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[SolS]

Deep Greens
A game where you fly around as a bee with a shield ability and a shooting stinger exploring a mysterious plant world.

The growth has unexpectedly come to a halt, all the flowers have closed off and your hive will soon starve. Your mission is to figure out the cause of the sudden halt to the ecosystem. Though things seem pretty hopeless, legends say an ancient and wise being which all life originated from might hold the secret to it all. To find this being you must search the deep growth for a way to pass the breathless barrier where it is said to be living.


Beta/prototype content from games have always interested me. They usually have an off/alternate universe feel to them similar to the feeling you get if you've ever had a dream about a strange game only to wake up and realize it doesn't exist. That's the sort of feeling I'm going for, like an empty blue sky, or like variations of sketchy visuals that look somewhat unfinished as if it were early concept art.











Some areas are in their early stages and are a bit busy and unbalanced at the moment.












And finally here's some late game areas.








Here's the current soundtrack if you're curious about the music: https://soundcloud.com/user-849410880

[math crab]

Love the art direction.

[rj]

yeah i really like this. it's ugly beautiful, and it creates an unsettling, eerie vibe

[SolS]

Thanks guys!

So far the game has been mostly experimenting and somewhat making it up as I go... so hopefully it turns out ok!

[SolS]

Here's a mockup I did today while experimenting with some art. It's a bit fuller and more peaceful looking compared to most areas but I'm hoping to make more of these kind of locations mixed into the game without losing the eerie vibe of the less full areas I've shown previously. If it still seems inconsistent to me I'll probably find a place for this at the end of the game since it kind of gives off that end game feel.



I've been working with lots of new ideas I'm pretty happy with but I just need to make sure I can find places for all the things I've had planned so far while filling in the remaining areas.

So far all I've shown have been greenish areas but there are a few other locations I'm working on for variety sake that I'll probably show here soon including a volcanic cave like region with electric crystals.

[alvarop]

tracking this with all my eyes ( _ )

[woodsmoke]

I also like the wierd art style.
And I dig the nature theme too.

[SolS]

Thanks for following, I'm glad you guys like it! I would have replied quicker but I figured I should wait until I had something to show. I should have more time to work on the game again so hopefully I can update more frequently.



This whole section of the game has a lot of variety. The enemy placement and gameplay in this shot is a bit awkward but it's just to make this gif more interesting until I work out the level design and have more things to add and show. I have volcanoes I'll probably work on next and some new enemies for this area too. Also hopefully a new shield to show soon as well.

[alvarop]

I honestly have a hard time reading what is going on, which I think could hinder gameplay, but at the same time, it's what makes this so visually appealing to me. Decisions, decisions...

[SolS]

Thanks! And yeah I agree there's a bit too much going on in that gif. It's something I'll be tweaking over time, this new area has been a bit difficult to plan out visually. atm I have too much of the same blue in that example, which is why I threw in the green enemies which of course then becomes too much going on at once, the actual region will be more spread out as well and probably won't ever have this much chaos on one screen.

I'm hoping in actual gameplay a player will have enough experience in the more readable areas to then know what's what, that will become more clear when I have people play test it. A game with these kinds of visuals can be difficult to balance out at times

[SolS]

 I feel like the best way to make progress for the remaining empty space in the game is to focus on making mockups for regions and then finding ways to connect them. I'm experimenting with different color combinations as well to see what I like best. Once I decide on areas and their variations I'll make mockups for the regions which will help me visualize what else I'd want to add to them.

Here's a couple mini mockups and some color variations of some ground level locations. Deciding on palettes has always been hard for me since I end up liking most of the combinations. Also here are a few other enemies including bird-flies, pseudo bats and live pollen stalks. The pollen stalks shoot a spread of seeds that can explode if you touch or shoot them.



I have some animated things I want to get to as well including a new shield, the volcano irruptions and some new enemies including spinning wing seeds, a fire breathing phantom frog, giant worms and a long salamander. Also here's an older screenshot I haven't posted yet, you can shoot through those bubble berry things.

[Retroopla]

So much RETRO in one game!
Looks unusual but also somehow interesting. Reminds a little bit of the glitch missingno in Pokemon Red Blue - so I guess... hard nostalgic feelings are hitting me

[Artifice Machine]

Been keeping an eye on this for a while.
Glad to see it's still being developed!

[The Armorman]

sounds nice, bubba

[SolS]

Thanks for all the nice comments! It's also really nice to see devs I've followed show interest as well!

I never thought about missingno but now I can totally see that haha

(A bit about how this game came about if you're curious)

Actually for this game it started when I remembered seeing people make low res Metroid pixel art, they had a slight grit and detail to them and sometimes looked as if it were just normal sized bits shrunk down. So It seemed appealing to me to work on a simpler flying game in that lower res style before starting anything else.

The original game was much more psychedelic. This current game came from shrinking down content from this and mixing it together with a more natural atmosphere which makes Deep Greens feel more surreal rather than psychedelic. Seas of Saturn is basically the beta which I'll probably work on after Deep Greens as long as I'm not too burned out by then. As you can see it's a slight style variation that's similar yet different.

[SolS]

Started experimenting with this upper tree area where mysterious UFOs float in the distance. There's not much to this area right now.. I'll go back to it to add more scenery later and maybe also tone down or smooth out the animated background a bit.



I'll try to animate the volcanoes and their eruptions in the next few days.

[SolS]

Got the volcanoes animated and working! I'll share those when I get more to show from that region

Today I was experimenting with colors for some root tiles, I also mixed them with older art and got some nice results

[egor.botov]

Great art style, following.

[SolS]

Thanks egor.botov!

Here's some more

[Pizzamakesgames]

Ah, what a unique art style! Love to see something bold enough to be it's own thing, though the screenshots do bring one thing to mind:



I Would like to see it in motion a bit cause I wonder if the visuals might just be a little unclear as still images.