JumpStart Deep Sea Escape is a game for the Nintendo DS released in 2011. It teaches various concepts mainly for ages 5-8. In this game, players explore an underwater world to rescue a stranded submarine. Along the way, players must collect oxygen tanks, solve puzzles, and defeat water monsters.
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So this review may come off a bit biased because while I was playing I was totally imagining it being a game that it wasn't. In a gist, this is the perfect blueprint game to study if you want to make a game like "kids game that seems innocent but slowly turns fucked up in a way that was able to be picked up on from the start". Like, no, I didn't actually EXPECT it to turn out fucked up, but I was totally pretending it was.
This mass psychosis set in while playing the elusive "Word Bug" minigame. It's actually quite addictive and fun. Basically, it's like one of those auto-scroll ordeals where rows of blocks build up and you have to keep it from touching the other end of the screen by destroying blocks strategically. Except here, you clear the blocks by spelling words. Now, here's where it got me. Since this is a game aimed at 5-8 year olds, the letter blocks are pretty big, and it really forces you to spell words that are about 3 letters long. More is possible, but harder to achieve since you only get 4 new letters every 10 seconds and the new ones are random every time, so you'd really have to let the blocks build up to spell longer words. HOWEVER. I swear on my life, based on the blocks I was given, I ended up almost always having to spell either rot, arm, rib, or leg, with the occasional 'die' thrown in there. I also found 'sad' and 'beg' as well. Now obviously, these are real words, it makes sense for them to be in there. It accepted me spelling 'turd' and 'hell' which I think is cool too. But the frequency at which I got 'rot' or any of those body part words... I just... I start thinking, man. Imagine a game like this, an unsuspecting children's minigame collection shovelware shit, but the minigames you play slowly make the game more fucked up.
Something about the way the music loops, the low quality composition that honestly feels pretty empty and amateur, the way the protagonist customization options are so unnerving yet so hard to read at times, and the way there's very limited camera controls, so you can never see too far past your player character and your screen often gets obscured by things in the environment. It's just... it feels like the PERFECT storm.
Speaking on other things, the movement is a bit clunky, and there's a few quality of life things I think could've been different too. For example, each minigame has three stages of difficulty and like 20 ish levels per difficulty. When you beat a level, instead of taking you to the next one, it takes you back to the level select screen, but keeps your cursor on the one you just beat. It isn't obvious enough you still have the previous one selected, so you don't realize when you hit play that you're replaying the same level. Also, there's a Zuma clone in here but it's like, a math Zuma clone? It's also really confusing to me and I hated it, which is a red flag.
I'm keeping this game in the back of my head for whenever I'm on an indie dev team and need a project to pitch, because I swear it's gold. Do not steal!!
This mass psychosis set in while playing the elusive "Word Bug" minigame. It's actually quite addictive and fun. Basically, it's like one of those auto-scroll ordeals where rows of blocks build up and you have to keep it from touching the other end of the screen by destroying blocks strategically. Except here, you clear the blocks by spelling words. Now, here's where it got me. Since this is a game aimed at 5-8 year olds, the letter blocks are pretty big, and it really forces you to spell words that are about 3 letters long. More is possible, but harder to achieve since you only get 4 new letters every 10 seconds and the new ones are random every time, so you'd really have to let the blocks build up to spell longer words. HOWEVER. I swear on my life, based on the blocks I was given, I ended up almost always having to spell either rot, arm, rib, or leg, with the occasional 'die' thrown in there. I also found 'sad' and 'beg' as well. Now obviously, these are real words, it makes sense for them to be in there. It accepted me spelling 'turd' and 'hell' which I think is cool too. But the frequency at which I got 'rot' or any of those body part words... I just... I start thinking, man. Imagine a game like this, an unsuspecting children's minigame collection shovelware shit, but the minigames you play slowly make the game more fucked up.
Something about the way the music loops, the low quality composition that honestly feels pretty empty and amateur, the way the protagonist customization options are so unnerving yet so hard to read at times, and the way there's very limited camera controls, so you can never see too far past your player character and your screen often gets obscured by things in the environment. It's just... it feels like the PERFECT storm.
Speaking on other things, the movement is a bit clunky, and there's a few quality of life things I think could've been different too. For example, each minigame has three stages of difficulty and like 20 ish levels per difficulty. When you beat a level, instead of taking you to the next one, it takes you back to the level select screen, but keeps your cursor on the one you just beat. It isn't obvious enough you still have the previous one selected, so you don't realize when you hit play that you're replaying the same level. Also, there's a Zuma clone in here but it's like, a math Zuma clone? It's also really confusing to me and I hated it, which is a red flag.
I'm keeping this game in the back of my head for whenever I'm on an indie dev team and need a project to pitch, because I swear it's gold. Do not steal!!