Crushing Depths
This game is from ldjam.com, which is currently unavailable.
You can try viewing the original page on Web Archive (may not load correctly).
You can try viewing the original page on Web Archive (may not load correctly).
See how far into the depths you can sink!
Press Left and Right to navigate the winding abyss. Press Space to push back the darkness that forever closes in around you. But if you push it back too far, you'll stop earning points. Refresh the page to restart.
Your score multiplier is determined by how far down you have sunk, and how much of the darkness overlaps your light radius. See if you can beat 100,000 points!
The highest confirmed score so far was 177k. My personal best is 94k.
The entire game is written in vanilla JS without any libraries, rendering direct to canvas. It weighs in at 4.5kb total unminified.
Future enhancements (which I couldn't implement before the deadline):
- Gameplay
- Press 'Enter' to start/restart (so it doesn't immediately play on load, and reload isn't required to try again)
- Display the current score multiplier so strategies become more discoverable
- Persist scores to an online leaderboard
- Display current leaderboard rank next to current score
- Display score needed to reach next leaderboard rank below current score
- Pickups: hidden in the edges of the encroaching darkness (only revealed and absorbed by your light) which do things like temporarily pause the growth of the darkness or boost the range of your light
- Graphics
- Particle effects flowing from the overlap between light/dark into the player to visualise point gain
- Subtle background cues to convey descent
- "Pulse"-like effect when pressing Space, to show the pushing back against the darkness
- Make the darkness appear more "blobby", organic, and nebulous (like metaballs or smoke), so it feels more coherent and sinister (my initial implementation thrashed the frame rate so had to be scrapped, though its still in the source code)
- Audio
- Add audio feedback
- Eery muted ambience when avoiding the darkness
- Agitated dark ambience when in contact with the darkness
- Modulate intensity of music inline with visual tension and progression
- Accessibility
- Make it responsive to fit any screen
- Handle touch input
Press Left and Right to navigate the winding abyss. Press Space to push back the darkness that forever closes in around you. But if you push it back too far, you'll stop earning points. Refresh the page to restart.
Your score multiplier is determined by how far down you have sunk, and how much of the darkness overlaps your light radius. See if you can beat 100,000 points!
The highest confirmed score so far was 177k. My personal best is 94k.
The entire game is written in vanilla JS without any libraries, rendering direct to canvas. It weighs in at 4.5kb total unminified.
Future enhancements (which I couldn't implement before the deadline):
- Gameplay
- Press 'Enter' to start/restart (so it doesn't immediately play on load, and reload isn't required to try again)
- Display the current score multiplier so strategies become more discoverable
- Persist scores to an online leaderboard
- Display current leaderboard rank next to current score
- Display score needed to reach next leaderboard rank below current score
- Pickups: hidden in the edges of the encroaching darkness (only revealed and absorbed by your light) which do things like temporarily pause the growth of the darkness or boost the range of your light
- Graphics
- Particle effects flowing from the overlap between light/dark into the player to visualise point gain
- Subtle background cues to convey descent
- "Pulse"-like effect when pressing Space, to show the pushing back against the darkness
- Make the darkness appear more "blobby", organic, and nebulous (like metaballs or smoke), so it feels more coherent and sinister (my initial implementation thrashed the frame rate so had to be scrapped, though its still in the source code)
- Audio
- Add audio feedback
- Eery muted ambience when avoiding the darkness
- Agitated dark ambience when in contact with the darkness
- Modulate intensity of music inline with visual tension and progression
- Accessibility
- Make it responsive to fit any screen
- Handle touch input