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Fathomless's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall | #1 | 4.295 | 4.295 |
| Use of the Limitation | #1 | 4.182 | 4.182 |
| Concept | #2 | 4.545 | 4.545 |
| Enjoyment | #3 | 3.909 | 3.909 |
| Presentation | #4 | 4.545 | 4.545 |
Ranked from 11 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Team members
Dave, snoodle, Rexotec, womp?
Software used
Godot
Use of the limitation
Your only resource is the electricity in a single power cell, which you have to recharge and power different things with.
Cookies eaten
2
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Comments
very polished concept and love the aesthetic! atmosphere had me very anxious
Very glad you like it (and that the atmosphere was effective :D), thank you so much for the kind words ❤️
Great visuals (I like that you keep the fire outside the dither), great and inmersive sound, and cool mechanics (miss tab and "up arrow" in that terminal tho). This feels so ambitious for a 72h jam, but it's perfectly executed. Congrats!
When sending the game to some fellow friends who didn’t participate in the jam, some of them mentioned the up arrow usage and realised it actually heightened the tension for them since it became more difficult, and maybe a little bit more punishing. I think depending on who you ask it could be a different opinion but yeah, definitely something I have to look into a bit more.
Thank you so much 🙏
One of the best jam games I´ve ever played. Had to restart like 6 times because getting stuck on walls and other bugs like that, but when the game works... man. It´s been a while since a game got me this anxious and inmersed at the same time.
SPOILERS AHEAD PLAY THE GAME BEFORE READING
((Next time put subtitles for the final dialogue please, for non-natives it´s kinda convoluted with the voice filters and It´s hard to give it full atTention when the fking generator is on fire again,)) Anyways loved the ending.
Also console mechanics brain go brrrr.
Thanks for the review, I definitely agree with the subtitles. We tried to re-render those voices like twice or three times just to improve clarity, unfortunately we didn’t have time for subs but it is what it is 😅
Very glad you like it, thank you so much 🙏❤️
This game is extremely underrated (I mean this in the literal rating number sense). The visuals are good and the game takes both the theme and the limitation very well. This is probably the best use of the limitation i've seen in this jam. Good luck with your game!
Thank you Mas it means so much to hear that ❤️❤️❤️
There's a lot of potential here, but I'm not sure how to best rate this game, I have some conflicting thoughts.
The art style is great and works well with the theme and concept of the game. Controls are intuitive, although crouching happens too abruptly for a non-action game and can feel a bit disorienting, and at least for the web version using ESC to exit isn't the best, since it unfocuses the mouse cursor every time.
The limitation is incorporated very nicely and is integral to the core gameplay loop. I do wish you could zoom in on the instructions the same way you look at screens, otherwise it can be hard to read.
It has tons of potential and the presentation delivers that Iron Lung-esque vibe, but my main issue is a lack of real direction. Do I just maintain the three stations until the timer counts down? Do I try to find a way into the area I see past the grates? Is it even accessible? And what is causing the damage I keep fixing? Is plugging the power cell into the socket in front of the gate sealing or opening it when the valve turns?
Leaving things vague does help engage the player's imagination and that's especially helpful in horror games, but I wish there was a clearer overall thread that ties together the moment-to-moment gameplay, so that I can be engaged in an overarching goal instead of putting out fires where I see them like when playing Overcooked with a younger sibling, and more visual feedback when losing would help me want to try again. It's a solid foundation, just needs to find the right balance between "vague and mysterious" and "clear and responsive".
Edit: Oh and subtitles for the ending sequence would be great too, I couldn't make out everything, but appreciate that you added some voice acting too.
Thank you so much for the detailed feedback, I’l try address everything.
In regards to the zooming, it is possible to zoom arbitrarily using RMB (right mouse button), in this case maybe providing a UI element that displays controls might make it easier for everyone to know what they can and can’t do in the game.
The crouching is definitely quite fast and can be a simple fix to the tweens that I use to move the camera up and down. Something worth considering is that an auto crouch had to be developed to fix a few of the player collision related issues we were having (such as jumping out of the engine room and fitting through the holes to each area). By slowing it down we could potentially have the camera clipping inside of the walls for a longer duration of time, one way to fix that is possibly to preemptively crouch before approaching those narrow spaces. It’s good to know regardless, thank you for pointing that out.
