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A jam submission

The Portsmoor AbysmView game page

Push boulders, avoid monsters, solve puzzles, escape the catacombs, save the town!
Submitted by Renons (@omsandin) — 6 days, 14 hours before the deadline
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The Portsmoor Abysm's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Controls / UI#64.5714.571
Sound/Music#134.2864.286
Overall Fun#214.2864.286
Art / Graphics#244.4294.429

Ranked from 7 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Genre

Puzzle

Mystery | Advenure

Rating

For 13+

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Comments

(+1)

Hi Renonsical!

I'd like to start by saying how wonderfully thought out the level designs were! I still need to go back and play this a bit more and knock out the final 3 stages. That said, here's my feedback!

Gameplay:

  • As I mentioned, the levels were masterfully crafted! The progression with each level was not overwhelming and added just a touch more challenge but it shined in making the player feel confident in how to beat the level only to pull the rug right out from under them. 
  • It's unfortunate that knowing the solution to a stage limits the replay value of puzzle games but at the same time that just simply means that we as the players want more. That said, I'm looking forward to what more you have in store with the later stages.
  • Controls were simple and there were helpful reminders that popped up at the right moment like when resetting the stage through the menu a hint would remind the player of the hotkey to reset.

Audio:

  • I know that you mentioned during my stream that there would be different music in the later biomes/stages but for the levels I played, I was left hoping for a little bit more. What I would suggest is that since the player is moving further away from the surface, you could start with some sound of like crickets and wind but the game gets quieter with each stage and you start hearing some other tones. Something to add intensity to the progression.
  • No complaints about the sfx, everything had a sound queue that worked well for the game for my experience.

Visuals:

  • As a color blind player, I am usually not a great judge of visuals so what I primarily give feedback on is how visuals impact my gameplay. The color choices and visuals did not negatively affect my gameplay in any way as I felt there was a clear enough distinction in all the elements in the game so long as I paid proper attention and looked around first. If anything, the breakable walls were the only thing that I could have missed if I were not paying attention to it.

Other Feedback:

  • One thing I noticed was that since I had time constraints to finish as much of the game as possible, I started to feel pressured to get it done which made things slightly more exciting while at the same time I had set a personal goal of clearing the game with as few screwups as possible. I feel like it'd be cool if there were some kind of varying profiles where players can compare their first times completing each stage, taking account time, deaths, and number of moves would help drive all these objectives without forcing the players who don't care to compete.
  • If possible, I'd love to see this as a mobile game so it gives me something fun and challenging to bring along with me instead of playing non-stop gacha and p2w games. On PC, or console your game has a bit of challenge with the wealth of options out there but I feel your game would stand out well as a mobile experience.

Overall, I loved the game and would be looking forward to playing this more!

Thank you for your time and creating such a fun game!

Regards,
- Glim

Developer (1 edit)

Hello!
Thank you for all the praise, it really is good to hear that you enjoyed my game! I spent a lot of time thinking about my level progression and am obviously thrilled to hear that it has paid off. Your stream was a real pleasure to watch, getting to see what people struggle with and what might be a tad too easy is highly useful, and seeing people experience those "Aha!" moments is such a joy. 

Re. feedback:
* Progressing the ambient audio within an episode is a very interesting idea... could provide some auditory variation essentially "for free", since I already have a bunch of ambient noises I use uniformly within each episode. I will almost certainly do something like that. 

* I'm glad the colors didn't pose a problem, but you mentioning the problem reminds me that I have a situation where it could have become a problem later in the game, but now that it's top of mind I can easily design around that using shapes in addition to color.

* The game save system is prepared for having "profiles", but an actual profile system hasn't been implemented. Thanks for mentioning it, helps me prioritize!

* My choice of tech makes a mobile version slightly unlikely, at least in the short term, but one of the primary reasons I want to put this game on Steam is to make it available on the Deck, exactly for that couch experience.

Thanks for playing my game and for the feedback!

(+1)
  • Youtube Timestamped Link
  • Graphics : Considering the inspiration of the game (Boulder Dash) , the graphics are lovely.
  • Music / Sfx: All good here, all quite nice.
  • GUI : The Menus look quite nice. 
  • Gameplay : I'm generally not a fan of these types of puzzle games but I enjoyed this one , no complaints here.
  • Notes :
    • This felt much higher quality than it had any right being.
    • I saw another review elsewhere calling this a "sokoban" game and had to look that up; had to do the same with Boulder Dash but if I had to choose between playing any of those vs this, I'd pick this every time.
    • I only played a short bit due to a massive headache I had but I definitely wanted to play more.
    • The amount of levels just for a demo feels very generous.

