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A jam submission

Aqua VoidView game page

Submitted by Bicho Feo — 5 days, 8 minutes before the deadline
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Aqua Void's itch.io page

Are traps gay?

Yes

traps are gay

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Comments

-Weapons and gadgets are lumped together in inventory, so if we take a hypothetical monkey playing it, it'll have a hard time figuring out where to assign what in "Equipment" menu
-The fact that you can't move diagonally (going up while holding horizontal direction, for example) is downright criminal and makes the game control like molasses
-Lack of reference when swimming in open water (when you can't see edges of the map) makes it really hard to gauge how fast or slow you really are
-Making two of the worst weapons in the entire game the default ones (when torpedo and chainsaw have better damage output) is a very bold stylistic choice
-Having essentially two HP bars isn't the best idea, especially if running out of energy for your weapons guarantees a game over right away. At this point why not make the battery a soft timer for the mission that you can upgrade later. Will also probably help you with weapon balancing down the lime
-Solar panel gadget doesn't seem to really depend on how close you are to the surface (?), I expected you to regen more energy when swimming near the upper edge of the screen, at least
-Enemies are extremely fond of ganging up on the player and aren't deterred even when you kill one or more of them

-Backgrounds look better than in-game character and enemy models
-Player's ship looks cute, but also like it's a shark with a malignant tumour
-I don't understand what the hell is crab doing during its animation cycle of chasing the player
-Enemy sprites feel a bit more well-made than player ship, for some reason
-Why sharks with tits?

-I feel like both the theme music and the mission music are part of the same track, just split somewhere along 1/3rd
-Good tracks anyway
-Music keeps restarting in the menu if you go into "Equipment" and back, kinda annoying, could just make it 1 loop that keeps going regardless of sub-menus

I'm not exactly sure at what the gameplay is going to be. I thought more "Ecco the dolphin" with exploration, but apparently that's not the case and it's more of a mission-based uhhh...rpg?. Too early to judge the game loop since there's basically none


Here's the link to the doc, it has some bugs listed there as well as short footage of the gameplay

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Prwa_Y_pj4DKeLiee2HIJjmXHrlGm9VuiyllJpNz...

Submitted(+1)

The graphics and music are nice.

There are lots of bugs, like being able to select multiple items in the shop, or 5th crab not spawning.

I'm not enjoying this format. Controls are very floaty, weak weapons, useless equipment by default, little damage feedback and getting damaged by stunned/dying enemies. You should make an actual level to guide players how to play if there's an intended combat scenario. As it is there are better ways to do submarine combat.

Best part for me? Literally the bubbles, no kidding. Those tell me the location of the enemies outside of my vision range and that's the design direction which I would expect from submarine combat that would work in 2d.

Sometimes I failed the mission but I'm not sure how, I'm pretty sure time didn't run out.

Developer

Thanks for the feedback!

When you say being able to select multiple items in the shop do you mean having two of the same? cause that is intended actually, you can have 2 solar panel gadgets for never running out of battery.

I'm considering making a tutorial level but I ran out of time for this DD.

Sometimes I failed the mission but I'm not sure how, I'm pretty sure time didn't run out. Yeah sorry about that, there was no alert for low battery (which it was probably that). 0.1.2 has this added as well as the fixing the spawn crab issue but you've probably moved on to other games. Thanks again.

Submitted(+1)
When you say being able to select multiple items in the shop do you mean having two of the same?

No, I somehow selected it in such a way that descriptions of the items rendered at the same time.

Yeah sorry about that, there was no alert for low battery (which it was probably that)

Oh, so that's what it was. It's one of those things that could have an alarm and it might even add to the immersion.

Submitted

Nice music you say 8)?

Submitted

I will start with the positives: The concept for this game is great. I can already see myself swapping out loadouts to deal with different levels. The controls have the right amount of balance between challenging and fair. Don't let anyone tell you you made the game too hard. The submarine's weight and maneuverability is top tier. If the submarine was easy to control the game would feel like crap.

Graphical presentation is 10/10 - the color scheme; the contrast; the limited animations. It's easily the best aspect of the game at this stage.


The problems and bugs:

- setting the game to fullscreen misaligns the cursor making it halfway across the screen from where the game shows it to be.
- there was no way to quit a level or restart it. Maybe I just couldn't figure out which key it's set to.
- half of the keyboard navigation (the menu) uses arrow keys while some other parts (level select) use WASD.
- most of the time the crab level did not spawn enough crabs to be beatable. There were 2-3 crabs in the whole level.
- every time the sub went too deep the nautilus creatures started getting aggroed from all the way across the level in large groups. Not sure if intentional.
- there's definitely enough feedback for when you're taking damage but it still doesn't feel like the game is communicating it strongly enough. Losing health should be a big deal. Most of the time I didn't even notice until I was dead. Either the audiovisual feedback needs to be more punchy or the health display needs to be more visually eyecatching.


No idea what the plan is for this game but I would love to play some longer and more complex levels with these gameplay systems. For now it feels more like a sandbox which is nice but the game has potential to go a lot further.

Developer

Thanks for all the feedback, I really appreciate the bug report and the suggestions (the one on the damage feedback is really on point, will surely add that and a low battery alert asap.)

On this one "every time the sub went too deep the nautilus creatures started getting aggroed from all the way across the level in large groups. Not sure if intentional.", are you sure this was tied to the depth?  I have not coded it like that although I have seen they can sometimes swarm at the player randomly, they are aggroed when you attack them or if you go to close sometimes. 

I think part of the charm of the game is to navigate the underwater physics (hint: if you feel like you're bumping into enemies a lot, stunning them  with the stun gun makes them give you no damage upon collision.)