Delve Into the Deep

Overall★★★★★★★★★★4.00
Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.78
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.38
Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.93
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.85
Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.79
Humor★★★★★★★★★★3.29
Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.84
Coolness★★★★★★★★★★78%
Delve into the deep oceans and gather treasure. Trade that treasure with your old pal Santiago for equipment to help you delve further, faster. The world is procedurally generated (though not in any impressive fashion), so you can swim as far as you like in any direction.

HOWTO: Click and hold the mouse to guide your diver. Don't drown or be crushed by water pressure.

The connection to the theme is pretty obvious - Beneath The [ocean] Surface there lies hidden loot that a dedicated diver can use as he or she pleases. The game uses pretty weird screen dimensions to let you better feel the surface-breaching that's going on. Art. The long and short of it is that you're a diver and that your passion and profession is diving, preferably in water.

Game was made with LibGDX, sounds with Bfxr.

Tested on Windows, OS X and Ubuntu. You will have to mark the file as executable to run it on later versions of Ubuntu - you can do this by right-clicking the .jar file and going into its Properties. There should be an "executable" checkbox there.

Version 1.01 - Updated LibGDX from 0.9.8 to 1.0.1. Hopefully this fixes the startup crashes some have experienced. As a side effect, the source now needs Gradle in order to build.

Comments40

somethingsimilar
somethingsimilar28 Apr 2014, 12:22
Really well put-together little game! The audio and graphics worked brilliantly, and the game was very good at making me push my luck and try to stay down a *little* bit longer to find more treasure. I like it!
eugman30 Apr 2014, 00:08
Well designed game and very beautiful. It's a shame there weren't enemies or anything like that. I feel like it would do well with some additional risk.
archaeometrician
archaeometrician30 Apr 2014, 01:42
Cute game, I keep getting claimed by the deep :P Like something similar said, the audio and graphics are well done, give the game a nice atmosphere !
Boodog1 May 2014, 14:12
Good job! Nice audio and graphics!
Nichii
Nichii1 May 2014, 14:29
I love the theme of this game. It reminds me of the old Atari era XD. The graphics are well done. Though it would be nice if the screen was bigger XD
UnixXNova1 May 2014, 14:35
Awsome game i really like the music gets hard when you don't look at your oxygen
Cirrial
Cirrial1 May 2014, 14:55
Wow, I love the style going on in this entry. Graphics and sound are great and it feels pretty polished for what it is!
thaaks
thaaks4 May 2014, 14:32
Wonderful game! Being a fan of the old Durrell classic "Scuba Dive" for the ZX Spectrum this little gem brings back lots of fond memories for me :-) Thanks for that alone!
The controls are great, the combination of air and pressure are increasing the difficulty.
I would have loved a bit more cave like underwater scenery instead of "platforms" and maybe different treasure types (pearls, dublons, goblets, etc.). Also sharks, octopusses, sharp corals and other obstacles would have been nice ;-)
Well done and you just made my day with your game!
Joshua_Burr4 May 2014, 14:36
This failed to run for me on OSX.

JavaVM WARNING: JAWT_GetAWT must be called after loading a JVM
JavaVM WARNING: JAWT_GetAWT must be called after loading a JVM
JavaVM WARNING: JAWT_GetAWT must be called after loading a JVM
Exception in thread "LWJGL Application" com.badlogic.gdx.utils.GdxRuntimeException: com.badlogic.gdx.utils.GdxRuntimeException: Unable to create OpenGL display.
at com.badlogic.gdx.backends.lwjgl.LwjglApplication$1.run(LwjglApplication.java:113)
Caused by: com.badlogic.gdx.utils.GdxRuntimeException: Unable to create OpenGL display.
at com.badlogic.gdx.backends.lwjgl.LwjglGraphics.createDisplayPixelFormat(LwjglGraphics.java:212)
at com.badlogic.gdx.backends.lwjgl.LwjglGraphics.setupDisplay(LwjglGraphics.java:181)
at com.badlogic.gdx.backends.lwjgl.LwjglApplication.mainLoop(LwjglApplication.java:122)
at com.badlogic.gdx.backends.lwjgl.LwjglApplication$1.run(LwjglApplication.java:110)
Caused by: org.lwjgl.LWJGLException: Could not get the JAWT interface
at org.lwjgl.opengl.AWTSurfaceLock.lockAndInitHandle(Native Method)
at org.lwjgl.opengl.AWTSurfaceLock.access$100(AWTSurfaceLock.java:51)
at org.lwjgl.opengl.AWTSurfaceLock$1.run(AWTSurfaceLock.java:94)
at org.lwjgl.opengl.AWTSurfaceLock$1.run(AWTSurfaceLock.java:92)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at org.lwjgl.opengl.AWTSurfaceLock.privilegedLockAndInitHandle(AWTSurfaceLock.java:92)
at org.lwjgl.opengl.AWTSurfaceLock.lockAndGetHandle(AWTSurfaceLock.java:66)
at org.lwjgl.opengl.MacOSXCanvasPeerInfo.initHandle(MacOSXCanvasPeerInfo.java:57)
at org.lwjgl.opengl.MacOSXDisplayPeerInfo.doLockAndInitHandle(MacOSXDisplayPeerInfo.java:56)
at org.lwjgl.opengl.PeerInfo.lockAndGetHandle(PeerInfo.java:85)
at org.lwjgl.opengl.MacOSXContextImplementation.create(MacOSXContextImplementation.java:47)
at org.lwjgl.opengl.ContextGL.<init>(ContextGL.java:132)
at org.lwjgl.opengl.Display.create(Display.java:847)
at org.lwjgl.opengl.Display.create(Display.java:754)
at com.badlogic.gdx.backends.lwjgl.LwjglGraphics.createDisplayPixelFormat(LwjglGraphics.java:208)
... 3 more
frogcheese
frogcheeseauthor4 May 2014, 14:46
Hey Joshua. From looking at the log, I think your version of Java is probably incompatible with the version of the bundled LWJGL. Do you know what Java version you use?
czery4 May 2014, 15:11
Does not work on Ubuntu 14.04.
It is blocked for some reason.
I got a link to this page which may help you resolve the problem (if you are interested in doing so - it's probably not worth the time imo )
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Security/ExecutableBit

