FATHOM

THANK YOU, Adam, for making this game! (LOL GET IT)

What’s the tree for? Am I even supposed to be underwater? What’re all these fish for? Why didn’t the game give me instructions when I clicked for instructions? :(

Oh. Never mind! :)

sheesh.. that’s it? i figured you’d give us something nice for wandering around for ages…

Uh.. PLEASE tell me you don’t need to find every single fish in the entire gigantic-same-looking underwater maze. That’s just tedious!

Also, I’m pretty sure I _do_ have every fish, and the stupid vine-doors won’t open. WTF?

Does the game resume, or are you meant to wander around lost underwater forever?

You can go underwater by dropping down the first pit, no need for the boss battle I think. But once I got deeper into the water and it got darker I freaked out so I can’t play it any more. To scared of underwater stages. :(

you can leave the maze with zero fish if you are determined to…but it is easier if you have a few fishes

Is there more than one ending? Cause that was pretty dark.

So…. really? That’s it? My reward for accidentally making a weird tree grow (because apparently the little green robot/futuristic thing I picked up was a seed or something.. obviously!), which then opens a gate for some reason, is a couple minutes of frustrating blind underwater jetpacking and then game over?!

Just for anyone reading this before playing: WARNING!!!! “ART GAME” IN DISGUISE!!!!! DO NOT PLAY IF YOU WANT TO HAVE FUN!!!!!!!

I guess I’m just pissed that I wasted so much time for nothing. I was hoping to, you know, resume playing the fun game after all the awkward struggling underwater.. instead it looks like I got to play the game of “wtf am I supposed to be doing, oh wait it’s done, great”.

But aside from that it’s a terrific game — the art and particle stuff was amazing, the movement underwater was totally cool too! (Except for when you needed your light to see, THAT was a bit too annoying)

I just wish that this was an actual game I could play :(

A splendid tiny section of a good game. I’d have preferred the game though.

thanks for the honest feedback, and I apologize for wasting anybody’s time, especially other talented devs, that was definitely not my intention!

Awesome!!

I wish I knew how to get Adam to do cool art for me. :<

Will leave feedback in the thread once I’ve tried it out completely.

The ending (or lack thereof) was irritating, but other than that I quite liked this. Nice to see another game with an underwater setting. Steampunk is old news, I want to see a scubapunk movement.

Meh. Skip liquid form and go all the way to icepunk.

One of the most complete, polished and delightfully presented games i’ve ever played. I felt like everything was operating on all cylinders. The controls, feel, look, music (especially), and everything else. Even the constraints on the gameplay were interesting (flashlight, backwards swimming + darkness).

BUT!

I don’t get it. I know there’s something there, but it’s just too vague for me to pick it out. I’d be interested in hearing your intentions eventually.

I think an ending that would have allowed you to finish off the boss after getting behind him or something would have been more satisfying, but overall I like :)

Really cool. I’ll add my two thumbs to Mr. BMcC’s 33.

I thought it was fun.

@raigan: I didn’t think it was so disguised… as soon as I hit the water I realized the game was something else. (Though, I’m sure the misdirection of the first part sets up some players to be frustrated by the second?) But I thought I hinted at this well enough of in my post. :

I got a really good Megaman X vibe from the first section of the game. The artwork looked good, the controls were good, everything was shaping up to be a really cool game.

The underwater part wasn’t on the same level at all. Controlling it would have been much more tolerable if the player moved in the same direction that they pointed their flashlight.

Anyway, I think it’s kind of a shame that it didn’t keep going in the same direction as it started out.

That sprite just looks like the cave story one with crap drawn on top

Oh no, sfdsfdsdfs is confused!

@AdamAtomic: Did you read “Occurance At Owl Creek Bridge” recently?

Very clever.

I also liked how the last section of underwater was a flashback of sorts. I had to play through it again to ‘get’ it.

Kudos, and a job well done, sir.

*Occurrence

That was hilarious. I think people will be a little put off by the sudden change in theme after falling into the water, simply because the first part of the game sets up expectations for something else. Both parts were nicely done though.

I’m just purely confused by this game…

Well… that was something.

I guess I would appreciate it more if I knew what the heck was going on. Would it spoil anything to ask, what exactly do the fish do?

Hey everyone! The fish lead you through the game. Watch them, they’ll point you in the right direction.

Nice bait & switch, too.

I didn’t like this.

The underwater part is just too incoherent. The green thing didn’t strike me as something that would cause a tree to grow, the sand (or whatever) did not look like a place to grow anything, and growing a tree should not remotely open a gate (note- I didn’t know of the gate until I read about it here). Even if all this were less ambiguous, the whole part would still be a directionless wander within dull, homogenous, impossible to navigate environments.

I understood why the flashlight’s direction is incorrect. Problem is, it doesn’t contribute to the gameplay. I found it ended up being faster to “see” by observing myself hitting into walls, rather than rotating around to use the flashlight.

Also, it took me longer than it should’ve to think that perhaps the fish point the way, and the thought didn’t arise so much from observation as pure guesswork. Some more cues would be useful- it’s likely that many people won’t notice before their patience runs out. I’ve definitely seen an inexplicit directional indicator done before, though ATM I can’t recall where, it was definitely easier to figure out.

