Description:

You are "damon", and you died.
You were sent to hell for being a jerk,
but you can buy your way out with hell coins.
The only way to earn them is through your job of recovering things people dropped in the lava.
No, you can not change your job, we chose it for you.
This is your punishment for being a jerk after all.


Credits:

Music by Kwishy

Art by SingleShot & Kwishy

Code By SingleShot


Thank You And Have Fun!


⌨️Default KeyBinds:🎮

Don't like these buttons? Rebind them in the options menu!

⌨️Keyboard 🎮GamePad Action
--------------------- --------------------- ---------------------
⌨️Arrow Keys 🎮 Left stick Aim Character
⌨️Z 🎮A select / swim
⌨️X 🎮B Attack / break rocks/fast text
⌨️C 🎮right trigger Lava Dash
⌨️ESC 🎮Start MAP & options

Note* game-pad can not be rebound. but it's there if you prefer it!


ScreenShots:
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  • Reaktori
    Lv. 17

    What a fun little game! I loved the cutscene art and all the references to previous jam games. How did the eyeball end up in hell 🤔? I had to 100% the game just to find every reference! Great job!

    Shipwreck
    Submitted

    Shipwreck

  • Mimpy
    Lv. 26

    I really like the dialogue and the game jam references in this one. Lots of nice little polish touches. I also like the stuttered input when you hold a direction on the menus (although it seems like the control stick has stutter handling and the d-pad doesn't, which is odd). The sound effects are really comprehensive and enjoyable too. It's nice that the time upgrades give you a double incentive of being able to find more things but also being able to hear more of the diving song, haha.

    Great flavor text. It's both charming and also responsive, since it triggers based on things you've collected or the amount of time that's passed. Makes the characters actually feel like characters when they respond to things that have happened in the game.

    My biggest issue with the game was probably the controls. The character starts a bit unwieldy, and then just gets harder and harder to control the more you upgrade your flippers, which seems a bit counter-intuitive to me. I found it easier to just brute force through obstacles instead of try to avoid them once I got fast enough. It might have been easier to control with arrow keys instead of a gamepad, not sure.

    • singleshot
      Lv. 43
      singleshot Coder of Hell Diver

      2yrs ago

      Thanks for the feed back!

      wow seems you really like a lot about this game. as for the stutter for the d-pad, its really easy to press it a lot and fast, unlike the stick that I didn't think it needed the stutter.

      the events system is something I added because I thought it be fun. plus it helps the player stay invested if you reward them for progression. also it was new i never done before so I really wanted to make it.

      yeah I think the controls for the basic game play could have been better, I didn't think it was that unwieldy myself though. I wanted to make its control like car driving, but give your more control over the turning when your not moving.

      you can press it a little to move a little, then turn and press it again to move in the new direction.

      and yeah you can just kinda tank things once you get enough upgrades, but that fine. you are maxed out on upgrades you should feel unstoppable.

      you only really need to be good at the game to beat it in a few days at low percent. lol

      I'm glad you enjoyed the game as much as you did, and question did you find your reference in the game?

  • Thomas Sjerps
    Lv. 29

    Nice game, although I got lost the first few attempts. Lovely looking dialog sections, and I love the hook that grabs you :)

    • singleshot
      Lv. 43
      singleshot Coder of Hell Diver

      2yrs ago

      Thanks fro the feed back!

      getting a little lost at the start is intended. I added the map and radar to make it easier to find things, but finding them by luck to kick start your improvement in to a trash finding master is the attended progression arc.

      the hook was a fun little think to make, I wanted a death animation and being fished back out literally very funny to us.

      glad you liked the game and thanks again!

  • Allison James
    Patron

    Great entry! Music was interesting and well-composed, the art (as you'd expect from Kwis) was great, the humour was on point, and the gameplay was an interesting loop executed really well. Controls were fluent as well, although I'd probably personally have favoured just making the d-pad swim without Z.

    I think this is one of those ideas where you could just keep adding to it and adding to it and end up with a compelling-for-hours experience.

    As it stands, and as you'd expect from a short-form game jam entry, there's a limited pool of items, variety, and map areas to uncover. But the base work is here, and it's really nice - appreciated that the powerups you could buy had a fairly wide scope.

    Everything I think a good jam entry should be - decent fun in its own right, with real legs if you ever wanted to take it further 😄

    Randomon
    Submitted

    Randomon

    • Kwis
      Lv. 67
      Kwis Developer of Hell Diver

      2yrs ago

      Thank you for your comment about the music! :D I really try my best every jam and it feels super cool to hear it's "well-composed", as music is not my primary strength!

      I'd like to point out that not all art was made by me, so most of the credit goes to Single Shot! I only did the character portraits in the shop menu (and the cover for the gm48 page)

  • Luke Peña
    Lv. 4

    I thought that was a pretty perfect game jam game! We both kind of did the same thing, but you executed on it MUCH better, haha.

    • singleshot
      Lv. 43
      singleshot Coder of Hell Diver

      2yrs ago

      Thanks for the feedback!

      similar games happen all the time in jams. my game have more of a metroidvania style of progression, so there is an end and a goal at all times. this is not necessary better then an arcade style, each offer different experiences.

      I am very much happy with how this game turned out, the type of story interaction as both a progression reward and a break from the game play loop was really fun to make.

      I feel like I could have worked on the main game play a bit more, but I never make a style like this before so it was fun to just go with my first idea and try to make it work.

      I'm really glad you liked my our game as much as you did, and thanks again for taking the time to play and give feed back! I hope you get a much out of this jam as you can!

