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A jam submission

Diving DeeperView game page

Submitted by EmilijaSvirsk — 6 hours, 41 minutes before the deadline
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Diving Deeper's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Game Design#1183.5003.500
Graphics#1823.5913.591
Fun#1953.2733.273
Overall#2413.2203.220
Innovation#2543.0003.000
Audio#3492.8642.864
Theme#4083.0913.091

Ranked from 22 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How does your game fit the theme?
You dive deeper into the crime case as a detective. The more you discover, the more it seems you are sinking below.

Did you write all the code and made all the assets from scratch?
Code and art are mine. Audio and fonts are open source.

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

It was a great experience, I wish it was longer. The art is amazing , great characters, despite playing it twice I dont know who is the murderer, but I have my suspicions.

The story is well written, I'll love to see this expanded or even what other stories you'll create in the future.

Submitted(+1)

This is a fantastic visual novel! The story was genuinely interesting, and I found myself wishing it could have been longer. Despite its minimalistic approach, the game utilized its limited tools effectively, showcasing the thought put into its creation. The artwork is simply amazing :)

Developer

Thank you! ^^ Since it was my first time drawing in pixelated artstyle, I'm very happy that other people liked it.

Submitted(+1)

What a well written story! 📖

Things I enjoyed ✔️

  1. Character work is well done, the art, the personalities, it was great!
  2. I love the "Choose your own adventure" type of experience with asking questions.
  3. I actually really enjoyed the story! Great work on it!
  4. Also I like the little voice lines trickled in! Made for a better experience!
  5. Loved the music!

Things I would like to possibly see with your title. 🤷‍♂️

  1. Possibly having different endings for the last scene.
  2. (I know this is beyond hard, with the time constraint we had) but having some backgrounds to go with the scenes.

Overall 📓

This was a great game. One of the best narrative experiences I have played! You should be very proud of this title! Great work! I would love to replay this game, if you ever add anything too it, or if you make an experience similar to it, please message me! Because I would gladly play it!

Developer

Thank you for such a detailed review :D! There are actually different endings for the last scene (you can get 3 different endings and choose either bad or good version). Though, I agree, I would have liked to add backgrounds and maybe even detailed images for some scenes, but I'm just happy that the game is at least playable xd.

Submitted(+1)

Good game, interesting story and plot

Developer

Thank you! :D

Submitted(+1)

Hi, great entry! :)  Voted!

Developer

Thank you! :)

Submitted(+1)

What a great experience! It's not every day that you see a visual novel in the jam, so it was a good surprise. You also did a great job with the art. Congrats.

Developer

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it :)

Submitted(+1)

Interesting story here. I thought I found the killer, but it didn't seem like it at the end, so I was a little confused. I also never quite understood what the different colored hearts meant after certain dialog choices. I saw mostly red and blue, but one was yellow. Does that relate to the different endings somehow?

Developer

I admit that some endings were a bit too ambiguous. I had two endings planned almost from the start, but the third one was very hard to come up with and given the chance I would rewrite it... But anyway, some dialogue options will grant you favorability points, and the color of the heart indicates which character favored that choice. At the end you will get the ending of the character which favored you the most ^^

Submitted(+1)

Hey! What a nice plot twist you got me there, haha! I did not expect this to happen. Overall, it's a nice story. I can tell you firsthand that it isn't easy to write such a narrative. The graphics and music match so well with the ambiance of the game! Congrats on this epic submission!

Also, I would recommend you to export it as a web source. Sadly, more people will be hesitant to rate if they have to download the game.

Developer

Thank you for the comment! Since it was my first jam submission, I didn't think that the web sourced ones would be much more popular, and I never worked on WebGL :') But anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Submitted(+1)

Audio and graphics are cool. Player can easily fits to the game when playing. Story was lot more than I expected!  I am just curious about is there an ending that catch killer?

Developer

Technically there is :D But it's a bit ambiguous. There are three main endings, and each branches out to bad and good, depending on which character you got ;)

Submitted(+1)

i was actually pretty invested into the story by the second chapter not gonna lie. the writing is outstanding, especially for a game jam! although i think there couldve been some more art in the game, like (minor spoilers) what the dead body looked like, what the different locations looked like, etc. But I enjoyed my time with this, well done!

Developer

I absolutely agree! I wanted to draw different scenes, items and backgrounds, but since it was a one person project, I'm glad that at least the main characters came out nicely :) Thanks for the review!

Submitted(+1)

i really liked the idea of your game  i just thinked that the game could be like undertale from the logo of the heart and pixel art text but tbh the story looks amazing the game looks fine for me on this genre of games but idk adding a timer when the player need to respond on a question could be cool and can kae it realistic i like the game deserve 4 stars on game design

Developer

I'm personally not a fan of timed events, since it stresses me out xd But I had an idea to include a timed event in a case where the player needs to "take quick action" in the visual novel, for example to decide where to go in a pursuit, or to dodge something. Anyway, thanks for the review ^^

Submitted(+1)

Good art style and story. Nice game.

Developer

Thank you!

Submitted(+1)

I see VN, I put 5 star :)

Developer

Haha thank you! :D

Submitted(+1)

A really well-written experience. I also love the unique take on your game. Great job!

Developer

Thank you! ^^

Submitted(+1)

I'd like to play it soo bad! Unfortunately I don't have Windows :( I hope to find a way to do that!

Developer(+1)

Aw man :(, I was actually thinking of creating WebGl, so maybe there is hope :)

Submitted

I'm looking forward to it!

Developer(+1)

In the meantime, I've added mac and linux support! (I've tested the linux one, but I have no idea if the mac one works xd)

Submitted

Then I'm going to test it!

Submitted(+1)

A very interesting story! Didn't think that a visual novel would fit in the theme, however turns out it does! I think I got the worst ending and made everyone hate me but, I still enjoyed the story! Also loved the simplicity and the pixelish art on the characters. Great job!

Developer

I'm glad you enjoyed! ^^

Submitted(+1)

I'm a sucker for an indie visual novel. The character art was wonderful and the choices felt like they would build to something. I wish the story had gone a bit longer, as the ending felt pretty abrupt. I'm also not sure if the choices made a different in the end. Fun little experience though!

Developer

Thank you for playing and the comment! :D

My initial idea was to have choices in the game, which would be locked until certain information is obtained or an ending achieved. However, because of the time constrain, the choices you make only decide which ending you will get :P

Submitted(+1)

Cool game, I like this kind of detective storyes! The plot is very well written and the mood is super on point!

My only complain is that you have to replay from the begging a couple of time to understand the whole story.

Developer(+1)

I'm very happy you enjoyed the story ^^

I made this game with the idea that the player would replay it to get different endings and information. Would having a better saving system or skip button make the replays less annoying and repetitive?

Submitted(+1)

In my opinion, yes ^^

Both of the solution you mentioned could improve the game. Once I played a game with a similar concept that implemented a fast forward for previously read dialogues.