Deeper & Deeper Research Ltd.

by itsonrandom

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.02

Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.79

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.30

Theme★★★★★★★★★★2.84

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.60

Audio★★★★★★★★★★2.59

Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.44

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.02

Deeper & Deeper Research Ltd. is at the forefront of exobiological research, founded by the Deeper family at the end of the Binomial Dark Ages.

As a loyal Deeper & Deeper Research Ltd. employee, you are off on your first expedition to an unknown biome, to collect artifacts, solve mysteries, and ultimately get out in time for lunch.

Thank you for checking out the game! Check the links below to play on itch.io in the web player - no downloads required. ~I may re-upload with a better resolution but it's 1am and I have run out of coffee~ I have re-uploaded to change the resolution (note nothing else was changed). If you have any issues just leave a comment and I'll try to fix any game breaking stuff!

This was developed solo over 72 hours (and it really felt like 72 hours). All art and sound was developed by me over the weekend, I used the 2d platformer microgame from Unity as a starting point for player movement and their event system, but otherwise developed all the mechanics on top of that myself during the time period.

Controls:

* A, D: movement
* Space: Jump (in looooooow gravity)
* Left click: Interact
* Right click: Super secret mechanic you'll have to play the game to learn about.
* E: Consume health potion (there is a known bug with the health potion UI not showing up, if you get stuck at the end of the level try mashing E).

Known issues:

* Health potion UI bug (see above)
* Unable to jump when up against a wall - just jump without trying to move at the same time and you'll be allowed to jump. Desperately wanted to fix this one but my brain is dead.
* Floating into the sky at the end of the level - is it a bug? Is it a feature? Who knows

Comments29

sadsmile27 Apr 2021, 09:04

the controls feel a bit floaty but the splitting up mechanic is pretty need. could be a cool puzzle platformer in the future. I also liked the graphics a lot.

arya-s27 Apr 2021, 09:20

the jump is very float, I suggest looking at Matt Thorson's Strawberry project for how to get relative simple good 2d platformer physics.
I really like the art, the character has an neat waiting animation.
I ran into a bug where the stonewall doesn't lift visually if you do it twice but luckily the audio works so I was able to just go through.

overall good job!

itsonrandomauthor27 Apr 2021, 12:08

@arya-s thanks for the suggestion! I definitely need to work on my physics! Glad you found your way through the door too, I'll add that to the known issues

katriadoodles27 Apr 2021, 12:27

I really like the graphics and the innovative mechanics! I couldn't figure out all the puzzles so perhaps some hints would be helpful? All in all, it's really neat and has great potential!

Thiradil27 Apr 2021, 12:34

Impressive work for a solo person, the jump is a bit floaty but otherwise there is a good control of the character. Somes animations are well made ( the idle one) and the graphics are correct. good game!

Hidjy27 Apr 2021, 13:26

That's some pretty good arts for a 72h period! Unfortunately, it looks like the tile system does not highlight it, tho.

itsonrandomauthor27 Apr 2021, 16:58

@hidjy The tiles were the first thing I did, wanted to come back and re-do them but just ran out of time! Thanks for playing

Maxwell300027 Apr 2021, 18:03

Cool proof of concept for a duplication mechanic in a game! With a bit more tuning I think this could be a really fun puzzle platformer. Good stuff!

Malfeasance27 Apr 2021, 22:06

It had an interesting mechanic

CorbenG27 Apr 2021, 22:10

Really like how intuitive the split mechanic works, super quick to switch camera and controls to other character.

fadoli0327 Apr 2021, 22:13

Art is really good, game-control could be improved (like jump that collide on x also stop the y movement). I think I managed to get stuck at some point, but the mechanics is interesting.

diabolical-sloth27 Apr 2021, 22:21

really unique and interesting clone mechanic and some really impressive background art.
collision handling and sprite animation could have used a bit more polish but this is a very memorable entry for sure

NvrSkipGameDay27 Apr 2021, 22:25

What a cool twist on gameplay, I love what you did with that. It felt really good switching between 'bodies'. I guess the real question is... how do you know if you got the one with the soul 0_0

Just a note: I encountered a bug that once I opened a door, if I didn't get through it in time no amount of button jumping would make it open again. Otherwise it was really neat.

MandaRad28 Apr 2021, 14:31

I also ran into the bug with the door and buttons mentioned above.

This had pretty nice visuals and I liked the concept.

Nice job!

mdotedot28 Apr 2021, 17:06

Nice visual. I love the incredible jump over the trees :) Well done.

SequoiaDolce28 Apr 2021, 17:09

This was a lot of fun!
WHen I tried using the super secret right mouse click mechanic from the get go I was confused and then when I saw what it was really for that was a fun moment. I also liked the slight panic of oh no how od I get everything back and then being able to trut the process and learn along with the game.

Learning what was for lunch was also a very fun moment! Cool game!

LDJam user 18471128 Apr 2021, 17:16

A lot of bugs makes it difficult to progress in a meaningful way. A very cool idea and nice graphics, though. :)

Yword28 Apr 2021, 17:21

I just finished it, a little buggy, but really interesting idea and quite funny too!

itsonrandomauthor28 Apr 2021, 17:34

@spyturtle thanks for playing! Sorry you hit so many bugs though, I definitely should have left more time to playtest and iron some of them out, but glad you enjoyed some other parts

itsonrandomauthor28 Apr 2021, 17:34

@sequoiadolce thanks for the feedback! Really glad you got to enjoy it all!

Nounka28 Apr 2021, 17:57

This is a beautiful game, I like the art ! Jump feel quite weird, it is really slow it feels a little unconfortable. The mechanic of the double is interesting but that would be so great to have a feature to switch beetwem them without having to have them on the camera but I fully understand that it was not so much possible with the short time for the game jam ! That's a good entry, GG =)

midamida29 Apr 2021, 01:41

Love the graphics! I did not expect to be cloned, so that was a pleasant surprise! Got stuck at one point where I cloned 3 of myself, but could only seem to jump b/w two of them only.

itsonrandomauthor29 Apr 2021, 08:44

@midamida oh that's a new one! I have no idea why that could have happened too, sorry you didn't get to finish the game, you were so close!

LandoSystems30 Apr 2021, 04:42

Nice game! Cool puzzle mechanic. I did manage to get into a state where I could control two bodies at the same time which made it tricky, but enjoyed it nonetheless. Great work!

itsonrandomauthor30 Apr 2021, 20:17

@landosystems oh yeah that would make it hard, sorry about that! Thanks for playing

nsadie4 May 2021, 16:23

Pretty good effort, some nice art and concepts.

It was a bit buggy! I managed to get stuck in the first door's pillar and floated upwards. When I got to the second duplicating totem I could not switch between the characters, they both moved at the same time.

agrdev5 May 2021, 23:09

Quite ambitious game, very interesting concept reminding the Swapper :thumbsup:

I was stuck on a bug when I couldn't select one of the bodies, when there were 3 of them, as people describing above

Eckkert8 May 2021, 16:48

I also got stuck on the three-body bug. Nonetheless, this is a very innovative mechanic and I like it a lot.