First things first...Congrats on the submission.
- The game is hella cute!
- I really loved listening to the cool facts about the Māori culture and native marine life
- I liked the art work, especially the character, its quite cozy and chill. Atmosphere and the ambiance is amazing!
- The mechanics are super easy to learn and work with, they are very familiar so takes a lot away from players mind about controlling and help them focus more on gameplay.
- Would love to see how it grows when given enough time and with a full scope realized!
BTW, I remember you mentioned, it would be impossible to ascend if you dive too deep
- I kinda found a work around XD
- If you keep walking on the seafloor, you eventually come run across a patch where the character goes back to swimming animation from walking animation
- In that instance if you spam Spacebar or press and hold Spacebar, you start ascending lol
- I terminated the game twice because I ended up down there but 3rd time was the charm where I found this method...hehe
On scoping, I appreciate you being honest about only reaching 1/4 of your vision. That transparency is rare and worth acknowledging.
I say what follows as someone who has made the same mistake: scope is one of the hardest skills in game development to get right, especially in a jam. If the full vision can't be broken into small, completable, polished chunks that fit the deadline, the safer move is to pivot early rather than ship something that feels incomplete. This doesn't mean thinking small... it means reading the constraints clearly and building something that feels whole within them, even if it's shorter than you imagined. A tight 10-minute experience that lands fully will always outperform an ambitious one that trails off.
Hope you get to build the full version someday, the coral-planting idea sounds genuinely interesting.