The music and visuals are enjoyable.

@ngajoe

Yeah, if I read that ending properly, they were going for that style of ending. May not be satisfying, and it’s kinda confusing without any kind of text narrative.

Hm. If the underwater part was fleshed out into something of “Ecco”‘s length…With more abilities, and an exploration element.

Hm, that might be pretty cool. Especially if it was mixed up with above water stuff every so often.

@ngajoe

Yeah, if I read that ending properly, they were going for that style of ending. May not be satisfying, and it’s kinda confusing without any kind of text narrative.

Hm. If the underwater part was fleshed out into something of “Ecco”‘s length…With more abilities, and an exploration element.

Hm, that might be pretty cool. Especially if it was mixed up with above water stuff every so often.

Damn, I wrote a big reply, and the net ate it somehow…anyway…The game was okay but it was too incoherent and I didn’t know what to do. I DID finish, but I kept thinking “I bet the designer is laughing at me for spending SO much time playing this game, expecting something to happen”.

Was it really an Owl Creek Bridge thing, like ngajoe says? Isn’t that a little cliche by now? Either way, the ending was disappointing. What does any of this stuff MEAN? I was thinking about how I’d do it, and here’s an idea: After you get through the maze, you find yourself floating in a gray space; above you are fish, below you is the drill-boss. If you go up, the screen turns white; if you go down, the screen turns black. Either way, after you go to the final screen.

@Flamebait: The fish don’t point the way, they just swim around randomly.

I promise that I am not laughing at anyone for playing this game!! That is a massively dick move and NOT what this game is about. Genuinely I thank you for playing it and providing honest feedback :)

I don’t get it. The review gave little information, and now people are complaining that it’s weird, and it’s got the “bizarre” tag. Some comments schizophrenically praise it as terrific one second and condemn it as an unfun art game the next. Anyone care to try and explain this game to someone that hasn’t played it (yet)? Genre, setting, controls, goals, anything?

The underwater part was too frustrating for me (no idea what to do or where to go, couldn’t see ahead of me, it all looked the same, controls were a bit too touchy).

But the start was really cool and the presentation was top notch.

I am uploading a new build that *may* correct an issue some players were having that would prevent them from finishing the game without resetting, my apologies!

@Cliftor: That kind of ruins it? You could have played through it in the time you spent wondering if you should play it. :P

The nature of the game is polarizing for sure. I will say this: it’s a thoughtful kind of game. Try to roll with it.

So that’s the purgatory where game characters go before they die? It sure plays that way…

I kid, what I mean is that the game plays well if you consider that it is kind of SUPPOSED to be a little frustrating and confusing. I enjoyed the moment when I figured out the fishes’ function, and the art/music are good. But even if it is only logical, the ending lacks a little… punch?

Hrm… I just tried playing it but the bar loads up and…. nothing happens. I tried in firefox, cleared my cookies, tried it again, tried it in Internet Explorer… And still nothing. Bah

Hey sorry Cyberduck F’d up my upload of the seed fix, I’m re-uploading now! Thanks for the heads up!

This is one of those times it should be okay to say “Cave Story”… yet only one person has mentioned it thus far.

Anyway, I can’t get it to start. The bar goes to 100% but then nothing happens.

I can’t get past the loading bar either. :(

I really liked it a lot.
Firstly, other considerations aside, it was beautiful, the music was very nice and the art was fantastic.
After that, however, there’s a lot you could draw from the game and its mechanics themselves.
The fish for instance, love, community, it’s harder alone. The flashlight, stop to think and look and live, etc., you can’t power ahead as you must take the time to observe your environment.
The beginning and the transition to water, all structure falls away. It is linear, reward traditional based gameplay. Jump these hurdles and you get this ring, *bling*. But at the end, if you did not foresee it, you find for yourself that there is nothing but destruction and death.
You could draw the conclusion that there is nothing but death as a release. Or you could see it as hopeful. He jumps into the pit, or is killed, and deconstructs the bonds placed upon him, and creates a meaningful life. That’s my view of it anyhow.

wow, after about 50+ plays i finally found out how to beat the boss and get the real ending… shit man fucking well worth it, amazing stuff Adam! very very impressive work

Ok I finally got the new build FTP’d up, very sorry to all who couldn’t get past the damn load bar!

EDMUND NO SPOILERS GOD DAMMIT

i didnt say anything! you cant just not talk about the alt ending.. someone was going to post about it eventually

Just finished. Fathom has some serious style.

Now, how soon can I get my hands on that framework? *begs*

Once you get past that first part and start getting to the space travel go to the Lava planet first to get the plasma gun upgrade, it is awesome.

Adam Saltsman is my hero.

Looking forward to the framework :D

Fantastic beginning, then an unnecessary and confusing water level. Useless bolt pick-ups and absolutely no instruction underwater (I went around picking up fish before realizing that that was useless, and I generally any other complaints have been listed by Flamebait.

The beginning was fantastic though!

When will developers realize there’s more in the world than just QWERTY keyboards… “Press Z+X to play” – well, thank YOU. Damn…

I found the underwater controls extremely frustrating, to the point where I almost didn’t finish the game — which is a shame, because the atmosphere is amazing.

