Tidehold
Take charge of an underwater colony and follow a mysterious signal to its source - can you expand far enough to reach it? Or will you let the dangers of the depths devour you?
- Balance production in between farms, houses and mines,
- Build more O2 tanks to expand your colony,
- Construct radars to show you the way and protect you from incoming dangers
- Reach the hidden goal!
Made in 3 days for Ludum Dare #57, Theme: Depths
Credits:
titos2k - coding, design
outstar - design, art, music
Resources used:
Main menu shader: this one with edited properties
Danger shader: this one
SFX: Epidemic Sound
Versions:
0.1 (Pre-Ludum Dare finish): Fixed crash on end and added fullscreen
0.2 Fixed a bug with upkeep math & resource calculation, fixed infinite money glitch when upkeep/production was added to resources before the end of the day on the building being built/destroyed
0.3 (After Ludum Dare voting period):
Added random map generator
- Fixed crash on end during monster attack (sneaky one)
- Fixed radars acting randomly when built close to the end goal
- Fixed inactive buildings counting for upkeep when occupying bonus terrains
- Center camera on HQ on pressing H or RB
- Added Pause/Unpause button (P, Pause or LB)
- Added "Continue Game", and autosave on quit
- Reduced game file size
- Fixed crash on end (this time for good)
- Fixed bug where player could destroy the end goal
- Radars have +1 protection range
- Radar doesn't protect itself anymore
- Added controller and full keyboard support
- Added basic instructions to intro screen
- O2 Tanks need to be connected to the base now by active tiles
We're posting more updates in the Devlogs below!
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Tidehold Version 0.3.1 is here!40 days ago
Comments
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really nice game, and in 3 days?
Alright, I figured out what kind of blindness was haunting me.
Frankly, I had seen this before. I just thought it was earthquake and I built my radar just in time, and after some time, I registered it as some random visual flare that happens when you build radars.
Apparently radars do a quick earthquake which leads you towards the black egg.
Frankly, the tooltip saying POINTS really makes you think of a more subtle effect.
Yeah, I'm blaming that, I'm not blind after all :D
Anyway, I also caught a bug while playing organically.
I shall call it "The Ghost Buildings"
Reproduction steps:
1. Destroy any Structure.
2. Build a structure at the same position while the smoke cloud effect is playing. (Less than a second)
The buildings are there, but never rendered unless you destroy and build another.
My final verdict:
You guys sure did a phenomenon job with this.
There are only a handful of issues:
The game doesn't feel very intuitive at first. It's quite hard to grasp at the different mechanics and get a feel for the economical exchanges. It took me longer than I'd like to admit just to figure out how O2 tanks actually work, and the radars' "pointing to the goal" effect at first seemed to communicate their area of protection or suggest that an earthquake was coming this way. It wasn't till my 3rd try that I figured I had to follow the shakes.
I think a simple arrow attached to the radar would probably do a better job.
And I really like the visual effect, I know you've spent some real time on that, but it's just hard to grasp.
The game feels really good once you realize how to effectively convert your resources. The problem is that O2 tanks and Radars together cost way too much, and the map (Normal difficulty) is a desolate wasteland on the outside and doesn't give you more lucky seabeds or soil to further grow your human resources. At some point you reach +20/30/40 on every resource which feels very empowering but as soon as you build radars, you go back into the negatives, which feels extremely regressive. The game simply doesn't want you to use radars and the earthquake's never as destructive as radar is economically.
And I'm not suggesting to buff the earthquakes, no! Buff the earthquakes, so they hinder the players without radars but also nerf the INFINITE COST of radars and O2 tanks, or give 'em more coverage.
It's a diminishing tactic to even approach radars as of moment.
As for the Hard difficulty.
I'm never playing on hard, since it's basically an "Idle till you bank 3k of every resource, and then go explore" mode, while hoping you don't run out. it feels outstandingly sluggish to do anything on hard.
Also, can we please have actual Vision range and Scouting? it just feels bad while I'm building a bridge of O2 tanks just to be able to place one on the EFFICIENT location (often 4 of them in shape of a Rhombus) and now I have to figure out which ones are the extras and delete them one by one.
With all those out of the way, I declare this an engaging journey of retrieving ... a black egg?