I feel kind of bad for not having more to say about this game, I think it's quite nice for what it is , I like the fact that it is attempting to have more to it (story) than many other such games. I would've given the game a longer try but I had a massive headache at the time but in spite of such, I greatly enjoyed this game.

Developer (3 edits)

Hello Zflocco!
Thanks for your review, I'm really happy that you liked it! I also watched your linked YouTube video, so I will respond to that as well. 

  • I saw you struggle with finding the restart button, just like essentially every streamer I've seen playing the game. Now, every time you restart the game through the menu, there is actually a little information popup in the lower right corner, informing the player about the existence of the restart hotkey. It is now quite clear to me that it's far too discreet, and while I've been trying to keep things clean by making it fairly small and transient, the next build will absolutely make that popup bigger and have it stay on screen for much longer.
  • You're completely correct that I chose 'p' because I didn't want anyone to hit it by accident, same reason that it requires a double tap. But you're not the first streamer trying 'r', and henceforward I'll let the double tap be enough and add 'r' as a default.
  • You managed to close on "story box" prematurely on the second level, while reading. The boxes closes as one moves far enough away from the point where they spawn, and the distance can be customized for each box to balance keeping it on screen long enough for reading, while making sure it doesn't feel annoying. I've extended that one.

It's really valuable to get any feedback, and it's hard to overstate how valuable it is to be able to watch someone play. Thanks a bunch!

Developer (2 edits)

I'm also pleased that you feel that the number of levels in the demo is generous. I'm essentially thinking of the demo as the first episode of four, my Knee-Deep in the Dead if you will :-)

Submitted(+1)

Hello!

Very well put together game! It feels very polished. Admittedly, this style of puzzle game is not really my speed these days but I have fond memories of playing similar games when I was little on my family's old Macintosh :)

The art was very functional and was nicely done. I liked the totally-not-Cthulhu Statues! The UI was very clean and polished, I liked the menus a lot. The music and sound effects were good if subtle. I thought they did a good job of setting the 'trapped underground' spooky atmosphere.

Gameplay was solid as far as a Boulder Dash style game goes. The puzzles are at a good difficulty level with the difficulty ramping over time feeling reasonable. I like the various enemy types mixing up the puzzle design, especially the slimes with objects hidden in them. I'd usually try to provide more constructive feedback but honestly it just seems very solid and would definitely be enough to carry the whole game with additional levels and maybe some extra variety in special units or tiles to spice things up later. 

I think this is an excellent demo and the full version of the game will be very solid if you keep up this quality. Very good Job!

Our team have submitted a runner that combines Tetris and precision platforming if you'd like to check it out (Link below). Would love to get some feedback if you have the time. :) 

I wish you the best with your projects!

/jam/feedback-quest-8-indiegames-x-indie-streamers/rate/3773442

Developer

Thanks a lot, those are very kind words!

Not every game genre can be for everyone, but while there have been a lot of Boulder Dash inspired games out there, I'm thinking that maybe some people might enjoy a modern take on the basic idea, with a little extra emphasis on story and atmosphere. And if not, I've certainly enjoyed building it!

And yes, there is definitively a wider variety of enemies and environmental hazards later in the game :-)

Submitted

The game was really fun from what I played. Unfortunately, I got stuck at "explosion" and had to use a level skip, but the puzzles I played were really well laid out (I have not finished the game ye,t but I am hoping to return to it at some point). The way the physics reacted to the environment really reminded me of Donkey Kong: Bananza in that there is a lot of open-endedness in how the player can solve certain puzzles. However, I did find that occasionally there were a few instances where it was hard to tell what the physics were going to do, making some deaths feel unfair. 

But, overall, from what I have experienced so far, it is a really polished package with some really good sound and art design (the art really reminds me of early 2000 pack-in Windows games). Keep it up!

Developer

Thanks for your review, I'm glad you generally enjoyed my game! That you like my art and the sounds I've cobbled together feels great, I'm a programmer first, and only dabbled a bit with 16 bit pixel art i my youth :-) 

The physic system is largely inherited from this general sub-genre of game, starting with Boulder Dash. It is generally completely deterministic (a boulder dropped on top of another one will always fall to the left, unless that side is currently blocked) as is fitting for a puzzle game, but it's true that it can be counter-intuitive, as is probably inevitable with all grid-based physics. My hope is that people will learn as they play, and that I can introduce it in a way that it never feels too frustrating.

