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[team_q]

I find if I don't get games like this on the first go around, the magic is lost, but if it works right, then I really enjoy them. I thought about quitting before I realized that the fish were telling me where to go, I thought the end game was just swimming underwater collecting fish.

[Eclipse]

I think part of the problem is that you started the game off giving the player huge expectations for the game.  From the beginning there is this really cool intro screen and then you drop in with this fast-paced music and there are all these great enemies and bolts to collect.  Complete with a boss to fight.  Originally I thought this kind of gameplay would continue and I was really drawn in, I had high expectations because of what I first experienced and then came the water level and all else and I was disappointed that the game play changed so drastically.  But taking into consideration its length and time in development I'd say it was a pretty decent game.  I didn't feel quite enough artistic intention in any of the design to draw any real meaning or metaphors from it though.

same for me, I was like "omg a game from Adam! and it's a cavestorysh stuff, YAY!"... the first bit was truly ace and i was all in jizz-in-my-pants mode, then the sadness of discovering that the game wasn't actually that crawled inside my heart and shattered it to pieces.

Now i only want to cry and after that i'll scream like a mad and run away at every underwater level i'll find in a 2d platform\shooter. FOR FUCKING EVER.
 


well ok it's not really all like that but still...

[Anthony Flack]

Now i only want to cry and after that i'll scream like a mad and run away at every underwater level i'll find in a 2d platform\shooter. FOR FUCKING EVER.

Yeah, but playing Mario games will also do that to you.

[JustinGameDesign]

Nice work!  Somehow I suspected the twist to this game and deliberately jumped straight into the first hole, so my experience was a little different (didn't see the enemies or boss until later and definitely didn't recognize anything familiar in the underwater terrain), but still a great concept!  I'll admit that I much preferred the cute  -style shooting action of the overworld, but it was just a short project so you made your impact pretty well.  Most of all I think I liked the graphics from the teaser screens that lead me to the game.  Hope to see lots more like them in the future!

[deadeye]

Maybe we should all start doing the most depressing endings possible and giggle as our player writhe on their seats and redo the game a hundred times trying to find that elusive good ending.

Actually I kin of thought that's what this was initially.  But:

I promise that the problems people are having are due to my inexperience or poor judgment, OR a simple incompatibility with the few things that I did manage to get right   But not a willful effort to piss on somebody.

Okay then, I'll trust you on that one .

I guess expectations really do have a lot to do with how much a person likes something.  The screenshot showed me one game, and it turned out to be another.  I guess even playing the first few seconds of the game would be enough to give you a certain expectation on how it's going to go, even if you just jump right into the first hole like I did.

BUG: When the 3rd to last owl fell on me, it warped backwards 2 spaces.

That happened to me too, but I don't remember which one.  And after it warped it fell off the screen.

[nihilocrat]

Very, very pretty game. Ace job on the music.

However, I didn't really find it fun. The overworld was kinda boring. The exploratory aspect of the underworld was neat for just a bit, but then it just got annoying, probably because the controls were annoying.

For 10 days that's quite an accomplishment, though.

[Chris Z]

Adam, stop apologizing.  This game was good (especially considering the dev time) and the switcheroo was brilliant.  In fact, I DIDN'T initially play this game because I thought it was yet another pixelly-cave-story-jump-and-shoot-platformer but I gave it a try last night anyway.  The graphics were wonderful, especially the way you played with the lighting.  The music was superb and fit the game perfectly.  Danny B really nailed the Mega Man-esque track in the beginning and the splash followed by the mysterious underwater music kicking in had quite the impact on me.  I knew immediately what you had done and I commend you for it.  Maybe because I had read a post recently in the competition idea thread suggesting a compo about what happens when a character dies by falling down a pit.  The message was strong and well conveyed in the last section where you're swimming through an underwater version of the overworld.  After seeing the ending I think I would have been disappointed if it ended any other way.  It fit perfectly IMO.

This game has proven to be polarizing but don't let the negative portion of that affect you.  Be proud of your work.  You took a risk and I think it worked.  To the people that wanted more gameplay like the overworld section, there's about a million other games like that  available for you to play.