Also, how do I get my hands on this flixel framework? I’m interested in making 2D platformers in Flash, and having a framework like this would make learning about 1000x easier for me.

Nice to know people shared my initial problems with the game. I thought I’d be outed as some kind of idiot!

Visually, musically, and technically excellent, but I just don’t see the point. If there’s a thesis behind it I don’t get it. Sorry, I know this probably took a lot of work, but just didn’t click for me :(

>>When will developers realize there’s more in the world than just QWERTY keyboards… “Press Z+X to play” – well, thank YOU. Damn…

Probably when they – or indeed, the majority of their target audience – stop using them.

I thoroughly enjoyed Fathom, although I agree that the underwater section was a little frustrating; for me though, this would be completely fixed by simply upping the player’s rotation speed a bit. Any chance of a downloadable standalone for those of us on shit-tastic slow connections?

Interesting game.

I found a bug… when the water gate opened and I went into the second water area, I tried going back up… Well, I got caught on the left bricks and pushed to the left side of the screen, then fell to the bottom. (it was almost like the old Super Mario Brothers -1 world trick) Player sprite all the way off the screen, but flashlight and mobility still worked. Moved all the way right to the “exit” before quitting out.

I don’t think I quite understood the intention of the piece, but purely from a technical standpoint it really shows off a variety of things I really hadn’t expected to see in flash. The underwater lighting was very cool and I really liked the overall solid feel of it.

I guess my interpretation of the ending is that you thought Quote should’ve long before been destroyed by water pressure back in Cave Story. How cruel.

i was like “OMG AWESOME AWESOME!” ’till the boss battle, then i got underwater, with an awkard control system : so i was like “ok maybe it’s something small… i just need to resurface somewhere.. but let’s go deeper first.. then the screen got totally black and i got stuck somewhere >_<

WTF! No flamethrowers OR cars! This sucks! All good videogames have flamethrowers and cars – game design 101. Simple.

Eclipse: push z to turn on your flashlight, unless that was a bug or something.

The change between awesome oldschool platformer to boring fish-collecting seems weird at first.

But i guess you’re trying to say that “art games” only work because the player does not expect traditional gameplay beforehand?

If you had only released the water part of the game and labeled it as an “art game”, people would probably prasie it instead of bash it in the comments.

This is ace. I really enjoyed it, obviously i was a little confused with what to do underwater but when you get your flash light on and start collecting fish you start to figure out what to do. Really enjoyed it. Really polished feel too. :)

Porl”

played again, this time with the flashlight on XD
But i got bored quickly after finding an huge gate i couldn’t open in any manner

***Warning spoilers***

I was a bit baffled at first by the game when I finished it… thinking ‘what was the point of that?’ but then I was reading the comments here and it just clicked that it does make sense and works very well if this is a reference to that Owl Creek Bridge story (which I haven’t heard of before) because when you begin the game, it throws you directly into the center of action with music pumping heavily and makes you go ‘Wow, this is great!’ but then you face the boss and eventually you see that you are not going to win, then your expression changes and you think how are you going to get out of this one, and then you loose. Then when you get in the water you think ‘oh that’s okay, I’ll get up again and finish him’ then when you get to the ascension you think ‘here I go! now on to the cool stuff again!’ but just like in the Owl Creek Bridge story when the character is about to reach his house, reality jumps in and you realize it was all already over. So I think though deceiving, the game does convey better the message if you think it’s ‘real game’ :P Well at least that’s my opinion. I loved the music and graphics very much though ;)

Wow, what a sniveling bunch of… I was sold after 10 seconds of playing this, and then sold again after hitting the water.

So much is distilled into a couple of minutes of gameplay, it blows my mind. Chunky, lush pixel art/anim/effects and INCREDIBLE music presents the delicious contrast between the hectic action/hopeless boss battle and the super eerie dark underwater exploration.

The game was exactly as long as I’m willing to play any flash game, and it gave me such surprisingly strong feelings of atmospheres and powerful experiences in that short amount of time. Never seen anything like it before in a browser.

So, two more thumbs up for it, and 65 thumbs down for every whiner who didn’t get the whole point because they’re fixated on the flashlight beam pointing in a direction less than ideal for navigation (but way more atmospherically powerful)

5:30 am rant over

- D

I like it. Graphics, sound and atmosphere is ace. And I was quite satisfied when I finished it.

It’s painfully obvious that there’s more to it than you see on a first play through though. There always is in these kind of games. An extra area, another ending or something like that. I just can’t figure out how to get to experience it. Played it through 5-6 times while trying a bunch of different stuff, but nothing.

Or I’m just deceiving myself *shrug*.

Also!

It saddens me that people can’t deal with not having their hand held throughout the entire experience. No, the game just “sucks” without those friendly (read: annoying, experience-interrupting, fun-destroying) tutorial popups for every new element or needed button press.

We’ve been brainwashed by moronic “quicktime” sequences and fucking God of War tunnel gameplay to not have to think at all – just mash buttons (preferably the ones shown on screen with HUGE icons) and you’ll arrive at the end of the game sooner or later! Then, that ending better be a REALLY sweet cutscene, because you worked so hard for it with all that mindless inconsequential mashing.

