Aquifer Ascent

Two web-only bugs: to avoid these, click the downloads link to run on your computer

• Some graphical flickering (if you can put up with it)
• After clicking "Retry this cave" for some reason the controls don't work properly, unless you click "View map" first. Or just return to the main menu.

Summary

You are a stylish blob person with big eyes and a big heart, and you've woken up deep underground with water rapidly rising.  You don't remember how you got here, but you don't have time to figure that out right now.  A glowing blue orb seems to show you the way out.

Follow the blue orb and keep ahead of the rising water.

The logs allow you to float, though usually you're almost dead by the time you're considering that option.  You can also place them to make ladders, though this is only occasionally useful and you have to act fast.  Also, if you jump or fall while carrying a log you'll drop it.

Occasionally rough grey material blocks your path—it simply collapses when touched.

If you stand at the wrong place at the wrong time (under the blue orb) you may get buried by soil getting placed there.

Keys

• WASD - move
• space bar - jump
• X - grab and drop logs
• arrow keys - camera
  
• shift - reset camera
• esc - pause (press twice if in full-screen mode in the browser)

Main Menu:

• New Cave to explore a new cave like the brave explorer you are.
• Load Cave to reload a cave someone's explored before.  These are identified by numeric IDs you must save in a text file—there is no in-game save capacity currently.

I've posted clips of some caves with their corresponding IDs to my blog.

After you die/forfeit you can view the 3D map up to the current point.  Keys:

• A/D - left/right
• W/A - up/down
• left/right arrow - rotate camera (use in combination with A/D to navigate horizontally)
• up/down arrow - zoom camera
• shift - toggle isometric vs. top-down angle
• esc - I'm done

This view isn't very user-friendly, but it's there for the curious.

Credits

Character voiced by my monk parakeet Crackers; background piano is mine.

Annie helped me get started on this 5 years ago when I was new to Unity :) She helped with the initial code for glowing orbs and holding objects.

Third-party assets used:

• Free Low Poly Desert Pack by 23 Space Robots and Counting...
• Low poly alien world by Purple Sky
• Simple Low Poly Nature Pack by NeutronCat
• Simplistic Low Poly Nature by Acorn Bringer
  
• Stylized Nature Kit Lite by Innerverse Games

Notes

This is an MVP (initial version) that I may or may not add features to down the road.

If anyone wants me to make a Linux download you can post a comment and I'll work on it