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Hahah yeah I do that too. I noticed you could do that during development but kept it in the game because I found it fun.

Hi fellow Shadertoy user. Thanks!

Do you have a Shadertoy profile? Mine is shadertoy.com/user/Shalexder

Thanks for liking the game!

Thank you!

Thank you for the feedback!

I see the point you're making and agree with it. It is not evident how to achieve it though. An idea I just had may be to have the lights of the submersible go out for a moment and make everything go completely dark. Then attract the player's attention on the radar and show that there is a mass approaching the submarine. When the player exits the radar view, the lights start up and make the swarm of fish visible, leading to an effect of wonder/suspense when seeing the mass approach in the radar and an effect of revelation when the attacking fish are first visible. Also I could change the intro to clearly show an approaching red mass rather than just a full red radar, I think it would be more effective in creating suspense, and there would be a parallel with when it actually happens to the player (the intro is supposed to depict the view of the first submersible that got lost).  That would be a bit of work though.

Thank you!

I'm glad the swarm attack had the expected effect, I wanted it to be an element of surprise (see my answer to Dender46 for more detail).

Yes I also feel like this type of environment could definitely work well with some ambient sounds, I'd like to try adding some for a post jam version.

The idea of a maze or system of underwater caves is interesting. There could be a mechanic where you have to dive through underwater tunnels that are too tight for the submarine to navigate, but you have to memorize the map with your radar before entering them so you don't get lost.

Thank you for appreciating my game !

The element of surprise with the fishes is what I was aiming for so I am glad it worked (I wanted to subvert expectations, as when a huge mass is mentioned people may think there is some sort of leviathan or megalodon but it was the fish all along. Also that explains why the intro says that the mass "vanished" as when the swarm disperses it is no longer detected by the radar).

Sound is definitely something lacking right now that I want to add.

There also is some more interesting content that could be added, maybe exploiting a bit more the diving mechanic.

Thanks! Balancing the difficulty is quite challenging. I feel like it shouldn't be too hard to beat the game after a few tries but it is true that everyone is different and may find the game more or less difficult. Also as KevEatsCheese said, the time between each try as you have to come back down is too long, so each loss is too punishing. If retrying was very fast (you restart instantly at the bottom), maybe the eventual difficulty would not mean so much because you can more easily try different approaches and learn how to beat the game.

Reloading the page is totally not the correct way to make the player restart the game haha but I was very tight with the time and coding a reset functionality (which should usually not be that long) was not in my priorities as I knew a reload could do the work and had to code the intro/end at the very end of the allotted time (I had to pull an all nighter to finish the game). I will probably update the game after the jam to fix that.

Thanks for the comment !

I see what you mean about the pacing. During development I thought about it and had the idea to add a save/checkpoint near the bottom of the map (a bit like how generally games auto save just before a boss fight so you don't have to redo all the walking/other tasks that led to it and can focus on developing a strategy to beat the boss). I unfortunately did not implement it but I think this is the right solution. Especially in the current state of my game I think it does not help that you have to reload the page and redo the "tutorial" at each try.

Audio also is something I would have liked to implement if I had the time because I feel it could really have helped with the ambience and complemented the visuals.

I think I'll try making a post jam version and those will be the first additions to the game. The next additions would maybe be some more content. I'm thinking about exploiting the "dive outside the submarine" mechanic more, maybe having to go through a tight tunnel and look for something in there, I think this could be great, with the pressure of having limited oxygen.

Thanks for the comment! I tried your game and left a comment

Fun game! I like the idea of reversing the concept of Crossy Road. Good job on the fun music and art. I liked the difficulty increase, with more and more holes as well as chickens, which meant more risk but also more reward so it gave a reason to retry and survive longer in order to reach a point where you can score a lot. One thing I noticed about the sprites is that the car and the holes are viewed from the top (the holes would be more like ellipses rather than perfect circles if not viewed directly from the top) but the chickens are viewed from the side. Drawing all of them from the same point of view could help the coherency of the game. The car was also a bit hard to maneuver because it kept moving laterally, and pressing left or right only reversed the direction of movement, I could not make it sit still on one part of the screen. This game reminded me of another game I tried for another game jam: https://alakajam.com/14th-alakajam/1279/path-of-the-shaman/#c9270 which is a very good example of this type of game I think.

