The Hidden Depths

Amazing intro scene, really good looking sprites, the look of the game kind of reminds me of Dave the Diver. The gameplay requires strategy and thought, with the random creatures changing the strategy each game, adding to the overall re-playability. One small problem I had was I kept accidently discarding creatures since adding a creature requires a drag and drop, but discarding works the moment the mouse clicks. Maybe dragging and dropping to a trash can could help? Still, an absolutely fun experience. From the little ui/text animations to the sound effects and unique sprites, this game is well polished and well made!

@generictoast thanks for playing! It was my first time creating pixel art so that was a fun experience.

The discard thing has been bugging me as well, I wanted to have a confirm button, but dragging and dropping to trash/whirlpool is a really elegant solution.

really cool! fish balatro lol

Scored 54. Not bad I thinki! This game is great. The art and sound design is superb, and the game design consept of basically advanced Sudoku really works here. I did discard cards on accedent more often then on purpose, but maybe that's just me and my silly brain.

Neat little game! Relaxing, but a bit thinky all the same. I liked the art quite a bit. Despite accidentally discarding multiple things I wanted to use, I still managed a 76 on my run.

So many nice little touches: paralax background, cards sliding, menu transitions, sounds, final scoring breakdown, ...

I would appreciate some visual indication of which cards on the board are interacting with the currently placed card. It would be nice to see how the score changes after playing a card. For example, when I place a Prey in the row with a Shark, I would like to see that the Shark gets two extra points.

And yes, I also discarded cards by accident :)

Very solid entry! :heart:

hey love the polish in the ui and the nice sprites, I kept discarding the fish I wanted, maybe making the discard phase more visible or a confirm button would be nice 🙈
overall super nice ❤️

Wow, very nice looking game! The sprite are awesome and the intro 😍 I enjoyed the mood and the gameplay very much.

Really enjoyed this!
The gameplay loop is great and once I understood how to play I really enjoyed it.

Definitely didnt understand the discard mechanic at first though so I think that could have been a bit more visible.

Great job!

cool unique idea! I looked at the different critters in my inventory thinking of the best way to use them for wayy to long lmao. Really good game!

Great polish and atmosphere. The mechanics are interesting, just not my cup of tea.

Very cool intro and a lot of nice visual and sfx touches! Like the puzzle overall but the discarding felt a bit akward at times. Great work and thanks for the game!

Super nicely done! Got 66 on my first run, subsequent runs were a tad better. I'll be returning to this one for sure :) Kudos!

What a fantastic little puzzle game with a really great atmosphere. Smooth gameplay, satisfying and chill atmosphere. Excellent pixel art. Really nice polish. Manta Ray OP! great job!

One of my fav entry, it's really really good, it work very well and i want to play again and again. Great job to your team !

Super fun, and the card combos are great—feels like you put a lot of thought into the design! At first I kept accidentally discarding cards though, maybe the feedback could be clearer. Also, the slots where you can place cards were a bit too dark for me to notice right away. Overall, nice game, good job!

Fun. I kept accidentally discarding cards, but once I trained myself out of that I got it. I almost wish there was a smaller tutorial grid, or maybe be able to iterate between games faster somehow. Felt a little slow to me. But overall the gameplay loop is great and has a lot of potential for more.

@prvaak @P1x3lc0w thanks for noticing the small things! Every jam I try to improve on this.

Previewing the effects of placing a card would be great, will see if I can add something like that in the future!

@buckmeister 66 is a good first try! I think my high score is around 90.

@generictoast the main complaint from basically everyone is the discard, so I managed to add a whirlpool based on your suggestion to drag to and it makes a huge difference. I don't know why I did not think of it before :laughing:

Solid game! I loved the replayability of this, the gameplay itself pushes me to try to surpass my previous highscore every time I played. I loved this! Great art and audio as well!

Incredibly nice game, music, visual style, beautiful sea creatures - I really liked it.
I didn't quite understand the meaning, but I had a lot of fun playing, I scored 42 points, probably not much, but I'll be back.
Thank you!

Cool concept! I found myself uncertain how the rules for where I could place would go on my first try, but I got into the flow anyway.

That's super fun!

Very good game ! I enjoyed everything, from the mechanics to the visual and music. Congrats it's a 5 overall for me ! :D

Interesting puzzler, and a really cool take on the theme

Enjoyed it ! Nice game overall, well polished :)

Seriously a lot of fun, great job!

I got 78 on my first try and I'll probably be back to see if I can get a better score! I'm imagining a post-jam version that expands the play field a little and adds additional creatures to unlock. Very good job I had a lot of fun playing!

