Gasp Away!

Couldn't get dashes to work but the idea is pretty fun! Also nice music and visuals

I like this entry! The music and the art style is really soothing and nice. I like the idea of sending smoke signals by blowing into a fire, it's super innovative. But I just felt the progress bar mechanic was really confusing. It took me a few tries to understand how it works. I found it weird that you get a progress meter filling everytime you pass in a signal, I assume you're supposed to press the next signal right at the green square. But what about when you reach the end of the morse code for that particular letter? I think that mechanic is the thing holding back this game from being really fun. Other than that it was great! I love the Wilson ball

The input system was pretty confusing to me, I couldn't figure out how to consistently send a dash or a dot (it seemed a bit like a rhythm game with the "Perfect"s, but those seemed to happen whenever I hit space at the full bar, which didn't correspond to letters).

I like the idea though, I think it's a cool space to play in.

There was a bit of a delay between sending each letter and it getting revealed up top, but it's a cool idea! Love the 3d environment and the music :smile:

Really enjoyed this overall. The presentation was really nice and the smoke signal concept is clever and memorable.

I struggled a bit with the progress bar and timing. I wasn't always sure when to input or what was supposed to happen once a signal sequence wrapped up.

The core idea shines and the atmosphere is fantastic. So much fun!

Once I figured it out, it was pretty fun! I got 31 combo. The graphics and music are a nice fit. Well done!

took a bit of practice to understand the mechanics properly, got to 25x multiplier, 0 words!

I was extremely confused on how to actually control it? the "perfect" and timing system confused me with holding or clicking, and the way the text updated was *after* my signal reached the top so it is very hard to tell what is "right". neat idea, but the way the controls work is not very well explained, and could be simpler...

A really great take on the theme and really interesting to see your interpretation of it.
At first the concept took me a little bit to figure out how it worked, but on a second play through i seemed to pick it up much better.
I wasn't quiet sure what the perfect breath was doing and needed to check here, so maybe a touch more feedback in game would help.
Graphics and audio feedback were quiet nice.

Man I'm outta breath. Nice simple mesmerizing game mechanic. It might have been too easy to just keep breathing whenever you want with no consequence - i was able to kinda hyperventilate and get pretty far lol. But the graphics read well, I knew what i was doing and couldn't stop myself from exclaiming "I WANT TO BREAK FREE!"

Thanks for submitting your game to stream!

You are an absolute saint for dealing with our shenanigans both before and during our playthough. :sweat_smile:

One thing I don't get i why the game embedded here is different from the one downloadable on itch:

- here, the letter graphics are simpler
- and yet the word count works
- and it's easier to see if a letter is partially coded
- the .exe at itch draws cards for each letter
- and yet the word count is always zero
- and it's less clear where we are in the letter

Is the .exe supposed to be a "post jam" version?

PS: why only now I got that "gasp away" is a pun on "cast away" 😅 I even told Kuvi the Wilson was a Cast Away reference....

My current score btw - still trying to get the whole message...

@wendel-scardua Uploading on the 20th was a bit of a quagmire for us. The .html on this site and .exe on itch were uploaded within the submission period, so they both would be jam versions. We consider the .exe to be the *proper* one.

An .html of the *proper* version was packaged and uploaded to this site moments before the deadline but the zip had errors, so the LD site defaults to a previous version we already had published to this page. The .html having errors is also why the itch page currently does not have a browser version to play.

@emsea got it... I had thought it was either that you had updated the exe after the deadline, or that you had forgotten to update the html before the deadline; I totally forgot about the third, secret option (Murphy's Law) 😅

Such a funny, unique interpretation of the theme. I enjoy games with simple mechanics that are difficult to master. I did have to read the comments to fully understand the UI but once I did it was pretty smooth sailing! I feel bad for all the seagulls who died of smoke inhalation though..

great interpretation of the theme! i agree with many of the comments about the difficulties with the UI, but overall, it's a great idea and cute graphics! well done!

Very cool interpretation of the theme! It took me a moment to fully understand it, but once it clicked, I was all in. By the end I was so focused that I was just as out of breath as our dude on the beach. I had fun with it.

To stay in "Cast Away" jargon, I say T.Hanks for this submission ;)

Took a while to understand, but it was really satisfying oncce I got into the rythm! I really enjoyed the sound design as well. One issue I encountered is massive lag spikes at the beginning, I'm pretty sure that's a Godot classic on web exports. For future reference, to avoid those big spikes interrupting gameplay, you should show each particle type at least once (for a frame or so) while initializing the game to force them to load in advance.

