itch.io

what a great game. i love the concept.

the starter weapons are nice, but the sniper cant do much early, the blaster is ok, but the hammer shines. as soon as i picked hammer, i started getting runs into layer 5. with blaster at max i got to layer 2 and sniper only layer 1. it is just so good. 

also the hammers impact zone has a timer circle. i dont like that. it makes it really hard to see and obscures the hp of circles. the visual is enough of a timer. 

 also why do modules have a circle going around them? that isnt the cooldown so what is it?

also maybe tone down the hammers screenshake a little. with 6 hammers it starts getting a bit disorientating, having the screen shaking wildly the whole time. 

also upgrading doesnt do anything. the difference between my level 1 and level 10 hammer is 0.4 damage. that is not worth it.

sad that some features are bugged/not implemented. also being told that some modifiers dont work made me never choose them and so changed gameplay in a significant way. 

also the hitboxes of enemies are sometimes insane. i can be a mile away from an enemy, but suddenly i take a hit and the enemy dies. sometimes im not even going in the direction of the enemy and the stun pushes me towards where the enemy was. that makes no sense. i think i found the reason. the further i go, the more wacky things get. my hammers start dropping left of the circles and drops pop out way left of the circles. the enemies hitboxes are also only wack to the left. for some reason it seems like everything is like two tiles more shifted to the left in further waves than it looks.  also the screen starts being restricted at the bottom. at like layer 100 i think the game will be happening off screen with how quickly my playing area is being pushed up, left. but it gets weirder than that. i was able to change the desync depending on location. for a game i stayed at the bottom right and the game started to shift into that direction, allowing me to disappear off screen on the bottom. like what in the world is going on??? how am i shifting the game? also the shifting only occurs when using the hammer??????? is the screenshake literally shifting the game around?

chrono divination doesnt work, alongside half of the upgrade tree.

the color of an items level usually changes to red when maxed, but for the middle item it always stays green. 

the time cap of 70 is bad. yeah, without it, runs would go endless, but with it you can just instantly lose a run to a spawning enemy as they start oneshotting also they can spawn on top of you so you just randomly die.

the strongest weapon is by far the rapid pulse, followed by the high caliber and hammer. these are the most viable and pretty much only viable weapons to go to deeper layers. well hammer is good, but with how it seems to destroy the game currently i wouldnt use it for long. only for the start.

the deepest i got was layer 70. not much happens there. idk if the different wall types are just visually indistinguishable or what, but i never saw them.

all in all a fun game. it just needs some ironing out. also holy is it a grind. most money comes from killing enemies. enemies however will end your run in seconds and you will most likely beat the layer before they spawn. even then, it took me like 20 runs of farming and over 100.000 coins to max the tree. with the gameplay not changing, this was pretty boring.

pretty good game. the mechanics are easy to understand. the gameplay just kinda gets old after a few runs. nothing really changes the deeper you go. there isnt really anything shaking up gameplay. upgrades just allow for deeper runs, but nothing interesting happens deeper.

interesting game idea. i just dont get a few things, although i think i found the answers to some:

Q: are the buffs only for that unit or are they for all units? 

A: it looks like its only for that unit.

Q: why does beating level 1 buy the base health reduction      automatically? like i dont want to buy that. that reduces my    points.

Q: what is the points buff? i honestly have no idea. it looks like    the coins, but it says points. is that how people got over 1000 points on level 1?

A: it does not boost coins, it buffs points. i beat level 1 just spamming them and got the nice score of 6900, nice, putting me comfortably at nr.1, way above felix at 1600 and pro at 1500.

Q: is the in game leaderboard even real? it looks real, but how i got nr.1 on level 1 is a mystery to me. if 17 people figured out how to get more than 1000 points, then why did no one go crazy with it like me and instead just got like 100 more points than normal.

A: i dont have one, but most likely its not real. logistically it would be hard to set up, probably having running costs through a server. also i just dont believe that no one else got a crazy score, even though a few people must know about the point buffs potential, if the scores are to be believed. 

also there is a bug: at the start of a level, you can spam units. that however is a scam. at 10 coins i spammed felix to 0 coins. that should be 5 felix. i got 3. the game seemingly has a spawn cooldown, but will still take your coins, scamming you.

got this after a bit:

___________________________________________

############################################################################################

ERROR in

action number 1

of Async Event: HTTP

for object oLootLockerInit:

Variable <unknown_object>.player(100354, -2147483648) not set before reading it.

at gml_Script_LootLockerCallback

############################################################################################

gml_Script_LootLockerCallback (line -1)

gml_Object_oLootLockerInit_Other_62

and i got it again on my second run. it has something to do with level 2. on my first run it errored mid level. this time it errored as soon as i entered the level.

all in all a fun game. has some problems, but its fun to play. 

oh also a little bug that works in the player favor is that fish at the top of the screen have a hard time hitting the lighthouse as they miss a lot.

i was warned about the difficulty. god damn is this game hard. the max wave i reached was 8. wave 10 is pretty much impossible.

first of all rng can screw you. on my first run i never got the light blue resource. that screwed me hard. on my second run i got good item rng, but it wasnt enough.

the problem is that upgrades cost so much and getting resources is hard. carrying more than one item makes you move at a snails pace. going far out makes you move at a snails pace, upgrading goes at a snails pace. starting at wave 4 you start being only able to make one trip. in that trip you can at best get enough resources for half an upgrade. i never got a maxed upgrade. heals also cost way too much and cant be afforded.

fixes would be: 

-increased loot from resource nodes

-increased capacity and increased speed while carrying resources

- decrease a lot of upgrade costs. especially the repair cost. 