As for "Explosive", well, the odd looking wall can be destroyed, and the monster can help... :-)

Jam Host(+1)

Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 8! My name's Hythrain, a co-host and one of the streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live as I stream your game! If you're interested in seeing my live reaction, let me know and I can send you a link to the VOD once it's posted to YouTube!

So my normal approach for any game in these events is simple: I get the game, make sure it's not a virus, then play it with as little information on how to play as possible. This way, I can judge how intuitively someone can figure out the game. Only if it's obvious that I need to read more will I do so. I note this so you can get a sense where some of these feedback comes from. In addition, I want to note that feedback and rating are different; don't use this feedback to gauge what I'll rate, nor should you view my rating as entirely indicative of my feedback.

So I'm torn on this one. On one hand, it's a fun and challenging puzzle game. On the other hand, its physics don't entirely make sense and I find its controls very frustrating. The physics part, I can get over. It's weird, but it's just how the game rolls. However, the controls are something I don't want to touch ever again.

This is game that is built around very precise controls. It's all about careful movements, as a single misstep can cost you the round and force you to restart or can kill you. However, the game doesn't control like it's very precise. I often find myself everything one block at a time for fear that holding the button even a split second too long will screw me over. This is because there's dirt everywhere that the player has to clear out in order to do things, including in places where it doesn't affect the puzzle, which causes players to rush along to try and clear the junk dirt quickly in order to get to the good stuff.

So I thought about how to fix this. The one idea I had that I felt could work that wouldn't add to the frustration was as follows: first, remove a lot of the excess dirt. Only keep dirt that's the most relevant for a puzzle instead of just filling every tile, as that's otherwise just a huge waste of time. When the player starts to dig, put in a slight delay between each tile. That way, the player can have an extra moment to let go of the button and stop their movement before they make a move that they don't want. This also would apply to when they're digging the last dirt tile and are about to walk into a stone, statue or bomb eye to also give them that moment.

This would fix the issue of precise controls, because the delay would make them be not as precise and thus make the player less prone to making a split second mistake. It doesn't need to be a long time, no more than a quarter of a second and maybe even down to just a tenth of a second.

Also, there was one sentence I saw that just didn't make sense with how it was written. "As you enter the chamber your eyes fall upon a new kind of... deformities." In particular, the sentence refers to the upcoming noun as singular through "a new kind" but then switches to plural with deformities. If you want it to be plural, the sentence should be "As you enter the chamber your eyes fall upon new kinds of... deformities." If you want it singular, it'd just end with the word "deformity." Since there's only one new type of monster, I'd say you should go with singular.

Developer (5 edits)

Thanks a bunch for your feedback, it is most useful to get this kind of play testing. Don't feel obliged to read or even respond to the below, but if you enjoy this kind of thing, its a window into... how I think:-)

The physics are, as you suggest, what they are. Physics on a grid are inherently wonky, and later in the game there are puzzles explicitly based on learning some of the intricacies of that.

The controls however... I'm very sympathetic. You're not telling me something I don't know, instead you're doing something maybe even more important: you're reminding me of something I already know but have pushed aside. This is a fairly tough nut to crack:

  • Digging is one of the small joys of the game to me, an inherently pleasurable action, more fun than traversing open spaces. Not the rote digging out of large spaces of course, but a more fun way to get from A to B. I think this is inherent in all digging games.
  • Keeping dirt around also keeps the puzzles more open ended and open for alternative solutions, things like "set up the solution before executing it"
  • This gets more important late in the game where I want to do more not to signal the solution 
  • So, I don't want to remove a lot of the dirt
  • A lot of the actions in the game are irreversible, and timing is important, so you're going to fail a lot... something I've tried to deal with in many ways, including by making the levels fairly short (as compared to many of the oldies which inspired this game), and the speed, including transition speeds, fairly high.
  • So, I don't want to slow down the digging too much
  • But right now digging is just as fast as moving, and that's clearly not working out for you... so something's gotta give.