Bah! You should have been exposed to something like Exile growing up, where figuring out subtle clues and actually needing to THINK about what to do to progress mattered. Oh, and discovering the deliciously complex controls: part of the game, bitch.

~ D

wouldn’t it be politically correct to have called it Rotund Gay?

I found my way out I think, and I died. Then the game went back to the title screen, with fish floating around.

He should turn FATHOM into a full out platform game. The first part before falling into the water fighting boss was fun as hell.

@Data: no, I hate those sort of things even more than random unexplained stuff!

I guess for me there was just a huge feeling of disappointment, because of how well-made the entire game was — the graphics are amazing, the little touches like the flashlight and particles when blowing up robots — I expected an actual full game rather than just a riff.

Someone suggested that the unwinnable boss fight should have clued me in that this wasn’t going to be a “Cave Story” type experience, but I just thought it was a really smart appropriation of an RPG trope in a platformer.

Anyway, it’s not bad at all, just VERY disappointing because you want the experience to keep going and it just ends, that’s the worst part.

The underwater bits are definitely frustrating — just adding a map would have made it obvious to me where I had been/etc, so that I could have backtracked systematically to make sure I didn’t miss anything (which apparently I did, since the dirt didn’t really seem remarkable when I first passed it). The movement is great, it’s just the whole “lost in a very uniform-looking labyrinth” that gets frustrating.

And also the game just ending when you want it to continue, that’s a bit of a pisser! :)

I think the problem with the water part is partly that of the terrain appearance. The tiles are figurative and ‘man made’ with different motifs, but the level design is not figurative. It’s just a big meaningless maze with the content diluted kind of evenly about. If rock/cave/coral terrain had been used then it would be easier to accept the haphazard feel to the level layout.

The cave felt a bit… filler now. Given its size, I would’ve preferred to have some more things to do in it (even if it’s just playing around/exploration), and some variation in terrain. E.g. from top to bottom: Corals with fishes, sunken temple, Sunken robot/ship/vessel with some treasure inside/nearby (and a guardian life form?), dark lifeless abyss then bam(!) at the bottom there’s some glowing life form stuff all of a sudden. Or something which jumps at you. Perhaps a glowing treasure-like item on the floor, and the player walks up to it, then bam(!), a big jaw thing comes up from behind, or the front, depending on whether you want to illuminate it or not.

@raigan:

Well it’s like Kojima said, video games can not be art because they are a service to the player’s expectations of entertainment.

You are expecting it to be a fun and entertaining game so when it’s not, it’s a big disappointment.

There is a bug int he game that was VERY frustrating, the first time I palyed it when i dropped the seed in the underwater dirt it didn’t grew a tree, it just passed tru. Not knowing what else to do I wandered around aimlessly with fish pointing me toward the dirt. Thank you playtesters!!

Is Edmund serious? Can you really beat the boss?

This was beautiful and more than a little subversive. I think the full impact may have been lost on me, though, since I jumped in the small pit immediately just to see what would happen, finished the game, replayed to see that stuff to the right of the screen that I missed and went “ohhh”. I have to wonder why the first pit leads to water at all (I suppose our robot hero can have a hallucinatory death dream during a mundane drowning too, but it seems a lot less impressive). You should make it a spike pit or something and then have visible water at the bottom of the screen during the boss fight so players have an idea of what’s coming. As for the underwater part, I think it could have benefited from being more linear, since I spent enough time wandering aimlessly that the mood of the game started to wear off a little. But overall, I love it :V

PS I like how the game encourages you to collect tokens that turn out to be utterly pointless in the end.

Raigan: Did you pay attention to the motion of the fish at all? There’s your minimap, man.

That’s exactly what I’m talking about regarding being handed everything on a platter vs. having to look for interesting/subtle/contextually meaningful clues built into the gameplay and actually figure out what they mean and how they can help you progress.

That’s what bothers me – since we’re now conditioned by huge icons, tutorial popups, and HUD displays showing exactly what to do next, we tend to not even pay attention to more subtle game design. Thus, if a designer tries to be subtle and clever it is immediately punished by feedback like “it all turned black and then i gave up!”. DID YOU TRY THE OTHER OF THE TWO POSSIBLE BUTTONS?!

I’ve been playing a lot of NES roms on my Dingoo handheld recently, and I’m really enjoying just jumping into a game after game and exploring the control schemes. Having only two main action buttons helps, but studying the controls is almost always more fun than the actual gameplay for me.

I admit, it took me the second playthrough of Fathom to think: “hey, what is the actual purpose of the fish?”. It gave me a real nice ‘aha’ moment when I confirmed that they were trying to lead me.

I’m looping my day – didn’t sleep so ranting is all my sleep deprived brain is capable of doing atm! Enjoy!

~ D

Hey guys, yea for some reason every like 1000 plays or something the seed totally F’s up and I still haven’t tracked down why, it makes NO sense…I will keep looking for the cause though!

And thanks again to everybody for playing and leaving their feedback and thoughts!!

He must be serious cuz the author yelled at him not to spoil it :P So basically the underwater section is just one long gameover screen? BRILLIANT :D

“It saddens me that people can’t deal with not having their hand held throughout the entire experience. No, the game just “sucks” without those friendly (read: annoying, experience-interrupting, fun-destroying) tutorial popups for every new element or needed button press.”

