Scuba

I played a game at 3 in the morning randomly, and I didn't like it that much. I played another and that too I wasn't keen on playing either. Then I played this game, called Scuba. By the name, I guessed it had a diver doing something that wouldn't be that interesting. But playing it through, I realized how familiar I'm with this kind of game and what about it I liked. If you've ever played "MotherLoad" by XGen Studios, then this game falls right into that feeling. Except this time instead of digging and traveling against gravity in the depths of the planet, you got to go swimming while digging and traveling against the underwater pressure while worrying about your oxygen. Am I making no sense?

Well the plot of the game is that you have to build an engine, and to do that you must 'craft' the various items needed by digging bits of dirt using a very useful Mining Lazer to collect wood, mushrooms, sea weed, blue bacteria looking thing, rocks, more rocks, coal, gold, diamonds, screws, and energy. Along the way you run into the usual dangers of deep sea diving... ok there's barely anything there that could kill you. The only hazards swimming around are Jellyfish and some under water critters, which when you blow them up provide the valuable Energy item you need to collect. Also you have to check your oxygen every now and then or you will die because you could not swim to the surface in time, although it does not seem to result with a game over. The pressure does kill you also, but I don't think anyone is dumb enough to dive so far down without upgrading. Even if you do go too far, a red bulb starts flashing away. Apart from that, bumping into rocks and walls don't seem to do any damage.

Just like with MotherLoad and any other digging games, the further down you go, the more valuable the resources you find are. I found that I've reached the bottom and all I found was everything that I had taken the time & trouble to craft. As is with most game, there are additional tools as well that do help you to reach the depts safely which you must also craft, like building a Crafting Station, Air Cabinet, Lanterns, and Light Energy Charger. Without these you would not be able to stay deep down very long.

A Unique thing about this game is that it generates randomly the entire world map you play in at the beginning, and you can see a small preview, so the game is never the same. A bit more on this later.

This game has been upgraded, and I'm sure by the time anyone reads this that it will be upgraded further. So I did find my share of bugs and a glitch in the game. The first of which is Upgrading to lv2 Helmet does not consume the lv1 helmet. It is annoying because you have to throw away that old helmet in the end. Its the same thing when Upgrading to a lv4 Oxygen tank, it does not consume both lv3 oxygen tanks, so now you have two more slots taken up and the only solution is to throw away the two lv3 oxygen tanks.
Now for the glitch, simply put is that you cannot fail. That's right, you cannot fail the game. It's not a God mode glitch either, it's just that even if you run out of oxygen or go too deep, you will just re-spawn back at your space ship (Did I mention it's a game with a Diver flying in space who had to stop on a watery cube planet?). So there is no risk in the game. At least it was for me when I played.

I enjoyed mostly the music of the game, it has this nice calm relaxing feel to it while playing. It's not an endless annoying loop of a single song either. The music does change constantly, but there isn't that much music.
BUT it does have some very annoying bits.
Crafting items is one thing, crafting so many at once is annoying because you have to keep on clicking to pick up the crafted item. So when I need like 300 Rocks crafted from the 1200 dirt, I have to click over 300 times.
Another annoying thing is that items are grouped into a maximum of 64 per slot. Its a small annoyance but it would have given more space to carry dirt.
Running and Swimming is also very annoying when your character runs to the edge of the screen, sometimes going beyond the edge so you cannot see him at all. Since it's possible to use the dirt to make bridges and walls, I make a long platform running horizontally from one end of the map to the other, because swimming takes longer, so I run, and end up falling through some of the gaps I made, because I cannot see them ahead. While swimming also, if I'm too close to the edge, I take damage because I cannot see the underwater sea critters that I bump into.

There were a few things this game could seriously do with. Remember when I said that you get to see the entire world generated? Well you see it only when you start playing the game, after that you cannot see this mini preview. It would have been nice to have a kind of map to see where you are going or where you are.
Another thing is I would have liked to see a Depth meter so then it's known how deep it is while swimming and how far it is to the surface when rushing to get that oxygen tank filled again.
Finally since there's no map, an option to place a beacon (like the Lantern) to help locate your randomly placed Air Cabinet would have helped just before running out of oxygen.
But these are all little minor things.

Overall this game is VERY VERY good to sit back and play to. It's not that fast paced action, it doesn't require you to keep button mashing except when crafting. But I like it overall for the fact I had a very laid back early morning before the sun came up.
Give this game a try if you have not yet.


Play it @ Armor Games
Or Play it Here...