Holy shrimp! The Balance Patch Update is o-fish-aly here!
On May 5th, Aphotic Descent turned 3 years old! We’re very grateful for the continued support and feedback we received from players. For its birthday-anniversary, this major update is a culmination of adjustments focusing on improving the game’s overall experience through certain adjustments and quality-of-life fixes.
Highlights
Supporting More Screens: Most game screens now automatically adjust to 16:9 resolution, regardless of the native aspect ratio.
Nerfed Early Game Enemies: The infamous gatekeepers, the FreakFish and the Eel, have been adjusted to revamp the game’s overall difficulty.
Improved Puzzles: A handful of puzzles have been changed to account for future levels and bosses to introduce certain interactions sooner.
Edits to Cutscenes: Some 3D cutscenes have been changed to clarify objectives, story events, and hints.
Level Adjustments: All levels received improvements with either terrain edits and/or collision adjustments.
And much more…! Dive right in to see all the changes!
Changes
Submarine
Moved the Flashlight/Blacklight from the first room to the second room
Expanded tutorial text hitboxes
Corrected “Bathysphere” spelling error
Kelp Maze
Added blacklit kelp blocking the Bathysphere exit
Moved collectible Zooplankton to be in front of the Bathysphere
Added a new tutorial hint for the Blacklight and Knife in front of the Kelp Maze
Moved Kepler’s corpse to the entrance of the Kelp Maze
Kelper’s skull now rolls off his body when the player walks near it
Added new SFX to Kepler’s skull animation
Added dry kelp in the Kelp Maze entrance that can be cut with the Knife
Added ambient SFX in Kelp Maze
Kelp shaking
Water pulsing
Fixed an issue where FreakFish would clip and swim through large rocks
Lowered FreakFish’s attack radius to be more forgiving and allow more exploration of the Kelp Maze
Adjusted FreakFish’s damage to be 2 hits instead of 1 for death
Added new FreakFish eating animation to play after he damages the player, where he briefly stops attacking to give players a chance to stun or escape
Added new SFX while FreakFish is eating
Added a new FreakFish attacking animation when it is chasing the player
Edited terrain to connect the blacklight puzzle area near the entrance to the rest of the map
Replaced “Press E” on the coral puzzle on the left side of the map with a blacklight puzzle
Adjusted “FreakFish Dies” cutscene for visual clarity
Moved collectible Zooplankton from the exit of the kelp maze to be a blacklight puzzle reward within the Kelp Maze
Crab Lab & Observatory
Removed the blacklight interaction with the globe and changed its color from purple to green
Moved the collectible Zooplankton to be inside a blacklit cocoon behind the globe
Changed the jammed doorpad puzzle to utilize the knife now instead of the blacklight
Added new SFX to the jammed doorpad
Added SFX to ShrimpMan in the lab
Fixed ShrimpMan animation error
Added blacklit kelp in front of the computer puzzle room
Added blacklit kelp in front of the computer that shows code to solve the puzzle
Adjusted the backup switch to make it brighter and more noticeable to the player
Changed backup switch to be interactable with the knife instead of hitting “E”
Added new SFX to the backup switch
Adjusted SFX in “Shrimp Escape” cutscene
Moved the collectible Zooplankton to be at the center of the ceiling of the Observatory
Eel Pit
Removed Phase 2 of the Eel’s encounter (“End its Suffering”)
Added a new Phase 2 (“The Eel has Lost Control”), where the Eel becomes faster after 3 generators have been destroyed and perishes after the final generator is destroyed
Added the ability for the player to stun the Eel in both phases with the Knife
Added new animation and SFX when the Eel gets stunned
Changed the story cutscene to play immediately upon Eel's death
Added blacklit kelp to the generator on the pit's floor
The player must shine the Blacklight on the kelp before hitting the generator with the Knife
Adjusted “Descend Deeper into the Cave” cutscene to be slightly longer for clarity
Added a ladder to help the player get out of the Eel Pit
Moved Peek’s note to be in front of the ladder
Cave (Upper & Lower)
Moved Kepler’s note in the cave entrance to be hidden under boxes
Added cages that can be cut with the Knife at the cave entrance
Added hint text that helps teach the player that they can cut the cages down with the Knife
Added Isopods to the cave
Added a new cage that contains the shrimp bait
The player must cut down the cage first with the Knife before shining the Blacklight on the shrimp bait
Added new ambient cave SFX
Water dripping
Metal clanging
Added walking SFX for the PistolShrimp
Added a new jumpscare for the PistolShrimp
Adjusted the distance between each sniping position to reduce the time between breaks after the PistolShrimp changes targets
Added new SFX cue for after the player shines the Blacklight on each container
Added hint text that tells the player, for a brief moment, they aren’t being targeted by the PistolShrimp
Adjusted cave collapse cutscene for visual flair
Mud Marsh
Changed the objective text from “Repel the Creature” to “Evade the Creature”
Moved collectible Zooplankton to the entrance of Mud Marsh
Added SFX for when ShrimpMan is burrowing and unburrowing
Fixed a bug where ShrimpMan would visually teleport instead of burrowing
Changed the Zooplankton that are released from blacklit cocoons to now lead the player to the next area after the cutscene plays
The zooplankton now guide the player towards the exit of the Mud Marsh once Phase 2 begins
Changed ambient Zooplankton to help guide the player to the unblocked exit after the cutscene plays
Replaced the exit obstacle to be a more visually distinct rock obstacle
Changed cutscene to now have ShrimpMan break the rock obstacle leading to the Phase 2 area
Added more cover and rest spots for the player in the Phase 2 area
Added cover toward the end of the Mud Marsh to make obtaining collectible Zooplankton easier
Changed the final Mud Marsh exit visually to be clearer and brighter to the player
Trench
Moved Morgana’s note to be under the Angler jumpscare at the start of the level
Increased the aggro range of the Angler
Increased the damaging range of the Angler's AOE attack
Increased the Angler’s AOE damage to now kill the player in 4 hits
Increased time between damage intervals of the Angler’s AOE attack
Changed skeletons to have an SFX that alerts the Angler when they are hit with the Knife
Added many skeletons spread throughout the Trench to alert and lure the Angler towards them when hit with the Knife
Removed the red skeleton puzzle guarding a submarine part
Replaced the red skeleton puzzle with a blacklight puzzle surrounding the submarine part
Replaced the old blacklight puzzle to be a new skeleton puzzle where skeletons guard the submarine part
Fixed a UV error for a wooden ship
Moved note about the Angler to be inside the wooden ship
Added boxes and cocoons to lead the player towards the puzzle areas
Changed lore text for the Angler
UI
Changed the main menu button highlight color
Added Window Size setting
Option between borderless and windowed (only 16:9 resolutions)
Adjusted the Continue button to gray out if there isn’t already a save file
Fixed bug where player could leave rebinding screen mid-rebinding
General Quality of Life
Changed default mouse sensitivity from 1 to 2.5
Removed the Sonar pings tutorial text from Sub Level and moved it to the Kelp Level
Changed the starfish traps to be completely blacklit instead of partially purple
Adjusted the Diver notes to have capital letters
Adjusted multiple pieces of terrain to prevent the player from getting stuck
Adjusted the colors of various props so the player does not get confused with blacklight puzzles
Known Bugs
During the FreakFish jumpscare, the camera may move in an unintended direction