I am using the language GLSL (with WebGL). If you're interested, I recommend this introduction to shader programming:

Yes exactly! The game is entirely rendered in one fragment shader. By the way I made a small video showing each step of the process of creating the environment and visuals in the shader: 

Thank you for the feedback!

For the combos, there is actually a reward for making combos greater than 10 (the 10 first points of the combo are doubled, and the rest are multiplied by 1.5). But the game doesn't communicate it to the player so it is difficult to notice it.

I am glad you like my games, I will try to to keep creating and exploring interesting mechanics in future projects!

I tried it and I was surprised you implemented all (or almost all) of the features of my game, great job! I did not expect my game to be remade by someone. Can you put in the description of your game that it is a replica of my game?

Thank you! I agree that it would be cool to explore a similar world with more variety and things to discover. You might want to check out the game "No Parachute" which was an inspiration for our game.

If you ever make this game let me know! 

Also don't hesitate to ask if you have any technical questions about how we made the game (it is actually relatively easy to make a "3d" game like that from scratch, as everything is flat)

The theme was "deeper and deeper"

I actually didn't code any behaviour for "forcing the player to dodge a bullet". It may accidentally push you up or down when it is going towards another platform or coming down to get you. As for the eyes, it is only looking at the player (I simply offset the pupils in the direction of the player)

Wow that is a really good score! I made the game and my pb is only something like 24 hahah I will try to improve it. I am also interested in knowing what scores the other players get. Also, thank you for playing, it is nice to know that some people are playing regularly

I did not, you can call him however you want :)

Hahah I see what you mean. Sometimes when you leave an enemy platform to come back on the AI board, the board leaves a bit to early, when you haven't reached it yet. I believe this could be solved with some tweaking of the values or a small change of the AI behavior

The AI is pretty simple. It has 2 behaviors : if you are falling, or below the board, the AI will try to go under the player to rescue it (it will target a point to the side of the player, then when it is close enough it will go under the player). Otherwise, it will target the enemy board (with a living enemy on it) which is the closest to the player, and will approach it and stay near it (it will go to a point to the side or above the enemy board). Allowing the player to hop on it, and come back on the board once the enemy defeated. When the enemy is defeated, and the player is on the AI board, it will target another enemy board and so on. Is my explanation clear? Feel free to ask any other question or precision

Thank you for the great feedback!! The movement and the board AI could definitely use some polishing and I will try to solve the points you mentioned if I get to work on a post jam version. The bullets trails is a great idea! I also thought they were a bit small, but making them bigger would make them harder to avoid, so a trail is a good idea to increase visibility without increasing difficulty.

Ok I see, thanks. One of the reason I chose arrow keys instead of WASD is because I have an "AZERTY" keyboard, so WASD corresponds to ZQSD on my keyboard, so it was easier to use the universal arrow keys rather than trying to make both WASD and ZQSD work.

Simple and fun game. I would have liked a way to measure how well I did after each game so I could try to improve my score (simply displaying how long I lasted would work). There could be some more balancing with the speed of the falling things (they sometimes go too fast) or from how far you can see them (maybe having a more vertical or taller game window).

Thank you for the feedback! What do you find problematic about the controls and how could they be changed to be better?

Nice game with a great concept! I agree with the other comments that the levels are a little too long/slow, and I would have liked my cards to remain in place when I reset a level. And for the last level I would have liked an indication that I could use the explosion in a different way.

Very interesting concept ! It really felt like teaching someone. I was proud when he first beat me, then I struggled to win, but really wanted to win again because of my pride as the teacher, even though the result didn't matter. Also I liked the art and the french voice lines (I am french too)