Huge thanks for the detailed review and finding the issues! We're working on a bigger version right now and will implement some changes based on this! 🙏
Glad to hear that
The radars fooled me D:
So, did I take too long and they broke or am I supposed to chase the goal somewhere else (where I obviously don't understand)?
Also, maybe I'm playing this wrong, but radars seem to be totally not worth it.
Like every time an earthquake's gonna happen and I don't have a radar there, I just pause, setup a radar, then demolish the radar, and or rebuild whatever the earthquake destroyed.
Definitely not gonna bother with the radars and go into negatives again...
yeah there's something wrong with the radars / end goal in the current build ;)
We're still investigating. I had some leads and fixes but I'm not fully convinced if I figured the issue. Have you loaded the game at any point? (by continue from main menu)
Still the radars will have to be completely revamped to fit better into the colony economy. Build, discover, destroy meta has to go away somehow.
PS wow you have a really big screen - how was the performance? playable?
I'm not entirely sure, I wish I had recorded footage.
I remember at the very beginning I started a new game and thought to myself "Where are my gamer manners?" pressed Alt+F4, launch the game again and oh... there's no options menu. I was actually really impressed by how seamlessly full screen the game looked by just maximizing the window.
I would say at that point I pressed new game again, and pretty sure I saw the radar's shake effect, but I thought it was just some visual flare. that's the likely explanation.
The Performance:
On an RTX 3050, which I'll have upgraded soon, I can't recall any lags or stutters.
The game was butter smooth, which made it feel disappointing when I reached the end of the map. It seemed rather small for how much further we could go.
This is some surprising optimization for a 2025 game.
A lack of unnecessary detail and particle effects that plague most games really helped a ton here. And the game doesn't look visually noisy ++
If I were to ask for anything, it'd be quality of life improvements.
- Ability to build O2 tanks further. as far as 2 more tiles away.
- Allowing us to actually preview the O2 Tanks and Radar coverage without needing to build them first.
That's it, as for the balancing, I'd say make Radar maintenance cheaper.
Maybe remove 2 human resources, making it unmanned.
At least for a short term test to see if people find it worth building again.
Generally speaking, even on normal, there's a lack of lucky seabeds.
The main issue that plagues the playing meta is the Idling/Banking move where you just AFK for 100/200 days, come back, and only now expand.
It is going to be very hard to balance the meta, so I'd say don't bother with that part just yet. First, lets see if we can make radars actually useful.
I liked it, but if you would've left out the controller support, the game would've been cleanly compatible with over 400 controllers, rather than just official Xbox ones.
by "cleanly" you mean using some third-party software? :) We will add an option later on to turn off controller in-game so you can map the keyboard on your own. I hope that will help.
Yes, I would love to see that. I actually don't have a single game in my library that has such a feature.
is there a way to see which way the radars point? All of mine just point up. I have one at the top right, top left, and top middle of the map and they still just point up. I don't know how to win. send help.
Sorry that happened to you. Did you continue / load a game at some point? There was one issue with the end goal being lost on load in a specific situation. I fixed it (i think) but not rolled out the update yet. I'm working on couple of other bigger changes.
radars point toward the goal though? thats where you expsnd
Very nice !
you posted my what
:D
this is good game,i have fun ,There are some issues with the game's numerical design. The earthquake frequency × production rate < construction cost, resulting in excessively high maintenance costs. The radar shield consumes too many resources and is almost unnecessary except for its one-time function of indicating direction—the return is likely negative. As a result, the easiest way to beat the game is to AFK at 5× speed near the base, since the base is immune to earthquakes and maintenance costs, and food becomes unnecessary. Just idle until Day 1500, pause the game, start building, and go straight to the end.
looks like dawnfolk
This was really fantastic and polished -- art, music, fairly intuitive gameplay! I really loved it.
However, the radar was VERY confusing -- I didn't realize that you have to watch the "ping" direction that happens right when you *build* it, to find the general direction of the signal that you are supposed to be building your base towards. This also means that radars are not worth the resources used to keep them running, and the best strategy is to tear them down immediately, which doesn't make a lot of sense in-world.
I would also say that if the oxygen tank units are going to be what determines where you can build, then you need to show their "coverage", probably when they are selected -- i.e., the areas that will be not "powered" if you remove one. This was not intuitive. Something worth adding if you work on this past the jam!
Great feedback and good ideas, we'll work on that!