-reduced wave effect/increase wave resistance effectiveness. it legit did nothing in my run. getting wave resistance 1 changed nothing. moving far out was still like moving through molasis. 

- increase lighthouse default damage and turn speed.

-better lighthouse accuracy. the lighthouse locks on to enemies, but its jank. you need to constantly adjust the beam so it stays on the enemy. the little creatures are near impossible to hit because they outrun your turn speed and are incredibly hard to get the game to lock on to. maybe just remove the lock on and let the beam do contact damage. that would solve the jank and would increase damage potential.

so yeah. a fun idea, but holy is it unbalanced. the stress of trying to get half an upgrade to the lighthouse at a snails pace while the wave is close to spawning is something i dont wish to experience again.

pretty decent game. 

a fun game, but it has some problems.

there is no damage indicator. 

bomb is a grief and nearly unwinnable with.

shield enemies are so powerful.

i hate having to pick up a new weapon and character. 

how does hp not regen. like how?? hp saves after every room but the one that lets you regen hp. how does that happen?

i got a run to 28 rooms cleared, but i was mostly picking the lowest level room available and non combat rooms to stay alive. the game could be great, but its issues prevent that, the biggest being no hp regen.

pretty fun, but hectic. the out of control was so random with its effects and started happening randomly even without the dog touching me.

after a while i got this:

___________________________________________

############################################################################################

FATAL ERROR in

action number 1

of  Step EventoPeeEnemy

for object oExplosion:

bool argument is unset

############################################################################################

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

called from - gml_Object_oExplosion_Collision_5df999ed_24b9_46a9_81de_2daa367863b1 (line 12)

dont know what happened there, but eh. i dont think i was gonna lose anytime soon so thats a good way to end the game.

the game is insanely fun. there is so much to this game and solves for levels can be very creative. all new mechanics are intuitive and add some flavor to the many levels, never letting it get stale.

also pierce is a great upgrade, but i only got it once super late on. also piercing through rocks should be a thing. then you can really start melting rooms.

this was super fun. i played three loops as i was addicted.

at the beginning the game is pretty hard, but once you get auto aim its over. you start rampaging. with firerate, speed, shields, drones and more bullets you start tearing through rooms. in the second loop, i could tear through a room in under a second with only the terrain slowing me down. the powertrip is insane. but thats it then. there isnt anything else to do after that.

interesting life...

bit strange that you dont actually eat all demons. the game ends before that.

i dont really know what that is. i have got the game running through steam now though. 

also if it helps the zip file for some reason shows as empty and extraction always gives the error that the zip file is invalid.

sure i can join your discord server. i am following you as i see the potential in these games and hope to see more from you. and i am happy to be a tester. the link just doesnt seem to work. or maybe im doing something wrong, idk.

very jank, but very fun

but man is the boss fight super hard. you essentially need good rng and lots of attempts to get it done.

very funny. the game is just pretty much impossible. movement is jank and the wizard is a nearly impossible section. i almost got through, but its just so hard. then the game kinda bugged out with the fireballs.

this game is super hard. like wayy too hard.

at max strength you are so weak. the damage is so little, the speed is still slow as a snail and the switch speed is still too slow to use to react to attacks. 

the enemies also get crazy. the homing sword throwers dont count as part of the wave and so another wave will spawn while they are still alive. they also cant be parried into themselves and so parrying is only effective for defence. they attack so quickly however that reacting to an attack is impossible. you have to hold block and hope for an opening, as you dont have the time to react block, once you go into attack form.

the circle casters are a bit more fair, but still cant be damaged by parrying their attacks and are hectic to dodge/block mid wave.

ghosts serve as an effective anticamp, but they are a bit too effective. rangers try to stay away from you. they are almost always killed in anticamp range and so will spawn ghosts even when you arent camping. ghosts can not be killed, get targeted and so make targeting other enemies harder and they stay between rounds. they make the game way harder, even when you arent camping, which is already hard.

also what is that weird bar under health? it looks like a difficulty bar, but it doesnt act like one.

all in all a fun game. the upgrades just stop too soon. a range upgrade would also be nice and instant switching is a must to be able to survive the homing swords and circle swords. the enemies are just overtuned and the player is undertuned. you cant make it far.

game jam version: 

this was lots of fun. having to look at all rooms, building up items in the sanctuary to slowly solve the puzzles was a lot of fun. 

