Post by soldancer in Sunken comments

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Spoiler warning!

So now that I've managed to actually play Sunken, I thought I'd give my impressions. First the stuff I liked. The atmosphere is quite good, I like the idea of starting off mundane and then ramping up to reveal the horror. The ambient background sound that plays after a few days really got me on edge. The jump scare on the platform got me good, too. The story is also fairly straightforward, and while not super original, was at least clear enough to figure out things while still leaving a bit of mystery.

Now the stuff I liked...not so much. The game is way too dark. I'm playing in a dark room and could never get the screen brightness to a level where I could see very well. I think there was supposed to be a car at some point? And maybe a ship out in the water? But I could only see about 2 feet in front of me and it made it hard to play, plus gave me a headache.

The last day of garbage collecting took way too long to find everything. And then I went underwater. I was happy with the visibility, until I discovered I had to run through identical areas with my vision completely blocked by kelp. I had no idea where to go, but eventually discovered I needed to find stones. Then some kind of monster/fish/thing came out of nowhere and got basically got stuck in my character until I died. I tried it a second time but the fish came out again and stuck through the character until death yet again.

I want to see the ending(s), so I guess I'll just have to check out Youtube. So basically A+ for atmosphere, C- for gameplay to my sensibilities.

Niven Hedinger3 years ago

First of all glad that you ran the game and had to see it for yourself, really appreciate the positive feedback and review.
Unfortunately, I can't do much at this point with brightness, because the files I had for the game got corrupted and I had to delete some of the work. Brightness is an issue at is has been a huge critique for the game, well, that's truly bad.
As it goes for the underwater level, I might assume that you did not click on the flashlight, because I've seen some playthroughs and say people complain, while not clicking F for the flashlight. The thing is, I do assume people know that underwater scuba set comes with the flashlight and that's why some of my recent works I started to have an objective icon, even thou it ruins the immersion for the game. Also, considering that underwater is supposed to be dark, I did not want it to be all colorful and shining like the sun. So, that's more of a creative choice.

Now, as it goes for the originality, SPOILER! - the game is not super original because it's based on the Lovecraftian work, which mostly does include cosmic horror and the popular Cthulhu monster, although I might argue a bit that it has a very original setup for a night shift beach worker, who has no friends and works all by himself. Now, some people did not get that, well, most did not, but working on the beach is usually a day job, because there are people enjoying their time, swimming, surfing and there are multiple guards and the game is hinting that our main character (which is either a man or a woman) likes to be alone and they enjoy this job. Towards the end, making an ultimate sacrifice or saving yourself from the monster both works for the character, making them either a hero or a justifiable person, who really hates humanity and does not care if they get eaten by a sea god.

Ultimately, the story is very linear, but it's not something generic you come up on the free indie market, especially with those "Backrooms" clones and FNAF fan games or even the new obsession of "Analog Horror", which yours truly has contributing with a Primary Color Man game - now that game is super popular, but does it have the same quality and effort or atmosphere as this? Absolutely not, but weirdly, people still enjoy that over this.

In the end, my only job is to bring the experience, then it's up to the player to have fun with it or not. Thanks again for kind words and I do apologize for a lengthy reply. Cheers!

soldancer3 years ago(+1)

Long replies are welcome, I love having insight into what goes on in development. It's easy to be critical of something that I have idea how to do myself when I don't appreciate how hard it is to actually make a game.

I didn't mean to sound as dismissive of the story as I came across. It's interesting and well-delivered. I guess I meant that it's nothing groundbreaking in the cosmic horror genre, but I still enjoyed the slow drip of info into what was going on. Part of why I wanted to play this is that I watched a let's play that got an abrupt ending (they didn't even go underwater) and I figured there had to be more to it. On that aspect, I'm glad I gave Sunken a go. Atmosphere, tension, and immersion are very good and the story gives you a mystery to unravel. And dammit, I want to see how it ends!

But I went back again just now to try the water section again, and I simply cannot complete it. While I'm gathering the stones, the random fish monster just shows up out of nowhere and kills me every time. Is there a way to avoid it? It gets stuck inside the POV model and just sits there until I die. I must see this through to the end now! But I'm afraid I'm missing something about how to beat the water section.

Niven Hedinger3 years ago

Not at all, I enjoy and look forward to critical reviews and such sorts and I do agree with you about the overall theme and plot that drives the game's narrative. I am glad you enjoyed part of it.
The underwater level is pretty hard and that's only because one of the players in my previous projects said that I make games "easy", so that got me and now I am slowly balancing the difficulties in the games. So, basically, you just have to collect the stones, but it becomes easier after knowing that the stones are at the end of the corners, basically it's a 3X3X3 grid so, not hard to locate them. And as far as it goes for the monster, unless you jump or "jerk move away" it won't attack you, but you can just walk and it will be stuck on you. That's a mechanical flaw of the game. Or, you can trap the monster in the ship by going inside.

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