Aphotic Descent Balance Patch Update

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.

• AdjustedNerfed Early Game EnemiesThe infamous gatekeepers, the FreakFish and the Eel, have been adjusted to revamp the game’s overall difficulty.
• AdjustedImproved PuzzlesA handful of puzzles have been changed to account for future levels and bosses to introduce certain interactions sooner.
• AdjustedEdits to CutscenesSome 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