Crab It Alive!

Fun game with sweet art and sound. Nice work!

Nice game with good graphics ! The audio is also nice but i didn't really understand the goal of the game or how win. Unless that, it was a fun experience !

Very cool entry :D It took me 2 attempts how to get trash on bait. Nice music and art :)

Nice game. Sweet Graphics. Great audio. This game was one of the very few submissions that felt complete with a goal and no bugs....

A great thematic idea with good graphics and audio. You really did a proper job here. Now, some small issues and a few ideas on how to improve the design itself.

Simple stuff first. The bottom of the lake is too close to the bottom of the window. This might not be a problem in a fullscreen mode, but that is not an option. Grabbing garbage near the bottom also seems less reliable than elsewhere. The music loop is very short and could use some variation, yet otherwise it fits the crabby theme (for some reason).

The design then. I find it rather demoralizing that there is so little the crafty crab can do to save the fishies. Dozens of them will lose their lives while down at the bottom scouring for suitable trash. As such I'd make the lake slightly less deep (maybe this could even fit a single screen?) and introduce the ships one at a time, meaning there is an opportunity to stockpile trash if quickly taking care of the first ship.

Pinching a fish as a warning should make it change direction. Cutting the fishing lines could also be a possibility with a special move, but then the line falls down into the bottom and can be a hazard there. Catching the trash the humans are throwing overboard and serving it right back is splendid as is.

Yeah, well done. What else can I say.

Really nice

Thank you everybody for playing and commenting!!

@mopkoo Actually the goal of the game is to make all the boats leave by returning them the trash they throw to the sea before all the fish are captured. We know that explaining the goal to the player is one of the biggest flaws of the game.

@huvaakoodia Thanks for the feedback! Some of your ideas were already on our roadmap but didn't have time to include them in the final game (fullscreen option, cutting fish lines). The other things you mention are also very interesting and we will consider them for a future version of the game :)

I couldn't save the ocean :( there was 1 boat left. However nice game! The balance is quite good according to me. Well done

Nice Art! Adnt he music is oddly fitting as well. The movement feels nice as well. So overall, good job. :)

Good game, i like the graphics and the music. the gameplay is nice but very difficult, you can't save all the fish no matter what you do, but maybe it's part of the message?

In term of rythm it's a little long to catch all the trash at the bottom of the screen (with a little safe frame problem in full screen) so it s a bit painfull to get one trash (and the ennemis are a bit too fast to dodge). Maybe less space between fish and trash would have been more enjoyable.

Anyway great game with great message =)

Cute game- I'd be interested to know if you can win, because I certainly could not!

A little bit difficult but a great game in general! This could be a great game for mobile played with youch functions as well! Keep it up and good luck!

Solid entry! It feels very complete with fitting music, good sound effects and pretty art. I like that the fish count acts as a health bar. It was a bit difficult at the beginning though. Maybe there could have been fewer (or no) eels at the beginning, and they would gradually become more and more, or just move faster or something. Also, the grab range was a bit short; I often found myself kicking the item away when trying to grab it.

Very nice game, the concept is cool and the art too, I would have liked to have more feedback on the elements which will give even more life to your atmosphere (example: put bubbles behind fish or garbage).
Otherwise the sound is cool, the message is cool, the art and the controller is handy !!
Great job guys !!

@ironjeff @luckyfeathers @hozoku Thank you very much for the valuable feedback!

@ironjeff
> you can’t save all the fish no matter what you do, but maybe it’s part of the message?

I guess it is. Human activity produces irreversible transformations on many ecosystems, however much can be done to stop or partially amend some of these transformations.

@jelch Yes, you can win. Kind of. You can save some of the fish, not all of them though. The goal of the game is to make all the boats leave by returning them the trash they throw to the sea before all the fish are captured.

Hello, i like your game,really nice graphics. I'm a programmer looking for a graphic designer or a team to join and maybe work on new games, are you interested?​

email:[email protected]

my LudumDare Game:
Social Distancing For Ladybugs

Great art and music combined with easy controls and game rules. Easily understood as soon as I started playing. An innovative idea as well! Good job!