I believe I will, as you suggest, play around with introducing a small delay each time you dig, giving you some time to release the controls. I will probably make it fairly small, but not unusably so, and provide an option to remove it altogether, or make it longer, in the accessibility settings. Then I just need to playtest and tweak until it feels right for me, and then find another You to check my math :-) 

I also clearly need to introduce the "eye bomb" prior to The Pale Queen, as has been previously suggested... the problem is that this likely means yanking a different level and... in my mind they all have a role to play. The eye bomb was a late addition to the level, to make it easier to get through the wall, which previously relied on hitting the regular exploding monster with a boulder, which was really easy to mess up... which was frustrating, since it prevents you from retrying the main event of the level. The eye bomb can just be dropped on the wall, which essentially removes that problem. But... thinking about that, I believe there is another route for me to take to solve this problem as well: remove the wall, and with it the need for the eye bomb! The original impetus for it is mostly gone anyway.

And if anyone liked the bomb... well, it wasn't invented for this level but sees plenty of use later in the game, where it was originally introduced.

Developer (1 edit)

I just released a new version of the demo which stops the player for 20ms delay before digging into a new dirt block. I tried a number of different lengths and can confidently say that for me 50ms it just too long. I might try to go to 30ms, but wanted to start with a more modest change and get it out there, after which I can play with the higher delay and see how it goes. I hope this helps adress at least part of your concern about the controls, but I will frankly need to get more testing done by others before I can confidently tell. I might also try to center the option to turn down the game speed, or even make a slightly slower default.

To complement this change I also modified both Avalanche and The Pale Queen, so that they require less digging overall. The Pale Queen was also modified to remove the need to blow up the wall, and thus the eye bomb could be removed, and is once again introduced later in the game, as originally planned.

Oh, and singular "deformity" obviously.

Once again, thanks! Feedback makes a better game.

Developer

Made another tweak for better controls, this time one gets a similar small pause before continuing after doing a 180 while entering a tile. This means that it's substantially easier to turn around and just stop, without proceeding further back. I also increased the previously introduced pause time to 30ms.

Submitted(+1)

Nice game! The music and aesthetics fit very well. The difficulty level is also good. I'm not a big puzzle player, so I found it quite challenging. One change I would like is for the info boxes to stay on the screen for longer. I couldn't read any of them because they disappeared immediately.

Developer

Thanks for playing and your comments! The info boxes are an interesting nut to crack... the way they currently work is that they go away when the player get a certain distance (which is different for different boxes) away from where it was triggered. I did this so they would not go away while you're still reading the text, while staying unintrusive, and without introducing any kind of interaction button. You're not the first to notice that I havent gotten that balance quite right in all cases, in particular its easy to "miss" them when they trigger in an area where you are moving fairly quickly. I will obviously have to think about some way of improving on this.

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Well-well, Boulder Dash/Supaplex here! Game is very neat!
It seems like it does not count restarts properly (I restarted chamber and it still shows 0) and probably restart on hotkey can be useful.

Developer (1 edit)

Thanks for playing, and for sure, playing Boulder Dash as a kid was the main source of inspiration! I did focus on a slightly different kind of levels than the typical BD fare,  shorter and more single-puzzle oriented. I think that helps define this as its own thing with its own personality. 

Thanks for finding the restart count bug, I'll look into it asap! Might be related to restarting from the menu, that's not something I do.... ever :-) The game actually has a restart hotkey, on the keyboard it defaults to hitting 'p' twice. You should hopefully get a little hint about the existence of the hotkey any time you restart from the pause menu. I will think about how I can improve the communication around this further.

Submitted(+1)

I see, I tried R

Developer

R would have made sense and I would have used it but I didn't like how close it is to the WASD keys I normally use when playing, I don't want to have people restart by mistake. The game does feature key rebinding if one would prefer it though.

Submitted (2 edits) (+1)

You can use same double tap idea - first tap triggers hint, second in a few seconds - restart the level, or button needs to be pressed for some time.

Developer

Now I'm slightly confused. There is a a restart level hotkey, I might have misunderstood you, are you asking for a restart game hotkey as well? :-)

Submitted(+1)

No, I just proposing how "restart level" button can behave if you want to eleminate random clicks.

Developer(+1)

Ah, sorry, I was confused because that's exactly how the existing "double tap p" mechanism already works, but you're saying that with that in place the danger of placing it on 'r' should be minimal. It's a good point... I'll consider making the change. Thanks for helping out, I really appreciate it!

