CONCEPT ARTIST & GAME DEVELOPER
CONCEPT ARTIST & GAME DEVELOPER
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Windows will flag the game as unsafe, just accept it by allow anyways.
Darklight Diver is a bullet-hell shmup about diving into the Darklight — a time anomaly where every layer of depth holds denser danger and richer salvage. Blast through swarms, dodge past hulking bosses, and grab every scrap of currency you can before deciding whether to push deeper or surface with the haul. Between runs, refit your ship in the hangar with a growing arsenal of weapons and mods that actually change how you play — then dive again. Built solo, from the ground up: every ship, every boss, every note of music.
playtest - Dark light Diver,
-Keyboard and mouse-
-135.4 MB-
-Windows-
you can now activate auto fire in the hangar no need to hold any buttons down,
Feedback away in the comment section at the bottom.
latest build 2026_08_31.update 0.23
Large graphical improvements
themes for depth 1 beach , canyon, forest/ jungle.
overhaul for a custom shader type for enemys, playership, and weapons. improving readability.
2026_08_27.update 0.22
New enemies
- Leech — homing enemy that latches onto the ship and slows it; hardens if left alone for 6s, but ranged shots can knock it off and close-range weapons always damage it; has a real 3D model now with moving claws
- Beefshield — tanky enemy with a front shield; must be hit from behind or with weapons that don't have a direction
New weapons
- Rocket Drop — drops a volley of rockets in an arc below the ship; more rockets per level
- Laser Fence — fires 3 nodes that link into a damaging triangle; lasts longer per level
New modules
- Overclock — main gun alternates between double fire rate and a slowdown; boost lasts longer per level
- Overgrowth — bigger Buzzsaw/Drill/Starshot projectiles (bigger hitboxes too), small bump for main gun and drones
- Sinewave — main gun and drone shots sway in a wave instead of firing straight; wider and faster per level; now has its own icon
Pickups
- New Fire Rate timed buff with its own model
- Projectiles turn green while fire rate is boosted
- Spacewalls drop currency (and sometimes a buff) when drilled
Bosses & tank enemies
- Depth 3 boss pillars reworked into totem stacks of destructible segments that collapse down a step when a segment breaks
- Depth 3 boss satellites now break apart in stages — ring first, then both shells, exposing the core
- Beef/Beefshield chassis now breaks apart in staged bursts instead of one piece at a time, with the exposed core cracking apart (unique sound + debris burst) right before it dies
Meta-progression
- New Entry Debris system — starting currency each run now scales with medals cracked (+100 per medal, 100 base), shown under the Launch Mission button with a count-up animation and sfx
- Cracking a medal to zero no longer leaves that item stuck unavailable — the shop refreshes for free when that happens
Hangar
- Autofire toggle (main gun and drones)
- Medal case — 3 depth-clear medals + 5 milestone medals with an entrance animation
- Medals are cracked by clicking; depth medals pay 5/10/15 crystals with a flying-crystal animation
- WPN/MOD tags on shop cards; weapons sort before mods
- Layout tweaks: Autofire under Tutorial, Renderer next to Quit; ripple diagnostic toggle removed
- Dodge cooldown bar redesigned
Cutscenes
- New mission cutscene — ship undocksthe Darklight before each launch
- Intro cutscene shortened and reordered, with looping music
- Navigator hint after 3+ deaths on a depth, pointing toward Extra Debris
Visuals & audio
- Darklight now a living, swirling dark liquid sphere with tendrils
- Leech has its real 3D model with moving claws
- Boss debris flies further and more violently, falling left
- Hit sparks on boss cannons/head and satellites
- Music muffles when paused
- Full audio mixing pass — rebalanced moved to its own bus with a highpassfilter, new boss-defeat music sequence (fade out → fanfare → hangar theme), new SFX and VO wired in
World & balance
- Vertical spacewalls always leave a
- Trijumprope spins slower; Conedome body now spins/bobs
Multiplayer (prototype, not in the main game yet)
- LAN host/join with synced movement working
- Second test build running real depth-1 visuals, camera, background scroll, and shooting for both players
Bug fixes
- Stutter from Air Strike and from dense-wave explosions
- Stray boss bullets casuing performance issues
- Double hit effects on spacewalls/shielded bosses
- Spacewall z-fighting
- Drones continuing to fire after a depth clear
- Crash caused by a satellite's ring referenced after it broke off
2026_08_22. update 0.21
1. booting the first session will properly load most things in the game, consequent loads will try to not load whats already been prewarmed, making loadtimes minimal on several ingame launches .
2. toggleable Vulkan / Directx, 50 series nvidia cards are apparently not fully supported for newer cards creating render errors alot of unintended black.
3. increased clarity on damage on enemys sparks and better visual clarity on hulls dismantling.
4. better colors on backgrounds and other adjsutments with lighting setups, and other material tweaks.
2026_08_21 update 0,11 _ several fixes
1.fullscreen fix.
2.depth1 depth 2 boss now has better visual design and clarity.
3.added icons for crystals on buyable items
4.DID NOT FIX RENDERING ISSUE-
Im a little late to telling my feedback but its got huge potential, I enjoy a lot of things about the game, the loadout system, upgrading and dodging mechanics. I got a few nitpicks though, I feel like the shooting could be a little more engaging, currently you can hold down the shoot button all the time even though not shooting doesn't really give much benefit (at least not that I noticed, maybe it gives shorter dodge cooldown but i havent noticed), the game feels like it could benefit being an autoshooter, another small thing about shooting is that it would be good to add a simple sound effect of switching shooting direction. Some obstacles on a level feel a little bit hard to see, red sphere ships have really low contrast of red which I found myself dying most to and alt dodging segment featuring long dark ships slowly cruising through the screen also have really low constrast which were hard to see. As for the bugs though sometimes the game will display the revive tax # from previous run (I think?) when starting a new run, but dying will give normal tax amount.