Actual combat is an exercise in frustration, as pirates tend to hover about in the same spots, waiting to blast you away. Between these dives you’ll be managing air-tanks, food, and ammo (literally just scrap metal you sling out at pirates).
You don’t often find much of real value, although a potential crew member with high stats may be lurking in any particular shipwreck. Scouring the ocean floor for shipwrecks, abandoned research modules and ancient relics provides a satisfying loop of discovery, looting, and vendoring. North? East? Maybe West? How about good old South? I feel a lot of the initial frustration with Diluvion would have been avoided if I at least knew which quadrant of the map to be in (or the ship didn’t crawl along at a sea-snail’s pace).ĭiving on past the navigational issues, the moment to moment gameplay is a bit hit and miss. The frustration I felt when seeking out some of these quests points for five hours was only compounded when I tried to ask my crew where to go, to simply be met with “Yes, I know where that is! All of us in the Sonar Guild know where that is!” with no additional information provided. Easy, right? Not so much when you have the entire game-world to search with no nudges in the right direction.
DILUVION KICKSTARTER UPGRADE
For example, one of the first tasks you are given is to hunt down a list of materials to upgrade your ship with. I would personally love this idea, forcing the player to truly explore and memorise routes… If only quests weren’t so directionless and vague. You don’t appear on the map, but instead have to use a compass and your own personal sense of direction. While you are granted a map, it’s basically a blank canvas until you discover landmarks which are then jotted down for you to remember. As I mentioned, it has a heavy focus on navigation and finding your own way to each objective. It is too bad that, as much as I was drawn in, I was pushed away every moment thereafter. It’s got a lot of heart, and my gripes with actual gameplay feel somewhat diminished because the visual and audio design pulled me so far into its world.
When the focus shifts from 3D to 2D when visiting various towns, characters are interesting and colourful in a cute, pen-and-paper sketchy way. The music is eerie when it needs to be, triumphant and glorious at others. It’s a game about navigation, and every little landmark stands out. Little fish spin and frolic around your ship, often leading the way to landmarks, submarine flora litters the ocean floor, and the icy-depths rarely feel boring with how unique various bits of ice, floor, and cavernous walls feel. In many ways I feel Diluvion strives to look great in trailers more than it wants to be a good game. Still, no other game has given me such a sinking feeling in my gut. Perhaps I am scarred from some less than ideal diving trips with my father as a child. Perhaps I do suffer from an irrational fear of large bodies of water. So often would I be puttering along, only to realise how lost and vulnerable I had become. The deep, dark ocean is absolutely terrifying, and peering down into the murky depths evokes a very real, primal fear. With FTL-like crew management, completely 3D movement, upgradeable vehicles and a whole lot of navigation, Diluvion has a Jules Verne-meets-Steampunk theme and a thalassophobia-inducing ocean playground, setting itself apart from the slew of other Kickstarter games released in recent times. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s cut to the chase: for a game about delving the deep trenches of the ocean, it remains rather shallow.ĭiluvion is a loosely open-world exploration game played in third person. We begin the tale with one bold captain on a journey for more. The years pass from season to season, and tales of what’s above the ice have turned to fables, nobody remembering a time before this. Those who managed to survive have colonised the waters, and as the oceans froze over, civilization rebuilt itself. Publisher: Gambitious Digital EntertainmentĪ great calamity has rolled over the face of the earth, flooding the planet and wiping out all but a few survivors.
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