Mutant Ocean LD57
A downloadable game for Windows
Welcome to the Mutant Ocean research programme,
you have been selected as an Operator for the Automated Diver unit.
50,000 years ago humanity seeded the oceans of Almenic IV to research mutations in non earth oceanic environments. Now it is time to take samples of the mutated life forms and retrieve the three Autonomous P.E.A.R.L monitors which contain a mineral and nutient dense physical record of the oceans.
Rate for Ludum Dare
To control the Automated Diver:
- Use WASD Arrow Keys or the Left Analog Stick to move
- Press Space or the Right Action Button to swing the sample net
- Press Shift or the Bottom Action Button to Dash
Objectives:
Your role as an operator will be terminated should you fail to reach the profit target for a dive. Your role will be apsred should you succeed in collecting the P.E.A.R.L monitor for the area.
Collect samples of fish, rarer fish will spawn lower, scans indicate abnormal biologies with the deepest dwelling fish absorbing environmental metals and integrating them into their biology.
You have a limited number of sample jars but may purchase some more in the Overview Screen.
Collect samples of seaweed and coral, these are less valuable but do not have limited storage
By collecting the pearl for an area you will be able to progress to the next dive site, each dive is deeper and spawns rarer and more dangerous fish.
Credits
Made for Ludum Dare 57 with the theme of "Depths" in 72 hours.
Game designed and programmed by Hyphinett
Background Music by Hyphinett
Art by Tetraminose
SFX & Additional Music by Kaitlyn "IDKAY" Cooper
Changelog LDJamV1.01
- Vibes have become infinite: BGM now actually loops.
- Fish are less pushy: They don't move the coral and seaweed objects and can swim through them now.
- Particle system tweak: Light shaft count and speed has been decreased
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Comments
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Nice!!!
I like the feel of the swimming! the mechanic is compelling too.
I feel like you should be able to kill fish even if you can't collect them, and they just float up dead. I kept not realising I couldn't hurt them because I had collected too many.
Also was confused that you can exit from the top of any level. knowing that makes it a lot easier. but also i was assuming i was dieing when my oxygen ran out, but actually i was failing because I didn't collect enough at first.
the movement was punishingly slow at the start too then after the first upgrade it was quite fast. maybe start closer to the first upgrade speed?
love the game. will be great with a few tweaks!
Thanks for playing! A lot of these issues stem from the jam deadline unfortunately. However the limited fish is an intentional decision. You're a researcher not a warior, you're there to interfere as little as possible with the ecosystem. That said I had to scrap a mechanic that would allow you to scare away fish due to time constraints and I think that would have helped a lot along with a better indication of when you can no longer catch a fish and better communication of the health/oxygen mechanic.
The game was heavily inspired by There's Something Beneath The Surface At Coral Cove wich I made for a Ludum Dare over a decade ago, having to return all the way to the surface in that game just wasn't fun and running out of oxygen as the fail state never felt entirely right, so this time around I decided to make the fail state something researchers actually have to worry about, money, I imagine the diver just gets teleported out when the oxygen runs out, it's at least 50,000 years into the future after all hehe.
There's plenty of things I can hopefully communicate better about the mechanics that resulted from this direction once I find time for an updated version. I also had a bunch of extra room designs done but was making them in the last half hour of the jam and couldn't place all the spawners in quickly enough to put them to use, and I really didn't have time to properly balance the stats. As I say hopefully I can make a nicer updated version soon.
ahhhh! that makes a lot of sense. the fish were attacking me and I think I assumed collision with the fish would hurt. and "attacking" (which is how it looks) is so easy right now.
a little teleportation animation would be rad!
yeah, lots of ways to solve it if you come back to it. a little playable intro could communicate it all really easily. like you don't have the camera yet and you're swimming past all the fish, and maybe you see something super rare and when you leave no one believes you.