something that had confused me for a bit was the anchor. it kinda bugged out after resetting in the sanctuary and kept a permanent anchor point there. but that was only visually the case and practically the game treated it as if you hadnt placed the anchor yet. once i figured that out it was smooth sailing.

the level editor is a neat addition, but it doesnt seem to work. you can build levels, but if you try to play them the game wont let you.

post jam version:

the reworked puzzles were definitely an upgrade. they were a lot more fun and the combination puzzles were a lot more complicated. statues showing the intended items was nice, but it was also fun to then use unintended combinations to beat the puzzles instead.

also i completely cheesed the switch gizmo level with it and the gauntlet to go through the bottom path.  it also worked for the orb after that is supposed to use switch gizmo and anchor. i think thats really cool. by thinking a bit i got an easier solve that was cool to pull off.

when i saw the giant pond while looking for the final crystal i thought "surely not", but it was all i though i could do. now i thought i had to get all the boxes out of every puzzle to make a path through, but the i realized: the sanctuary isnt affected by resets. that allows you to dupe crates, making it much easier than finding 23 crates. i dont even know if it would be possible without abusing the sanctuary.  you can also dupe the artifacts. also if you spam click to equip an artifact the game says you unequip it, but you dont.

now i got to the end of the pond, but what is this? this isnt the intended way and doesnt lead to anywhere?  ohh yeah, if i had bothered to check the top right room, i would have found the last orb. i still think having an opening to make it look like there is a room beyond the pond was an intentional trap to make me waste my time. but yeah that makes a lot more sense than having to dupe boxes to cross a pond and was way easier.

also the level editor now works. its still hard to understand, but the dev commentary does do a good job of explaining it.

all in all a great game. it was so much fun to use the artifacts, to play around with their abilities and to figure out the puzzles.  using the hook again was a lot of fun. its great to see it make a return. the level editor is also a nice touch. you made puzzles for at most two artifacts. due to the gauntlets ability to carry artifacts, one could in theory make puzzles for up to four artifacts. now my brain is too small to make something like that, but its nice that you give us the capability to do so.  

i see you have released a new game, flock around, one that has actually gotten somewhat popular with me getting recommended playthroughs of it with thousands of views. now i would love to play it, but,     uhhh,    you seee,

i..   i..,  ahh, i hate birds.

yeah. thats it. i hate birds.

unfortunately my hatred of birds prevents me from playing a game centered around birds. it has nothing to do with the game being intended to be played with friends. that wouldnt be an issue for me, obviously.  maybe in a few years i may have overcome my visceral hatred for birds and can check it out.

hmm for some reason i cant extract the zip file. it always gives me an error.

pretty fun, but short game. some of the puzzles were a bit tricky, but all in all it wasnt too hard. but the gimick is fun and works well.

for some reason though z to wait doesnt work, but y to wait does? had me a bit confused at first. but other than that it was smooth sailing.

really fun game. the set colors can really screw you over though. especially with radar not working across levels. multiple times i had to guess the least probable mine position as i got screwed over by the color.

also the game can be allergic to opening up. i once made 5 moves and it never revealed more than 1 square. no shocker that i hit a mine, i had no information.

radar showing marked tiles as mines is such a grief. that just hinders their use. like thank you for marking the tile i knew to be a mine as a mine. sure wouldnt have needed the help elsewhere.

pretty hard, but i beat it. the dialogue is so funny and the ending is too. if i had died on level 9, and i was close to, i would have been so mad though. it was so stressful having to gamble on tiles as the game did not give you enough information in the later levels and was dense in mines. 

this was such a fun game. short, but fun.

there is something i found though. level 2 is so skipable. you can instantly grab the weight at the top left and skip the right section, skipping word storage. fun fact, you dont get word storage again. its not needed and not that great of an ability so i could beat the game easily without, but its still funny that it can be skipped.

you can also skip the left section of the level by going right and jumping up to the end off of a crate. this is also faster than skipping the right section.

also if you place a crate on yourself you get stuck in it.

the narrator is such a funny touch and makes for a good story. im just a bit confused. hes constantly hassling us to go faster, but also doesnt want us to reach the end? kinda sending mixed signals.

the demo:

the tutorial was great, it taught me all the basics, except for energy. the emergency generator also isnt explained and a bit confusing, but requires a,d mashing to use. funny that its a hamster wheel. Its also a pretty good idea.Although crafting the hull was a bit confusing, but i got through the tutorial pretty well with a good understanding of the game.

now i like some changes that were made and i dont like others:

- upgrades are great. base storage however has now been nerfed into the ground. Starting off with one slot that can hold one item is so painful. The best I got was four slots with a capacity of one. yeah they can be different items, but i honestly think one unlimited slot was better. i was hoping this game would have improvements for storage, but it looks like its just a downgrade in that regard. Now don’t get me wrong, upgradable cargo capacity isn’t a bad idea and one that I would welcome, if it wasn’t this bad. In my opinion a rust cargo should have 3 slots with a capacity of 2. An aluminum hull should have 5/5 capacity and the next upgrade 10/25. That would make it a lot better.

