Abyss
Inspired by one of the chapters of the manga “One day in the life of Ivan Dejavu”. A strange mystery through the depths of the abyss.
Made for Ludum Dare 48 within 72 hours and built wthin the Construct 2 engine, Abyss focused heavily on atmosphere, sound design, and limited visual ques; after all, it is the human imagination that is the most terrifying thing. It’s visual design harks back to the 80’s. when scanlines and bulky computers were the norm, as was the whirling and clicking.
It won 9th in ‘Mood’ and 6th in ‘Theme’; ranking 93rd overall out of over 3800 participants.
Chapter 2 “Fangs of the Sea” was originally published as part of a Weekly Shounen Jump issue before being included as part of a series of short stories by Hoshino Yukinobu.
USS Nautilus (SSN-571), the world’s first nuclear submarine; heralded by many as the first true submarine. Her famous voyage under the North Pole was the historical basis for the game’s story.
Pre-planning
Ludum Dare is a large scale game jam with 2 categories (now expanded to 3). The game itself was made for the “Jam” category, thus giving the project a strict deadline of 72 hours.
This immediately entailed 2 things:
The game had to be small, easy to design and accomplish within the short time span.
Whatever was put in had to punch above it’s weight, and work effectively with the rest of the game.
There were also further considerations:
The target audience would be other participants and those trying out entries, Since there are alot of entries for the event this also meant’ that ideally the game should be easy to understand, and easy to complete quickly (5 to 10 minutes). This works in our favor.
The game should be browser capable, to make it as accessible as possible for the same reasons as above.
Although the event’s theme was technically optional, it was also a rating category for participants to judge. Best not to skimp out if possible.
In the end, after some brainstorming the idea of a thriller/horror game was decided where the player would have to dive to the depths of the ocean to try and rescue the crew of a downed submarine, fighting hostile sealife and whatever sank the other submarine in the first place. To simplify the planning process, the game was designed from the ground up with a single core idea in mind (in this case, the game’s suspense and atmosphere), and everything else was designed around the core with the intention of propping it up, and/or adding nuance.
Graphics
The most terrifying thing, as they say, is human imagination. After all, what can be scarier to ourselves than our very own nightmares?
So the intention for the visual design was simple. I will give the player hints of the horrors out there, and I will let the player’s mind create that nightmare for me.
Primary inspiration was taken from analog horror. The player would be watching a screen indicating the outside of their intrepid rescue submarine; a sonar which they could use to ping the surrounding area; and any sonar contacts that pop up. This was augmented by several UI elements to tell players basic information. Often throughout the game the players would pick up blips of harmless Tuna or the odd group of hostile sea life. When the sonar isn’t used the screen then plunges back into darkness, an unending void outside the vessel. The magic is that occasionally, the sonar picks up something big, very big; and the very next moment it’s gone.
There’s something out there, something big enough to sink a nuclear submarine, something that is carefully stalking you from the shadows. And until the very end of the game where you see it in true form, you don’t know what. All of whom was accomplished with arguebly nothing more than blips and numbers.
This had 2 significant advantages:
Due to how sonar worked and the screen was updated I could simplify the AI considerably; since they didn’t need to move smoothly and instead teleported towards the player slowly at distinct intervals.
Assets could be heavily simplified as well, only needing to rely on simplistic pixel art, further aided by certain designs. For instance the terrain’s assets were simple placeholders that on runtime were populated and replaced automatically from a premade set of randomized assets; thus only requiring me define the walls and boundaries of the level.
Lastly this was further augmented in post with a few effects. A slight blur to mimic the glow of a monitor, the scanlines of a CRT screen. Looking back a slight fisheye effect probably would have really nailed the aesthetic, but that was cut due to time constraints.
Sound Design
Instead of straight music, I decided to augment the graphics by having the game rely on ambience instead. The game’s soundscape consists of whirring hard drives, harsh computer beeps and the sonar ping echoing through the water. Looking at the screen while in-game, you can almost hear the silence as the player carefully traverses through the depths. Unlike the graphics, these were more detailed; I wanted the player to really feel as if they were operating this submarine and the sound helps dial that in.
The sound effects themselves were sourced from online, then cleaned up and tweaked/overlaid in Audacity.
There is only one music sequence, a motif that plays when the final boss appears. Because the player is used to silence other than ambience throughout the entire game, the music’s effect is maximized when it finally happens; and I wanted to reserve it for this crucial moment.
Gameplay
The gameplay was simplistic and intended to be easy to pick up on (although later feedback indicated the quick guide may have not been clear enough, a tutorial would probably have been a good idea). The player moves, the player can ping their surroundings with the sonar, and they can both drop decoys and fire torpedoes as part of defensive manoeuvres against hostile sealife.
To further add variety, the player’s torpedo system breaks down and is disabled in the final boss fight. Hostile AI was also designed with some variety in mind, some blindly charge at the player, at least one is capable of sidestepping torpedoes.
Due to the game only being around 8 minutes long, there was nothing too complicated designed into the game. A simple and quick, yet dramatic experience being the game’s intention.
