Dive Down is a 2D arcade game about steering your scuba diver as deep as you can go without being hit by sharks or mines. I designed the game to be enjoyable for players of all skill levels, and to match the game jam theme of "Enter the Abyss". 

Design Goals: 

• My main goal was for all jam participants and judges to be able to play the game and understand what the game was asking of them.

• I also wanted players to want to "compete" with each other over who could go the deepest.

• The eventual click once to boost mechanic was aimed at encouraging players to go fast, even if it meant giving up some control in the process.

Tools Used:  GameMaker Studio 2, Aseprite, Audacity, Google Docs

Lessons Learned:  

• The UI that I made for the resources is way too small and generic. I received feedback from one of the judges saying that it should be bigger and more thematic with diving. I agreed with this criticism, and have made UI more readable and stylized in my more recent projects. 

• The background/environment should have gotten darker and more abyss-like the farther down you dove. I think this change would have helped with player immersion and improve the overall aesthetic of the game.