Yeah, destroy that straw-man! Smash it up! What saddens ME is everyone here is apparently incapable of deciphering simple (simple) metaphor. It’s another hip, “emotional” look at retro gaming (like braid). The game character dies on a boss, and instead of respawning and trying again, he journies through the underworld and into the light at the end of a tunnel.

Mulholland Drive is also not a touching story of 2 lesbians finding eachother and falling in love, by the way.

It’s a very simple and easy to understand thing, for anybody at all acquanted with literary tropes.

Played it again this morning, noted that the seed was in a different position, and the seed was the thing on the “Click for Instructions” screen. Also noted that the HUD disappears as you descend, indicating that it’s not important and you shouldn’t worry about it.

The music is fantastic and melencholy (I enjoy that kind of sound, but still not sure how to describe it, melencholy is as close as I can get), but as good as the art is, I can’t get over the lack of variation in that maze.

Here’s a suggestion: In the upper, ‘bright’ parts of the maze, things should look nice, organized, and not at all decrepit. As you descend, rust and cracks should set in, with a complete erosion of all evidence it was man made at the bottom, outside of the vine door.

Or something like that.

(sidenote: Being destroyed by health loss=extra life, being destroyed by falling into pit=Owl Creek Bridge. What a harsh world this is…perhaps you could do an above water/flight version for health-based destruction, or an alternate ending? It’s kinda contradictory that one form of death is permanent, while the other is shrugged off.)

That’s because Mulholland Drive is really a story about a director and a cowboy finding each other and falling in love.

Great game. People are impatient, and they don’t take responsibility for their failure to notice clues like the fish. Personally, I took forever to notice the fish, but I don’t blame the game designer for that, I blame my own failure to adapt to a game that was clearly throwing me curve balls from the start.

Well I figured out that right after dieing, you can jump and move to the right before you fall, and you’ll jump above the upper wall and you’ll be able to walk above the level. Just like in Mario or Dangerous Dave. The only thing is that you can’t see the character and is a little harder to knowing where exactly is.

But otherwise than that, I couldn’t figure much more. After you’ve got up there, you can move to the boss area and trying jump or shoot, but can’t do over jump or kill him. Or you can jump to the left and you’ll fall again in the water where there is the same concept of planting a tree idea, but this time in a little different area. Maybe you’re supposed to plant all the trees?… I don’t know, I don’t have the nerves anymore :).

Yes it is possible to beat the boss, but.

SPOILER!!!

.
.
.
the platform you need to stand on is only one pixel big and basicly blends in with the BG, its closer to the right side of the screen keep jumping around there early on to find it.

I would be the one to hate an artsy game, however this one is well done, has cute graphics & a great ambience.

I still don’t know what it was all about nor if the ending was the real one (nor why you die), but I enjoyed it.
This game answered something for me: what happens when you fall in the pit? And I’m pretty sure it’s all it’s about. In other games, you fall into a pit, you die, and you wished you knew what was in that pit, maybe an underground level? Now, I know. There’s fish.

@Pyrrhon:

“art games… traditional gameplay…”
“…labeled it as an “art game”, people would probably prasie it…”

The gameplay in Fathom *is* traditional though (not that it’s a problem). The first part, obviously, and the second part is about exploration: a staple mechanic. It’s the set of themes that is non-traditional. And I bet few people thought it was anything but an “art game” shortly after entering the water.

@Data:

“…65 thumbs down for every whiner who didn’t get the whole point because they’re fixated on the flashlight beam pointing in a direction less than ideal for navigation…”

Dismount your high horse, sir. Ridiculous straw men like these are a part of the reason why people get so riled about “art games”. There are always people that completely delegitimize criticism of them.

“interesting/subtle/contextually meaningful clues”

That’s the thing, I dispute their existence as real “clues”. The movement of the fish looks like the result of a nondescript flocking algorithm (“The fish don’t point the way, they just swim around randomly.”- even someone with foreknowledge couldn’t see the behavior). If I hadn’t seen the idea of a directional indicator used in a game before, I would’ve been totally at a loss; no presented reason exists why the fish would tend to swim in a particular direction, they just do. Fathom is made up of action/interaction that doesn’t make sense to alot of people.

I love the (first two) Myst games, and more abstract puzzle-solving affairs like Glum Buster. It’s not that I’m the brand of idiot gamer you speak of, I just don’t like the second part of Fathom. Why does that make you so angry? In case there’s any doubt about the impression you gave, here are some of your colorful descriptions of people who don’t like the game: “whiner[s]“, “people [that] can’t deal with not having their hand held”, “brainwashed”, played the wrong games as children (the Exile comment). Seriously, you’re close to flat-out trolling.

Anyway, some things I forgot to mention. Fathom is obscenely loud. The *one* thing that frequently annoys me about indie games is their loudness, and this is the worst case I’ve seen. My “Wave” volume was less than halfway up, and the “Master” volume just one pixel above 0, and it was still too loud. Verified the problem, it’s not on my end (even a punk record is a whisper by comparison). Tone that s*** down!

The plot was appealing. I interpret it as a pisstake of the insane challenges faced by action game characters. In real life, they would inevitably perish, as here. Some good stuff will come of the Flixel framework; I’ve never played a Flash platformer that was so slick.