Good luck.
k.escoe4 May 2014, 15:27
the audio and graphics are wonderful! i really enjoyed playing this
frogcheese
frogcheeseauthor4 May 2014, 16:00
@czery .jar files aren't executable as standard in Ubuntu as a protection against malware. You can mark a .jar as executable by right-clicking on it, going into Properties and marking a checkbox. I don't know if there's anything I can do to make a .jar executable by default when downloaded onto Ubuntu, but I doubt it.
pvwradtke
pvwradtke4 May 2014, 16:26
Thanks there were no sharks or other enemies, I had a hard time to balance oxygen and pressure alone :). Nice work!
minibutmany4 May 2014, 16:36
This is a really excellent game! The upgrades system made a simple concept very addictive. The whole style is very appealing as well.
Ragzouken
Ragzouken4 May 2014, 16:43
One of my favourites so far! Loved everything about it, awesome graphics and music, very addictive gameplay, nice simple idea that works really well!
miwuc
miwuc4 May 2014, 16:45
Awesome game, really fun to play! I love how the music fades in as you dive. The graphics are very cute too and Santiago/Michael is a funny dude. Great job!
PaperBlurt
PaperBlurt4 May 2014, 18:08
Don't understand it but the mood really got to me.
It's something lonely about sinking to the bottom.
HybridMind
HybridMind4 May 2014, 18:35
I really enjoyed playing this a lot. Eventually committed suicide because there was nothing left to do. :) Used my advanced weight suit to kill myself. Definitely wish you had had time to expand it a bit to add further reason to go deeper / more things to see down deeper.
dector
dector4 May 2014, 19:03
Excellent entry! Like this.
badlydrawnrod4 May 2014, 21:28
I agree with @HybridMind about having more things to do, but on the whole this is an excellent entry. Give it more of an objective, port it to mobile (should be straightforward given that you're using the most excellent libgdx) and you could have a hit on your hands. Very nice job.
Marcellus5 May 2014, 16:09
Wow, that is a great game. music is very nice and graphics are really cute. Well done !
Make A Game
Make A Game5 May 2014, 18:30
Great! Liked the progression, would be great if you could improve on even more to do at bigger depths, more upgrades and more things to discover/avoid.
Very good all around :)
SlipperyPete6 May 2014, 07:28
Doesn't work for me, Error code is as follows

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:483)
at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.jarinjarloader.JarRsrcLoader.main(JarRsrcLoader.java:58)
Caused by: java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: Can't load library: /var/folders/jn/vbbyqht51z1gwgnnrwnxv8r40000gn/T/libgdxScott/3741154320/liblwjgl.dylib
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadLibrary(ClassLoader.java:1817)
at java.lang.Runtime.load0(Runtime.java:809)
at java.lang.System.load(System.java:1083)
at org.lwjgl.Sys$1.run(Sys.java:70)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at org.lwjgl.Sys.doLoadLibrary(Sys.java:66)
at org.lwjgl.Sys.loadLibrary(Sys.java:95)
at org.lwjgl.Sys.<clinit>(Sys.java:112)
at org.lwjgl.openal.AL.<clinit>(AL.java:59)
at com.badlogic.gdx.backends.openal.OpenALAudio.<init>(OpenALAudio.java:70)
at com.badlogic.gdx.backends.lwjgl.LwjglApplication.<init>(LwjglApplication.java:80)
at com.badlogic.gdx.backends.lwjgl.LwjglApplication.<init>(LwjglApplication.java:64)
at se.frog.beneaththesurface.Main.main(Main.java:15)
... 5 more

if you want I can check out what the 5 more are, it's easy enough, I saw the other comment about the java version, I have both 6 & 8 installed, so it shouldn't be an issue, & if it only works with 7 then you really need to fix that.
mons657
mons6576 May 2014, 19:28
Very nice game. I really like the shop UI. Its amazing to think you made this in 48 hours.
011011018 May 2014, 10:27
Nice game, very consistent! Everything works well together: the art, the music, the "dialogs"... Makes for a great mood that serves the gameplay well. Good job!
KevinWorkman
KevinWorkman9 May 2014, 17:18
It started as a casual hobby: I'd swim along the surface, admiring the glints of silver and gold that caught my eye from just below me. Almost like a daydream, something that I'd like to reach... someday. People have these kinds of dreams all the time; the kind that never quite turn into plans, but aren't just mere fantasies either. I could have gone my entire life just looking and thinking without actually doing anything. Most people do.