- also the going up and down no longer being tied to the wheel is a sad thing. the wheel was so unique and a fun way to control the submarine. why this was changed i dont know. the wheel added so much character and was fun to use. w,s works fine, but isnt as cool and fun as using the wheel.

- the in game index and transmutation log is great. i had made notes for myself for the jam version and now i dont have to. A bit annoying is that everything in the book is marked as new. Like whats the point? If its all marked as new then I cant find new discoveries any better. Also the books sorting is a bit strange. It sorts from oldest discovery to newest. Now for transmutation I have no problem there. For the compendium I very much have a problem with that. Sorting that alphabetically makes way more sense. Transmutation recipes you mostly receive in progression order. Compendium entries on the other hand are all over the place as they are discovered more chaotically. An alphabetical order makes more sense for them in my opinion.

- v to toggle the mission page is also a godsend. 

- I also like the flashlight for night time and the depths. its pretty cool and helps keep the game visible. otherwise i would complain about the day night cycle. It does have one problem though. Your flashlight only reaches to your cursor. It isn’t always at max length. This just inhibits vision and doesn’t really do much else. Yeah it looks kinda cool, but its such a nuisance during gameplay. When mining you need to first scout out ore and then remember where it was and then mine it blindly as the flashlight will retract to the point that you cant see the ore that you are mining.

- Also holy the scanning sound is torture. It sounds like a drill drilling into your skull. I can not hold down scan for more than a few seconds and rarely used it because of this.

- Oxygen on the other hand is a system I grew to despise. Oxygen runs out so quickly. It cuts all exploration short. And there isn’t even a way to make the situation better. During my playthrough I got one reusable oxygen tank that took up 25% of my inventory for the entire playthrough and still didn’t allow me to go far without running out of oxygen. Now I don’t suggest getting rid of oxygen, I suggest upgrades to capacity and efficiency. Capacity upgrades could even be tied to hull upgrades. Either way, more capacity and efficiency would allow for longer and deeper exploration. Also the alarm sound is so annoying. A notification for low oxygen is ok, but it being an alarm is not great. I probably heard that alarm 30 times in my playthrough and it was driving me insane. You want to explore a little further? ALARM. You are transutating items? ALARM. You get the idea. All the time im getting an alarm, also because oxygen runs out so quickly. Energy does it better, as it just gives a little notification when low. That’s enough. I always understand when I hear it, that im low on energy. It doesn’t need an alarm to tell me that. Why does oxygen have to be different?

- The aggressive fish is annoying. The fish is unfun as there is no counter, at least not early game and they are super persistent and are really random on if they want to target you or not. Yeah I ran my engine on slow and so could barely outrun them, but I did that due to energy not being solved yet with the coal reactor, in a super inconvenient location, and the emergency generator being my only reliable regen methods. So I was conserving energy early game to hopefully get to a reliable energy source, like the coal generator that I could presumably put in a better location. In contrast the plant is funny and fair as it can be dealt with easily. It’s a better early game enemy. Now looking at the trailer there are a few tougher enemies. Do we ever get an attack option or what are we supposed to do about them? I petition for a torpedo upgrade that allows you to shoot a torpedo every 10 seconds. Give us a way to fight back.

- Also the reputation sysem im split on. Dying isn’t common and I only died once so far as tabing apparently doesn’t pause the game and is a terrible idea to do in combat. Also hits interrupt switching making it impossible to switch back if two fish are attacking you. That I don’t really understand as you would think the emergency engine mode should be able to be turned on in an emergency, but you cant. You need to change it proactively and cant use it reactively. Now the thing I don’t like is losing upgrades on death. Do you know how long it takes to make upgrades and how many resources it takes? Even with the full recipe, I used up most of my resources and a solid 10 minutes to make an aluminum hull. And you want me to do that again?? Also what happens at 0 reputation? Do you lose, or is it just the lowest it can go? Also losing upgrades can just softlock you. Like I don’t think I have enough resources for more than 2 more aluminum hulls above 300m. if I lose those, what then? I lose potentially hours of progress. Now this wouldn’t be terrible if there was a way to regain reputation. There seemingly isn’t. a delivery mission to regain reputation like 20 aluminum would be great. Death would still be punishing, but you could take some time to avoid its most severe consequences.

- Also what is the cargo receptical habitat1? It takes items, but how do I get them out? Cargo implies storage. It isn’t an item deleter, is it?

- Also a change I don’t like are to the laser and absorber. The laser now need line of sight to mine, which makes sense logically, but makes mining clunky in practice. Function over logic. Its better without needing line of sight. Blocks being undiscovered is pretty much the better solution. You don’t need both. Just don’t allow mining undiscovered blocks and remove line of sight from the laser and it will be great. The absorber has also been changed for the worse. It is now slow. It is a lot more accurate now and can get ores from below 20 others precisely, but it being slow makes it so bad. Due to the floaty movement you are rarely still, so you need to be accurate in clicking the tiny ore to pick it up. the best thing to do is to click multiple times to make sure you get it, but if you click it and click again you drop the ore. It just slows down the game even more. The new look is cool and there is now a towing function, but it should be an instant pickup as to be a lot more practical. I shouldn’t need an aim trainer to pick up ores, I should be able to spam click to get them.