What’s up with the last underwater cave bit using the same layout as the first cave? It might be a clue to something.

Also: bug. If you get into a the bottom L/R corner of the last shaft and aim your flashlight up diagonally towards a top corner, you’ll see the edge of the large square black image which is used to darken the screen and give the flashlight effect.

A minor nuisance, perhaps: If you try to jump up a ledge which is exactly 4 blocks high, the character/scroll will jitter around a bit. I found that out when I tried to go back to the start.

Eh. I have mixed feelings about this.

Getting to the ‘bad end’(?) without firing any shots, grabbing any treasure, taking any damage, attracting any fish, doesn’t seem to do anything.

Although I did get 3 white fish appear around me once for no apparent reason.

“Raigan: Did you pay attention to the motion of the fish at all? There’s your minimap, man.”

Well, I spent at least 30min swimming around getting all the fish, and they never once formed a map-shape ;p

Sometimes they would all flock/swarm to the edge of the screen, but I attributed this to some sort of intermittant avoidance behaviour, like maybe they were scattering when the flashlight was pointed at them or when they didn’t have a clear line-of-sight to the player.

Anyway, even _if_ they’re doing something like pointing, how is that better than a minimap?! If anything it’s more hand-hold-y since it’s explicitly giving you the solution rather than passively documenting where you’ve been (helping you to find the solution on your own).

Basically it made me feel like “damn, I should have drawn out a map on paper from the start”, but then I remembered my oath to never again do that for any game, because it’s tedious and something that the game itself could just do automatically for me.

Like, imagine a platformer where all the platforms were invisible. Yes, you _could_ painstakingly map out where they were located on paper through trial and error, and then use that to navigate the world, but at that point it’s obvious that the game is being purposefully obtuse because it knows very well where all the platforms are — so it should draw the damn things for me rather than forcing me to do it myself!!

In conclusion: I love minimaps.

Also I really like the idea of a platformer where each level has the same art style and characters, but vastly different movement/gameplay styles.

I think this is a brilliant critique of players who want “fun” in their games. You always hear that now — “The important thing isn’t graphics or sound, it’s FUN!” and other bullshit like that. Fathom basically says, “Here’s your fun for 30 seconds, and now go to hell (literally)!” And then it shows that a real game, the kind that’s not motivated by GREED, isn’t fun at all, or tight controls, or sensible design: it’s deep and introspective and sensitive and it has awesome graphics and sound and an inconclusive ending. BOOM! Anyone who ever said “I hate loading delays” or “Fed Ex quests are stupid” or “MMOs shouldn’t just be about grinding” needs to play this game NOW and realize how immature they’ve been. Fuck fun. This is the future.

Hmmm… I’m divided on this game. I like the graphical style, but it is kinda derivative (intentionally, of course). The first part is fun, the second part is dull. I quite like the artistic ‘message’, but I don’t think it was implemented as well as it could have been (plus, if this were any other media, the post-modernist self-reference might be seen as a tad cliché).

So. I guess the key deciding factor is that I consider the second part to be *willfully* un-fun without real artistic benefit to being so. In my opinion the second part could have been a lot shorter and more streamlined without any loss of meaning or impact. As it is it ends up being a little irritating (especially since you spend all that time trudging through it in the unfulfilled expectation of returning to the fun bit). But. It’s clear that the team behind it has some talent, and I look forward to seeing more stuff from them using this engine but with longer than ten measly days spent on it.

Damnit. This was the most awesome game ever (or atleast in a very long time). The graphics, style and music was among the best ever. And then it abruptly ended :~(
Please everyone stop making artsy 2 minute games about death and ex girlfriends and lets just make action platformers again.

I really don’t understand why there’s so many people saying that the first part is fun. Yes, the style is fun, the sort of thing that brings back memories of Mega Man – and unlike a lot of Flash platformers, it doesn’t lag like crazy just putting some pixels on the screen. However, just play around with the controls for a little while and you’ll see that they’re really not that great – you slide around everywhere, there’s noticeable input delay, and your firing rate is really weird (most noticeable when fighting the boss, though this may be due to some tweaking). You just don’t notice any of these problems in the level itself because there’s no real challenge – you just run forward, shoot things and jump. You never do any real platforming, and these controls would need tightening up in order for it to work.

mentioned a few times but nobody said it yet: CAVESTORY RIPOFF XD
i mean, how many games feature Sprinklers??

i got past the boss, then the space level, then the secret boss, but can’t figure out how to kill it with my bolt-gun (those things you collect do come in useful! wish i had collected more!) i didn’t see the water level everyone else was talking about though.

Perhaps people who feel frustrated or unfulfilled by the game’s conclusion would feel better thinking of this as a brief demo of Flixel’s capabilities.

With a twist.

This is really great stuff. I played through twice, the second time trying to collect every fish — but of course, there’s even one fish you just can’t get to (he’s too far into the wall).

Loved the atmosphere, the difficult controls, the inconveniences, the music…and, after coming to terms with it, the ending.

I’d love the underwater MP3.

Great gameplay, great graphics. Design needs work. If you wanted to go for that style of story, you make the first part something really fun that the player wants to get back into the meat of, rather than make that part the shortest part of the game.

