Journey of the Crab

by maoap
Overall★★★★★★★★★★2.73
Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.71
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★1.90
Theme★★★★★★★★★★1.96
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★2.40
Audio★★★★★★★★★★2.32
Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.56
Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.59
You play as the Crab. Your goal is to survive the journey across the ocean (so far 2 levels). As time passes, you would get hungry, so you have to eat various food. Firstly, you can eat algae. It is very nutritious and also common. Secondly, you can encounter some swimming shrimps. They aren't as nutritious as algae, but they contain valuable chitin. As you grow up, you are running out of space in your crab shell. Luckily, you can make it bigger if you eat enough shrimps!

This is kind of typical platformer.
screenshot2.png

I created everything myself, except for:

... fonts -> Text Mesh Pro plug-in in unity

... some parts of code are from official unity tutorials/documentation. It is hard to avoid it, especially when you have
to do something unity-specific =D

screenshot
Genres: platformer
Tools: Unity

Comments20

TinyNerd
TinyNerd14 Aug 2018, 06:36
Great entry although the controls aren't that responsive.
maoap
maoapauthor14 Aug 2018, 06:46
@tinynerd Thanks :) However, I don't know why your controls aren't responsive, because for me it is working perfectly. Weren't you in the air (meaning not standing on platform, but still in water) already? (when you are just going you can be pushed up into the air because of the slopy character of platforms)
TinyNerd
TinyNerd14 Aug 2018, 07:11
@maoap Yeah... Probably because of the sloppy platforms. Maybe it looked like I was standing on a platform, but I was actually falling down after a bump... or something like that :spy:
fivenamefivesocks
fivenamefivesocks14 Aug 2018, 08:52
Nice Game ! Tricky controls maybe because of the shape of the plateforms, Godd work especially since you did it alone ! :)
AwiX
AwiX15 Aug 2018, 06:33
A good game idea, the music should be improved. The graphics are good.
But our game is better)))
maoap
maoapauthor15 Aug 2018, 08:48
@awix Thanks :) I know the music is my drawback, but I haven't find any tool, I would be contend with, yet.
Yulia15 Aug 2018, 09:37
fun game, but it is hard to control
maoap
maoapauthor15 Aug 2018, 09:44
@yulia Thanks, it was intended to make it harder than just jumping, also considering small inequalities on platforms :) I personally like it, but it seems that it wasn't a good game design decision =D
AlexOSA15 Aug 2018, 10:50
Hard to control. Sometimes I can't jump and move at the same time.
Swini15 Aug 2018, 13:34
Like the sprites. Sometimes it's difficult to controll:)
pedroaz15 Aug 2018, 13:34
Neat game- just need to improve the controls a bit.
Zessirb
Zessirb15 Aug 2018, 15:42
Yeah, nice to see another crab :)
It is sometimes hard to jump as the player is often slightly above the ground, it causes some frustration when platforming.
I would have also liked the screen to be a bit bigger, I don't like not seeing where I'm going to land when jumping.
outstar
outstar15 Aug 2018, 17:34
Gotta say, that crab really made me smile!

I think you could do a bit more responsive and fluid controls - I didn't had many problems with it, but they didn't feel "right". Platformer games make us used to some more velocity and arc-like jumping - here, I really had to follow what you said in the help screen and jump, then press directional keys. Except for that, all good!
Nam Nguyen
Nam Nguyen15 Aug 2018, 18:12
A fun little platformer with timing constraint. I like the design of the crab and the food. The control is sometimes off, like I press jump but it doesnt jump.. Music is not bad, if I were to do a compo I won't even be able to make music. Overall, great job with the compo, you have done quite a lot in 48 hours.
P/S. I didnt know TextMeshPro even counts for an asset until you say it, yes it is not built in the engine! T_T
NNNIKKI
NNNIKKI15 Aug 2018, 18:24
I encountered some collision problems (once I got stuck inside a wall and died), and the graphics could be better. If you can't make good art, I'd recommend making minimalist art instead of bad art. Alright, I'm done with the negativity! :sweat_smile: Apart from that, pretty solid entry. I had a lot of fun playing through it.
maoap
maoapauthor16 Aug 2018, 08:17
@zessirb Thanks! My first idea was, that someone should play it more times to learn the track and then do it easily. So thats why the screen is small. However, it was too hard, so I simplified tracks and let the as is. So thats a relic of previous design decision, an I personally still like that :)

@outstar Thanks! Well, this is my first platformer, and now I see that the idea of small slopes in platforms wasn't good. The controls work fine on absolutely flat platforms (even one flat slope platform etc.), but in the game aren't any :)

@nam-nguyen Thanks! However, I was doing jam instead of compo ;) I really like how bold you can make your texts in TextMeshPro and thats the main reason I use this :)

@nnnikki Thanks! I know about this issue, I encountered it maybe five times. However, I tried to solve it, but I couldn't find where is the problem. I have my tip (edge collider), however I wasn't able to replicate the bug =D It just sometimes happened. To the art - I know =D But I have more fun with this art than with the minimalist one :)
CameronPenner
CameronPenner3 Sep 2018, 18:50
Cool game! I remember making a game similar to this years ago, where you were a crab trying to collect bubbles. The art style is pretty similar too :P Well done!

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