What I want to know is: whenever a worker does any work or build something, they seem to be consumed by a mysterious force. Is something killing them?
They are legally bound by non-disclosure agreements and can no longer work on anything else.
good job. great game :)
I like your game bro！
I can't find the game in the windows download... only a bunch of files
Just fixed this, sorry!
Absolutely incredible, very well done! I will not admit how many days it took me to get to the end even if I was playing on easy. I love the art direction, the color palette and sound design are top-tier.
I played the embedded WebGL build and unfortunately couldn’t select the end portal. Tried building on it, tried building around it, tried destroying it, tried just plain-old clicking on it. Not sure if I’m being silly or there’s a bug to investigate, but I wanted to let you know!
well you just have to place o2 tank close to portal. Thanks for the screenshot. That NULL shouldn't be there ;) i will figure better UI of ending the map.
Our bad for not specifying that you need to reach the portal with your base's range! We're working on post jam version now and will upload a new demo when ready :)
Really enjoyable! You should definitely be proud. I couldn't quite get to the end, though. My radars kept pointing in an area I already inhabited, and I was just spamming O2 tanks to reveal the area, but still didn't get it. I think I'm an edge case, though.
Enjoyed this quite a bit! It took me a really long time to realize how to read the radars direction though.
Very cool game! I love the sound design
Really enjoyed this game! Liked the balance of destroying o2 buildings to stretch out, and regain resources
seems to logically want to be a turn-based game
My radars all point directly upward, even the one I put at the top edge of the map?
I'm having this same problem. Where should I look to see where the radar points? they all point up, even if I'm far away from my base to the left or right or at the top of the map already.
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cooollll
Wow! This seems so simple at first until all of the different buildings come together and make sense. You REALLY capture the chill vibe of building in the depths, but also the (minimal) danger of losing buildings along the way.
This was a really fascinating game that explores the theme incredibly well!
PS: I forgot I was playing on easy lol, and it sounds like the other difficulties get less "minimally" dangerous 😅
- ✨Beth
Absolutely lovely, really engaging and simple, and I might do a run exploring the whole map or something. Strong core, inspiring that I make a little game like this too. Reminds me a bit of Slipways!
Seems not very hard once you realise that you can repeatedly construct and deconstruct O2 tanks to move long distances without increasing resource usage. Maybe worth changing so that O2 tanks have to connect back to base?
The only trouble with that is it would make the hard difficulty impossible (I think). I think something in this vein is probably the right way to go to make the game more fun on replay, but I think it would need more substantial changes
We're doing both for the post-jam version! One of the things we didn't have time to implement for the jam was an additional pick-up resource layer, where you can boost your economy shortly with found loot, which should help with the rising difficulty level (and promote expansion in other directions). We'll keep the page updated :)
Agreed that the game is quite repetitive. Hope to see the post-jam version.
really nice game got to 2000+ days
its plays like an puzzle and never lets you to grow exponentially with is nice to keep player always on edge
one thing that i did not liked that radar is a bit under powered for how much resources it takes
This is a fabulous game with simple and enjoyable play!
well the game crashed at the ending, but it was fun along the way
a good game concept, but it is a bit repeating after get into the depth sea. may be a upgrade on building can make the game more fun?
the game is cute too
Gameplay and Critique ;)
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do you also like tower defense game? I’m making a 3rd person tower defense game with hidden objects mechanics, would like to know your opinion https://ahmednaboot.itch.io/grandmother-defence
Hey! Thanks for the comment. I do like tower defense games a lot.
I've jumped into your game briefly, but it didn't work properly in my browser... I often have trouble with 3D games in the browser.
I'll see if the download works for me during the week.
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thank you, hopefully the downloaded version works fine and hope you like it isa, cheers man
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hey Did you get a chance to download it? because I just uploaded a new version with extra juice and better balance, and would like to get your take on that
so cool! the ambiance is so cool and the mechanics aren't like anything else i've seen
What’s the day limit?
In the jam version, there's none! We're planning an expanded version where time limits may be a thing, though :)
Very nice game! The art is very pretty and the gameplay is a lot of fun.
Good job!
Nice fun little game.
Noticed a bug? When you purchase buildings when paused, you gain one day of production, while the day counter doesn't go up.
This means, once you get up to ~ 40 units of total production, you can pause the game and keep building without risk of danger.
Thank you, we're fixing it now!