So! I'm working on a Visual Novel, Otome Game called Deep Sea Quest!
Deep Sea Quests official server! I'll post updates, leaks, and interact with people to help grow and create my game! | 10 members
I have a discord server for updates if people want to give their opinions, watch the game come together while it's being made, streams, or any other reasons! I REALLY want (kinda need) peoples opinions while designing!
I have a MAJOR OBSESSION with the Sea, I have SO MUCH LORE AND IDEAS FOR THIS GAME!! If you have ideas, opinions, etc then please use the asks!! I'd love to hear it and share something I'm passionate about working on!! :D
SOME FEATURES!!
I hope to include some nice features to the game!
Custom names
2. (I hope) skin color for minor parts in cutscenes! Also A WIDE VARIETY OF SKIN COLORS! From dark dark to pale!
I'm not skilled enough yet to do full customization, so this'll have to work! It's minimal but still feels investing as the main character! OR I could do a grey-based character- I'm torn
3. being different dialogue options that minorly affect the game and give different scenes, but still lead on the same path!
4. animated cutscenes for key points
5. detailed, drawn out scenes for more minor (but still important) points in the story!!
If all goes well, there will be more side content/stories, different outfits, maybe even a chibi room area like in cookie run kingdom or twisted wonderland, but we will see!! I'd like to add little features like this if I'm able!
These are the basic designs for the cast of girlies! (though im polishing a few, so these designs may not be final but similar! :] )
From top going right, its Soleil, Kenzah, Ebony, Jupiter, Cecera, and Leiveri!
Below is a short overview of the plot!
The basic plot is that you wash up on the shore of an off-main-land island, Carasax, then meet 6 girls! They're part of the EES- Etherium Elemental Specialists!! Rogue Elementals have been causing chaos lately, so their job is to put a stop to it and find the root of the elementals distress. Hang out with the girls, have fun adventures, and find out the source of the trouble!
FathomVerse version 2 is out and it’s awesome! You can now identify by the umbrella category if you can’t ID further (so great for the problem siphonophores) and there’s many new categories to train in. Also new minigames!!!!
This was a $30-$40 game labelled as a $60 one. It’s fun but after a day or two you’ll find yourself quickly bored. Yikes. I don’t have a lot of nice things to say about this one. I’m not angry at it, but I’m just going to lay it all out as it is.
Endless Ocean suffers from what I consider to be the worst thing that can happen to a game. It’s just… not much to talk about. It’s largely nothing. Good games will be remembered. Bad games will also be remembered. Maybe not made again, but we still talk about trite like Superman 64.
Nothing games? No one talks about. Which is sad because I love games like this, but I don’t see this as a franchise Nintendo will continue to make because no one from the casual sphere will be asking for it after this. (And despite what many folks believe, you need casuals to buy games like this from companies like Nintendo to convince the corpos that they are still worth making).
Let’s talk about this ocean diving game and where it went wrong.
Firstly the story-mode. Hate it. The story itself is very… okay. Nothing special but serviceable. My big problem is the progression. It’s locked behind doing TONS of exploring instead of just letting players enjoy the story at the pace they want to enjoy it! (Probably because players would finish it in a matter of hours and put it down forever because it would have little left to offer. The replay value is nonexistent and there is no incentive to play longer.)
Additionally the only person who ever speaks is your AI computer companion and I could not care less about anything that thing says. It’s dull and lazy. All the divers just flail around. You’re telling me we can have special magic fish which I can suck the light out of to save magic coral, but no communicators so the divers can actually speak to each other? Okay💨.
I’m being harsh here. But when I see a $60 price tag with Nintendo’s name attached I expect more than this. And while I am going to get into the stuff I like it’s hard to ignore to mediocre nature of the game.
For example this game is just… empty. It feels weirdly lifeless despite being heavily populated by fish. Probably because they don’t feel like they’re really there sometimes. You can swim right through nearly all the models. The maps are huge but I actually think this is a disservice because they largely don’t do anything interesting with them. There aren’t many different biomes to visit randomly, you can’t interact with anything other than treasures that just give you nearly meaningless currency. It’s just diet New Pokemon Snap. And Pokemon Snap arguably does the job much better despite being on rails.
And the more I think about it… the more I realize that it really does have a LARGE amount of similarities with New Pokemon Snap in terms of story and function. Even down to the luminescent giant creatures! I would almost say if you want the Endless Ocean: Luminous experience of wandering around looking at stuff you should just go play that. The environments are prettier, Pokemon react to your presence, Pokemon react to each other, you interact with environment, you get items, and you get tons of unique biomes. Or just play the original Endless Ocean games because they’re way better.
In Endless Ocean: Luminous you’re just kinda dropped off in a big blue pool. The water even looks kinda hazy when you’re in it. There’s no weather, no sunsets, no beautiful ocean moonlit nights. Just… big blue planes of nothing. And there are fun places to explore sometimes. Like ruins, old ships, some caves, and the depths. This is in the minority though.
In majority there’s big flat sand planes of fucking blue nothing. With rocks. And you’ll spend more time there than you will anywhere else. Especially in multiplayer.
