Evolve

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.90
Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.31
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.08
Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.86
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★4.75
Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.70
Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.11
Mood★★★★★★★★★★4.19
Coolness★★★★★★★★★★66%
Your ship has crash landed and is now at the bottom of the ocean. You must descend beneath the surface to retrieve it, but you will need to collect the scattered energy orbs to be able to deal with the dangers ahead.

Collect 3 orbs to evolve your character to each new level.

Movement: Arrow keys

Shockwave (once available): Spacebar

Created by Angie Pytlewski, Ryan Klak, Dave MacLean, Dave Tran and Tamas Szathmary for Ludum Dare in three days.

NOTE: If you encounter graphical glitches in the WEB version, please try the Windows EXE instead.

UPDATE (2014/05/02): Fixed difficulty tuning to make game beatable, enabled full screen mode.

If you are having trouble with the difficulty, check out this You Tube video showing a complete play through in less than 2 minutes:


screenshot

Comments52

Rick Hoppmann
Rick Hoppmann28 Apr 2014, 23:58
The game looks rather promising but I only have 1 to 2 FPS when running it in browser. My computer has enough power to play most of the modern titles on high, though.
zkenshin
zkenshin29 Apr 2014, 02:19
Gorgeous entry. Liked the use of the evolving mechanic as well. :)
BumbleBirds
BumbleBirds29 Apr 2014, 03:23
Seems like the website is down at the moment, a shame! this looked promising
BuriTeam
BuriTeam29 Apr 2014, 03:23
Hi! I'm not being able to access the links...
Cambrian_Man29 Apr 2014, 03:25
Gorgeous graphics, moody music. However, I got frustrated after a while. The problem I had was that you have so much momentum that whenever I thought I was making progress, I'd fling myself into an enemy that was just offscreen before I had more time to react. Aquaria is one of my favorite games ever and this looks great, just wish I could finish it.
Lissar
Lissar29 Apr 2014, 03:25
Gorgeous game! Controlled smoothly as well. I'd love to see it as a full title.
Marjie62
Marjie6229 Apr 2014, 03:30
Beautiful! Really well polished. I had a lot of fun playing it too. My only complaint is that death was sudden and it was frustrating to start completely over. But you're not expected to have save files for something like this :)
tchem
tchem29 Apr 2014, 03:32
Very interesting proposes,,, the graphics and atmospher are awesome,,, nice work all.
VDOgamez29 Apr 2014, 03:35
This game is beautiful. I really like some of the touches that went into the effects, like the water surface ripples. It's also extremely unforgiving, even after you're able to defend yourself.
GertJohnny
GertJohnny29 Apr 2014, 05:46
Killer graphics. Web version didn't work for me either, I was disappointed until I saw the note.
delfino
delfino29 Apr 2014, 08:47
Web version worked fine for me (Chrome, Windows 7). Great games, looks beautiful, challenging but fun
dsoft20
dsoft2029 Apr 2014, 17:31
Great art, smooth controls and a good difficulty :P
MidCry29 Apr 2014, 17:39
SO Beautiful that my eyes get wet ... Super Great Job
Larzan
Larzan29 Apr 2014, 17:39
Why are there only 5 stars to give, damn.
Absolutely brilliant, love it, but it is sooo haaaaaaard :(
Thank you for this beatiful piece of art!
ilovepixel
ilovepixel29 Apr 2014, 17:40
This is really beautiful! great job! The illustrations for the levels was very very nice
Kuchalu29 Apr 2014, 17:40
Really good. Amazing graphics and nice game play. Died quite a few times before I reached the first evolve.. XD
Jaenis29 Apr 2014, 17:46
Really beautiful game! Though it is rather hard, especially those small fishes, they got me everytime
Kashaar
Kashaar29 Apr 2014, 18:39
I got some sound stuttering in the web version, but apart from that it's pretty cool! i really dig the visuals :)
StencylTuo
StencylTuo29 Apr 2014, 18:39
Okay, anyone who knows me knows that I am a harsh grader, so the fact that you got three five stars (and mostly 4's for the rest) is simply outstanding. It's definitely the best entry I've played yet. The opening cinematic was impressive, especially for being 72 hours, and all of the parts work together very well. My one complaint is that I wish the player could swim just a bit faster (or enemies a bit slower) so that I could actually outrun one.
MSaul
MSaul29 Apr 2014, 18:40
Really hard game, and yes wonderfull graphics.
maffydub29 Apr 2014, 18:40
Excellent graphics and nice ambient audio. Interesting gameplay ...and nice bubble effects!
snickersnacks
snickersnacks29 Apr 2014, 18:41
The graphics are very nicely done and I really like the game concept. Having too much momentum was frustrating, I kept accidentally flinging myself into enemies when going too fast and manually modulating my speed takes a lot of effort. The music and the effects of being consumed by the darkness are pretty terrifying, despite the whimsical graphics.
HBurd29 Apr 2014, 18:43
Wow! amazing sound design and graphics. And it runs perfectly on linux
Jools6429 Apr 2014, 18:45
This game looks amazing, I love the art. It has nice sound and solid movement too. The only real problem with it is it's too hard because of the lack of checkpoints. Having to go back to the start everytime I get hit by one of the small fish was a real bummer.