Developer(+1)

Made a new release, the restart bug should be fixed. Thanks!

Submitted

Very nice! I hope this does well at release

The visual and sound aesthetics are really good

I beat 'Hex' without using the rocks at the top right and instead by sending the enemies above and then outpacing them from below, which I feel probably wasnt the intended solution

'Avalanche' felt like it required a lot of set up work to dig out the large area even with knowledge of the solution, but maybe I don't have the rock physics knowledge to find the simplest solution

I had a minor dislike of 'The Pale Queen' introducing a new mechanic after making me solve some puzzles when it could have been in an earlier chamber. Admittedly the second 'eye' and the squid guys prevent messing up with the first 'eye' being a softlock, but it was easy to feel like I failed the puzzle considering I didn't have full knowledge of the puzzle at the time

'The Pale Queen' also had a lot of ambient noise even when the queen wasn't onscreen which made it hard to focus on thinking about the right solution

The tooltip for quick restarting when you restart from the menu was a good choice

Your final screen still says "releasing in fall 2025". If you're planning to release on Steam I'd say that this is is good enough to put up as a demo

Developer (2 edits) (+1)

Hey Diabolodev, thanks a lot for your comments!

  • 'Hex' - nope, but if it gets you there... I suspect something like that is actually the fastest way to beat it if that's what you're optimizing for
  • 'Avalanche' - in my mind it is sort of about that, the occasional need to do prep to solve the puzzle... but now that you mention it... I will look for a way to make it feel less onerous...
  • 'The Pale Queen' - i hear you, I've worked a lot on getting TPQ as good as I can, bosses and puzzles aren't an easy combination, so all comments are useful for finding the direction for future tweaks... but the sound should be easy to improve upon, thanks!
  • Good catch with the release date, I'll fix it at once so it's part of the next demo update... and thanks for the Steam comment!
  • The tool tip came about because essentially nobody would find the restart key otherwise, and you really need it...
Developer(+1)

Made a new release with the release date changed and a fair reduction in ambient noise in TPQ. Thanks!

Submitted(+1)

Nice little puzzle game with a few new twists to the genre. The pixel art was nice, although I thought the main player could have been a bit more animated as they move around.

I powered through the early levels and they introduced new challenges at a reasonable rate.

However once I got to the Sinister level (classic maze in appearance) the game seems to have added a random element that can mean you need to get lucky as well as solve the puzzle. Basically when chased by the monsters you have to choose where to hide and it is just 50/50 if the monsters comes your way or not. Adding a looped area to hide in would solve this problem so the player can always escape if they are quick enough. Taking away skill and adding random deaths definitaly puts me off a puzzle game. Apart from that though nice presentation and spooky story.

Developer (7 edits) (+1)

Hello! Thanks for playing and for your review, very much appreciated!

Sinister is, despite maybe appearing so, not at all random, and for those who speak Latin (I certainly do not) the solution is actually in the name: "sinister" means "left" in Latin, and that's the direction the monsters that are present in this maze always turn. Thus they rotate around the maze in a clockwise fashion. That knowledge is what Sinister tries to test, but I don't want people to bounce off a level because they feel they are not in control, so I will certainly consider whether the level is doing that job well. I might consider making Sinister a smaller level, both to give the player a better overview of the monster movement, and to enable quicker iteration, thus making failures less frustrating.

All the monsters currently present in Abysm are "wall huggers",  exploring the space by constantly turning either left or right, depending on the type of monster. This is exactly for the reason you highlighted: puzzle games need to be deterministic. No monster will ever "chase" the player like they would in a typical action game. On a similar note, boulders always fall to the left if neither side is blocked. 

Another thing to note maybe is that if you get stuck on a level you can choose "Skip level" and move on to the next for the time being, this way one can work on a few levels in parallel, something that I know I need to communicate better.

Submitted(+1)

Ah, I see that is neat. Good to know you have it under control, as you say informing the player of this is tricky. I shall have to give it another go later. 

Developer(+1)

I just uploaded a new version of the demo with Sinister pushed into the next episode, replaced by Móshì.  Also added a bunch more small but hopefully non-intrusive hints to the first few chambers... things like explaining chamber skips, and that one can turn on a chamber timer.

Thanks for the help!

Developer(+1)

I made a new release and while the player isn't more animated when moving around, still need to figure out how to do that, he does have a small idle animation, still inspired by your comment. Thanks!