The continuity in the story and real direction is definitely in need of work, in all fairness 72 hours doesn’t provide a lot of affordance for that. We can definitely make a greater effort on that in the future but I think we made the right choice by focusing on creating a tight gameplay loop first.
My personal answers for some of your questions: The systems are maintained until the timer counts down to get “rescued”. The area past the gates is inaccessible but we wanted to fill this space in, maybe it gives the illusion that the area is accessible :( . It is implied that the “thing” on board is dealing the damage to the systems, which wears out the door’s ability to hold it back (but I can argue that it wouldn’t make sense for the engine room to break if the thing is at the door). Plugging the power cell in at the door winds the door closed, but I think adding something like a meter / bar in combination with the door would have helped to provide a more intuitive understanding of what happens.
I agree about the subtitles, definitely getting that in there in a polishing stage.
I’d fix these things but I’m only fixing game breaking bugs and not impacting gameplay, at least during the rating period of the jam. Very thankful for your review, I’m glad you gave our project so much feedback ❤️
The game looks very nice and harmonizes well with the sounds. Unfortunately for some reason when I fall down at the beginning into the tunnel the game just crashes, maybe I'm doing something wrong?
Oh strange, that’s definitely not intended behaviour. Is this on the web version?
Yea, on chrome without any settings on if it needed.
I’m really sorry to hear that and I have no idea why this is happening since I can’t replicate it on my end. For now, the download files for the builds would be the best option if you would like to play the game on your end.
Out of curiosity what system are you running the game on? Is it an old operating system, or CPU / GPU perhaps?
Really sorry about the inconvenience
Okay, I'll play the name on the build later. As for the characteristics, I do not think that they are the problem, although I will also ask a friend later to play the web version.
At the moment, this game has only 4 ratings, which is absolutely preposterous.
OH MY GOD THIS GAME IS SO GOOD
The artstyle is based. The GTFO command terminal is really unique and brings a lot of tension to the game. The power system has a lot of ins and outs you can take advantage of (pulling out the battery doesn't stop the scanning or issue fixing). I was literally on the edge of my seat the entire time wondering if my efforts were enough. And the ending really gets me wondering what was on the ship.
This game's aura is immaculate, which is why I want to give a few suggestions to make it as streamlined as possible for the players.
For one, the manual on the observatory wall was heavily obscured by the lighting. This was a little frustrating since I had to squint to make the text out.
Secondly, I know the game was meant to be played as a windows exe, but the browser port is full of bugs. Namely, I couldn't see what I was typing in the terminal (camera off positioned), which completely destroyed the game. I had to download the game to actually play it, which is a big handicap in game jams. My advice for this in later jams is to export your game for HTML5 as soon as possible and test it often using the Remote Debug option (top right corner of Godot window).
In fact, the web export issues are probably why your game isn't getting many ratings. Since it's essentially unplayable in browser, no one wants to play it, which is a bummer. This game is really good.
Those are the only problems I had. Otherwise, all of you are very experienced game developers.
w ultrakill reference btw
Thank you SO MUCH for the feedback ❤️❤️❤️
GTFO was a massive inspiration for me personally, very happy you picked up on that haha. I love the terminal system it has, and reading logs and doing uplinks was a big push for me to do a game that revolved around that. The rest of the team was inspired by games such as Lethal Company, White Knuckle, Iron Lung, The Forever Winter, Half Life, Still There, Space Haven, as well as old school Apple terminals and Iris valves from Alien.
Very glad you enjoy the atmosphere as well :D
Thanks for letting me know about that web build camera bug, that has been patched now, and I’ve updated the description with a message about the update. The team and I will definitely keep that in mind for future jams, since that’s a little bit embarrassing haha. It’s crazy because we started developing the game with Godot’s “Compatibility” mode, totally expecting that it would be designed to work well on web, but oh well 😅
I think snoodle was responsible for the ultrakill reference 🔥 (update: we don’t know how the ultrakill reference got in there nevermind 😭)
Thank you so much!
incredible atmosphere honestly, i love the feel of this game truly, the art style is amazing and it feels great to play
Thank you so much ❤️ glad you liked it!
:)))
truly the most incredible, scary, and thrilling experience. I sat for hours contemplating my life and its meaning after I completed a single playthrough. Then I had gamer rage when I was too thick to fit through the access hatch.
Such an invigorating review, thank you for these wonderful insights