- Also a manual save would be great. This is a pretty long game. There is no way to mute it and the game doesn’t pause when minimized or stop playing the ambient sounds. So if I want to do something else I need to close the game. But to do that I need to wait for the game to automatically save. Its just another inconvenience and the waiting around for an auto save just adds to the time you aren’t progressing in the game.

not even 1 minute out of the tutorial i managed to softlock myself. i managed to jump the submarine onto the pier and then lost all mobility. ngl i kinda did it as the people look like batteries and i didnt know how to fill my charge. so im gonna blame you for me beaching myself. Its not me failing to consider that submarines cant really move on land. so here i sit, at -8 meters contemplating what to do. and i decided to let the power run out. turns out that just affects visibility, nothing else. maybe it stops movement, i couldnt tell. so i tried to reset. there is also no r to reset, so i tried closing the game. now unfortunately the game had saved while i was on the pier and so i always loaded in stuck on the pier. now i was really i trouble. i tried to delete the game and re download it to clear my save file as there is zero softlock prevention. That also didn’t even work. Even the redownloaded files had my softlocked savefile on them. So I had to delete my save file, which isn’t a big loss as I hadn’t done anything outside of the tutorial, but should not be the only solution to a softlock.

Also I again managed to softlock myself later on because the doors in this game can easily softlock you if you are not careful, which I wasn’t. now I closed the game before it saved and it loaded a previous save, but I lost some progress and relying on autosaves without manual saves isn’t great. This game needs softlock prevention. It is a long game and it is so easy to get softlocked. Right now you either lose a few minutes of progress, or if you get unlucky with the autosave have to delete the save file. This cant be the only solutions. My suggestion would be an r to reset to base, at the cost of dropping all items in the storage and without regenerating stats. This would prevent an unintended advantage while not having us risk the save file every time we want to get through a door.

Also a frequent issue I encountered due to the games item loading system is items falling through the ground. Now they wouldn’t fall through the world, but would phase through undiscovered blocks, only coming to rest on a discovered block and clipping into them. Now this isn’t the worst issue as storage containers allow you to keep valuables safe (I think. Never seen it get clipped but it may be possible.) but it has such limited storage that I found myself leaving valuables on the ground. Those clipping away would be pain. It hasn’t happened to me yet as clipping is like a 1% chance, but there shouldn’t be a chance for my valuables to disappear. Especially since I dug out most of the surface, if my valuables clip, they clip under the infinitum and are lost for probably forever.

Also progression has me confused. Its clear that you need to make an aluminum hull. Now I have scowered all places to 300 meters, and even a bit deeper than the rust hull allows and I still cant make one. I just haven’t found out how to make a gold circuit for the aluminum deck and only have a single piece of gold ore anyways, which I also got from below 300m. in fact pretty much every blueprint to get me to the aluminum deck has been below 300m. like even getting to the coal generator takes you below 300m. it feels like you should quickly be in an aluminum hull as everything seems to be below 300m, but actually getting an aluminum hull seems pretty hard. Eventually I found all the recipes: gold ore+ aluminum plate= gold circuit. Gold circuit+ aluminum casing xl= aluminum deck. Its also very clear that I need to make the gold laser, as I have seemingly mined all minerals that I can. Getting the gold circuit has also opened that up. Gold circuit+zink= galvanized circuit. Galvanized circuit+ aluminum casing=gold laser housing. Gold laser housing+ purified gold=gold laser. I just cant purify gold yet.

