The Island

Really interesting concept! Using audio signals to detect hidden landmines is a clever mechanic and fits the OLD TECH theme perfectly. I also think it's impressive that you developed the game using your own engine. The idea of exploring a dangerous island while relying on sound creates a lot of potential for tension. Great work!

@artemeda So it works? Can you share with me your PC configuration - some basic info ? Thank you. I really appreciate your feedback. I promise you that I will play your game too leaving a comment ++

Really cool entry! I played through it and had a great time.
Here is a quick breakdown of my thoughts:
• Gameplay & Design: The core mechanics feel solid and intuitive right from the start. The gameplay loop is engaging, and the controls feel responsive and fair.
• Visuals & Art Style: The visual direction fits the overall mood really well. Everything looks cohesive, and the presentation makes it very clean to follow what's happening on screen.
• Audio: The sound effects and audio design add a lot of punch to the experience and help build the atmosphere.
• Theme Interpretation: You did a fantastic job incorporating the jam's theme into the core loop in a creative and clever way!
Constructive Polish Idea: If you decide to update or expand this after the jam, adding a few extra feedback cues (like juice/particles or subtle screen shake) or expanding on a few mechanics could make it feel even more polished!
Overall, awesome job for a jam project! Left you a high score/rating. Keep up the great work! 🚀

@anastasia-pitomets Thank you for your feedback which gives me the assurance that the engine/editor/game works on another computer than mine. It means a lot. I really appreciate your help. I will play your entry too. I wish you the best ++

I enjoyed playing and finishing this game, amazing that you made it with your own engine, it works well on my PC, and I like the mood, arts, sounds and gameplay. It was risky, but I even took the time to visit the island, I wanted to see closer some of the assets - approching the boat, climbing the lighthouse.
Sorry, I can't tell about the exploding mines, as I managed to never hit those 😝
Great job!

nb: my config is Win 11 pro 64, Intel Core i5 13400F, 32 Go RAM, MSI PRO B760M-P motherboard, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 (MSI) (and btw, Windows Defender didn't saw anything to say about it)

@lereveur Thank you very much for your kind feedback my friend. I really appreciate your info about your PC configuration. I sent a report to Microsoft hoping that they can help me to resolve this annoying problem which disallows me to share my project. You finished the game really quickly. I should add some landmines :) As usual, I will play your own entry. Et je t'en ferai une synthèse comme celle que tu m'as faite pour moi. Merci beaucoup pour ton aide qui a beaucoup d'importance pour mon projet. I wish you the best ++

Ha ha je pense que la synthèse sera rapide, mais tu verras ce que je veux dire 😂

Pretty fun! Made easy when I found out that you can fly by tapping the jump button! The game was lagging a lot though. My computer is a Windows 11, i9-13980HX, RTX 4090 mobile.

Was fun, I died the first couple times because I didn't know how high pitched the sound could get and got a little too close to ones near the radio emitters, second time I died it was because I was rushing XD but got it the third time. The movement was fine but the game felt choppy as mentioned by others so not sure, Mine is the weakest system so far with an i9-9900K and a 2070. Like it was functional but like running at sub 30 FPS so it felt like it was chugging along.

@alexclay @snowdrama Thank you so much, my friends, for your help and feedback. It really contributes a lot to the development of Sputnik Engine!

I've realized that I made a mistake by including far too many resource-intensive elements in my game.

For example, there's a dead tree in the middle of the island. But that tree is actually a photogrammetry model that, on its own, contains more geometry than the lighthouse, the terrain, and everything else in the game combined! That was definitely a mistake on my part.

The post-processing stack is also quite heavy, with *a dozen effects* running simultaneously. That's a lot! Among them are anti-aliasing and SSAO, with the latter cranked all the way up. And SSAO can be extremely demanding on performance.

I've also implemented a dynamic shadow system. If you look closely at very thin objects, you'll notice that they cast incredibly precise and beautiful shadows. But once again, this comes at a significant performance cost. At this stage, *I keep it* because of its plus for the game. However, it could be interesting to disable them in the settings panel (next)...

All these things combined make the game far too demanding for mid-range computers. Also, everything runs *at the native resolution*. Something to add in the settings panel too (maybe).

At home, I have an absolute beast of a PC, so I don't experience any of these issues. But I completely understand that, for some of you, the game feels more like a stress test than an actual game!

I'm going to fix these issues and share a new, lighter, more reasonable build with the community.

Thanks again, my friends!

@geckoo1337 Let me know when that's up and I can try again see to how it goes!

Jumped out of my seat the first time I hit a mine haha
So good news! This thing even runs on Linux when executed with WINE. I pasted the console output here if you're interested. It seemed to work flawlessly. One tiny thing I found is that the green intro text on the main menu was cut off from the left. No idea if that is also there in Windows.

Love the fact that you took Sputnik out for a spin. I was impressed by the graphics it (and you) produced.
First I though the big tower was one of the antennas, until I found out it was the only one on the island. Also, is it possible that there are 8 antenna's? When I replayed again to look inside the tower and to explore a bit, I can swear that I found one I haven't visited in the first run yet. Or is it randomized?

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Here's some PC info:
Operating System: Kubuntu 26.04 LTS
KDE Plasma Version: 6.6.6
Kernel Version: 7.0.0-38-generic (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 12 × Intel® Core™ i7-8700K CPU @ 3.70GHz
Memory: 32 GiB of RAM (31,2 GiB usable)
Graphics Processor 1: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080
Graphics Processor 2: Intel® UHD Graphics 630
Manufacturer: Dell Inc.
Product Name: Precision 3630 Tower

@wouter52 The game is randomized for placing landmines and radio emitters. You can play and play again. Thank you for your help my dear friend. I did not know that it could run on Linux. Now I know 🐱 Great ++

@geckoo1337 oh nice, replay-ability is very much appreciated!

@lereveur @alexclay @wouter52 @artemeda @snowdrama @anastasia-pitomets A new release has been uploaded on Itch.io and this one is a little bit adapted to middle-conf' computers (Frustrum and Occlusion Culling, lower AA and more improvements). The profiler of the editor shows me that the most consumption of resources is the dynamic shadows system. At this stage, I keep it, but (if I continue to develop this game), I will add an option in order to deactivate them - and to set another screen resolution. Thank you for all your feedback and comments. Obviously, GameJams are the best way to improve my project. I wish you the best ++

You're awesome, I hope you know that as a fact. 😁
I'm really looking forward to seeing how far you'll take this engine, but in any case, it looks very promising to me