not fair. At least it's nice to have people who can empathise.
Thank you for all your kind words yet again. And I really do hope my little game does indeed help out with your November, even if only a little. That would make me happy.
Yeah, I was thinking I might actually be able to manage it, but now I'm sat here and it's 20th October. I'm not even halfway through >.< Plus I've got a fair few more nights of scare attractions where I know I'll come home and just want to sleep rather than play games cos the journey takes it outta me x3
It's more likely just mac in general being a silly sausage x3 I don't own one myself, so I can't test stuff on em, but regardless of whether I was using Tyrano in the past or Nani and Unity now, folks always say they have difficulty opening my games on mac T_T Having spoken to people about it, they've said it's a pretty common problem with itch games in general, and that it's something to do with mac having extra security or something and indie games being unsigned >.<
Anyways, I made a whole post about it with a bunch of info from different users with different things folks can try :3 But Rebecca was able to help with Mac testing this time around, and she also gave me a really quick and easy way of fixing the not opening issue for most people! So, she said that you just need to go to system preferences, then click on security and privacy, and then at the bottom, she said it should ask if you want to allow the app to play anyway.
If that doesn't work, this is the big ol list of other stuff I've compiled over the last couple of years xD Most of it doesn't make much sense to me, but hopefully, it does to Mac users x3
But yeah, it really is nice to be able to speak to people who can empathise with the ol' post-jam blues. I used to think it was just me and my stupid depression, but when I came across the DevTalk community and saw other devs saying things that sounded familiar to how I've felt, it was just nice not to feel alone on that front!
Merry 10/11 days until Halloween :D
Oh I'm so sorry! After posting I found your info about how to get it running on a Mac. Launching through the Itch app worked fine and is a super simple solution. I'm sorry to have unnecessarily added to the "your game doesn't work on Mac" noise. That must be pretty exhausting.
Yup, definitely helps to know we're not alone. The depression still super sucks though.
Merry Halloween lead up to you too! :D
Oh, don't worry about that x3 I'm used to it, haha. I just wish macs wouldn't be so finicky! Good to know that launching through the itch app works though! Maybe I should just give that as a first recommendation in the future rather than people having to follow what look like some pretty daunting steps to me, haha.
7 days to go!
I love the escape room feel of this game--it really has that Myst-like vibe. The puzzles were straightforward, but they were fun and creative--I liked tracking through the video to look for clues particularly. And the whole project just has a good level of polish, like the watercolor ombre effect. I did feel like there were really a lot of lines of dialogue to click through in some scenes. Another thing I would like is more consistency to the controls--there's one room where you can click directly on props to interact, but in other rooms you have to click a button that says "try the door" or whatever, and I'd like it to be either all the one way or all the other way.
Thank you for playing and taking the time to give feedback back! Appreciated! And thank you for the kind words.
I feel like the criticism of "a lot of lines of dialogue to click through in some scenes" was a little interesting considering it's a visual novel. Or do you mean it felt too disproportionate compared to scenes with little to no dialogue? And yes, absolutely fair on the inconsistent point-and-click. It was originally meant to have point and click in all the explorable areas, but I (of course) ran out of time for the jam. I have only gotten around to putting it in for the Moonlight Sonata room so far, but yes, perhaps it would have been better to hold off on the release until it was fully implemented. Very fair comment.
Glad you mentioned the video tracking. Did you perchance stumble across the Spooktober easter egg? There might just be a nod to all the entries of the jam hidden away in there somewhere... :D
Anyways thanks again! I'm very slowly working my way through other entries. Yours looks really interesting, I've caught a little bit of it in one of the streams. Will hopefully be able to get around to it soon.