The game itself also just leaves you. You don’t get much information and aren’t told to get anything. There is no send feature and mission control doesn’t want anything from you, nor wishes to give you any instructions. I spent most of the time bumbling around, due to oxygen and energy limiting how far and long I could be away from home base for. 4 inventory slots also cut most expeditions short. There is so little to do above 300m, but getting to below 300m takes a while and needs some preparation to get done. I do not like this. Progress is so slow as you are hampered by lacking resources and progression. A big factor of this is a lack of transmutations to get other ores and the ore scarcity. You have so little resources to work with, so little to do with those resources and getting more takes minutes of setup for a minute long exploration session. There is a distinct lack of fun in this gameplay. Im only having fun while exploring, but I don’t get to explore much. And each exploration only gets me a little bit closer to progressing. I have been playing for well over 5 hours and just now got an aluminum hull, only got 1 expedition down to 700m and got all but the bismuth to make a gold laser, the first laser upgrade. I have been playing for over 5 hours and I am just now getting my first upgrades. Yeah im not playing very efficient or fast, but still, im progressing at a snails pace. After about 7 hours I finally got the gold laser after getting my bismuth behind the monsters back. This opens up a lot of possibilities, but there is one problem: I don’t have a goal. I don’t know what im supposed to do. For the last 7 hours I have been working towards the hull and laser upgrades. Now I have nothing. Its very strange. I was expecting a hull or cargo blueprint to give me something to work towards, but I haven’t found any yet. I was able to mine iron, steel and diamond now, but there wasn’t really anything to do with them. I made carbonite, but that’s about it. And nothing had a use. Maybe something did, but I was never told that. So I am sending it all on one final expedition. On the right side there is a massive, deep ocean that stretches far till it reaches a wall of infinitum and marble and other ores. In the depths however is a big serpent fish. It laughs like the big monster fish. To have a chance of escaping it I need to be on emergency engine mode. That mode however chuggs battery and I cant switch while being chased or I die. So I took a coal generator over and a battery to send one final mission to see if I can find anything to do. I mean I found an obsidian cave in the other depths, but I cant mine obsidian yet. There is probably a drill upgrade to make, but I have literally no direction on how to make it right now. So here goes nothing. IT DID NOT GO WELL. first of all I quickly got to 900m and it still keep going down. So I decided to continue right at 900m. now fun fact, I thought there was 1 serpent, I encountered THREE before I died. Is this like the deadzone of subnautica? Am I not supposed to go there? I am left with questions, but more than that, I have no idea what to do now. I either need to test transmutations for an hour to maybe find an upgrade, or I leave it here. And im leaving it here. I haven’t been given anything to go for, so im not going for anything. That’s kinda disappointing. I know it’s a demo and not a finished game, but its still kinda sad to end, because I cant figure out what to do, or if there is even anything left to do. mission control should be used more to give us hints and directions. it shouldnt stop telling you anything after 10 minutes of gameplay.

So. All in all I had fun. Exploration was nice and the music in the depths send shivers down my spine. Exploration was a lot of fun. Transmutation too. The game just has so many issues that compound to making 80% of the game unfun. Now pretty much all of them can be addressed to make the game better. It has been a while, but if you plan on continuing development, I would love to see the game evolve into something better. Especially with how fun it can be. Like the jam version was a lot of fun, but it was very repetitive and without progression or exploration. This version expands the game in those areas, which is great. It just doesn’t do that good of a job in implementing those changes well. But it has great potential. My list of complaints may be long, but its mostly issues that can be resolved quickly(I think).

game jam version:

the tutorial is good, but lacking. it tells you your tools, but not the input required to use them. mining and picking up with the mouse is quite intuitive. dropping and shipping however isnt. the game makes it sound like hotkeys are involved, not that hovering over the ore is involved.

the ore counter and ore text are nearly illegible due to the low resolution of the text.

volcanium+carbonite= diamond is such an evil thing.

me releasing 7 volcanium on 7 obsidian wondering why i got 3 carbonite, 2 diamonds and 2 obsidian and not 7 carbonite. the pain that is transmutation with one slot and only a release all option. 

and then i did it a second time as transmutation of this kind is pain. it is impossible to transmute in a controlled environment due to the single slot storage.

i ended up making small storage compartments at the bottom of the map so this incident wouldnt repeat. that took a lot of time. it also meant i couldnt mine anywhere and let ore drop as that risked compromising the storages below. it also made me move around less as i wanted to stay near my storages.

the mission notes are nice, but block off a major portion of the screen. you can interact through it and it goes transparent, but it only goes transparent of you dont hover over it. if you are trying to break a block that is behind it, your vision is completely blocked. making a toggle to collapse it would be great to open up the right side. i primarily used the left side due to this issue.

something i enjoyed was being given freedom, but also direction. i had found a lot of transmutations beforehand while documenting all resources at the beginning, but without that the recipes being given was nice. having to make hyperdiamonite on your own at the end was fun. because i had been paying attention i knew what would likely make it, that being zirconium+diamonite, and i was correct.

that ending was amazing. having to figure out the last resource was worthy of a final mission. then the connection being lost was a great touch. you always had a mission on the side. for once there was nothing. you could stay and play around or return to the surface.

all in all pretty good. a change i hope to see implemented in the demo  is the single slot being changed. if not giving us unlimited slots, three for easy transmutation would be great. also a drop 1 option would be great for controlled transmutation. also deposit boxes of some sort so i dont need to make storages out of the terrain to contain ores. having played the demo you did changed those, but in a monkeys paw kind of way.

pretty good game, though the controls are something to get used to. thank god you can use q,e as left and right. that makes it a lot easier. i found it on accident as it isnt listed in the controls, but that probably should be in there.

the game is very hard and unfair, as intended. luckily there is a bit of an exploit you can do to help yourself. you can bug the crane arm into the ground. this allows for repositioning from a safe angle. you can also bug the arms out to make a platform which you can use to easily lift up an object. honestly a lifesaver and is what made the game possible for me.

also im not sure if I x° L is the last level, but the game just kinda broke after completing it and put me back in the level without any buttons.

pretty fun game. its a cool concept for a platformer. the pillars are just a bit jank. i dont know what the intended way to get up them is, as there are 2 and its like a 50/50 which method works. you either get teleported to the top, or you get pushed out and can climb to the top. i dont know if both are intended or if one isnt intended. 

