An existential meditation set in the middle of a wide desert, in which you must make important decisions about existence, heatstroke, and fish.
WASD to move
Left-Click to fish
A survival fishing experience made by Robert Geil, Neil Bickford, Bijan Bryan Eghtesady, and Julia Meng for Ludum Dare 41 as part of the UCLA ACM Studio Game Jam.
The game has an interesting atmosphere, and both the graphics and music is really good. I am not sure what is going on in this game, but it felt interesting.
The starting up looked really smooth and felt engaging, and the music fit in the game great. The mechanics and objective of the game however were quite unclear.
Overall, I really liked the feel of it, but felt like I wasn't enough feedback about the state of my character to know what I should be doing. I'm sure it would've been more interesting if the objective of the game was clearer to me.
This is a really weird game (it's a tone piece that's...kind of like an antigame, but also a game in itself?), because we're trying to walk a really fine line between a particular bit of misdirection that we're doing and (hopefully, if we're doing things right) hinting that there actually is a win condition. (There's technically actually 3, by Robert; they're randomly chosen 🙂)
(It's also doubly tricky, because there's a feeling that if we hint that we're being tricky at all, then you'll be able to suss out what you may or may not need to do based on the fact that we're being tricky )
It's one of those games where I'm especially interested to find out how people play it, just to see if we calibrated everything right to point to the possibility that we're hinting towards a different end condition than the one you might think you have...
(Also, shout out to the other developers at the event we were at for testing out the 12-hour version of this game!)
I didn't really understand what I was supposed to be doing. Having the game reset every 30 seconds for no apparent reason left me feeling a bit empty. Sorry :(
First off, i gotta say that menu screen nearly gave me chills. The way the music starts off sounding mysterious and adventurous during the pan up over the sand, and then shifts to being really intense and almost off-putting. It's hard to put it into words, but it felt really special. The lighting and particle effects looked gorgeous and really made me feel like i was alone in this huge barren desert. As for the game play, i feel like it doesn't matter what i say. This is one of those games where your actions, and the consequences or rewards you get from them, are almost like lessons to be interpreted differently from anyones perspective. Although it was confusing at first, i found this game to be profoundly meaningful. Really solid work!
Another vote for "slightly more hinting, please." I suspect I would really like this, but I don't have any idea how to get to a part of the game that would resolve that suspicion.
Atmosphere in your game is almost perfect, great intro and gorgeous lighting. Lowpoly models with their flat shading just stick out in a bad way. I’m not fan of combining high-res realistic materials with super simple flat shaded models. Music is really fitting, eerie and intriguing.
Gameplay itself doesn’t give much to player. I managed to get “Dead fish..” and “One fish..” endings, or should they be even called endings as they are more like sudden stops. As is your game feels more like a sketch of an idea than complete piece. In storytelling terms there was a lot of buildup but no payoff. I was expecting more fishing, more that calm, static feel I associate with fishing. Doing a monotone chore to survive over and over again. I assume that my character died because of the heatstroke when I got the “dead fish..” ending. Game itself didn’t communicate that very well.
I have mixed feelings. Mood in your game is nearly perfect, but actual game falls short of expectations set by that.
No idea what happened in the game. The graphics are awesome and the mood was super interesting but it just felt like random tries to get something. Art direction is awesome but lacks the game feel. Awesome work anyway! This could led to something!
Comments14
Overall, I really liked the feel of it, but felt like I wasn't enough feedback about the state of my character to know what I should be doing. I'm sure it would've been more interesting if the objective of the game was clearer to me.
This is a really weird game (it's a tone piece that's...kind of like an antigame, but also a game in itself?), because we're trying to walk a really fine line between a particular bit of misdirection that we're doing and (hopefully, if we're doing things right) hinting that there actually is a win condition. (There's technically actually 3, by Robert; they're randomly chosen 🙂)
(It's also doubly tricky, because there's a feeling that if we hint that we're being tricky at all, then you'll be able to suss out what you may or may not need to do based on the fact that we're being tricky )
It's one of those games where I'm especially interested to find out how people play it, just to see if we calibrated everything right to point to the possibility that we're hinting towards a different end condition than the one you might think you have...
(Also, shout out to the other developers at the event we were at for testing out the 12-hour version of this game!)
Gameplay itself doesn’t give much to player. I managed to get “Dead fish..” and “One fish..” endings, or should they be even called endings as they are more like sudden stops. As is your game feels more like a sketch of an idea than complete piece. In storytelling terms there was a lot of buildup but no payoff. I was expecting more fishing, more that calm, static feel I associate with fishing. Doing a monotone chore to survive over and over again. I assume that my character died because of the heatstroke when I got the “dead fish..” ending. Game itself didn’t communicate that very well.
I have mixed feelings. Mood in your game is nearly perfect, but actual game falls short of expectations set by that.
The graphics are awesome and the mood was super interesting but it just felt like random tries to get something.
Art direction is awesome but lacks the game feel.
Awesome work anyway! This could led to something!
Come and try my game! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/tactical-hydra