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A jam submission

ABYSMView game page

Escape a deep sea trench
Submitted by Joaqstarr — 17 hours, 42 minutes before the deadline
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ABYSM's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Overall#213.4323.432
Enjoyment#233.2733.273
Metroidvania#283.5453.545
Presentation#293.7273.727
Design#303.1823.182

Ranked from 11 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Engine
Unity

Team/Developer
Tennis Hype Crew

Prizes eligibility
Learn Indie

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Comments

Submitted

This is a great entry! The atmosphere is phenomenal - I actually was going for the same kind of mood in my game, but you did it in much better. The pacing and the atmosphere is pretty great!

It's actually hard to write this review because rittz (the comment below me) pretty much echoes all the criticisms I would have made. The snail on a tiny platform in particular came up a lot, and it was pretty frustrating to handle. This is especially because of the hit box of the character, which seems circular and would mean it would fall if it was on the corners of platforms.

I understand also if you weren't aware, but CTRL as the control for the shell was bad for mac - ctrl + arrow key would trigger switching of screens, so I had a lot of trouble maneuvering through the bubbles. I also feel like the slowdown was largely unneeded (or could have been reduced).

Overall I do think that you knocked the mood out of the park, and it's a great solid entry.

Developer

Thank you so much for your feedback :D

Submitted

Really liked this one! Unique theme and atmosphere, solid art, decent enemy variety, frequent upgrades. Loved the initial big drop onto the big sea creature in the bg, good stuff.

Would've liked to see some background art to breakup the plain color of most of the rest of the screens though, even some very basic silhouettes would've been nice. Could use some more vfx to juice things in places, even just reusing the bubbles from the dash in some other spots could've been good. The actual attack was a very good and comfortable size though, which was appreciated lol.

Getting the characters appearance upgraded was pretty cool, although understandably they were looking a bit cluttered as things went on

I felt like i saw "snail on a very tiny platform" a lot. I get you only have so many tricks, but that's all the more reason you need to be careful about how often you use the ones you do have, imo. I'd have preferred a few of them just get taken out.

The squid feels very tanky for the kind of enemy they are, and how they're used. I can't effectively hit them in the air more than a couple of times since they get pushed away, and waiting to parry several more attacks is not great.

The slowdown on walking thru bubbles seemed a bit egregious.

I could not finish it right now, though. The last powerup (the dash) that i picked up left me at 10 hp, and i definitely needed more than that to take on the snail-squid staircase. I was willing to grind for health a couple of  times, but it was too grating to keep doing. Some proper save points that healed you would've gone a long way, there. 

Still, one of my favorites that i've played so far! Good job on the whole.

Developer

Thank you for this invaluable feedback :D really appreciate it !!!!!

Submitted

Screenshots looks very nice! Unfortunately there is no linux version and I can't check it :<

Developer(+1)

aww :(, I'll put one up after the jam is over!

Submitted

I couldn't click the button after dying.
The atmosphere is nice.

Developer

Sorry about the button! The game saves so you can just open it again and keep going. Glad you liked the atmosphere though!

Submitted

Another really fine entry. The graphics are lovely, with a well-animated player character, a decent variety of enemies, and loving environmental details (I really enjoyed crawling through the skull of the Leviathan).  

The controls are smooth. The attack clearly indicates what is being struck.

The pacing was just a bit slow for me. Some of the jumps are just a little too hard. Some of the screens are just a tad too dark.

Note: After Game Over, I was not able to get the Continue button to work.

Developer(+1)

Thanks for the feedback :DD

Submitted

Oh wow that was a nice experience. Love ocean theme, powerups were cool, I was vibin to music the entire time. I had a huge wow moment when the boss started, but I wasn't sure what to do and continue button didn't work ;_; so I ended my playthrough there :c

But even then I had great time with this one! Good work!

Developer(+1)

Glad you liked the game. The game saves, my bad about the continue button. I was out of town so I couldn't fix it :(. If you open the game again you should pick it up right from the boss. You ride the legs( had trouble trying to convey that though, still have some ideas to make it better)

Submitted

Ah, main menu continue worked! Went back and finished that sequence. My initial issue was that i was stuck on hind legs, kept taking damage from the swarm of ocean creatures and didn't see the opportunity to climb up to the upper legs. Now I managed to stay on upper legs most of the journey and it was nice! But then I think quit button also didn't work haha, not a big deal tho :D

Developer

Yeah, I fixed the buttons yesterday, just have to upload the game when the jam is over. Thanks for playing!

Submitted

Things I liked:

-It's overall fun to play 

-The art is amazing

-The SFX give it a really nice touch and ambience

-The metreoidvania genre is well applied

Things I didn't like:

-The controls are floaty, it would fit with the underwater environment, but it's too much

-The Shell is quite slow and sometimes the parry doesn't work

-The platforms are really small, which makes it hard not to be hit and not to fall every two seconds

-Some buttons, as you stated, don't work


It was fun, and I hope you continue developing this

 

Developer

Thanks for playing :)!  This is really good feedback and I may actually continue developing this one. 

Submitted

Ok, this game looks gorgeous! 

It does come with some frustration. I didn't find a way to get back health. If you resume (by restarting the game) you get what health you had. Also, the platforms that the seashells are walking on are tiny, so not getting hit by them is kind of hard. Very satisfying to finally be able to hit them with the claw.

The shell upgrade was very cool to. If the game could have had less painpoints regarding gameplay it would have been sooo good. 

Cool entry, it would have been fun to play it if you continue developing after the jam and fix some of the frustrating things.

Developer

Glad you liked the art :) The enemies have a chance to drop a health pack on death, but yeah I can see how that's frustrating at the start.

Thanks for the feedback :)) I'm out of town right now, but I really look forward to playing your game when I get back !

Submitted

Controls? Game crashed when I touched the SFX volume slider...