The Shrinking

Shrink down into the deeps of the world! This athmospherical game takes you into a journey of a man escaping from the rain, an event where liquid is falling from the sky making the player smaller.

Story:

You don’t exactly remember how you got in this situation. You only remember that it started to rain. Where are you? What exactly is this liquid? It doesn’t seem to be normal water. You feel kind of weird, is the environment around you getting bigger or are you just getting smaller?

Theme:

The theme of Ludum Dare 48 “Deeper and Deeper” is reflected in our game in different ways. Have a look at second 19-26 in the video, you will see how the player is getting smaller in size over time and the camera zooms in deeper and deeper. In our game, the player is getting smaller and smaller when he touches liquids and is literally deeper than the moment before. This leads to the environment becoming larger and larger for the player. In a figurative sense, the player thus slips deeper and deeper into a problem from which he cannot get out again because there is no no way back to normal size.

Features:

• Platformer gameplay
• 3 levels to explore
• Misterious ambiance feeling
• High quality graphics
• Music and Sounds

A level score system and save/load system was implemented too.

Controls:

• Use WASD or the arrow keys to move.
  • Use the up key to jump, you are also able to double jump.
  • Use the down key to crouch.
• Press (Space) grab moveable boulders, Combined with moving you can push/pull boulders.
• Press (Escape) to open the Menu.

There is an ingame-tutorial to learn the controls. Evade liquids, crouch below branches, jump on platforms and push boulders to reach the end of the level!

Possible Future Updates:

We were not able to implement all our ideas into this game because of the limited time we had during the jam. If we continue working on this game we might add NPCs like insects that also search protection underground, the player would need to follow them. Ideas like these might help us creating a good story for the game. We might consider a release in steam if we work further on the project. A lot of code will be needed to tweak and several bugs to be fixed, but as a start we definitely rushed a solid basis for our idea.

Post Jam Changes:

We are going to fix some bugs and listen to the feedback in the comments. When we upload a new version of the game we also update the changelog here.

• Fixed Bug: Jump speed is framerate dependent
• Fixed Bug: Jumping against corners causes the player to get stuck
• Fixed Bug: Credits are not properly shown after the last level
• Fixed Bug: Boulders are pushed away without grabbing them sometimes.

• Made jumping slower and therefore easier to control
• Player is not constantly shrinking through rain anymore, only if he touches liquids
• Enlightened an area in level 1 where platforms were hard to see
• Adjusted time for best and worst result in level score
• Credits can be opened through the main menu

Credits:

• Dietmar Puschmann [aka "Rayo"] (Main Programmer), Website, Twitter,  YouTube
• Matthias Young [aka "Ferocious Industries"] (3D Artist, Level Designer), Website, Youtube

Development Tools used:

• Unity
• Visual Studio
• Blender

Third-Party Assets used:

• NatureManufacture Assets
• Procedural UI Image

Free Assets from:

• Mixamo (Hero Character “Malcolm”)
• SergePavkinMusic (Title “Deep”)
• 1001freefonts
• freesound
  

Ludum Dare Submission:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/the-shrinking

Download:

Version 1.1