EDIT2: Huge improvements and tweeks incomings so stay tuned! The mobile version of the game (Android and iOS) is under development and by development I mean last parts of the process!
Two brand distinct game modes will be featured: Campaign and survival modes! Still working on challenges. Additional enemies were added to break monotonous pattern of going over swimmers. Now you have to crush surfers and windsurfers as well!
Additional power ups were added to give more spice to the activity. Collect more points with double up, be invincible for a moment or slow down the time! You can now gather fuel from spawning collectibles. EDIT: Now you can play and ride over poor swimmers in the browser!
Hello Fellow Gamers!
About the game: The idea of the game resolves around not letting swimmers get into your boat. It is your property and what is worse, it cannot fit many people…
You are the Captain now! Steer your boat and do maneuvering tricks... or go straight ahead! Remember. Try to keep away from those pathetic swimmers. All they want is to get inside yar boat. But their pathetic bodies weight and you cannot travel with many of them bastards! Enough about the game, let's talk what will happen with this game. I wish to improve the AI of the swimmers as well as add more dynamic point counting system. Some achievements and challanges will come in handy too. Eventually, it should appear on the Android Market (eee I meant Google Play) and/or App Store. So look out, mates!
Tools used:
GameCreator: Unity
Programming: Microsoft Visual Studio & JetBrains Rider (the licence wend off in the middle of the weekend haha)
Graphics: Photoshop
Music: voice recorder and my mouth (the motor as well haha)
This is very first ever submission for Ludum Dare. I am Eric (21 lvl), Polish programmer from passion. On the daily basis I am a sailor (Junior Deck Officer on a merchant navy ship) and a scientist of ocean engineering. Funny coz the hydrodynamical model (though very simplified for this game purpose) used in the game is based on my research work I am doing currently. Here is a sample of my work: http://repository.am.szczecin.pl/handle/123456789/2472 (total bore warning though) :D Hope you will enjoy it! Cheers, Eric
love the hand drawn graphic that you're after, nice self-made sfx, the control a bit pain tho (but i assume thats the whole point) , but despite that its fun,different and interesting, well done !
@ghen Thanks for your feedback. As far as the control is concerned, yes, I wished to provide some realistic aspect into the game. Now imagine that in real life it is much more painful!
I love it! The hand drawn sprites and voice sfx fit really nicely. The controls are a little weird but I don't mind that. I'd almost want it centered on the screen near the bottom to give me that full "boat driving" experience. The ranks are a nice touch as well!
Hmm... sailing over nicely hand drawn seas? Check. Deftly navigating by means of a mouse driven wheel? Check. Running over helpless swimmers who just want to escape? Check. Seems like you hit all the major points of an excellent game. :)
This was a simple, enjoyable game. I'm not sure I understood how the fuel mechanic worked (yes, I lost fuel, but could I ever get more?), but otherwise the game was self-explanatory and easy to get into.
An interesting additional feature might be some variety in swimmers (like, some extra fast swimmers that count for additional points... or maybe dolphins). But the game as it is is perfectly playable and doesn't seem to lack anything major.
@thepelranthean Thanks for the deep insight! I am planning to indroduce more content to make it replayable. The fuel mechanic for example is waiting in the queue. First I had an idea to make a kind of combo counter and reward with the fuel as play-time, but hadn't eventually time to implement it. But hey, I had to leave something for later, right? :D
The art was well made, I liked the aesthetic. Going in without reading the instructions, it took me a minute to figure out how to steer. I think a more zoomed out view would allow me to see and actually plan my movements a bit better. As is I felt like me steering didn't have much of an effect other than luck. The moving background was a bit jagged and made it difficult to discern the movement of my boat. These are pretty minor things and the game is fun, but with a few tweaks it could be more fun too. Great Job!
The concept is great and considering the time it was made in, I do believe you can implement it way better and it will be awesome with better art in place :heart:
Fun gameplay and i like being able to use the wheel to steer. only critique would be that the sound effects sound very out of place and kind of cut in and out rather than fading in. Keep it up!
The steering mechanics are cool. I don't have any solid recommendations, but I think it would be beneficial to make the steering feel more heavy so that you feel more in control of the big boat. Also, it is hard to make sharp turns to avoid certain swimmers (maybe a quick turn or drifting could help)?
Interesting graphics, somehow they look cool despite the simplicity. I liked the idea to use the wheel to control the boat, although it's easy to lose your pointer far away from it while playing. Fun!
Nice game. I actually liked the steering mechanic - seemed to work as I expected it too. However I tried gathering all those swimmers behind me and njust run them over at once (for the extra fun ofc xD) which lead to the "bug" that some of them actually reached my side and got into the boat. Maybe a little timer would be great for the swimmers to get inside the boat. Overall interesting take on the theme and innovative game. Well done.
