this was pretty fun & atmospheric!
i like how straightforward everything is. the game barely explains anything but you understand the essentials. you're a prisoner here, you're a diver, you need to retrieve items for this captain. nothing more is needed. felt really cool honestly. and the story is complimented by the atmosphere; the character busts are GODLY and give a ton of personality, and there's some pretty clever use of mapping. like making your room a super tiny space surrounded by darkness. in general the game feels lonely. oppresive. alleviated only in the moments where simon talks to you. it was pretty effective!
the gameplay is good too! designing mazes isn't easy but this game does them really well. i like how at first if i chose a wrong path i was like "oh ok, guess i gotta swim all the way back". but in the last part i was like "oh crap now there's another chance of dying-". made it so i was actually tensing up as the game went on haha. i will say that the moments where you can die felt pretty easy to get through. maybe it could've been better if you had to press enter at a specific moment, instead of just before the time ends? (kinda like how drowning dungeon does it) idk how hard is it to code that tho.
if i had to mention anything else, honestly i think some default assets kinda took me out of the game? i'm not against default assets at all and this game uses them pretty well, but i feel even just changing the menu sfx would've gone a long way to make the presentation feel even more original, especially with how good the rest of the visuals and sounds are. but that's just a nitpick.
overall this game was really short, but it was pretty fun and i liked the story! good job!! :>