Also the seed/tree doesn’t make any sense in relation to the rest of the game..was that intentional?

I’m with Paul Jeffries on this one, but mostly about how you tried to pull your message off. As it is, the majority of what you are trying to get through is forgotten when you throw the player into the water. I’d almost forgotten I’d ‘died’ in the first place, which made the ending all the more “WTF?!” Maybe by placing a bigger emphasis on how the player dies, instead having it as some passing occurrence, you could alleviate that problem and make that message clearer. I think you tried to remind us of what happened when you reiterated the beginning level, but perhaps that wasn’t enough. I’d suggest throwing in some rusted up enemies, broken bolts or something to further refresh us of what we did there.

Other than that, I thought it was quite well done, especially the music. Kudos.

Bravo.

I got a chill when I recognized those platforms from the original level. I’ll admit I wasn’t quite sure what you were going for there, but it had an effect.

honestly?

Quite a thought-provoking game.
I played it two times earlier today and I’m still undecided on what to interpret from it. I’m a little puzzled mainly about the CPU ‘seed’ object and the tree.

It was pretty frustrating the first play. Then I came here and found about the fish mechanics. The idea that the fish indicated the way actually came to my mind the first time but I couldn’t discern it even observing them. Second play went smooth.

People seem to be looking for some profound discourse here but that might not be the case. I think it’s because the game is a little frustrating. My take is that it wasn’t mean to be, it was meant to be peaceful and atmospheric, and maybe it got a little too frustrating.

At the moment my interpretation is that it is an introspective exploration on something very familiar to everyone in games, but most always overlooked: death.
The guy is a robot whose brain is not water proof. Eventually it falls into the water and we get to experience what happens inside its mind that last instant of its life. The tree might represent the definite end of its brain (CPU). The final stage could be the quick journey through its memories before reaching the white light.

o_o

OK, other than that, I think it’s an interesting play on the preconceptions we all have about games.

Trying new things it’s always a good thing in my book. Even if the game is not loved by many it is certainly provoking reactions :)
Cheers.

“I got a chill when I recognized those platforms from the original level. I’ll admit I wasn’t quite sure what you were going for there, but it had an effect.”

Wait, really?! The second underwater part is the same as the pre-water part??

Maybe my monitor gamma is fucked — for me the second underwater part was completely pitch black, which meant that I basically just scraped back and forth until I found an opening..

I just went back a third time to check out the reprise of the “first” level in the end. Interesting… I really would like to beat the boss (if it is indeed possible), but I don’t think I could in a million years. And I guess that’s part of the point?

Someone on Metafilter ascertained for certain that the boss is unkillable.

Sweet mother of pearl

Uploading some small revisions to correct collision problems that SHOULD help with some “you can sneak out of the entire game” type issues, and some “if this doesn’t work you can’t finish the game and it’s really unfair and mean to ship with a bug like that” problems :)

It amuses me to no end that I came across as a defender of art games! I’ve actually not been a fan of the category, to the point of getting upset about the fruitier instances. BUT, if this is an art game, then I am now a fan.

I can’t acknowledge the “straw man” retorts either. I was writing specifically about the people who commented/complained earlier in the thread about not being able to see when it got dark (again, try the other of the TWO possible buttons yet?)

In general though, the fact that we’re all so worked up about this is a hugely positive sign that Adam is really onto something with this game/tech demo. “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.” I submit that the ‘haters’ here are just frustrated because they actually like what they see on some level, but got hung up on missing the more subtle game design clues, mechanics, and messages.

I disgusted me that Adam even felt compelled to apologize for what he’s accomplished here in TEN DAYS. Take it for what it is – an amazing tech demo with many twists and actual powerful gaming experiences distilled into its short, tiny, brilliant scope.

I still haven’t slept, btw!

~ D

Found this from Metafilter. I enjoyed the aesthetics, but a lot of the impact was lost on me – the first thing I did was wonder “Oh I wonder if falling off the bottom kills you” and jumped in the first pit deliberately*. It seemed so natural to land in water, I was really confused by the ending until I read all these comments and discussion.

* Maybe I played too much Abe’s Oddysee, 12 years ago.

I love you, Dan. :)

Dan, go to sleep. Your laser eyes need to recharge.

@Data:

“I was writing specifically about the people who commented/complained earlier in the thread about not being able to see when it got dark (again, try the other of the TWO possible buttons yet?)”

Well, I wouldn’t have wasted time responding then! Sorry about my last comment, but it *did* seem like you were swinging your guns around, firing at anyone in range.

I want to see full game based of first part – it has really great presentation: graphics, music, controls (only maybe variable jump height should be added).
Also, if you want to do “art game”, then at least make it playable like Don’t Turn Back.

I don’t hate the game, I hate the players. It’s small, free and I’m sure Adam’s a nice guy. Art is, of course, more than heavy-handed metaphors so I think the game almost works better as a satire of gaming than anything meaningful. It’s like if someone remade Duck Hunt, but this time you get to shoot the dog. Yes, this is a video game infused with reality and death, but it’s more funny than it is thoughtful.

Paul Eres “i got past the boss, then the space level, then the secret boss, but can’t figure out how to kill it with my bolt-gun (those things you collect do come in useful! wish i had collected more!)”