also why is it loaded through a website using a downloaded file? i have never seen something like that.

pretty good game, but also short. there are only like 4 levels and they arent that hard to do. id love to see more.

ty so much. got it working.

also the game randomly takes some screenshots, idk why.

i found em. and here is my fantastic first tower:

and this is what it looks like after zooming out for a solid 5 minutes:

a normal tower i made afterwards:

only then to unfortunately softlock myself:

also a cool tower i made:

as you can see, i had my fun. i even made some more towers than these, they just werent anything as special.

ayy i found it. and that line going down left is indeed at least 3x longer than the horizontal storage line, the game just sadly cant capture the full glory of my masterpiece. 

i like the game and love the story, but i am devastated that we dont know who wrote the note, what was in it and who quinn is.

i love the almost leaving and then being stopped. i did feel uncertain with only 4 options and felt like leaving was too soon. glad we got more info before.

lewis is my nr 1 suspect. he acts sooo nice, but if you pick him and someone else, suddenly he wants to have theories about who wrote the note. but that shouldnt be mentioned to his brother, marius. maybe because that would reveal that he wrote the note. when you take no one he also copies tinas message which is weird and so disingenuous. also when you take only him he is unsure of it. maybe because he isnt a friend at all and betrayed you. or because he doesnt seem to be very close with you and others in the friendsgroup other than marius. 

patrick is pretty arrogant and really wants to hammer home that he was right about quinn, but ultimately it seems like hes a close friend. his gift is seemingly his only racket which makes him look like a good friend as he gifts something of his and is left without a racket. he also despises manny and marius.

manny is a nice guy, but incensitive and cant read the room. he only thinks about his cheese and wants to go back to the good old times of arcades, wine and cheese, even though that isnt really an option as things can never go back to those times. also doesnt care about not being friends anymore. dislikes tom for lactose intolerance? thinks patrick is too intense

marius is so arrogant and angry. he was super irresponsible drinking wine that was meant as a gift to you and getting drunk. hes also shallow, his gift just being an expensive antique for the sole reason that it was expensive. he thinks the amount of money makes it a good gift. really doesnt like if you only choose lewis and not him. also the brother of lewis? and isnt mad when only he gets chosen and not lewis.

tina seems cool, but shes not very emotional, more focused on information than other things. also prioritizes work and herself over contact with you. is friends with others and can introduce you to them. a good friend, but not the closest of friends. she focuses on the facts and herself more, but she seems to be very genuine and speaks her mind. likes manny too. dislikes lewis. zodiac killer?

tom is a bit too close. like hes definitely a friend, but hes kinda obsessed. he doesnt know boundaries and cant read the room well. but more in a naive way than anything. also holy that man lives through references. i like him, but he may like jamie a bit too much. maybe even romantically. maybe even enough to try to sabotage the wedding? seems unlikely, but it could be.

honestly the only people i would consider taking are tina, tom and patrick. patrick seems like the best friend, but he still has flaws. maybe best to leave them all behind and start over. also what is this friendsgroup? they all hate someone in the group. the only people that like each other are tina and manny. the rest either dont say anything about someone or hate them. legit start over this isnt salvageable. 

also a small detail that may not be important. manny said that tom told him about the letters content and he thought the letter was true. but manny dislikes tom? kinda sus.

all in all a great game. the voice acting is fantastic and so is the writing everyone is super convincing and their own person. i really love the mystery and having to choose who to take, along with unique dialogue based on the choices. i just dislike that we dont get much on the wedding, quinn and the letter. like what was the letter? the wedding seems to have gone wrong with the ex showing up, but somehow this letter is super important? what was it about? i like mystery, but at least give me enough to make theories. i have no theory about the letter as i know pretty much nothing about it. also we know so little about quinn and the relationship between jamie and them. i want to know moree.

honestly i can not handle that alarm. the other disturbances are fine, the alarm is just too much. i did one day, but i cant take more of that.

also the notes are nice, it just isnt restricted, so u can have text across the entire bottom of the game on all 3 screens.

please help. i have softlocked the demo and the game autosaved. even when deleting the files and re downloading them it still puts me at my softlocked save file. i havent been able to find an anti softlock measure like r to reset. the game looks really cool, but i literally can not play it rn. is there  a way for me to delete my savefile?

no worries. this is a game from 8 years ago made for a game jam. im not expecting you to suddenly decide to go back and update it one day. i just like to comment on my experience.

i have been digging. still havent found hall, ideal spix, bottle rocket or ideal tho. :(

finding this and useless pong instead, games that i didnt even know existed, was pretty cool. it does make me wonder though. how much more are you hiding?

i have looked through most leads, but sadly itches poor profile page seemingly prevents me from finding anything more. this and the other hidden games i found by looking through commenters profiles from your other games and seeing where else they had commented.  sadly itch wont allow you to view all comments, only recent ones, so even if someone commented on those that has been erased from their profile. there also may just not be comments on those games, which would make finding them nearly impossible to find from what i know.

