Ludum Dare #57compo
Drilling in the Deep
About
Oh no! The engine of your submarine has failed—you've crashed on the seabed.At least the life support systems are still working.
Your only hope? Drill your way out.
Explore the depths, mine valuable resources, and craft drones to automate your survival.
But be careful—you're not alone down here. Something lives in the dark... and it’s anything but friendly.
Notes
- Watch where you're shooting! It's possible to destroy your own mining drones. I didn’t have time to add an explosion effect, so it can go unnoticed. I also wanted to prevent shooting from inside the submarine, but didn’t have time to implement that either. When you're inside, it's actually easier to hit your own drone—especially during a fish attack.- I intentionally made the game easier for the game jam—it shouldn't be too hard to gather all the resources needed for full automation within a reasonable time (though don’t expect to finish in 5 minutes). If you die accidentally, I added an option to "revive" and continue from where you left off. But if you're looking for a real challenge and have enough patience, try not to use it :)
Controls
- WASD/arrows - swiming around- mouse - shooting, digging
Used tools
- Godot 4.3 as a game engine- Inkscape + Gimp for graphics
- https://sfxr.me/ + microphone + audacity for audio
- bandlab.com - music
Known bugs
- Sometimes your drilling drones might start slacking off around your submarine, even when resources are available nearby. If that happens, just dig any tile—they’ll snap back to work.- I suspect there is an issue with HiDPI for older/bad displays. In those cases, player swims unexpectedly slowly. Please make sure you play on fullscreen, on good monitor and if it still the case, press "k" to compensate the speed.
Comments27
BadPinkChicken7 Apr 2025, 10:15
Love the graphics, very nice atmosphere. Nice job !
Iluvatar7 Apr 2025, 10:25
Hello Jirko, As always, your game has an amazing mood, sound effect and overall design. The gameplay loop is simple, but addictive. Going back and forth between digging and defending your submarine is more fun than it seems from the description/screenshots. The little upgrades feel impactful and imho this is worth making into a full game. Maybe on phone as well.
I don't really have any negatives to be honest.
I don't really have any negatives to be honest.
Jiri Hysek7 Apr 2025, 10:35
@iluvatar Thanks! Going back and forth should be needed only at the beginning; then you are supposed to buy drones to automate it so you'll have time for exploring! :)
@ntmalichi Thanks! Not sure if it's your case, but I run into HiDPI issue with swimming speed - I have older monitor here and when I display the game in that old/bad monitor, it's super slow. But when I open it in my macbook, the speed is as intended (it runs on the same machine, so it's not hardware related, just resolution related issue). Maybe try it on display with HiDPI if that helps. Swimming speed is not upgradable because you are supposed to automate things by drones. But if you have it as slow as in my old monitor, it's totally understandable that is not fast enough. This kind of issues are hard to debug during the compo, though :(
@ntmalichi Thanks! Not sure if it's your case, but I run into HiDPI issue with swimming speed - I have older monitor here and when I display the game in that old/bad monitor, it's super slow. But when I open it in my macbook, the speed is as intended (it runs on the same machine, so it's not hardware related, just resolution related issue). Maybe try it on display with HiDPI if that helps. Swimming speed is not upgradable because you are supposed to automate things by drones. But if you have it as slow as in my old monitor, it's totally understandable that is not fast enough. This kind of issues are hard to debug during the compo, though :(
Jiri Hysek7 Apr 2025, 10:57
@ntmalichi If it's the resolution issue, make sure you are playing on fullscreen, and if it does not help, I added a compensation button for that cases (press 'k' to enable/disable speed compensation).
argensis7 Apr 2025, 16:06
I played through to the end of it, the graphics are very nice. The swimmming speed is weird, the speed compensation seems to help a bit, the first time it was actually nearly it impossible because it would take a full oxygen tank just to get to the starting ores, never mind exposing any of the deeper ones for the drones.
With the compensation, it seems to work better, but also sometimes it would randomly give me turbo boosts which is probably not intended :p
Overall though, the atmosphere was very good on this one.
With the compensation, it seems to work better, but also sometimes it would randomly give me turbo boosts which is probably not intended :p
Overall though, the atmosphere was very good on this one.
LDJam user 2385007 Apr 2025, 17:04
Incredible atmosphere! I was gonna say I missed upgrades for speed, did not see what you wrote about the bug. I'm not sure how fast you are supposed to swim, but I assume I had the bug then. Felt slow.
Enemies never really seemed like a threat (as long as you where there to shoot), barely had to upgrade my weapon.
Great game anyway! The art and audio really convey that "deep in the ocean" feeling.
Enemies never really seemed like a threat (as long as you where there to shoot), barely had to upgrade my weapon.
Great game anyway! The art and audio really convey that "deep in the ocean" feeling.
TasakaSama7 Apr 2025, 17:57
Wow, I'm quite surprised by the graphic quality offered, it works really well, great work to you.
Xwilarg7 Apr 2025, 19:09
A quite high quality game for a jam, the atmosphere is really well done and the amount of work done is quite impressive too!
I was going to say the game was quite slow but I just noticed player speed was maybe a bug so yeah apart from that nothing negative to say!
I was going to say the game was quite slow but I just noticed player speed was maybe a bug so yeah apart from that nothing negative to say!
LDJam user 2365457 Apr 2025, 20:44
That was fun! I actually enjoyed the slow pace, though I admit the "speed compensation" made it a lot more enjoyable my second time around.
I was having a blast making incremental progress until I finally had enough money to buy a bunch of defensive drones. Unfortunately, hubris was my downfall and I arrived back at the submarine to find it almost dead. In a frenzy of clicking, I died and then immediately hit the "Quit" button by accident. It looked like there was a "Continue" option as well, and I wish I wouldn't have had to start over!
Great job, really enjoyed the atmosphere, and the character's animation was well done!
I was having a blast making incremental progress until I finally had enough money to buy a bunch of defensive drones. Unfortunately, hubris was my downfall and I arrived back at the submarine to find it almost dead. In a frenzy of clicking, I died and then immediately hit the "Quit" button by accident. It looked like there was a "Continue" option as well, and I wish I wouldn't have had to start over!
Great job, really enjoyed the atmosphere, and the character's animation was well done!
Jiri Hysek7 Apr 2025, 20:54
@andrewkennedy Oh no! That was exactly the case I added the "continue" option for :) I should’ve made a shortcut for quitting instead of a button!
What’s interesting is that more people are experiencing that slow issue. It almost makes me question whether it's a technical problem or just a design flaw :D I need to record a video of me playing it so others can compare. Funny thing is, adding swimming speed upgrades would take me like 5 minutes of work. I should’ve thought of that earlier!
Anyway, I'm glad you liked it!
What’s interesting is that more people are experiencing that slow issue. It almost makes me question whether it's a technical problem or just a design flaw :D I need to record a video of me playing it so others can compare. Funny thing is, adding swimming speed upgrades would take me like 5 minutes of work. I should’ve thought of that earlier!
Anyway, I'm glad you liked it!
BangKerpow8 Apr 2025, 00:56
I love the art. The little swimmer guy is fantastic. It's a shame he's so tiny because the animations and air bubbles are so damn cute. Cursor visibility was an issue but I could be getting old...maybe both. The gameplay is great. The audio was good except for the shooting and mining sound effects. Those felt a little too harsh especially when you had a lot of miners going.
Here's my gameplay. (I kept trying to hit escape to close the upgrade menu)
Here's my gameplay. (I kept trying to hit escape to close the upgrade menu)
max_sanch8 Apr 2025, 09:27
It's a very beautiful art and the atmosphere is cool! Good job!
Jiri Hysek8 Apr 2025, 09:58
@bangkerpow Thanks for the play-through! It says more than 1000 words :) It is painful to watch how useless I made those defensive drones from start. If you don't massively upgrade them, they are so pathetic :D On maxed shooting speed they are pretty useful but other than that :face_palm: I can see also so many details I could do better. Or some little bugs. I didn't even notice that the music does not loop, it plays from the start but when it ends it does not start again. It's one checkbox in Godot.
Glad to see you have no issue with swimming speed as some others, this is intended speed.
Glad to see you have no issue with swimming speed as some others, this is intended speed.
CaptainDreamcast8 Apr 2025, 17:14
Phew, I managed to get saved! It's funny how in the beginning I felt I had all the iridium and none of the crystals, and in the end, I seemed to have a mountain of crystals, but iridium was becoming the bottleneck. But nothing half a dozen additional drones can't fix!
Had a lot of fun seeing the resources go up faster and faster. I enjoyed the deep-sea atmosphere (although I see now that the music was supposed to loop, but the sound effects also carried a lot though). Very clean art as well, the game looks great. All around great job, very well done!
Had a lot of fun seeing the resources go up faster and faster. I enjoyed the deep-sea atmosphere (although I see now that the music was supposed to loop, but the sound effects also carried a lot though). Very clean art as well, the game looks great. All around great job, very well done!
commanderstitch10 Apr 2025, 04:44
totally a cool entry. Feels very full. deep. i had lots of purple crystals by the end. xD Nice entry!
Alopar10 Apr 2025, 11:04
This is a great job for compo! I really like it. 🤗
JulienLussiez10 Apr 2025, 11:28
A domekeeper-like! Good job!
OlenIkimid10 Apr 2025, 12:19
Solid gameplay loop and very nice theming!
betovf10 Apr 2025, 13:08
Super polished entry for a compo game :open_mouth: Great job! :clap:
Tetracold11 Apr 2025, 02:10
Very polished, I liked the mix of resource gathering and and tower defense gameplay.
The presentation is also awesome, really good and clean artstyle and I like I like the darker tones, really sells the deep sea vibes
The presentation is also awesome, really good and clean artstyle and I like I like the darker tones, really sells the deep sea vibes
LeReveur13 Apr 2025, 21:52
Fine art, classic gameplay, but I enjoyed finish the game without using "revive". Good job!
PhilStrahl14 Apr 2025, 16:21
Another classic, high-quality Hysek® game! Very much enjoyed the mood and gameplay, had a grand old time with it! 😊 You already know it, still, for reference, here’s my playthrough of it again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR7fySdOzeA
Transkuja15 Apr 2025, 19:36
The kind of game I can put hours in without seeing them pass by. Could have been cool to upgrade the swimming speed, all of these back and forth gets repetitive at some point! Great job :smile:
ditam15 Apr 2025, 22:31
A very polished and atmospheric game. Very impressive for a 1-person compo entry, hats off! It feels a _bit too much_ like Dome Keeper / Dome Romantik which leaves a sour taste (but hey, that's what the Innovation score is for), but it's a great game nonetheless.
designernap16 Apr 2025, 13:26
oooh the animation on the main character is LOVELY in this! Great work. Took me a few goes to realise I needed to return to the sub to empty my pockets, but really got into this. Nice.
Frank Gevaerts21 Apr 2025, 22:28
An excellent game! I already knew some things going in (I watched @philstrahl play, so I knew about defensive drones needing to be upgraded), so maybe I had an easier time than intended.
I died once due to lack of oxygen, and I was happy I could continue!
Mood, sound and graphics are all very good, and gameplay is fun.
One thing I noticed at the end is that the drones refused to touch the very last block of iridium (which was in the lower right corner), and when I mined the last bit of that myself (yes, I'm weird. I wanted to clean up!) something went weird and the player character started moving *very* fast (about two tiles per frame). I'm also wondering if you added a loss condition when there aren't enough resources left to win, maybe I need to try!
I died once due to lack of oxygen, and I was happy I could continue!
Mood, sound and graphics are all very good, and gameplay is fun.
One thing I noticed at the end is that the drones refused to touch the very last block of iridium (which was in the lower right corner), and when I mined the last bit of that myself (yes, I'm weird. I wanted to clean up!) something went weird and the player character started moving *very* fast (about two tiles per frame). I'm also wondering if you added a loss condition when there aren't enough resources left to win, maybe I need to try!
Not sure if it's intended but mouse wheel also counts as mouse clicks here so it makes the gun a laser beam basically XD