Try hitting him on his head when he is turning around.

When I saw the screenshot of this game and the fact that it is in Flash, I was ready to write it off as a cheap Cave Story ripoff.

Instead, it turned out to be one of the best games I have ever played. Made me look differently at games and at life.

I commend the author of this.

I think I may have found a glitch, though. The dark vines don’t seem to grow when you throw the CPU into the dirt sometimes.

dammmmit I’ve tried like 4 fixes for that and I still have no idea what’s causing it :( I’ll definitely keep tracking it…

ok, i’ve played through the game about 4 times, and nothing popped out at me, so i’m just gonna ask: what is the trick? can you avoid going to the water area? unless the comments about a space area and a different gun are meant to mislead people like me, heh….

i just hate feeling like i’m missing half the game, you know? if there really is nothing else, i’ll be a bit annoyed.

Interesting, the game literally pulls the floor out from underneath you. I can see why it has got many negative comments, as it makes you expect one thing then delivers another, but the game play and graphics are tight, the music is good, and it dared to be different.

Maxer: Have you collected *all* the nuts (hint hint) and thus rebuilt the jetpack? If so, then you can just tap jump to stay aloft while you kill the snake. (Obviously, it’s the jetpack you use in the space level.)

If you’ve been dying at the boss, I assume you’ve found the second broken jetpack under water (you use it to smash the ground so the vine can grow out and release the gate), which should give you a sense of how to find the first one.

Hint: it takes 77 nuts.

Spoilers, I guess
-
I only just (third playthrough) noticed the ‘water -> death’ markings on the CPU at the title screen. I enjoyed the game, once I figured out what was going on (2nd playthrough).

Note that on the loading screen (green CPU) it has pictogram
WATER = DEATH
so it explains it’s main intenton.
I think there is no way to beat the boss and Edmund must be joking or is Adam himself.
Large water level must mean large life in it’s randomness. But what means the tree and why it opens gates to memory of the last seconds still needs good explanation.

(oops, when I clicked ‘submit’, count was at 123 comments)

Okay, I didn’t read all the comments, but damn people. There are TWO buttons, you couldn’t figure out how to turn on the flashlight?

In any case, I didn’t like it, by virtue of it was not what I was expecting. I realized as soon as the boss fight started I couldn’t win and something was going to happen, but I thought it’d be something less tedious.

It’s definitely just an Owl Creek Bridge thing, which is pretty played-out and wasn’t a very good concept to begin with, or at least I don’t think so.

The music and graphics were beautiful though.

“Try hitting him on his head when he is turning around.”

I tried that, but whenever you hit his head, some kind of lure (that looks like a flower) appears, and I lose 5 fishes that follow it.

Considering that you need at least 25 (or is it 20?) fishes to open the gate to avoid the first & second attacks of the boss, you’re quickly stuck.

Btw: once you’ve beaten the second extra boss that looks like a duck, don’t go immediately to the right, go back to the left and the room will be filled with nuts. So you can buy anything you want in the armory (before the eggplant boss).

it’s more than “an Owl Creek Bridge thing”. the game shows that there are two kinds of people: people who enjoyed the first part more, and people who enjoyed the second part more. or at least that there are two parts of ourselves, one of which enjoys fast twitchy action with collecting things and exploding enemies, and the other which enjoy slow atmospheric areas where you watch fish swim around and wonder where you’re swimming to in the darkness

Also note that FATHOM can be read like FATUM. And reading “Bridge” gives to game more sense.
Still I don’t know what the tree symbolizing.

Consarnit: whut? i’m still so lost… the only items i ever saw were the 33 nuts in the first area and the green seed underwater. both pits seemed to lead to the same place, too. what path did i miss? or are you messing with me/us? :<

you are being messed with, friend :(

This game LOOKS fantastic and for the first part, I liked the combat, but I knew something was off when nothing was actually attacking me.

The music was good, but a little grainy in its quality.

The controls, super simple. I’ll agree that the patricle effect with the gun to push you around was cool, but the controls were a little weird there. But I got through it.

Overall, a nice little game, but nothing to write home about. I actually went and played gravity hook afterwards, played it longer than i did fathom.

>>you are being messed with, friend :(

you have the power to tweak the game so that we’re not lying anymore :)

Very very nice, but I found it too literal and disrespectful towards my super limited free time. Not sure I appreciated the way Cave Story was referenced either.

WARNING: SPOILERS!

But even more questions. I didn’t read the CPU on the title screen to be “water = death”. I think it means, when you enter the water, don’t go RIGHT, or it will lead to your death.

If instead you go LEFT and continue on that way, you will find the CPU, but it will be in a different location this time around.

Still no idea what the tree symbolizes, or if it can be utilized.

And I never found the 33rd fish.

Still asking myself, is there a chance of survival? Or am I still in the denial stage? XD

Anyhow, loving this game! Thanks Adam!

Just played the game again, collected 10 or 15 fish, and found the CPU in another new location.

Now I’m thoroughly confused! o_O

This took some reflection, and I admit I didn’t figure it out the first time, and needed a bit of help.

For a game with not very much to do, there’s a lot going on here, and I’m reminded of Rohrer’s work quite a bit.

Thanks for the great experience Adam & Danny!