Whalestrom

ioan-pop 2020-04-21 18:50

The audio, visuals, and overall theme are really, really well done!

A few things that were off for me were the juxtaposition between the super high detail game assets vs the simplistic UI elements, I think upgrading the icons and the UI would bring it all together! It was also not very clear how to progress throughout the game, so maybe a bit more UI to show the player what to do!

Overall really well done submission :)

Oh also in your submission here it says Windows link, but inside there is a mac download as well, so make sure to say that so more people can enjoy this game!

patsui 2020-04-21 19:29

The graphics are top notch and music is great!

The UI work doesn't really fit the space theme. The flying controls are quite bad and you forget half of the buttons if you manage to complete the tutorial. This project could have benefitted from a little more focus on game design and a testing session.

I love the theme and story tho! Good job on most stuff :)

raphaeltan 2020-04-21 19:31

Very ambitious game, very well made! Surprising how much you could add in so little time. audio and graphics are a treat :) good job!

bradalli 2020-04-21 19:32

Really enjoyed the setup and concept of the game, I can see this having the potential of being an attractive ip for players. The game assets were appealing, and the implementation of audio and effects really added to the experience in a positive way.

The player controller needs some polish; my input felt too sensitive and the damping felt like it was stopping me from doing certain manoeuvres smoothly.

I don't think anymore enemies spawned after the first? (Unless I couldn't find them, I'm not sure)

Overall, a solid entry :D Great work!

graph 2020-04-21 19:34

I tried both versions of the download and they both appeared to be broken?

j-c-one-bit-studio 2020-04-21 19:37

If I could give 10 stars for the music, I would. Very well done. The graphics was also nice. The controls are too twitchy, you could lower the sensitivity for the movement. And somehow the next wave of enemies didn't trigger for me, so I could only play the first level. Nice game.

dave-gamedevelopement 2020-04-21 19:40

Really good game, awesome graphics! But I guess some visual feedback when damaging the enemy would be cool, I was shooting sometimes for like 40seconds staight and had no clue if my shots hit or not :D

steve-sparkes 2020-04-21 19:48

The aesthetic for this game is just incredible! I really loved the atmosphere of this game, but the gameplay is too twitchy to hold up to the art, sound and animation. The homing missiles are the only weapon that really worked for me, as there was no way I was going to be able to target the moving ships with the lasers!

I also think I experienced a bug where the whale was getting damaged, but the health bar wasn't updating. I lost the game whilst the whale was apparently still at full health.

A little bit of work to slow down the game and tighten up the controls would make this such a phenomenal game! Keep at it!

ethan-losten 2020-04-21 19:59

The game looks so nice, I want to play it so bad, but I'm on linux :'c

lamasaurus 2020-04-21 20:00

Like any good whale-god-owner I called mine Hans. This game is epicly beautiful! The music also really fits and got me real hyped up. The flight controls worked pretty good for me, though it was sometimes hard picking up resources to a point where I stopped bothering. All in all an awesome game, keep it up!

fabula-rasa 2020-04-21 20:42

Very nice visuals and the audio is great a well. I adored the whale!

The movement felt very confusing though. Too sensitive. Also, damn hard to go where you actually want to go ;)

aevek 2020-04-22 06:13

Thanks everyone for all the great feedback so far! We pushed a bugfix patch to deal with the tutorial issues to itch.io, so hopefully that helps deal with some of these. A whole pile of great feedback here, its all super helpful, we're taking it all on board and we're gonna try to make a better tuned version for a post-jam release so keep an eye out for that if you're interested. (if anyone has any more specific suggestions on improving the flight controls I personally would love to hear them)

2020-04-22 06:41

Hi! Nice work! I want to make a video with the best games of LDJam46. Something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOdTsWE7iIk . Can I find your game also on indiexpo website? The channel is linked with them.

