Search for the Quacken

The individual components of the game are quite decent. The 3D art is impressive and creates a strong feel of something miniature you're playing around with. The fish streams are good, but the implementation makes it obvious they're segmented (maybe better if more seamless). The music is creepy and intense. The gameplay takes a lot of experimentation to get going, but when it does it isn't bad. Risk-reward balance, decision making.

What didn't work was these elements together as a game. There is little cohesion here. The art, the music and gameplay are so discordant that it feels like the game doesn't know what it wants to be. I think it needs to focus in and decide on a direction.

Those things are hard to do in a jam game with so much else within it, I just wish they'd been there to make it a better experience overall.

Overall a very well made game, very well polished and focused. I enjoyed your application of the theme, and the gameplay loop of collect in shallow water -> purchase equipment -> go deeper makes for an engaging enough time. I think my main criticism would be that it takes too long, I feel, to get enough money to buy a submersible to go deeper. On a smaller note, I was a bit confused about collecting the black orbs for money, maybe it would be better if they were a more attractive texture. Overall, a solid game

The start of the game feels kind of slow, it's not very pleasing :thinking: But the upgrade system is pretty cool and I love the environment!

Great entry! You really nailed the atmosphere of being in the ocean depths. I felt cold and alone and then bam...shark attack. I just had a bit of trouble figuring out that the black circles were coins at the start and that my money didn't go up until I surfaced. Great work with the art and creating a diverse and interesting environment. Thanks for the game!

Nicely done! I had some great time playing oyur game! Killer soundtrack and terror like theme.

Others mentioned - yeah, start is too slow. Also, I'm not sure if this was a bug, but I couldn't tell where or what the pickups were. Everything just appeared as black shapes on the seafloor. WebGL build. Bug? I like the loop of diving, upgrading, and diving deeper, but this was just a little too slow with not quite enough stuffs. Thanks for making this!

@harrison-dunn Last 10-minute texture change on the coin collectables, they used to be default grey and just looked like rocks. They were supposed to be shiny, but I missed the mark on that. Maybe we can pretend they are black pearls...

@tomtomgome We didn't get to do balancing of the speed/cost/value amounts. Would love to spend time on that, but I was working right up to the buzzer. Glad you love the environment, I wanted to make sure it looked at least okay.

@steve-dragon An Aussie, a Scott, a Kiwi, an Englishman in Norway, and Frenchman in Germany enter a game jam together... This was our first project together, and we didn't really nail down a design at the start. Very seat of our pants development. 100% agree with everything you said.

the graphics are stunning, music is super fitting, good job!

the music and atmosphere are awesome! I got quite the heartattack when i met the first shark! was surprised how much I was immersed! Great job!

Amazing job setting the atmosphere! Everything feels a bit slow, but if one has the patience they're in for a really cool experience.

The visuals and graphics are nice! Feels a bit slow. Great jam though, good job!

The graphics were great. Fit the theme really well. My feedback is that the game play was a bit slow and treasure was hard to seem. Great feel though. Good job!

Was very confused at first about where the cash was, but figured it out eventually. Maybe a post-submission update to fix the texture :) Wasn't entirely sure about what my depth limits were and died a couple times because I couldn't ascend quickly enough once I noticed I was taking damage. Overall good graphics, good take on the theme, a little on the slow side but it seemed to fit the mood with the music and such. Great work!

amazing work guys. Music is spot on, depths are dark, models are amazing, black pearls confusing, loss of speed on sub upgrades frustrating, me out of me would fight Adam to get quacken again \m/

I really love the mood, the ominous music, the moving fish effect and the water effects on top.
The coral reef visuals and the 2.5d style work really well here, I think with the tiniest bit of animation or water effects over the main camera the reef would have looked even better.

I also love the bubbles and shadows, though the turning down the sharpness on the shadows would probably work well , they look a little too strong.

The boat-as-shop tracking the player was clever and worked well also, nice job getting and upgrade system in and working!

The broken/unlit texture on the currency really made it hard to figure out what it was and that was a bummer, but once I realized what they were the gameplay worked well. The currency popping in on screen also felt strange, but I can see why it was added to prevent progression blocks.

Nice work!

Great HUD, it was nice and readable (with the exception of the torpedo count). Quite a bit of art and level design, too, which is impressive. I found the "quacken" but I didn't have enough money to afford torpedos. I went up and down a few times unloading my 3 harpoons on him but couldn't tell if I was making any progress there.

The game is interesting but since I don't have a QWERTY keyboard I can hardly play it

The game plays great. The music is perfect. The game is pretty and that water shader is fantastic! Excellent job!

It's awesome and super tense. I like how it starts off slow and forboding, and builds up. I'm pretty sure I've "finished" the game - defeated the Quacken and collected 5 unique items. But there's no win screen? I think there should be a win screen or a notice telling me what I haven't done. There's a lot of graphical content which is impressive - the enemies freaked me out a bit - and the ambient music (changing depending on where I go) helps create a really eerie atmosphere.

nice mood

I am glad I played til the end! A treat! The bubble vfx were a really good touch - added a lot! I liked the idea of upgrading your equipment too, and that it almost worked like a metroidvania - meaning you could explore areas that you were previously restricted from due to the depth restriction. The enemies were nicely done too

Yeah, fun part is very taken back because of slowness of everything. We made same mistake with movement in our game, tho because Surinapiri is more primitive game, you get instantly into game loop

I really liked this submarine game ^^ It really reminded me of my own entry but in 3d and with fish!!! I liked the different types of biomes and enemies. The music was really impressive honestly! I didn't really understood how to find the boss though :/ I tried shooting him with my torpedos but I kinda ran out of them. Then I found the quacken because I just swum by the boss and well then I guess I ignored the evil kraken ^^ The upgrade system was really really cool and I liked how the visuals of the submarine also changed when upgraded. They could have been a little slower though, since it was easy to abuse the early spawners to get a ton of money and get the best submarine ever. All in all it's a really cool game with lot's of potential :) Good job!