Eventually, I became determined to turn my dreams into reality. Maybe the key was letting go of the plans and schemes that occupy the human mind and just allowing the sea to claim me. Without really thinking about it, I dove below the surface. It felt as natural -and as clumsy- as a child taking her first steps. I probably made a few mistakes. Hell, I probably still do. But the point is, I did it. I reached down and grabbed the treasure that had been haunting my imagination, and I dragged it back to the surface.

But now what? That's when I met Santiago, a man with a past befitting a sailor: half mysterious, half embellishment, and pinch of downright insane thrown in. But Santiago was a good guy. We quickly hit it off, and he agreed to purchase any treasure I found. After that, Santiago followed me everywhere, almost like a shadow.. or maybe I was his shadow? I would look up to the daylight, and there he was. Greatest man I've ever known.

All of a sudden, what was once just a dream became my daily life. And I loved it. Forgive me the pun, but I dove right into the lifestyle. Diving for treasure and bringing it back to Santiago quickly became my life. My flesh, my blood, my being. My life. Down. Up. Down. Up. It was thrilling, it was an adventure, and it was everything I had dreamt of come true. Soon I was not just diving, but hurtling towards the abyss, collecting more gold in one trip than most men see in a lifetime. I was the best. I had the best gear. Nothing stopping us. We were rich, not just in treasure but in company, health, and aliveness.

But the tragedy of the human condition is that the thrill of the chase quickly becomes the burden of having. The girl who once longed for the 50s was now bored with the 2500s, the monotony of being unchallenged. Luckily Santiago was always down for a chat, which became as necessary as oxygen towards the end.

The day started out like any other: I put on my oxygen mask, my pressure suit, and my delving apparatus, just like I had done a million times. I had a few light-hearted words with Santiago, and I wished him well. &ldquo;Goodbye, Holly.&rdquo; He knew. But he also knew not to stop me. Maybe it was the look in my eyes. Maybe he was as finished as I was. I'll never know.

I dove, flying towards the murky depths like a rocket in reverse. Listening to the music of the ocean. Ignoring my oxygen and pressure warnings. Waiting to be claimed by the depths one last time.
Taffaz9 May 2014, 17:44
Awesome game, looking forward to digging through your code to try and get some tips.
frogcheese
frogcheeseauthor9 May 2014, 19:54
@KevinWorkman oh goodness, you almost brought a tear to my eye! That was absolutely amazing. Thank you - if comments had mood ratings you'd get five stars in a heartbeat. :)
copain
copain10 May 2014, 19:02
little repetitive but so good graphics!
JoshOS10 May 2014, 19:46
I really liked your game. Graphics are nice, music is relaxing. I like the fact that the volume increases as you get deeper. Good job.
Delca10 May 2014, 20:07
Music and graphics were both great, and the gameplay was really pleasant. Excellent game!
frogcheese
frogcheeseauthor11 May 2014, 17:17
Thank you so much everyone for your comments and ratings! I was using an outdated version of LibGDX for this game, but I've now updated it. This hopefully solves the crashing problems some of you have encountered. If not, leave a comment; I'm very busy on weekdays, but I'll try to get a look at it as quickly as I can!
XenosNS
XenosNS12 May 2014, 00:55
Love the art style and screen size. Single button controls also great.
ninjacharlie
ninjacharlie12 May 2014, 20:59
There were some really solid mechanics in this one. It would have been cool to maybe have a gun to shoot at sharks, or some other extra mechanic like that, but I'm glad there was still some progression. Good job :)
SnoringFrog
SnoringFrog14 May 2014, 05:06
Lovely game! The odd window sizing really fit the game, as it made everything feel deeper. I also enjoyed how the music faded out as you approached the surface. Like others, I eventually committed suicide when there were no upgrades left for me to buy. I bought my final item--new ballast--gave it one test dive to see how it worked, returned to the surface, and then took a dive I knew I would never return from. I skirted along the limits of the pressure my adamantium suit could withstand, then, eventually, went down anyways to be forever claimed by the depths.
Maxom18 May 2014, 16:34
Really nice mood and gameplay is also very interesting!
Blokatt
Blokatt19 May 2014, 12:01
Very well-made game! I liked every aspect of it and enjoyed playing it. :)
minibutmany20 May 2014, 23:23
Congratulations on the high rating!
frogcheese
frogcheeseauthor25 May 2014, 11:37
Wow, 39th place? That's better than I even hoped for. :) Thanks a lot to everyone who played and rated Delve Into the Deep - I hope your games did well too, and that you stick around 'til august!

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