  • Fachewachewa
    Patron

    Nice game. I'm usually not too fond of dialogs in jam games, but honestly here it's fun enough and still goes to the point. The scavenging and progression worked really well too, even if I unlocked the dash at the same time as my freedom 😅 My main issue was the fact that there wasn't more distinctions between the different parts of the map, but I also didn't know there was an actual map in the game, so I might have avoided the two or three days I spent being lost looking for those final two things.
    Also, I don't know if it's intended since it's usually a bug, but going in diagonals is definitely faster than swimming in straight lines, so I took advantage of it and kept zigzagging everywhere 😈.

    • singleshot
      Lv. 43
      singleshot Coder of Hell Diver

      2yrs ago

      Thanks for the feed back!

      glad you liked the dialogs as mush as you did, I think it was some of the most fun I had working on this project.

      yeah I think I should of have text pop up in game talking about the pause screen and its map like I did with the other controls.

      yeah I guess you can say that the diagonal speed thing is intended. I knew about it in the first few hours of the jam, but as I was having fun using it as a speed tech during play testing I thought that its fine too keep in the game. I do this all the time in my different games, I like leaving secret movement tech in and seeing how people use and abuse it.

      so happy you liked the game, and thanks again for the feedback!

  • Zen00
    Lv. 15

    Unemployment is hell. :(

  • arthurgps2
    Lv. 12

    My favorite part about this game is the pixel art, boy is it nice to look at. The music is also pretty good and I really like how you did the "discovery" part of this game. My only complaint would be that when I maxed out the radar, I felt the game really laggy, but despite that, that's a really good entry!

    Dantoma
    Submitted

    Dantoma

    • singleshot
      Lv. 43
      singleshot Coder of Hell Diver

      2yrs ago

      Thanks for the feed back!

      glad you liked the art as much as you did.

      I guessing the lag was due to the poor optimizing of the map system, my pc is so powerful that it was never an issue for me. I guess I need to test for weaker cpus.

      glad you enjoyed the game and thanks again!

  • Katsaii
    Lv. 7

    This is a nice submission, though I initially had no idea what the goal of the game was. The pixel art and portrait art are both very cute!

  • kris24
    Patron

    Really well done. The flair of having the dialogue conversations was pretty great, and I found the map size/game length to be just about perfect for a jam game. The animated background of the lava was cool but did start to get a bit rough on the eyes toward the end.

    • singleshot
      Lv. 43
      singleshot Coder of Hell Diver

      2yrs ago

      Thanks for the feedback!

      yeah the little events where really fun to make. plus it gave the game more meat on its bones.

      I think I could have optimized the map a bit more. but I kinda just placed things around as they felt right lol.

      i also wanted to do more to the background to smooth it out, but could not come up with a good idea for it.

      glad you liked the game, and thanks for the feed back again!

  • Tydecon Games
    Patron

    This is an interesting game with great art and writing, I love the idea and exceution of the theme, great job! :) And it's very distinguishably got both of your flare and style to it, great job! :)

    • singleshot
      Lv. 43
      singleshot Coder of Hell Diver

      2yrs ago

      Thanks for the feed back.

      The salvaging idea was mine, then kwis though it was a bit to generic. he suggested many idea to spice it up, like what if you where diving in lava? then I was like, sure but it takes place in hell.

      honestly I don't know how it ended up the way it did. I'm glad it was a positive experience though.

      glad you enjoyed the game.

  • q_q
    Lv. 7

    Awesome take on things, loved the music and character interaction!

    Feedback:

    • Gameplay was a bit barebones
    • Yet the systems behind it that you get more coins / points and you earn your freedom was cool
    • The music in the level was sweet
    • Art on point
    WHO AM I ?
    Submitted

    WHO AM I ?

  • C0DERP1GLET
    Lv. 36

    Very solid entry. I like that you payed attention to the details, such as the hook that comes when you die, the controls settings and the [EDIT: descriptions of the items, particle systems, judgement of your progress etc]

    I'm impressed by how the map exapnds as you discover new territory and would like to hear how you made it. I get that it's a surface, but nothing more.

    The writing is hillarious. I hope it's not based on real experience xD. The expressive characters only make it better.

    In terms of art and sound, it's not like trophy rush or valkyrie, but I can't really imagine how to make it better while sticking to the low-rez artstyle. Perhaps the background could be more interesting.

    • singleshot
      Lv. 43
      singleshot Coder of Hell Diver

      2yrs ago

      Thanks for the feed back!

      I like details, they are fun to add and make.

      the map was not a surface. it was a 2d array the same size of the map(the graphic no the room) and when you where in a area of the map, it switch the corresponding values from 0 to 1.

      to render the map, I just drew it pixel by pixel and only drew the pixels that match the parts of the array that were true.

      its a little brute forceish method, but its pretty easy to code.

      No the writing was not based on real experience, I just though it was funny.

      its funny you mention trophy-rush and valktrie, because I did not do the sprite art in them lol. kwis drew the character portraits used in the cut scenes. everything else was me.

      I was planing to do a parallax scroll for the background, but I could not really think of what it would look like so I settled on the animated lava.

      thanks again for the feed back. and glad you enjoyed the game.

    • Kwis
      Lv. 67
      Kwis Developer of Hell Diver

      2yrs ago

      "the controls settings and the " and the whaaaat ;-; You didn't finish the sentenceee

  • Seltzy
    Patron

    I expect this will be one of my top games this jam. Cute art and I found the gameplay enjoyable. A simple loop but the progression felt fast enough to not get super boring.

    • singleshot
      Lv. 43
      singleshot Coder of Hell Diver

      2yrs ago

      Thanks for the feed back.

      surprised you liked it as much as you did.

      the game play loop of get things to buy things to get even more things to buy, is a classic progression feed back loop that a lot of games I love use.

  • 2102
    Patron

    Fun game with good art and textboxes. The actual gameplay seemed a little too spread out, but it was still a fun game.