[Ixis]

Two things I must admit...

1.) When I first fell into the pit and then into the water I expected the game would follow up with more unique twists involving death (basically, if you got squished by a block you'd be warped into some flatland, or some other such thing.) I think that is a concept worth pursuing, a game where death doesn't penalize you save for sending you to someplace else entirely based on how you died.

2.) I've always secretly wished I could work on the next Final Fantasy, releasing pretty screenshots and movies and boasting about how "amazing" the story would be, and then shipping a black + white rubber-hose 2d rpg thing.

But if we've all learned something from FATHOM and MGS3, it's that gamers dislike the old-switcheroo. Adam, if I were you I wouldn't be apologetic or anything, instead I'd enjoy my time as a detached scientist, observing the culture growing on this small petri dish of a thread.

But that's just me. 

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i think this game is kind of a secret litmus text actually: if you enjoyed the first part more than the second, your id dominates you, if you enjoyed the second part more than the first, your superego dominates you. WHICH IS WORSE???

[Ghegs]

I found that it IS possible to completely deplete the boss' lifebar - it just doesn't kill him. It only creates a small graphical glitch.



I mapped the controls to a gamepad with XPadder and enabled turbo on the fire button - at 50 presses/second.

(Easy to guess I would've loved to see another kick-ass action platformer...)

[William Broom]

Just for the record, I didn't really come into the game expecting a traditional platformer, and I found it immediately obvious that it wasn't going to be that because there was no ability to shoot upward. Considering that the game obviously apes Cave Story's style in every other way, that fact made me assume that it was quickly going to switch to a different mode of gameplay. Which it did.

And no, I never finished the game. The first time I encountered the bug, and the second time I fell down the first pit and managed to grow a big black tree. However I couldn't find anything to do after that. I don't know if that was intentional or another glitch.

@Rinku: Of course I understand that many people did enjoy the game, but I can only describe my own experience with it. Plus, I can't help thinking that those people were the ones who just got lucky and found the seed quickly (it took me at least 10 minutes) and didn't encounter the bug. If I had experienced the game that way, then I probably would have enjoyed it too.

[Garthy]

(Removed comment as it's not worth the aggro)

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i don't think it has anything to do with not finding the seed or not being arty or being uncultured. it has to do with whether you can enjoy slow exploration of dark atmospheric areas without anything to shoot. if you can, you'll enjoy the game.

it's just disturbing to me how many people who didn't enjoy the game think those that did are pretending to enjoy it because it's trendy or something. it's possible to enjoy something just for the atmosphere and feeling it provides of exploring a mysterious place. to enjoy something just for the colors, just for the fish swimming around you, just for the quiet sensations of that world. it doesn't take culture to enjoy that, and it's no more 'artistic' to enjoy that than it is to enjoy cave story. it's just a kind of enjoyment that some people seem to like and others don't seem to like.

my favorite parts of cave story were the highly atmospheric areas with few enemies, for instance when you reach the external side of the floating island, and see the clouds moving. quiet moments, too, can be fun.

[JoeHonkie]

This game wasn't for me.

I did "beat" it though.  I think.  I don't know what happened.

EDIT: I had no problem with the switcheroo.  That was clever.  I just didn't like the underwater controls or puzzles and I didn't see any meaning to it.

[Ixis]

i don't think it has anything to do with not finding the seed or not being arty or being uncultured. it has to do with whether you can enjoy slow exploration of dark atmospheric areas without anything to shoot. if you can, you'll enjoy the game.

it's just disturbing to me how many people who didn't enjoy the game think those that did are pretending to enjoy it because it's trendy or something. it's possible to enjoy something just for the atmosphere and feeling it provides of exploring a mysterious place. to enjoy something just for the colors, just for the fish swimming around you, just for the quiet sensations of that world. it doesn't take culture to enjoy that, and it's no more 'artistic' to enjoy that than it is to enjoy cave story. it's just a kind of enjoyment that some people seem to like and others don't seem to like.

my favorite parts of cave story were the highly atmospheric areas with few enemies, for instance when you reach the external side of the floating island, and see the clouds moving. quiet moments, too, can be fun.