Still, amazing effort on all other fronts, well done guys!
GeorgeBroussard3 May 2014, 08:14
Fantastic graphics. Kept me playing. I was never able to finish, though. Got about 7-8 orbs and would always die. Great effort. I will return to it, to try and finish.
bazld3 May 2014, 08:38
Whoa, stunning looking game. Plays well too. Fantastic achievement.
cageinabird3 May 2014, 09:21
Looks outstanding and feels very polished.
TheExGenesis
TheExGenesis3 May 2014, 09:23
I HATE THOSE BLOODY PIRAÑAS! Anyway, moody and difficult game, congrats.
giordanno92
giordanno923 May 2014, 09:25
This game is incredible. I could really feel the sense of fear in the discovery while I was venturing deep into the dark. The controls are not so hard to master and the horrific look of the enemies made the experience much more interesting (and scarier), not to mention the music that indicates approximation of the enemies and the little details like the orb line formation and the protagonist changing color. The lights are gourgeous. Now the downgrades, maybe, there should be a localized respawn system, where we could gather three orbs and maybe save the game with three orbs. Cause the little enemies feel quite frustrated (since there are so many of them and we can't venture them at first without at least gathering six orbs). My firefox is updated but I had issues with sound, had to play it on chrome, no big time. The main character could have more frames in his animation, even though the little blur when we swim is pretty nice. Well, maybe that's it, I played the game more that 15 times, I guess, couldn't manage to finish it. But I will finish it. Solid entry. Great teamwork.
BoaHeck_ArtGent3 May 2014, 10:05
Well it was hard but I liked how the level looked made of bones. And the audio was really atmospheric. I just think it needs a better difficulty curve.
Dining Philosopher3 May 2014, 10:30
Incredibly difficult, but really good. I couldn't figure out how to go down after the first wave of the small fish, my shockwave would always just get most of them, and I'd still be caught. As others said, very unforgiving, having to spend a minute every time to get to the same point again.
Deity
Deity3 May 2014, 11:15
Great graphics and intro. Also like the idea of the game.

The difficulty is frustrating -- the character moves fast and the enemies move quickly and cover large parts of the screen so its hard not to run into them with some momentum. Difficulty curve needs adjusting.
Lovely to see fellow construct users! This is so atmospheric and lovely! Good job! Top marks on everything :)

I felt the insta-kill was a bit harsh, but otherwise cool!
iSamurai3 May 2014, 11:48
I enjoy this game very much. The control feels good, the art is amazing. Nice job!
iSamurai3 May 2014, 11:50
One thing though, the character sprite is a bit buggy on my web browser (Chrome on Mac). There is a black background around the character.
dector
dector3 May 2014, 11:56
Nice game. But restarting from the very beginning after death is a little bit confusing :(
Daniel X. Moore3 May 2014, 14:53
Restarting from the beginning is pretty brutal, a checkpoint after each evolution would help me a lot!
bebopbraunbaer3 May 2014, 15:44
solid game! good work (- : great art and fun game play. Looking forward to your next game
Almost
Almost3 May 2014, 16:19
I rage quit after my second death, but the game was pretty. I was eaten by a bunch of tiny fish that I assumed were friendly since they didn't have a big red mouth.
Wakka3 May 2014, 16:56
Woah that's awesome! Only had some stuttering sound sometimes.
ArcturusDeluxe3 May 2014, 20:33
Fantastic art here, really good sense of atmosphere. When you go down into the dark areas it gets pretty tense. It controls pretty well too, although I found it a bit hard to get very far because it all goes a bit fast to react to.
vilya
vilya5 May 2014, 20:59
Wow, very impressed with you've pulled off here! Tremendously polished and atmospheric.
Frump6 May 2014, 04:54
It's a really nice looking game!

So why did you use that awful font!?
ruerob6 May 2014, 05:07
This was a nice experience. I loved the graphics and the controlls are great. Nice entry, thank you for that.
darke_shard6 May 2014, 10:13
Sebastian lied - under the sea ain't as magical as he claimed it'd be! But wow, this entry has some of the best visuals I've seen in LD29.

That said, if/when you port this into a full game, may I request a checkpoint system? I love exploring the dangerous depths, but the threat of death and failure's too steep (i.e. reset to zero) for the kind of game that should encourage exploration.
jsmars
jsmars7 May 2014, 15:43
Really beautiful game, great style and artwork!
joe40001
joe4000115 May 2014, 08:59
I got to the end with all the orbs is there a different ending or something if you don't have all the orbs?

Also while the game was challenging graphically it was absolutely amazing, mood/audio were 5/5 too
Cirrial
Cirrial16 May 2014, 02:45
Great aesthetics, maddening, repetitive gameplay based entirely on memorisation. Not for me, but great effort.
pinkmonkeyhead16 May 2014, 16:47
I had problems with graphics running on OSX, on Safari and Chrome
jorgemoag19 May 2014, 01:21
i love the graph! very moody but a little hard

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