Ahoy, Divers!
Long time no see! It's been four months in the blink of an eye. For a while, our submarine project was put on hold. Over the past few months, we've run into quite a few challenges—especially personal ones on my end. As a result, we had to find work to stabilize things. But now that life has settled down, development will continue! That said, it'll be at a slower, steady pace as we work on it in our free time.
During this break, I've been reflecting a lot on the game’s overall design. After watching several streamers play, I’ve realized that the game's rules might be a bit too complex—weapon attributes, limited equipment slots, strange skill behaviors, room rewards… all of it together creates a high learning curve. The data also shows that around half of the players leave after about 10 minutes—right around two deaths. That means the game currently lacks a strong enough hook to keep players engaged beyond that point.
I feel like the mechanics are numerous and varied but not well-integrated. So, going forward, I’ll be focusing on refining and simplifying the core design. Here are my three major areas of improvement:
1️⃣ Room Rewards Standardization – Room rewards will become more predictable while still maintaining trade-off mechanics. For example, weapon damage and skill damage will remain in conflict, but they will always appear in the same reward rooms, and room numbers will be fixed.
2️⃣ Unified Item Effects – All item attributes will affect both weapons and skills. However, to balance this, skills will receive additional stat nerfs.
3️⃣ Skill Progression Overhaul – Weapon and skill-related items will be merged into a single "Item" category. Skills will no longer be influenced by items but will instead evolve through level-ups. Each skill can be upgraded only three times, with branching choices. For instance, when upgrading a shield skill, you might have to choose between "Reflective Shield" or "Absorption Shield."
The first change is already in progress, and we're also working on the third stage! I'd love to hear your thoughts—let’s discuss and shape the future of the game together! 🚀
