Ludum Dare #38compo

Going No Air

by starspell

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.76

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.36

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★4.12

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.68

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.88

Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.88

Humor★★★★★★★★★★3.00

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.75

2017-04-23 19_27_52-Unity 5.6.0f3 Personal (64bit) - LD38.unity - Unity - WebGL _DX11 on DX9 GPU_.png

Windows

Web

Source

>Davey Jones has gotten himself into a spot of bother whilst deep-sea diving.

>His air hose has been cut, meaning that he has a limited amount of air.

>Fortunately he has managed to get inside of a strangely spherical glass structure he found at the bottom of the sea.

>He'll be able to hold out for a long time... assuming that pesky fish stops poking holes in the glass!

>*Keep Jones alive for as long as possible by plugging up the holes in the glass by moving his arms, legs and head over the holes.*

>Good thing that Jones keeps an infinite number of wine corks about his person at all times!

I really enjoyed making this game. Development was very chill and not very stressful at all. I'm really glad to finally get equal weighting and polish between all the disciplines (programming, art, audio and interface). In fact I spent only a minimal amount of my development time this Ludum Dare programming!

The theme usage is not that obvious. The idea came from having the player on the inside of a spherical world - therefore making it a small world to play in. This is what the concept came out as in the end.

Tags: #atmospheric, #underwater

Genres: action, adventure

Comments23

gguissousa24 Apr 2017, 01:39

NICE ONE MAN!

w1n5t0n7 May 2017, 04:31

I didn't understand the controls at first, but once i got it, i really enjoyed playing the game.

PeachTreeOath7 May 2017, 04:50

Very nicely polished and simple to learn game! I found myself dreading when the fish went low though, because i couldn't seem to get the foot controls to work. I was able to work my legs over anyway be swinging around with my arms though, making it possible to get over 2 mins. The game looks and sounds great, and I had fun playing it! Great work!

Rixud7 May 2017, 04:53

really nice idea! some points are really difficult to get with the control system but you made a really fun game!, simple but well made! nice music and graphics! nice Job

Hotchmoney7 May 2017, 04:57

Overall, the presentation is good, and the core mechanic is interesting. The help screen is quite nice as help screens go; the image of Jones explains the controls intuitively, and the story both justifies and explains the mechanics. The keyboard layout for the controls, while clever, is awkward to use; I found myself cramming both hands together on the left side of my keyboard. I found some leaks easy to get to, most hard, and some impossible, so my success was determined more by which places the fish randomly chose to attack than my skill at plugging leaks. I like the QWOP-style controls, but combining them with heavy RNG can be frustrating.

jk50007 May 2017, 08:17

A crazy and super fun little game. Well done.

daanvanyperen7 May 2017, 11:47

Bit of a phobia trigger! I love the diver's animation and the water particles are a nice effect. Couldn't really get the controls to work for me (would help to see the controls in the main game screen constantly perhaps?) so the cork placement ended up feeling a bit random.

Pandakipu7 May 2017, 12:03

Good job, really fun concept.

nekoballs7 May 2017, 13:28

Nice little game! Simple gameplay and easy to understand with great audio and visuals. Some angles were a little hard to block, like when its above your head. Nice details with the eyes following the fish.

🎤 starspellauthor8 May 2017, 03:29

Thanks everyone! Glad you are all enjoying it!

Stending8 May 2017, 10:55

Wow, really really well done!

It's awesome in every category, it looks really great and polished, the music is simple but create the perfect mood, the gameplay is simple but fits perfectly.

Awesome entry, one of the best compo I've seen this LD!

Congratulations! =)

davidthelazar8 May 2017, 13:28

Haha, very funny game in the vein of QWOP/Octodad. I was very very bad at it, but it was fun and stressful, as it should be.

My only recommendation would be some sort of visual cue that showed when you were successfully in position to put in a cork. As is, it felt sort of random when a cork was placed which made it hard to learn the game through play.

Overall, fun game!

zsoltbartok8 May 2017, 14:57

Your game is a perfect representation of the small world theme, congratulations, a beautifully original idea!

shiitman8 May 2017, 14:57

Great gam, very nice graphics and innovative gameplay. But I think, for such game mouse controls would be better than keyboard.

🎤 starspellauthor9 May 2017, 02:03

Thank you for the lovely comments everyone! I'm so pleased you enjoyed playing the game.

Smiling Cat Entertainment9 May 2017, 03:43

This was a lot of fun. The graphics were great, the sound was great, and the gameplay was delightfully unique. It could be a bit frustrating at times to position a limb over an inconveniently-placed hole, but I'm thinking that's supposed to be part of the experience. Great job!

maartene9 May 2017, 03:54

Ragdoll physics! This one really worked. The controls are suitably cumbersome for this type of game: accurately positioning limbs is quite hard. Anyway, it looks, sounds, plays and feels really well. Too bad you opted out of the HUMOR category, would have given you 5 stars. Great job!

Jaenis9 May 2017, 05:39

That was next to perfect! :D

Amazing game! Well done! Really liked the ragdoll physics and the concept is novel. Great work!

Prototyke10 May 2017, 00:45

I'm always bad at QWOP/ ragdoll games, but that was a lot of fun. It was simple, but because of that it is one of the most complete ones I have played here. The main improvements I see you could do would be cosmetic: a nicer timer icon would be cool, perhaps an airtank or diving clock or something, and a few fish images, so it would be randomly different between runs.

Valicitor10 May 2017, 09:03

I hate that fish! took me a while to figure out what to do without reading the instructions, but after that I was all set, the bottom of the glass I found was the hardest to plug as you have to knock your guy on his side and hope that he falls into the correct position. Great job dude.

BlackRose12 May 2017, 12:41

hahahah its a fun game! Love the idea, and the 2D fish is amazing. sometimes its a little bit hard to control the character but its so fun ^^ I engjoy playing it :3

GrassWhopper15 May 2017, 15:35

hey there,

really nice and creative idea.

it took me quite a few seconds to realize what was going on, but, it still worked out just fine at the end,

and i was able to learn it on my own, which is great design.

good job at it.

and that fish really does look mean hehe

not a fan of dolls myself, but the game was interesting.

great work man.

piscythe18 May 2017, 20:45

It is very lucky that Jones keeps an infinite supply of corks on his person, and equally unfortunate that he loses motor control at low depths. I died at 1:32 because I couldn't figure out how to QWOP a particular hole shut. I mostly like the graphical style, but the rotating fish bit seemed a little off to me. The menu is well done, and the atmosphere as the world begins to fill with water is excellent. The final moments of the game are beautifully panic-inducing.

Other games by @starspell

★3.61