unfortunate, but eh i can live with it. as you said there is very little to those games so finding them will show me about as much as the videos about them.

also i had dismissed this game as completely unplayable as i couldnt place anything. after a bit of trial and error i got to place some structures down and finished? the game. pretty cool with a nice story. 

pretty fun game. the plants just feel a bit weak. the normal shooter only hits enemies once they have come down and has a massive blindspot due to the projectile shooting from its head down. turtles are the biggest threat as they will get into the blindspot. the anti air plant is almost better at shooting ground targets than the basic plant. it also has a massive blindspot. the ice plant is great for frontline defence, but gets easily overwhelmed. still a pretty good plant to put on the front. all these plants are weak. they have massive blindspots and arent even that effective when they can hit en enemy. they just soften them up. they cant kill them. you have to do that. this makes the game a bit stressfull. instead of eleviating pressure when the plants cant deal with a full wave alone, you are juggeling both sides with the plants barely helping.

a way to fix this would be to straighten the fire path of the normal plants to fix its blindspot. also upgradable plants. upgrading them to like level 3, at which point one plant could two shot an enemy would be great. then they could finally deal with enemies on their own instead of always needing help.

on the enemies side a swarm unit for air and ground could get introduced which would require the player to deal with so plants dont get overwhelmed. 

all in all a fun game. some problems, but it was a great time. the reset portal is just a bit weird. it is in an annoying spot and makes continuing past wave 8 annoying as you need to avoid standing in it, or else you get sent to the start screen. it is also useless, as the start screen bricks as your cursor unties from the games circle cursor making you unable to interact with the game forcing a reset of the page. also the game is in a weird fullscreen state where it takes up the full page, not allowing you to interact with anything on the page other than the game. esc cant get you out and neither can reloading the page. the only way to view the page again is to open it in another tab.

i had it. i had all the ingredients and was putting them in the pot, only to realize that i had boiled my onion not cooked. i had also used up my other onions...

now on an unrelated note why dont the plants like onions regrow? i just think it is a critical oversight to not have that. surely me wasting all 4 onions wasnt my fault, its your fault for not giving me more.

also why does something that looks like a water tile chop? is it like a cutting board? 

on my second run i somehow got "unknown" in my pot. this prevented me from putting water in it and forced a reset. it seems like if you put an item in the pot before putting water in, it puts unknown in the pot. this would explain why i cant put water in it. the pot seemingly needs water in it to contain items. you can however put items inside without water. so the game puts a unknown item in the pot. you can however not boil with unknown or take unknown out, making it a softlock. 

after making the ramen the water in the pot also turns into unknown, but you have already won by then so it doesnt matter.

all in all a good game. at first washing was tedious until i realized i could use the pot to get all items to the well in one go. then making all the ingredients was pretty satisfying. the ramen shining in a rainbow light was such a nice touch to showcase that you have indeed made the mighty ramen.

jank, but fun. though the game is about as long as the dialogue.

hloy moly is this game hard. the graphics make it look like a chill game, but i was decieved. the controls and levels themselves arent an issue, ist the void. you are constantly on a timer that reduces the area. level 1 was easy, as the void wasnt in affect.

level 2 was a lot harder. the play is: pull the right box to the center, grab the metal box, give it to the guy on the right. go left and hope the void hasnt consumed the battery yet. grab and deposit. get the box and deposit.

level 3 was wayy easier. just go left quickly, grab the metal box and go right, hoping you have enough time to grab the last item before the void consumes it.

level 4 was insane. the timing is nearly impossible. you have to: go top right perfectly, grab the battery and drop it in the middle. fly to the top left, hoping that the void hasnt consumed the box. drop it down, and move the second box closer to the middle. deposit one in the middle. quickly go to the bottom right and get the second battery. if you do that you have won and just need to carefully clean up the items that you will have dropped in the middle.

also there is a movement bug that doesnt help: while you have grabbed an item and are pressing up, you can not move in two directions. only one direction will work. this made every level even harder as moving with an item was made super jank because of this.

but honestly it was pretty fun. i am just astonished that level 2 and 4 were even possible. for level 4 i had to move near perfectly and i still grabbed the second box partially from the void.

the game is insanely hard. enemies move super quick, especially the small red ones and are incredibly hard to avoid. this isnt helped by the limited vision. you get extended vision in the direction that you are aiming at. now this is to put it bluntly not a smart choice. you are almost always moving away from where you are shooting. with this system you see less of where you are going and more of where you arent going. this gives no time to react to anything.  the best stratregy to stay alive is to wait for the full wave to spawn before clearing them out so you cant get jumped by something that only entered your screen for a single frame.

the best i got was wave 6.

also the screenshake from the rifle needs to be toned down. that is way too much, i cant see whats going on while using it.

the game would be fun and promises a lot of content with 100 waves, but that is impossible to reach. it took me like 3 tries to even get wave 1 done. how this insane difficulty wasnt caught is a mystery to me. just toning down enemy speed and increasing vision would go miles in making this game possible to play  to wave 100.