That’s all you really do in Endless Ocean: Luminous. You wander around and look at shit. Which I like games like this in theory. Outer Wilds and Paradise Killer are also “look around” games. But they also have compelling narratives and gimmicks to keep players hooked. And I’m not arguing it’s not fun to poke around in Endless Ocean: Luminous. I did have a fun time swimming around. I’m just also saying you’ll get bored quick.
This extends to the multiplayer. Which boils down to who can wander around and look at everything the fastest. That’s it. You’re given emotes but players rarely interact with each other and are given basically no incentive to. I guess you can join the mode to feel less lonely. It’ll get you through the story mode quicker than working on your own.
I just… additionally one of the big selling points was you could be with up to 30 people in a room but this isn’t quite true. It’s up to 10 random people. The other TWENTY you need to have friends or join a stream. And practically NO ONE was streaming this on Twitch ON LAUNCH. The amount was painfully low for a Nintendo IP. I wasn’t expecting Mario numbers but it was kinda pathetic. 🤷♀️ I was genuinely disappointed. The large amount of players in one room sounded fun.
But at the same time 10 players on one map can actually be too much at times and leave little for players to do as you witch hunt for the one fish that hasn’t been scanned. A weird conundrum.
So… what did I like about this game??? I did mention I would talk about stuff I liked.
The variety of fish was good. I like that all the fish got factoid excerpts that could be read aloud. Though I’m irked I can’t play the verbal explanation and look around at the same time. While the game is very basic it’s still fun to poke around and look at stuff! There is interesting stuff to look at. I appreciate the fantasy elements.
I like the idea of the fish bosses you have to lure out. Though I wish luring them out required learning about the fish and using something special for that fish to get them to reveal themselves. They want it to be a big grand event but it’s really not.
The fish models actually look really good and detailed. If you know your ocean life you can properly identify the fish for what they are. As someone who loves ocean life this actually matters to me quite a bit. Weirdly enough I’m disappointed the plant/coral life was lacking. It would’ve been a good way to add to the catalogue. Might just be a me thing but ocean plants are as equally interesting as the fish.
I appreciate that there’s no combat. As I don’t have a strong spine for ocean horror. (I have to play Subnautica with creature aggression turned completely off.).
Fish companions. Great choice. Being able to unlock bigger fish friends over time and respecting their dive capacity was also a great choice. My favorite ended up being the starfish since they could just attach to your tank. Too cute. (Though… we needed urchins in the game too. Just saying…)
Actually. This leads me to another real niche nitpick. We can have fantasy fish but the all the plants outside of the World Coral are BLAND normal ass plants??!?
*Flips table*
MORE PLANTS and CORAL GOD DAMMIT. I WANT TO LOOK AT PRETTY PLANTS WITH MY PRETTY FISH. It’s not a lot to ask! I want Subnautica level plant decoration even if it’s on a budget. Barbie Ocean Discovery has more COLOR in the background for Christ’s sake.
*Ahem*. Sorry. Ocean stuff is a hyper fixation, but I promise I’m not actually mad. Ha ha. Can you imagine?
The customizable avatar and emotes is… cute. Really. I swear. But you likely won’t last long enough to unlock anything truly complex before moving on.
The idea of events is cute, but don’t mean much. It’s largely just increased rates for rare creatures to appear. Eh.
In short Endless Ocean: Luminous is a fairly empty game with a LOT of padding for $60. You can tell they wanted a cozy game that players would play for longer than a few days, but you likely won’t. I’m not going to argue it’s valueless to pick up. I’m just going to say that you deserve to not buy it at the price Nintendo wanted us to buy it at.
Continuing with ocean game concept doodles for @skyseaandmore
First up is some possible siren/nymph designs with abilities that the player character could use. Design on the left is based on an anglerfish, with glowy markings you could maybe use to light your way (it’s also possible that you could have a prop that has like glowing jellyfish in it) as well as a “lure” ability (maybe used to lower the defenses of an enemy?). The design on the right is based off of a jellyfish and could have like a toxin ability. The eyes of that character look kind of funky because jellyfish don’t really have eyes (except for box jellies which have funky ones)
the second concept is some possible water manipulation abilities - sonar, a “bubble net” to trap enemies (similar to those used by some whales when hunting) and a “water bullet” (please please please look up mantis shrimp hunting methods you won’t be disappointed). The last ability is like a whirlpool thing and idk how you could use it but it’s cool
maybe these abilities and “mutations” were what led to the downfall? (Or had some part in it) With them being obviously beneficial, some might have sought out more and more of them, sort of turning into monsters. Maybe the player could see themself going on the same path…
If you're an ocean freak or a horror freak with thalassophobia or both like me then go play Abzû. Right now. There is a very high chance your favourite ocean animal will be there, there are literally so many there are THRESHER SHARKS, they are my favourite sharks and there are so many other species too. I fell in love with this game the second I started playing. Genuinely almost made me cry in the part with the orcas
(obviously don't see the screenshots if you don't want to be spoiled of what can appear in the game)
