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[DarkNemo]

Expecially if it leads someone to register to a forum only to post about it!

Well, I follow TIG and other great websites about Independent Games since a long time, I support them and create some too, but it's usually friends of mine that say "I don't get it, this game is shit" when I say "But no, look here and here, that's wonderful theme blabla".
And here, I'm sorry but I don't get it, I just don't get it. I will not say "this game is shit" because it is not and is some enjoyable experience, but the end is so frustrating I can't totally enjoy it. That's why I register and ask for some "hints". 

[ninjascience]

Wow, people either seem to inherently enjoy this experience, or they really don't enjoy it.  Some kind of basic division of human nature perhaps?  I'm not going to say I "got it" but I certainly enjoyed it a lot. 

At first I didn't get what the light was for, but then as I first noticed the deeper sections getting darker I was totally sucked in to the feeling of wandering around these dark sunken caverns.  Fantastic atmosphere.  I hope the engine release shows off how you did that light mask because it looked beautiful.


Great work and very looking forward to playing with the engine release.

[Melly]

The game obviously isn't a real 'game' so much as some kind of metaphor. Of what, I'm still unsure.

The game fools you, in a sense, by making you think it's just another run'n'gun adventure. Falling on water reveal what the game's really about. I'm fairly sure there's some intended meaning here, but I'm too tired right now to discern it.

[Alec]

I love how confused some people are by this. 

[Melly]

And I bet you already know everything there is to know about it, don't you Alec?

[lowpoly]

I have kinda mixed feelings with this. The presentation is top notch and I appreciate the concept, the gameplay switch was an interesting idea and the water sequence was kinda eerie at first. However, it went from interesting to annoying after a few minutes of spinning around in the dark, bumping into frustratingly (purposely?) placed snags, guided by an almost useless flashlight.

I realize those were all design decisions and done for a specific purpose, but the payoff for collecting fish, something that looked like a frog, and the rest of the sequence thereafter was pretty disappointing in the end. I'm sure later on today, I'll think of something metaphoric for the entire experience and maybe see it all in a different light, but for right now, the water controls and blind gameplay killed it for me.

I actually really enjoyed the beginning part. I think if you had extended the opening portion and allowed the player to develop a larger investment in the character, the switchover and ending would have had a greater impact. The amount of time spent platforming (fun) vs swimming (not as fun) ultimately feels skewed towards the latter and made the experience less compelling, for me.


oh one quick bug, when the window lost focus, the game paused and the music stopped, but the sound effects kept playing.

[Joseph]

Pretty clever! Imagine doing a game where each level had a death scene like this! LOL I'll keep trying to kill the damn boss

[Eclipse]

I hope the engine release shows off how you did that light mask because it looked beautiful.

Oh i did something similar on Darkbase: Incubation whole ambient lighting, a flashlight and some dynamic stuff around the levels

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/488731

beware: it's quite an hard game :\

[Eclipse]

The game fools you, in a sense, by making you think it's just another run'n'gun adventure.

the question is *WHY* it's not, it looked so awesome

[Glaiel-Gamer]

I hope the engine release shows off how you did that light mask because it looked beautiful.

Wild guess: It's a black and white image set to multiply blend mode?

[roBurky]

I /really/ like the idea of this. But the underwater puzzle is just too obscure, I think, with no causal relationship between the three things you have to do to progress. The frustration of just wandering around the same area over and over is the defining memory I take away from the game, rather than the much more interesting reflection at the end.

From the comments here, I guess there was something to do with the fish that I never noticed. They just appeared to be following me.

[Greg Game Man]

this game just pissed me off loads.. after i got killed by the boss which cant be killed, i swam around for fucking ages not knowing what to do making fish friends. i thought the fish were tellin me what to do? so i got that green thing, put it where they said, and there was a light beam but i still couldnt get anywhere.. really annoying.

though completely unorigional, the graphics are amazing

[PGGB]

Yeah, it isn't too obvious that the fish show you a direction. Especially if you do not stop. I think I collected all of the fish on my first run and never noticed it and only stumbled over the important places.

[Anthony Flack]

My alternate reading is that this game is a demo to show off the various engine features. But I prefer not to see it like that, since as a design, there are things I find quite interesting about it.

Like, wasn't it fun collecting the nuts? Did you make sure to collect them all? I did. Turns out they don't serve any purpose, but what do we care? They were there so we collected them. I like that.

I like the futility.

[AdamAtomic]

My alternate reading is that this game is a demo to show off the various engine features.

Can't it be both? 

[Melly]

One big improvement that could have been made is to make the underwater section have more varied designs. Right now it's the same few tiles repeated over long corridors so it doesn't give a good sense of "Oh, I haven't been here yet!", instead of "Is there an end to this place?"

[AdamAtomic]

Yeah I totally agree with comments about graphically varying the maze some more...that's something I feel pretty strongly about in any game wehre exploration is important.  I did take some steps in that direction but it ultimately required a decent amount of additional content that I just didn't have time to produce...I am glad that some people have managed to find their way through in spite of the shortcomings, though!

[Bebop]

Is there really no alternate ending or secret?
Because if it's true I've been searching for half a day for nothing.

[Anthony Flack]

Can't it be both?

Yeah! But it's more fun to interpret the design without regard to "oh, that was probably put in to show off the engine features", even though some of it possibly was...

I don't mind the boring underwater area (as I say, making it more interesting down there would be the standard gamey thing to do, but since this game seems to deviate further and further from what you expect, it might work against it).

I *do* think that the biggest problem is people thinking there must be another ending. Poor ol' BeBop probably didn't need to spend half a day like that.

[AdamAtomic]

I totally agree!  I am not sure really short of like at the end of the game putting up like giant text that says "THAT'S IT THERE IS NO SECRET ENDING" about exactly how to go about that though?  It's been interesting to see how powerful the expectation is of there BEING a good ending...like if a game has a bad ending, it's because you fucked up and didn't collect all the stars or something?