wheffle 2020-04-22 08:13

Really mind-blowing visuals and audio for a game jam! The whale sounds were awesome, the targeting and laser sounds... I know it's a small thing, but the audio feedback on the main weapon losing charge or whatever was on point and very satisfying. Seems like y'all didn't get around to implementing some stuff (or I experienced some bugs), my whale never lost health, and I couldn't seem to purchase the regen upgrade. But wow, really crazy how much y'all were able to accomplish with this.

duke 2020-04-22 10:29

Really nice visuals in the 3d department. Already looks pretty much fleshed out. The UI and rest of the visuals do stand out as not polished as much though. Flying was a little clunky and slow, especially turning around. Shooting felt satisfactory enough. I played two levels after the tutorial and and felt like i've seen everything. Didn't really felt the need to upgrade anything because the enemeies didnt't feel like a threat. Maybe that changes in the later levels.

The background score was cool and pumping. fit the theme of the game very well. I also liked that the space god was a whale :) very mysterious

Very good job all in all! This jam could use some more space dogfighting games

overmolo 2020-04-22 14:22

Controls are a little bit tricky (I suppose is because a keyboard is not an analogical control) but the rest of the game is very well done. Congrats!

helmisetsuna 2020-04-22 14:39

They game concept, graphic, audio, all so nice. Only lacking for me is control. I play a lot of aircraft game. This game's control feels quite heavy and the control kinda inverted i guess.

lesslwo 2020-04-22 21:32

Always up for some space whales! Controls were a bit finicky, especially picking up stuff, but shooting was good, and I'll take that as a priority. Overall very solid game :slight_smile:

kodiqi 2020-04-23 01:27

As others have said, this is a great looking game but the controls were a struggle for me.

As for specific suggestions, adjustable sensitivity would be an obvious useful addition. Personally, I found myself overshooting where I was trying to point; so maybe a button to automatically stabilise to where you are pointing? That might take some of the challenge out of it though. Otherwise, maybe an automated 180 flip, just to give you more control over where you want to be pointing. (I think it said to use 1 key to orient toward the nearest enemy but that never worked for me)

hiimbarney 2020-04-23 02:14

Controls where a struggle. Picking up that first item was a test of skill beyond imaginable haha. I liked the look and feel, sounds where super cool, Idea and everything worked a charm but Unity has it so easy to implement multi inputs (for example your fire button works on my XBox controller, by accident I assume) that there is no excuse to have made it work for a controller. The mouse steer did not seem to work for me at all.

gamer-fates 2020-04-23 02:15

WOW KUDOS TO A TEAM EFFORT. HOW LONG HAVE YOU GUYS BEEN WORKING TOGETHER?

aevek 2020-04-23 02:29

@hiimbarney The gamepad controls halfway work mostly because I was trying to get them working. Unfortunately we ran into some compatibility issues with the custom input wrapping we had to do to make the mouse's virtual joystick work and had to abandon it due to time issues. I definitely agree it would have been great to have it working properly.

@gamer-fates most of us have worked together on various separate projects, but this was the first time all of us had worked together. Its amazing the new things you can learn about project management in a jam like this.

hiimbarney 2020-04-23 02:49

Its a bummer, I would've loved to vibe with the whale for quite some time as well! Overall great work guys, you can be proud!

jake-marks 2020-04-23 05:24

Actual screengrab from my team's brainstorming document: actual screenshot from LD46 brainstorming.PNG

It was destiny. I had to play it. But man do I suck at space shooters! The art in this is fantastic.

Played on stream: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/599995465

rhoka 2020-04-23 06:27

@jake-marks Thanks for playing it! It's always great to actually see people play it to analyze gameplay. The team is working on a post-jam version where we're tweaking the controls and the whole resource/upgrade system. But more feedback is always great!

sndr 2020-04-23 12:57

The story, the visuals, the theme, the overall ambience is really really cool.

Unfortunately, the flight controls though were quite not there, but I can see the work being put and with a bit of testing and polishing on the main controls, this could be something really cool with a lot of personality.

eleeve 2020-04-23 13:27

Great atmosphere that was visible in graphics and in sound. