Podvodsk

by finlal
co-authored: @therandom, @woe
Overall★★★★★★★★★★4.46
Fun★★★★★★★★★★4.20
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★4.12
Theme★★★★★★★★★★4.50
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★4.59
Audio★★★★★★★★★★4.42
Mood★★★★★★★★★★4.39

A game about building an underwater city


- Drag & drop building schematics in the top right corner to build them, each schematic costing different number of points

- Collect profits from well-placed building effects to continue your dive

- Try to get as deep as possible!

- ### All code, art, animations, music and sounds made during the Ludum Dare #57

________________________________________________________________

- ### TAB - switch language: English\Russian

- ### Esc - give up \ end screen

- ### F2 - Fullscreen \ Window mode

________________________________________________________________

PWNVF3Jndg4.jpgOur game has 6 medals, each with its own unique musical theme, which you can get depending on the depth you reach. Dive and Catch 'Em All!
________________________________________________________________

Hello, Ludum!


This is our 16th ludum dare entry, whole 5 years since the last one!
And big thanks to Kartonny for joining us and helping with the additional code

#### Four Quarters team. https://twitter.com/_FQteam

#### Kartonny. https://x.com/kartonnnyi

#### Our previous LudumDare games (including old LD site entries) - https://fourquarters.itch.io/

- #### Thanks, Four Quarters team.
________________________________________________________________

15.04.25 update for itch.io web-version:
https://fourquarters.itch.io/podvodsk

- "Bunker" and "Business center" card reworked for ballance
- new backgrounds and graphics
- additional main music theme and new sounds
- reworked cards animations
- improved the display of information during card places

________________________________________________________________

11.04.25 update

we're continuing to work on the post-jam version, what we've already added::

- post-jam web-version
- water shader, F1 - on\off
- new control option: mouse wheel up\down for select building cards
- animation for building cards
________________________________________________________________

Comments34

RascarCapackDev
RascarCapackDev8 Apr 2025, 15:06
Absolutly gorgeous selfcontained game. Pixel art is top notch (as usual). It took some time for me to understand the cards show the buildings shape. Amazing work!
dot_Ex8 Apr 2025, 15:34
During the game you feel like a child who is assembling a construction set, only during the assembly of this construction set you need to think carefully about the placement of buildings. The graphics are good, the music does not get boring
jester1454
jester14548 Apr 2025, 16:23
interesting concept of micro city builder. at first I didn't immediately understand the rules of getting points and spending them, not the most obvious thing, but after a few lost games I realized and I liked it. I would like to zoom and move the camera to see what kind of city is created, because the game is very beautiful!
HDVR02
HDVR028 Apr 2025, 21:17
This game is very addictive. I sat in it for an hour and I really like the mechanics, making me think about where and how I'm going to put my next construction. The visual style and music are very nice, great job!
LDJam user 242394
LDJam user 2423949 Apr 2025, 09:03
Great entry as usual, Four Quarters! The core mechanic is super addictive. Do you plan to develop the concept into a full game?
A0405u
A0405u10 Apr 2025, 09:00
A fascinating game! I love little tiling buildings and underwater atmosphere, everything seems so captivating...
Teamofey Izorsky
Teamofey Izorsky10 Apr 2025, 18:49
Честно, ваша игра наиболее меня увлекла из всех игр с джема, в которые я пока поиграл. Очень приятный и расслабляющий геймплей, хороший пиксельарт и музыка. Это очень сильный проект. Единственное, что вам не хватает - веб билд, но я не уверен, что на гейммейкере есть такая возможность. Удачи вам!
Code_x_3
Code_x_310 Apr 2025, 19:18
Wow! It was an awesome Game! I really love sci-fi books and movies, and the game's art and music was so immersive that it brought me back memories of the sci-fi stories I read, and I also loved the city-building mechanic and it's scoring system
MagnesiumNinja
MagnesiumNinja10 Apr 2025, 21:41
Phenomenal entry across the board; art and audio are top notch, great application of the theme, and the gameplay was both conceptually interesting as well as fun to experiment with. An extremely polished entry that feels like it could easily be expanded into a larger, full-scale experience.

My only feedback is that I think the difficulty could have scaled faster, but for a jam entry I really don't hold that as a negative.
red10 Apr 2025, 22:22
I loved the artwork, and the gameplay was so unique, great job!
ln404
ln40411 Apr 2025, 01:06
I love this gameplay! Thanks! Nice artworks too!
TurboLaser
TurboLaser11 Apr 2025, 13:36
Those were the most relaxing 30 minutes during my game review session—I even reached the 'lifebuoy' title!
LDJam user 268934
LDJam user 26893411 Apr 2025, 19:16
Hi team, this game is really solid! I liked every bit of it. It took me one run to understand how it works, and then I ended up playing for almost an hour, planning every move to get the maximum profit. The buildings inside the pieces made it extra tricky to spot where the bonuses were happening, which I actually liked a lot. Really fun and well made game! ( experience shows )
fusionnist
fusionnist11 Apr 2025, 22:11
Great work! It's fun seeing how different strategies develop as you play over time... like solitaire 2.0, or something. Beautiful tiles!!!
Skyeward
Skyeward12 Apr 2025, 20:35
Really fun game idea, the puzzle of getting the most points with the more interesting buildings is fun and I like the art too! You could maybe add in more strategy by showing the upcoming choice of piece ahead of time to allow for more planning around specific pieces. Took me a while to work out what the danger was at the start, and it feels like the difficulty could go up a bit quicker.
Fupi
Fupi12 Apr 2025, 22:35
Damn, this game is absolutely gorgeous. Beautiful art and music, clever mechanic, I hadn't seen anyone do something quite like this before! It's really fun and satisfying to build your city as deep as possible.
BadPiggy
BadPiggy13 Apr 2025, 17:30
Took me a while to understand what was going on here, especially since I'm someone who isn't really into strategy games, but I have to say that this was very interesting

The presentation is absolutely amazing all around. The audio felt calming and the pixel art was absolutely beautiful. The UI and the various types of buildings, pathways, ground tiles etc. all stood out pretty well and were immediately discernable

While I like the overall idea and how you guys went about it, I think it's a little too dependant on randomness. Probably just a skill issue, but I ended up in a bunch of situations where I was definitely screwed no matter what. That said, needing to adapt on the fly and plan for later moves still managed to be fun.

I'm not really sure what the mouse icons at the top right actually meant though. Mostly because they looked like they were referring to some action with the right mouse button. ( imo )

All that said, this was a very polished entry with some great concepts that you guys executed pretty damn well. Kudos to the entire team
Aleksey4adoff
Aleksey4adoff14 Apr 2025, 09:18
Amazing graphics, addictive gameplay, you should definitely get at least one place in the top 10.
Amolker
Amolker14 Apr 2025, 23:10
Great game, really addictive! Sounds and graphics are neat. Would be nice to have some kind of planning ahead mechanics (like save a card for later maybe).
Ammonit
Ammonit15 Apr 2025, 12:16
Подводск, Подводск, прием, прием. Мой уровень - башмак)))) отличный арт и музыкальное сопровождение!
Fis
Fis15 Apr 2025, 12:45
really nice game, I think it would be better for the card to not hover over the description text, as I needed to move it to the top to actually read the building requirements/bonus instead of positioning first

one bug I noticed, when you switch using the scroll wheel between two buildings, if one of them has a bonus and the shape is similar, switching does not clear the bonus tile visuals - only upon moving around
Tetraminose
Tetraminose17 Apr 2025, 11:36
Can take a little bit to fully undestand how to play, but once you do it just becomes such a fun and addictive game, always trying to go deeper and deeper ^^
LDJam user 301295
LDJam user 30129518 Apr 2025, 19:52
Simply wow. I fealt pretty good about our game but this is a whole nother level haha.
Only thing I could suggest is maybe a preview of upcoming cards or the ability to store one card.
But yeah, amazing visuals, game design, audio, as expected by professionals such as yourselves.
Would be an honor if you could check out ours and give some feedback :)
daniel
daniel18 Apr 2025, 21:03
Fantastic presentation, I was drawn in by the great pixel art and visuals, but the music and sound design were really excellent once I got into the game also. Good amount of gameplay mechanics and building types/randomness to keep me hooked until my run ended.
Mr_Field
Mr_Field19 Apr 2025, 01:38
Very impressive entry! Fun & intuitive.

It's hard to find much to criticise, but maybe it could do with a little more feedback when losing?
On my first try, I was a little confused as to why I lost; although I quickly understood during my second attempt.

Maybe it'd help if it highlighted that your points are lower than the cost of your playable cards, before fading to the retry menu?
CameronPenner
CameronPenner19 Apr 2025, 02:32
Really interesting game! I appreciate how the music changed over time, so it wasn't always the same. The art style was great, and I like how different types of buildings leant themselves to different strategies. Well done!
librory
librory19 Apr 2025, 05:52
Brilliant game and i could play it for a long time) i wonder though if we could rotate chunks, or not, didn't find that option, but it doesn't matter, game is really cool. Art, sounds, effects, everything is on top!
LDJam user 431219 Apr 2025, 09:58
This is really great, the mechanic fits perfectly to the theme and both audio and graphics feel really well made. The gameplay is really addictive and while it took me a while to figure out how to get deeper it felt really rewarding once I got it working.
Yorsh
Yorsh19 Apr 2025, 14:59
Very great game! It's beautiful, feels good to play, and the different buildings are interesting and all makes sense in some situations. Congrats!

The improvement you did in the post jam version really improve the game. BUT that's an issue for me. That's over the line of fair play, as most players will just launch the html version without noticing the updates. As it's just a fun event, it's not the worst thing in the world...just, doing things in the time limit is the point of the event, so it's not cool to not respect it imo.
Aurel300
Aurel30019 Apr 2025, 17:46
Welcome back, it's been a long time since you participated in LD :)

Very pretty, both in graphics and music. The music in particular had rather different-sounding sections, which was interesting.

The gameplay itself is pretty intuitive, though for some buildings I must say the text explanation wasn't quite perfect, I really had to see what the effect was like when I placed the buildings down; but that's of course no biggie, there were not too many types of buildings and taking a run or two to get familiar with the rules is to be expected. The core mechanic reminded me a bit of the scoring systems found in some board games, in particular Sprawlopolis. :)

After losing a run, I wish rather than the "end screen" I could see my city! The camera could do a pan over the full run. It would also be nice to show a visual indication of the max depth reached in a previous run + the score, to have a bit of a goal to work towards with successive runs. I don't know how I feel about the "rank" given to the score. I guess it's cute, but without context it's a bit hard to tell which one is "good" and how much further I could improve!
LDJam user 388314
LDJam user 38831419 Apr 2025, 18:34
RUS: Самая лучшая игра в которую я играл в Людуме!!!

Вроде бы выглядит всё так просто, а затягивает очень сильно! Хочется играть в эту игру ещё и ещё!!!

Идея потрясающая, а с Арта игры у меня вообще отпала челюсть :О

И вы даже сделали перевод на русском! НА РУССКОМ КАРЛ!!!

Ну вы просто легенды!

- - -

ENG: The best game I've ever played in Ludum!!!

It seems so simple, but it's so addictive! I want to play this game again and again!!!

The idea is amazing, and the Art of the game made my jaw drop :O

And you even made a translation into Russian! IN RUSSIAN KARL!!!

You are simply legends!
LDJam user 388314
LDJam user 38831419 Apr 2025, 18:41
@yorsh Yeah, this topic is quite controversial, but they have a ludum version of the game, so... Let's just skip it and enjoy the game, heh :p

P.S. Nobody forbids you to play both versions ;)
Yanrishatum
Yanrishatum24 Apr 2025, 20:21
Good graphics and audio as usual. Late-game bunkers feel like more expensive scaffolding, because there's absolutely no way to make them profitable.

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