Everyone hates depth!

A depth-based puzzle-game

You are Atlas, a misanthropic beetle who hates depths.. Your goal is to smooth each level by carrying dirt.

It's better to use a controller for playing.


Controls

Action Keyboard Controller
Move Atlas Arrows / WASD Joystick
Pick up / drop dirt Space / E Any button
Reset level Enter

Launch the game: execute run.bat or run.sh
Minimal requirement: Java 8

Voting results

Overall
4th
13%
7.455
Graphics
6th
22%
7.364
Audio
7th
26%
6.636
Gameplay
3rd
9%
7.273
Originality
6th
22%
7.364
Theme
7th
26%
7.545

This game entered in the Solo competition (23 entries).

Comments (10)

mad-s
 • 4 years ago • 

Nice little game with an interesting gameplay idea. I couldn't figure out the last level though, after filling in the water I didn't have enough blocks to have even height everywhere.

The controls take some time to get used to, it's unusual to only use the first press for changing the direction of the character. I also think this game could benefit a lot from isometric graphics, as sometimes it is difficult to see if two tiles have the same height if they have the same x-coordinate.

alyphen
 • 4 years ago • 

Some really well-designed puzzles, and a lot of them given the time you had to make this.
A few snippets of good dry humour gave the player character some personality.
Would be nice to have facing direction and movement direction be on separate controls - for example, facing direction on right stick and movement on left stick/dpad - but it's not much of a bother.
Graphics are clear enough for the most part, and there's some nice variation. and the wave animation on completion of a level is cute!
Audio doesn't really get repetitive or distracting, and adds atmosphere, so that's nice.
A really solid entry. Lots of fun to play.

Mr. Chocolate Salmon
(@mr_chocolatesalmon) • 4 years ago • 

I'm getting this error every time I try to run. I don't have any controllers attached, but this still happens after about 3-4 seconds after the main menu shows

https://ibb.co/Msw92gr

mit-mit
 • 4 years ago • 

This was really fun and super addictive to play: reminds me of OCD building in minecraft: trying to make that perfectly level surface :) … I found that I got stuck on level 9 the first time I played, didn't seem to be a way to reset the level?

Bearsacker
  • 4 years ago • 

@mad-s @alyphen Thank you for your feedbacks :)! I will do a post jam version to improve controls and add levels.

@Mr. Chocolate Salmon Your mouse (or pad) is not detected :).

@mit-mit Thanks! Oops I forgot to specify the key, it's ENTER for reseting the level :).

benjamin
 • 4 years ago • 

I finished it 15:53. It was sometime too long to solve ( vs timeto think ) but overal was great !

ratrogue
 • 4 years ago • 

Had the same problem as mad-s, there weren't enough blocks when I tried to solve level 10. I guess I made a stupid mistake? Anyway, it's a really nice puzzle with some potential. I would probably change the controls a bit, I found it awkward that moving and rotating is the same keys. Maybe move with WASD and placing the blocks directly with arrows keys would make more sense? Just a thought. In any case, a very solid entry with a neat idea!

TimTips
 • 4 years ago • 

I sucked at this game but I enjoyed it nevertheless! Nice levels and I loved the teasing in the level titles ;)

thomastc
 • 4 years ago • 

A great little puzzler! Ten well designed puzzles with a good difficulty curve. Very complete game altogether, with the main menu and the transitions and everything. I love the pixel art in particular.

I don't have a controller but it worked perfectly fine with the arrow keys!

For those who got stuck at level 10: you don't need to remove all water, you just need to level everything out.

HuvaaKoodia
 • 4 years ago • 

An ok puzzle, that's for sure. Ten levels is a good number and they did get slightly trickier further on. Nothing's missing per se, a coherent project. The visuals are plain, but functional.

I do have a 360 pad, but I used the keyboard instead… It was a mistake. Filling in every last hole requires a lot of tapping and tappity-tap I did. It would have been better with the pad, for sure.

Enough with the wordplay.

This time the Linux build didn't run at all on my computer, had to resort to the other OS. Error message:
Inconsistency detected by ld.so: dl-lookup.c: 111: check_match: Assertion `version->filename == NULL || ! _dl_name_match_p (version->filename, map)' failed!

As others have pointed out, more clarity in the tile heights would be welcome. There are inconsistent pixel sizes in the GUI as well. The sweet terrain effect makes up for these minor issues in spades.

These sort of move/push tiles around puzzles are common. In fact, there was another puzzle with a similar mechanic in a previous jam with much less "manual work", I seem to recall. The goals was to get to higher ground while the water level kept rising. That's not a good fit for this jam, but…

How about using water to fill the holes? Water flows and evens out automatically so there's no need to dig up just about every patch of land, one at a time in every level, to move on. You see, once I've figured out the level, I would like to get to the next one without a whole lot of tappity-tap.

Well, that's that and this is this. No use crying over spilled milk, just something for the future. Less busy work, more brain work. That's what puzzles are all about.

Overall: Average (5.0)
Graphics: Above average (6.0)
Audio: Above Average (6.0)
Gameplay: Above Average (6.0)
Originality: Bad (3.0)
Theme: Above Average (6.0)

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Bearsacker

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