11pm’s “Deep Deep Ocean” is a stark departure from their previous game entries, but it is nice to see their growth from their original Bitsy game, all about learning “Who is Phil.” Entering the game, the player is instantly flooded with emotions and ideas of the surrounding world. The design not only sets the scene as underwater, but showcases the world as alive, and truly deep. In the locations the player can move to, there are no reflections and no visible waves. The dialogue helps to set the scene as well as in the Pacific Ocean, but the feeling of being deep underwater felt particularly important to me as a player. We don’t understand a lot of what goes on deep in the ocean, so I was left with curiosity around what types of experiences I would face as I ventured on.
I soon travelled deeper into the ocean, highlighted by the game with a vertical transition and lack of any reflections in the new scene. There I met some fellow sea friends. Each sea animal had quite their own character, highlighting that this wasn’t any normal sea experience, and the deep sea truly has some strange things going on. They worked as tools to access the various minigames. Beyond that, the elaborate coral design made the experience feel exciting but also allowed us to feel subtly orientated without being too specific, which makes it more realistic and also helps provide a sense of direction with an environment as technically confusing as the deep ocean.
Beyond simple visual design, the design was important to the story, with the coral tubes acting as transportation mechanisms for the minigames. 11pm worked with these sprite and color constraints of Bitsy to truly bring the world to life in a way that is realistic but while also enabling the mystery feeling of this deep ocean. Entering each one, we are tricked, thinking we are entering a spa, but have some task to complete. It feels a little frustrating as a player, but it is a good frustration that leaves the player wanting to find the true spa.
As the player soon finds, there is no spa, at least for them. They even end up on the other side, giving some sort of spa, having to hit arrow blocks. Due to the experience of working on each one, the dialogue and attitude from the characters after returning, and the beauty of scenes, it’s really not the worst feeling. As players we were provided with unique experiences and were allowed to build our own little story in the “deep deep” ocean, with northing forced upon the player. We were allowed to take our time, appreciate, and explore and better understand the potential mystery of what the deep ocean could potentially be like.
All in all, “Deep Deep Ocean” utilizes the constraints of Bitsy well to create a realistic, yet mysterious world, that leaves the player wondering what else strange thing could be next. I mean who would expect an arrow order clicking game created by sea creatures. I know I’m left curious to see what else could be lurking in the depths of the ocean, but also a little scared, with nothing turning out as expected so far.