*Edit* Oh yeah the ocean actually makes you feel a little dizzy quite fast.
It is a really funny and difficult game, the waves were a little disorienting on my eyes, but other than that feature. I feel like I own a real boat now, thanks
Was expecting something enviro-bear -y when I saw the on screen wheel controls, but they actually worked surprisingly well. The "hit with the front but not with your sides" thing reminded me of an overhead Joust. Great first submission!
The sounds are really great, haha, how did you do the boat engine?!
I REALLY enjoyed the controls, the thing you spin to control the boat (Idk what this is called) is really part of the game, so it is realistic and immersive, congratulations
I'm trying to upload my quitting point image progress (So you can have an idea where I left your game) but looks like I can't, sorry about that
Let's get into your game criticism:
• It is really immersive: The boat controls and the sound makes you really be part of the game.
• The score screen breaks that feeling :cry:
• I like the idea of limited boat cap, fits the theme, well done.
• The way you score isn't really obvious on the game
• The rotation feels weird (since you're rotating the entire boat) I saw you used unity, so it's great that I can give you a suggestion if you don't mind. Create an empty object as child of the boat and put the boat sprite there. Then you move it slightly behind, so when you rotate the boat looks like you're rotating the front part, and not the entire boat at once!
Good job finish the game! :v: I really liked it and I recommend everyone to play it again listening to Tokyo Drift ♫
Do you mind to give feedback to our game as well? (It’s a platformer, I don’t know if you like the genre but it is important for me to have feedback from player that like and dislike it) (:
(It’s on my profile, I’ll not post link to avoid spam)
That is already a lot of feedback from you, all of which is being taken into account.
For example concerning the dizzyness caused by animated background I decided to remove it and replace it with various spawnable effects. Also different improvements I will inform on in the synopsis above.
Loved the handdrawn aesthetic! Having said /well, written/ that, background could get a little disorienting sometimes /it's almost like it's accidentally emulating seasickness. That's immersion for you.../. Nice take on the theme!
The hand drawn look is interesting, but makes the game pretty fun. At first I hated the steering controls but after playing a bit i decided i like it. It feels a little like moving an actual wheel. Another option for controllers would be to rotate the analog stick to really simulate the feel.
Unless I missed them, I feel like you should add fuel pickups as you go so that good players can really go for that high score.
The steering mechanic (the way you emulated steering with the mouse insted of using the keyboard) makes the game really special! Anyway the game is funny and very cool looking, great job overall.
At first it wasn't clear to me that you get points by hitting people (and apparently you earn more by turning as well?). After I figured that out I went on a killing spree, rounding everyone up into a group and ramming through them. I may or may not have been ashamed of how satisfying that was. I liked the challenge of trying to form up groups in the best way to ram lots of people head-on and avoid stowaways. It definitely kept me hooked a lot longer than I thought I would be playing. It's a fun quirky game and I had a great time. Nice job!
Neat game! I got up to 376 points. The highlight for me for this game is the steering mechanic and the paper-drawn-like artstyle. It took me a while to realize I was actually killing the people that were in front of the boat, which gave extra points, haha.
Hello, welcome and congratulations on completing and submitting your first game to LD! Before I get to the comments about your game, I'd like to talk about the rating process that we are now doing. I'm both a veteran and one of the people making this site. The 3 weeks of playing is a vital part of LD. To many of us it is even more important than the making of the game. Some like to see what score they get. Competing against others as much as competing against past own records. For that to work well, we all have to strive as a community to give every game we play a real chance or two or three and then give fair grades based on the merits of the game. Some don't care at all about the score and just want to get as many good comments as possible. And by good, I mean thoughtful, specific comments that relate to the game they made. They don't have to be all positive, they shouldn't I would say. But respectful, fun, insightful, useful. Something like that.
You might see where I'm heading with this... :wink:
When I see that you have played a lot of games and left very short generic comments, many identically repeated... and on mine you had a little more elaborate than on some, but you praised the audio in my game... My game has no audio, it is silent. Well, I get a little worried. So if you appreciate the feedback you are getting here so far. Both the good and the bad feedback. Then please consider the games you've rated this far -- if it wouldn't be a more positive action towards the community to go back and make sure that the grades and feedback you gave on all those games you've graded this far are valid.
To us that have been around a while, the repeated generic comment is kind of easy to spot... we've seen it before. And, well... some might not take too kindly towards that type of behavior since a sloppy grading/commenting on a persons game is basically stealing their visibility and destroying the effort they put into thoughtfully playing and rating others' game to get good feedback themselves.
I'm not trying to call you out. First time on LD can be quite confusing, I didn't even realize I should vote. I just want you to know the vibe your comments give.