@kingmaharg thanks for playing! One of the design goals was to make you discover the rules as you go along to fit in with the idea of being a scientist studying the ecosystem. So every subsequent round you improve as you understand more how the different creatures work together.

@donutshoes that is a good score! For post-jam my number one goals are adding a bit more personality to the current inhabitants - variations (like different corals, tiny reef fish etc) and animations to make the playing field less static.

cool

That intro alone is worth some innovation points, it was an awesome idea :smile:

The game requires some getting used to but it plays like a puzzle game with strategic long term planning, and as someone who grew up playing games like Age Of Empires2 I enjoyed that. I like how the ideal eco-system for the most points is one where creature placement makes sense (coral at the bottom, then prey then predators).

Awesome Work!

@0x-void-x0 Really? That's your first score? NICE!

I am a huge nature nerd, and a BBC fan, so I tried to copy the feel of the original Planet Earth intro, but with pixel art.

One of my fav game so far, the art is amazing, animations are perfect, and the puzzle game is really fun, well done !

I got 83 on my first try - Mantas are OP and awesome! I thought I was going to use the octopus originally but I discarded all of those. Agreed with another commenter that the Planet Earth intro was extra nice - it reminded me a lot of older games too and how they booted up.

I think one thing that I had trouble recognizing initially was the discard with the pool. I know it says "Discard" in text, but maybe something otherwise that draws your attention to discarding a card and the pool could help.

Gameplay wise, this is a really interesting game and I can see myself trying out different combos and strategies to get high scores, especially if there is a leaderboard.

The mood of the game was really on point - I really did feel like a marine biologist in the depths. Thank you so much for sharing this work, and great job on this jam!

@miku thanks for playing and the valuable input. I added the whirlpool to the side so that you can still decide which creatures you need, but one option I guess is that the FIRST time we hit the discard phase to add something to explain it.

Really nice game, makes you want to try hard the scoring and find the best meta x)
Keep up the good work !

Very polished and cool concept!

This entry is one of my favorite ones I've played so far. :sob: I had a ton of fun over-thinking the placement of the creatures, and was frustrated (in a good way) that I had to plan around discarding creatures to the whirlpool between turns. I mis-planned my first round by wasting some shark placements, but still feel happy with my initial score. Great job!

@caer thanks for playing! That is an excellent first score!

Really cool game! It has a very polished look and feel. Idk how balanced things are, but the multiple ways to score look interesting. I got 90. Great work!

@yorsh 90 is a really good first score! I don't know how balanced it is either. I think mantas are a bit overpowered, but there are several different strategies. In the end I don't think it matters as much especially in a jam.

This little game is really nice... it would have been nice to set a point objective or placement constraints... it really looks like "ecosystem" type board games... I think the idea is very nice but wouldn't it be cool to see the effects of the tiles when you place them? In any case, this is a good idea to explore.

Aaaah, I like this one so much! Why didn't you participate in music/audio category? I liked the audio ambience just as much as everything else. Also, it definitely is super challenging to balance out games like this one, but I love all the creatures synergies, everything looked very well thought through! Amazing work :D

@piero-pbes-studio previewing of effects and animation is on the cards for the post jam version. I think specific goals or points would make a good addition!

@momotiktik I would love to enter the audio category, but I can't create my own sounds and music so used a pack. I spend a lot of time to make everything work together, but always see this as part of Mood instead of audio.

Im pretty happy with my 87! Every card felt unique and interesting. great job :)

Awesome game! Thanks for dropping in on my stream! Loved playing it.
Scored 62 on the first run. Might come back to it in a bit

Super sick intro ! The game is absolutely fantastic I like the random cards. I want more cards depths ( full release basically). Think with some love you can definitely make this happen. Pixel art is good music is nice .

@alvaron thanks for playing I am glad you enjoyed it!

@senso thanks! there are plans for a bigger version, I was thinking of exploring some other biomes as well :wink:

That was fun! The art is really pretty, and I enjoy the gameplay, trying to squeeze as much as you can from you the hand you got! I scored 85 :)

This is great entry. Visuals are spot on and very coherent. SFX is snappy and soundtrack is giving back that vibe of depths exploration. I immediately gave this a few tries, there are quite a few different strategies. This reminds me of some boardgames I played. Sadly, highscores did not saved after closing. Also small bug I found - after you play next time, previous scores are not cleared until it recalculates, which was a little bit confusing until all species recalculated. Anyway I love this entry!

@wallted thanks for the comments! I will see if I can squish those bugs!

@tygrak Excellent score! Glad you enjoyed it!

@nsadie great ! Send me a message I’ll wishlist play test whatever.

Liked the design and the music! Got 67 points, but made a few mistakes, because I can't read :D. Liked the final score counting sequence, very well made game overall.