Ludum Dare #57compo

An Angler's Light

by yorsh

Overall★★★★★★★★★★4.40

Fun★★★★★★★★★★4.25

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★4.20

Theme★★★★★★★★★★4.32

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★4.57

Audio★★★★★★★★★★4.27

Humor★★★★★★★★★★4.06

Mood★★★★★★★★★★4.31

It's dark at the bottom of the sea. As an anglerfish, you are the only source of light down there. But your preys can see you coming, to catch them you will have to turn off your precious light for a moment...

Controls

* *WASD/Arrows/LeftStick* to move.
* Hold *Space/LeftMouse/Any Gamepad button* to hide.
* Debug: *Shift+G* to skip level.

How To Play?

* Approach fishes while hidden. Try to get as close as possible then release the button.
* Eat all the fishes to complete the level.
* The faster you are, the more stars you get.

Hints

* You are faster while hidden. Try to hide as early as possible.

Thanks for playing!

I'm glad you all enjoyed it, I was surprised to be 1st! Check out my profile to see my other projects, I'm always working on some indie games.

Genres: action

Tools: Unity

Comments30

Aleksey Salion7 Apr 2025, 05:30

Haha, the "gulp" sound is hilarious)

qhboiboi7 Apr 2025, 18:18

this is an incredibly good game! surprised this took 48 hours only!

Yorshauthor7 Apr 2025, 18:42

@aleksey-salion Ahah yeah, I quickly recorded a bunch of weird mouth sounds and ended up with this beauty! Thanks for playing!

@qhboiboi I'm glad you like it! I have been pretty efficient with my time on this one yeah. Tho I'm not taking enough time to playtest and iterate on gameplay at the start, cause I wanna add a lot of things and polish.

LDJam user 2874249 Apr 2025, 01:10

Awesome work! Great looking game. Your main character fish has that perfect mix of ugly and cute that makes it adorable. The lighting is awesome and obviously a big part of your game as it's related to you central mechanic. I like the music track. It's bright and upbeat, and with the sound effects gives the game fun, chill vibe. Overall the package is really polished and impressive especially considering it's a compo game. Way to go!

Dingbat9 Apr 2025, 01:20

Almost definitely the most polished game I've played in the compo so far. Great sound design, great models and a very interesting gameplay concept! I love the detail of the music changing when turning the light off. Great job!

NTMalichi9 Apr 2025, 06:11

You made this in 48 hours?!?!?! WOW this was awesome, such a cool concept too. I'm truly amazed by this entry.
On level 4 for some reason my inputs broke, but it worked again after reloading the level.

Yorshauthor9 Apr 2025, 18:08

@the3rdhunter Thanks for feedback! Everything indeed happened to work well together without too much struggle, so I saved some time for polish.

@dingbat I'm glad you liked it, thanks for playing!

@ntmalichi Hmm maybe you can get stuck in some weird state if there are some frame drops or something. Good thing that it's not game breaking tho. I was pretty efficient while working on the game as it's all pretty classic stuff that I have done in the past (no new weird feature to figure out how to make), so I could focus on making it as polished as possible. Thanks for playing!

Flaterectomy10 Apr 2025, 15:44

This is a fun entry, very nicely polished and clever use of star rating system to give the player something to strive for. Clever use of the total darkness to make you have to figure out the right timing. The music fading to a lowpassed version at the same time is a nice touch!

JohneyD10 Apr 2025, 15:49

A fun game in which you need to eat all the fish on time. I liked it, it was an interesting idea, good graphics and music.

Perovic201810 Apr 2025, 17:51

Cool game, the semi-ugly-cutie anglerfish is precious) music and sound and visual effects are very calming

shp10 Apr 2025, 18:04

Fun game! I like the blind play concept, works pretty well, but the thing that stood out the most to me was the visuals, looks really damn good!

Zirrrus10 Apr 2025, 18:38

Crazy polished for such short time, and a great idea for the central mechanic!
Also very funny. Just really good all around, well done!

Kluvenlaroplan10 Apr 2025, 19:53

Ah I love this concept! such a fun "Stealth" Mechanic, an angler fish is a great fit for the theme - awesome sound effects as well! it was great fun!

Wyzal10 Apr 2025, 20:06

Nice, very like this game. Unusual stealth mechanic with good realisation - is what game of this type need. Music, sfx and visuals are also a good fit. Good game, good job!

Stingdragon10 Apr 2025, 21:02

Took a little to figure out how long to hide the light and how far to move. Very nice game! love the sounds!

ljg11 Apr 2025, 01:11

Cool game! I love the gulping sfx and animation. Finding my prey in the dark took me a minute to get the hang of but once I did it was very rewarding. Very well done, one of my favorite games so far.

LDJam user 35765611 Apr 2025, 03:07

That was a great game! Every stage made the game feel complete. Fantastic audio, visuals, controls, and mechanics.

APG11 Apr 2025, 12:15

Great game! I really liked the glowing dots and fins on the anglerfish and the subtle water effect over the screen.

YouCarryOats11 Apr 2025, 12:37

Super polished, really fun Compo entry! The art and sounds meshed super well and the gameplay was really fun. Well done!

Missfire11 Apr 2025, 22:29

It was really fun! The 'hide-and-attack' approach is creative and fits perfectly with the game’s narrative. The visuals are nice, and the sound effects are spot on—the crunchy chomping is hilarious!
Too bad I only managed to get one star on nearly every level, but I guess I should have hidden more carefully. Thank you for a great game!

freamdev12 Apr 2025, 18:25

Very creative idea, I liked the cute fish chomp. The prey somtimes hid behind some of the decoration got a bit frustrating at some points.

Yorshauthor12 Apr 2025, 19:53

@freamdev Thanks for the feedback! Yeah I agree. I considered doing a see through shader for preys at some point, but felt like it was out of scope. However in the end I had about a spare hour to polish stuff, so totally should have done it at that time.

oeueGHa18 Apr 2025, 07:52

It's magnificent and so masterly realized concept, especially sounds, very gud!

Ryano20 Apr 2025, 02:31

Very good entry. Well polished and hits all categories nicely!

Sibi20 Apr 2025, 11:09

I'm blown by this submission! The production quality especially for a compo game is crazy. Different enemies, star rating, a lovely main character and lots of polish. Amazing entry!

Slava_Che20 Apr 2025, 17:02

A good fun game!
Sounds are simple, but funny.
I would like too play it on my phone)

henk20 Apr 2025, 17:10

I thought an anglerfish's light was supposed to _attract_ prey :P. Overall the game
was quite solid. This is the first time I've seen dead reckoning used as a gameplay
mechanic, and it's more fun than I would have expected.

thomz1222 Apr 2025, 20:01

Very well done, presentation of the game is fantastic!
I like the stars giving a good reason to try the levels again.

Good job!

Mamboman24 Apr 2025, 20:03

I really enjoyed this one! Unique and cool idea, very well executed! Very polished too. The music and sounds are nice. I had a good time playing, thanks!

Zamizmi26 Apr 2025, 13:20

This is great game! Simple mechanics to understand, but difficult to master!