Now to your game, and I want to point out that I've tried my best not to be influenced but my worries above in rating and commenting:
When I started the game and read the instructions about using the wheel, I thought I would be able to use the mouse wheel. It didn't take long to figure out that this was not the case, but it left me wondering if it wouldn't have been a fun/odd interaction to bind mouse-wheel as a way to control the ship too.
I also got issues with dizziness playing on full screen. I usually never have that and I'm not sure what triggers it here exactly, but it might have something to do with that the boat if absolutely fixed, which also takes away a bit of feeling of turning, as well as with around what point the world rotates, and the slight stutter in the waves animation.
I played for a while, first turning here and there going in circles and such, but then I decided just let it go straight for a while (also so I could keep playing more without nausea from the turns) and that seemed to be a better option than my first strategy. You said that you were working on improving swimming AI so that might solve it, but if you add islands and stuff that needs avoiding... and I don't think I ever saw any gas, so it would be nice if there was a radar UI indicating direction of proximate gas. Well those two things together would force make the player not just run straight.
Fixing these core issues, I think the mechanics could make it a quite fun game. But the setting, running over swimmers in the ocean with your boat... you might also want to consider that in some parts of the world where we have a migration crisis, like in the Mediterranean, it can be rather offensive. The mechanics should be easy to re-skin to other settings though.
Simple game that might have some potential. However, I think it needs actual controls over moving the wheel UI with the mouse. As well due to the speed and the camera movement it was easy to get sick.
Very simple and fun game. Great art style. I love the controls too. Felt a little dizzy while turning the boat, but that's not a major issue. Overall, great job!
Fun game! I enjoyed the way you incorporated the theme and the disregard for swimmers' safety.
I also found this a little sea-sickening, particularly when I tried playing it fullscreen. I wonder if inducing sea-sickness was a goal?
I enjoyed turning round in circles and herding the swimmers until driving right over them, there was a bit of strategy to getting a higher score.
And the art style is good. It looks particularly charming at fullscreen.
Given it's Unity, it might have been cool to pitchshift the boat sound based on whether the boat is turning or not. In the HTML5 version I played the boat sound was pretty constant and some variation might have been rad.
Like others said, steering with the boat wheel felt great! I like games where the controls are more 1-to-1 rather than being abstracted to right-left-up-down.
Well done! At first I did not get the controls even after reading the "how to play". Maybe you could say use the mouse to control the wheel or something. The graphics style I liked a lot and the way you control the boat is excellent! One thing I would change is the zoom level. I would have zoomed out more so one could see the swimmers earlier. Now my reaction speed is too slow to dodge the swimmers and usually so the best way to play for me is to just go straight ahead. Sound was also good.
Great game. I love the art, it constantly reminds me of Flapjack's cartoon, which is great! =D. The controls are perfect, exacly what you should expect from a boat. Though, i don't know if it's just because i'm really bad at it, but, at the start, the boat looked really fast, would be quite hard to control and understand what's around me. A radar would be a nice implement :). Great work, i hope you do more like this for the next Jams.
Comments84
This was a simple, enjoyable game. I'm not sure I understood how the fuel mechanic worked (yes, I lost fuel, but could I ever get more?), but otherwise the game was self-explanatory and easy to get into.
An interesting additional feature might be some variety in swimmers (like, some extra fast swimmers that count for additional points... or maybe dolphins). But the game as it is is perfectly playable and doesn't seem to lack anything major.
lolol
I wish I could maybe slow the boat down a bit, it was pretty hard to steer. Nice game!
Those sounds are hilarious though. Am I experienced enough to buy a boat now?
And the best part is to see your small boat overwhelmed by the crowd. I love it so much.
Overall interesting take on the theme and innovative game. Well done.
*Edit* Oh yeah the ocean actually makes you feel a little dizzy quite fast.
I REALLY enjoyed the controls, the thing you spin to control the boat (Idk what this is called) is really part of the game, so it is realistic and immersive, congratulations
I'm trying to upload my quitting point image progress (So you can have an idea where I left your game) but looks like I can't, sorry about that
Let's get into your game criticism:
• It is really immersive: The boat controls and the sound makes you really be part of the game.
• The score screen breaks that feeling :cry:
• I like the idea of limited boat cap, fits the theme, well done.
• The way you score isn't really obvious on the game
• The rotation feels weird (since you're rotating the entire boat) I saw you used unity, so it's great that I can give you a suggestion if you don't mind. Create an empty object as child of the boat and put the boat sprite there. Then you move it slightly behind, so when you rotate the boat looks like you're rotating the front part, and not the entire boat at once!
