Ludum Dare #57compo

Sonar Boat Game

by joel-davis

Overall★★★★★★★★★★2.90

Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.60

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★4.05

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.74

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★2.77

Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.21

Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.88

Use your Sonar to search the ocean floor! Can you find all the things?

Control the boat with WASD or Arrows.

Press X to search for items, but searching is precise and you must be directly over something to examine it! To better your chances, press Z to use your sonar to scan the ocean floor. The scanner will scan in a straight line behind your boat, by moving the boat you can get a better picture of the ocean bottom (This is just like the way they do it in the real world!).

This project was kind of a disaster but I came up with the sonar idea the morning of the last day, and that was pretty fun. I wish I had more time to polish and make it a real game but at least it's something.

Build using Bevy, using Skein for a really nice authoring workflow in Blender, check it out!

I don't have desktop (windows/mac) builds but I could add them if requested. The web one should work the same though.

Tools: Blender

Comments13

bubblewandgames8 Apr 2025, 03:47

The sonar idea was suuuper interesting. I did find myself relying more on looking for the items under the water itself than using the sonar but I really loved using it and just the whole concept behind it, especially having to draw it in a line rather than say just, pressing a button and instantly getting a depth map of your surroundings. Great work!!

LDJam user 52438 Apr 2025, 08:05

As mentioned before, it was more viable to just mash the search button than rely on the sonar, but something tells me that most of the developing time went to building the sonar function, because that was really cool. Really fun to try out! Who knew there was a whole bunch of Atlatises(?) hiding under the surface?

Chuckiee8 Apr 2025, 10:48

I like the general idea I tried to play as intended but then spammed search towards the end. Such a nice idea, would have been even better with a deeper/darker water.

baknik10 Apr 2025, 22:43

The scanning is very impressive, especially for a game jam weekend. I was able to see the items under the water though, so the scanning wasn't strictly necessary. Regardless, great job!

DrSmey11 Apr 2025, 22:04

Very cool implementation for a real scanner. It seems to dip the performance a lot, but that might just be because of the browser.

Great entry, it was fun to search for all the unique items in the water.

CrozzY12 Apr 2025, 11:49

It was pretty fun to play, the very idea of searching for treasure with sonar is cool. The visual part of the game is also good )

Scott R Howell12 Apr 2025, 11:51

Love the way the scanner works, could do with some polish for understandability, but its a really clever way to go about it, really nice work!

Eugenik14 Apr 2025, 12:00

5 out of 5! Just perfect! The idea is amazing

Jeffrey Hwang16 Apr 2025, 02:57

The shader magic is awesome. The idea is fresh. Took me a bit to figure out, but it was definitely awesome tech demo.

oeueGHa17 Apr 2025, 00:08

Great idea, but i don't like that u need to wait until it finished. I'd make sonar to work by holding a button, as long as u need.

Harmadillo18 Apr 2025, 16:28

Nice game. The scanner works well and looks great.

kroltan18 Apr 2025, 19:34

Wonderful idea! And a fellow Bevy jammer!

I really like the sonar charting, and the controls worked smoothly!

Web build did chug quite a bit when scanning, but didn't impact the gameplay much.

ping7823 Apr 2025, 07:45

What an exhilarating concept! I loved using sonar to search for underwater treasure and the boat was fun to drive too. Great job bringing this innovative idea to life.

Other games by @joel-davis

Numbers Station

LD59

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Terrarium Combinarium