My score was 11 :) Great art and sound fx, congrats on a very polished game! However, the gameplay felt a tad lacking in the fun department. Some ideas I though of while playing:
- if the crab could dash to dodge eels
- if it was easier to push multiple pieces of garbage up at a time

Neat idea and I love the art work. I only wish I could move faster somehow.

Just beat it with 2 left! Very clean and simple gameplay, challenging enough and fun to play. The art is incredibly good as well as the music & sound. Great job!

This is a fun game! The music is great, the style is fun, and your use of the them is creative! The only thing I thought was hard was having to use the mouse to grab the items. I think grabbing the items with the keyboard and not using the directionality of the crab can make the game easier. Nice work!​

Just awesome take on the theme! Love all of it, really great stuff! Thank you

Really beautiful game. Absolutely love the graphics, ultra clean! Wicked LDJam entry :raised_hands:

Looks great, gets boring quickly though. There seems to be way too much garbage in the ocean, maybe more levels instead?

Loved the art, sound and mood. But the gameplay was a bit lacking. It feels that what I was doing was getting no results at all.

Great job. I love the art and sounds. Everything works well together. I also liked getting shocked by the eel! :cloud_lightning:

Nice game, I really like the graphics and the sound!

Awesome fun Game! And no bugs perfect!

Like the game. very nice graphics. great job

10/10 graphics. Music was alright. The core gameplay loop is boring and frustrating, as most of the time you have to go all the way down and back up to pick up a single piece of trash, and it is very difficult to save individual fishes. I was bored by the time the first ship left tbh. Good take on the theme, and good job overall!

The graphics and the audio were nice, and the theme was on point! In my opinion, the crab was a bit slow, but it was a good game.

Great jobs with graphics ! I was a little bit confused about what to do and how to succeed, but the game was still very polished and with not bugs at all

Nice game, The graphical style is really nice. I would like movement to be a bit faster as others have said. Maybe introduce powerups or something to make the game more interesting too. Overall though, it's a solid concept and it's good to see you working on a post LD version.

Really beautiful game! Nice entry!

Pretty cool entry i love the crab and thos eels hahahah pretty annoying, great game, keep the hard work

Awesome game!

After 4 tries I have finally made it... with 2 fish left :)

Only on last try I noticed that there's bunch of trash on the bottom, until then I just stood there waiting for ships to throw something out. Too bad, because going to the bottom and avoiding eels is the most fun part of the game IMO.

I love crab pincers sound. Art looks great and cohesive.

Cheers!

Thanks everybody for playing and commenting!!

@ryzy27 Thanks for sharing your playthrough notes, it's really valuable for us :) Crab pincers sound was crafted by knocking tongue against palate and recorded with a standard smartphone mic just like every other sound effect in the game, and then tweaked a bit in Audacity :P

Nice and creative game. The graphics really shine. The controls work nice. The only gripe I have is, that it very much feels like work! lol! And those electric eels are really hard to avoid. But maybe I just need some more practice :)

Good job overall!

Really enjoyed graphics, palette and simplicity of controls. Interesting take as well. There was too much trash for me to handle, but I enjoyed playing. Great work!

It's really hard to add something over what HuuvaKoodia said.
Game theme is nice, I liked it. Overall game brought me a nostalgia when I used to play flash games on my old laptop when I was a kid, thank you.
Quite simplistic game, I'd love to see it with an additional gameplay as the guy above said, I have same thoughts on music, the loop is too short but the sound itself matches the game pretty well so good job. Keep on working, it's a good jam submission! :thumbsup:

The like the graphics of the game most cool, nice idea and good gameplay

Nice cute game. Complete package. I'd recommend some visible display of the mouse, both for the opening menu and during game, at least as an indicator of how it moves the crab. Took a second to adjust to the invisible mouse being the source of rotation. Otherwise nice job.