Good job finish the game! :v:
I really liked it and I recommend everyone to play it again listening to Tokyo Drift ♫
Do you mind to give feedback to our game as well? (It’s a platformer, I don’t know if you like the genre but it is important for me to have feedback from player that like and dislike it) (:
(It’s on my profile, I’ll not post link to avoid spam)
An ordinary sailer :)
Fit right into the theme too.
Neat little game, i loved it.
Please do check our game maybe you'll like it and leave us some feedback.
https://www.youtube.com/user/RikThunder33/videos?view_as=subscriber
@albin thanks!
@mrjorts thanks!
@gaoyuan-chen thanks!
@talia yeah :D
@randdir thank you for the review!
@earnso that is what I am planning to do :)
@serious07 in the new version you will have to try harder haha
@connorthompson thanks, will fix for sure
@paden-shorey thanks!
@tontonpizza hah, thanks!
@dsthedragon thanks!
@quetzakol thanks!
@dark-roast-studios hmm that's a strange issue, thanks!
@tcmxx that's called seasickness!
@jackou thanks!
@allan-kong thanks!
@somuch thank you!
@sam-wise thanks!
@tbeakl thanks!
@mrnyarlathotep thanks!
@oneiros oh yea, the difficulty will be elevated!
@mercerbox thanks!
@dangogamedev thanks!
@nyunesu oh thank you! Could put that song to the sound track (with Initial D - Deja Vu haha) but them copyrights! And I will surely inform you!
@draeskai thanks!
@peer thanks!
@dimlight thanks!
@amba thanks!
@jeffrey-hwang thanks!
@furtive-pygmy thank you, fellow souler :D
@void-productions thanks! I will, sure!
@rik-thunder thanks for this most unexpected review!
For example concerning the dizzyness caused by animated background I decided to remove it and replace it with various spawnable effects. Also different improvements I will inform on in the synopsis above.
Thank all of you once again and smell ya!
Unless I missed them, I feel like you should add fuel pickups as you go so that good players can really go for that high score.
You might see where I'm heading with this... :wink:
When I see that you have played a lot of games and left very short generic comments, many identically repeated... and on mine you had a little more elaborate than on some, but you praised the audio in my game... My game has no audio, it is silent. Well, I get a little worried. So if you appreciate the feedback you are getting here so far. Both the good and the bad feedback. Then please consider the games you've rated this far -- if it wouldn't be a more positive action towards the community to go back and make sure that the grades and feedback you gave on all those games you've graded this far are valid.
To us that have been around a while, the repeated generic comment is kind of easy to spot... we've seen it before. And, well... some might not take too kindly towards that type of behavior since a sloppy grading/commenting on a persons game is basically stealing their visibility and destroying the effort they put into thoughtfully playing and rating others' game to get good feedback themselves.
You can use https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/my/grades as a means to easily go through the games you've graded so far.
I'm not trying to call you out. First time on LD can be quite confusing, I didn't even realize I should vote. I just want you to know the vibe your comments give.
Now to your game, and I want to point out that I've tried my best not to be influenced but my worries above in rating and commenting:
When I started the game and read the instructions about using the wheel, I thought I would be able to use the mouse wheel. It didn't take long to figure out that this was not the case, but it left me wondering if it wouldn't have been a fun/odd interaction to bind mouse-wheel as a way to control the ship too.
I also got issues with dizziness playing on full screen. I usually never have that and I'm not sure what triggers it here exactly, but it might have something to do with that the boat if absolutely fixed, which also takes away a bit of feeling of turning, as well as with around what point the world rotates, and the slight stutter in the waves animation.
I played for a while, first turning here and there going in circles and such, but then I decided just let it go straight for a while (also so I could keep playing more without nausea from the turns) and that seemed to be a better option than my first strategy. You said that you were working on improving swimming AI so that might solve it, but if you add islands and stuff that needs avoiding... and I don't think I ever saw any gas, so it would be nice if there was a radar UI indicating direction of proximate gas. Well those two things together would force make the player not just run straight.
Fixing these core issues, I think the mechanics could make it a quite fun game. But the setting, running over swimmers in the ocean with your boat... you might also want to consider that in some parts of the world where we have a migration crisis, like in the Mediterranean, it can be rather offensive. The mechanics should be easy to re-skin to other settings though.
I also found this a little sea-sickening, particularly when I tried playing it fullscreen. I wonder if inducing sea-sickness was a goal?
I enjoyed turning round in circles and herding the swimmers until driving right over them, there was a bit of strategy to getting a higher score.
And the art style is good. It looks particularly charming at fullscreen.
Given it's Unity, it might have been cool to pitchshift the boat sound based on whether the boat is turning or not. In the HTML5 version I played the boat sound was pretty constant and some variation might have been rad.
Like others said, steering with the boat wheel felt great! I like games where the controls are more 1-to-1 rather than being abstracted to right-left-up-down.