Really cool idea! Definitely could have benefited from some kind of tutorial, took a bit of trial and error to make sense of what the game expected, but it was fun once I figured it out, and the environment was really well done.

This is a cool game. It took a while to realise that you had to get the smoke to travel up to the letter in either a dash or dot - before this I wasn't really sure what I was doing wrong as I thought I was doing the letters in order but stuff wouldn't move along until quite a bit after. Regardless, once I realised what was happening it turned out to be a really neat mechanic. I could totally see this being a minigame in some adventure game. Great job!

It was a bit laggy in the beginning but then it worked. Nice idea.

I enjoyed the color palette and the overall vibe, also the title was pretty funny. I struggled a bit while playing though. 90% of the time I was looking at the top of the screen, at the inputs I have to press. So the fact that those only register after the smoke reaches the top made them quite hard to follow. Didn't manage to pay attention to the seagulls at all, and I was just "resetting" myself every time I started making errors, regardless if those were by mistake or due to obstacles. I did like the single button controls though, and felt like I managed to get into a pleasant "breathing" rhythm with them. Anyways, here's my final attempt ^^

@vlaflya @jag @reed-molbak @lectvs @jpat @oradimi @kuviman @ray-muffincat @sharky3188 @ruddiculous @coleslaughter @wendel-scardua @rosypenguin @aniretti @anszwa @zedgame @adam-gallina @pegasys @jhonny111 @hexstart

HTML, Windows and Linux builds of the post jam version of Gasp Away! is now available on our itch page. 🥳🥳🥳

Definitely nice visuals and atmosphere! But the controls confused me. Is it really the case that I just have to keep pressing a button at a never-changing interval, and the symbols at the top have no impact on the gameplay at all? Or did I miss something? :D

The game says "perfect" every time, so seems about right, but still nothing really happens. It seems it turned into an accidental puzzle game. :D

this is really good everything from the presentation to the use of the theme, it's a really fun unique take!

the gameplay is the perfect amount of difficult and i got the hang of it pretty much right away, I really enjoyed it!

A cozy morse code typing game, compared to other games on the same topic, I no longer need to look up the Morse code table👍🏻

Those seagulls shot down by the smoke were truly pitiful lmao.

A bit laggy on the web version at the beginning but soon it works smoothly, the gameplay, music, and visuals complement each other perfectly, it should receive more attention.

The game is easy to grasp, and once you get the hang of it, it’s really fun. Pulling off combos and completing several letters in advance is very satisfying. The gameplay is incredible for using only one input button.

That was a lot of fun.
I groaned when i saw morse code in the description but found it very fun how it was implemented.
I like rhythm games a lot and this was a good one.
I also like a game where i can learn while i play instead of having to learn so i can play.

Amazing game! Very fun concept, did pretty well I think!

That was fun! I like how the game lets you go as fast as you want and naturally punishes you for making mistakes when you get overconfident. The sound design was also very well done and I especially liked the crying at the end

Very funny game! I liked it!

Fun twist on the morse code game with an aditional challenge.

Thanks for the tips of ignoring the timing bar that was fixed in the post-jam version, it affects the gameplay feel and understanding a lot for new players.

In the post-jam version, the word count should instead say letter count or count differently. The number was always zero on the jam version, so it never came up as counting the wrong thing before. The post-jam breath circle was a good idea, it just makes the options controls slightly harder to use since it is rendered there too.

Some ideas for end/post game:

- Could be neat if a giant pelican saves or eats you depending on if you harmed any birds and got far enough.
- Would be nice to be able to scroll horizontally after game over to see what you spelled.

Lastly, good idea to have the birds fly behind the title of the start screen.

Ha, fun game! The itch page loaded a bit slow here, and a restart would break it. ("WebGL context lost, please reload the page")

Would be fun to use blowing in the microphone as in input to the game :laughing:

The 'How to Play' guide is fantastic! The dynamic GIF tips are a great touch—honestly, these are the clearest instructions I’ve come across in the jam so far. Great job!

It took me a moment to realize that the text progresses when the smoke reach the top and that the seagulls stopp a signal. But after understood the mechanics, the chaos started to make a lot of fun :smile: Also love the contrast between the relaxed island music and beautiful view and the panicked gasps :smile: The graphics style with the cyan color looks very nice, great entry!