This is my opinion, it's not much but it is what it is.

But by the same token there probably are a few people saying they enjoyed the game when maybe they didn't, or who enjoy the idea of the game more than the actual game itself. I can't point to anyone and say that for sure, and I'm convinced the majority of people who have played this game enjoyed it (since I enjoyed the underwater bits a little too), but I can totally see and understand people getting frustrated with the game as well, and having gone to art college I've come to expect that when someone does something remotely artistic there are people who understand and appreciate the work and there are those who use it as an excuse to be pretentious, talk down to others or to become simple-minded beings who want nothing more than to appear "intelligent" or "cultured" who do not actually understand why a work is or isn't such. The art game industry is no exception to this rule (especially since a lot of gamers/designers are eager to see games as art and do nothing to further or enhance the discussion on the topic and instead just remark about how all art games are "good" for being art and non-art games are "bad" for being commercial.)

That said I think Fathom is great for starting such discussions.

Going back to your original post (went off on a bit of a tangent there), while it is possible to enjoy the atmosphere of something, the game itself isn't "sold" as an atmospheric exploration game, it's sold as an action game. I think people can believe that atmospheric games are fun, but not Fathom's atmosphere, or at least the way it's given to the player.

Aquaria also has swimming underwater in dark areas, but Aquaria's controls are tight and fluid, whereas exploring in Fathom is a tricky thing to do. So, to enjoy Fathom you'd have to be someone who...

likes action platforming cave story-esque games, but doesn't mind when the gameplay changes drastically two minutes in; enjoy atmospheric exploration games and you can get behind awkward controls to do so, while also being able to comprehend its obscure and sometimes out-of-place design elements (aka: the seed.)

OR

you could just be a guy who likes experimental/art games, and enjoyed the game for what it is on a meta level.

I'm more inclined to believe it's the latter, and I'm inclined to believe there are a few people in the latter who saw Fathom as an art/experimental game, saw a lot of people enjoying it and decided to go "me too." It's not good or bad, just human nature, and it's very easy to see other people anticipating this, and they don't just have to be people who didn't like the game.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i didn't really find the controls bad, they felt fine to me. i wasn't frustrated by them at all. perhaps that's because i'm used to playing games like solar jetman? i can definitely see how if someone isn't used to that control scheme they could get frustrated easily, but saying it's a *bad* control scheme isn't accurate, it works well if you're used to it. so i do think the controls are actually more tight and more fluid than aquaria's, or at least equally good. it's really not awkward at all for me. you just need to be used to it.

[Soulliard]

it has to do with whether you can enjoy slow exploration of dark atmospheric areas without anything to shoot. if you can, you'll enjoy the game.

I can't say I agree with that. I'd restate it as:
'It has to do with whether you enjoy slow exploration of dark atmospheric areas without anything to shoot to the extent that you're willing to ignore poor controls and unintuitive puzzles'.

If the underwater areas had tighter controls (or at least put the flashlight in front of the character), and the pointless illogical puzzle was removed, and the confusing first pit was taken out, then I would have had a much better experience with the game.

If you are able to ignore these flaws, I can understand why you might enjoy the game. I can't, though, and that ruined it for me.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I don't see the controls as bad, I think they work perfectly. What didn't you like about the controls? Was it just that it used a solar jetman type scheme, or something else?

[Soulliard]

That was part of it, yes. But the level was designed so all the walls have snags, which made traversing the area difficult unless you have mastered that type of control scheme. And the light was facing the wrong direction, making navigating through dark areas slow and tedious.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i think most games are designed such that until you're comfortable with their control scheme, they aren't fun -- fps's aren't fun unless you're comfortable with wasd, and platformers aren't fun unless you can reliably jump over pits and on moving platforms and enemies and such; it does take a significant degree of mastery. solar jetman style movement physics likewise are frustrating until you've mastered them; i don't think i ever got caught in any sort of snag while playing it, so i'm not sure what you mean by snags. i think the problem is just that it's an uncommon control scheme, not that it's a bad one. and i thought the light facing in the wrong direction added a lot to the atmosphere and was a nice touch, if i can't see where i'm going it's scarier to me than if i can.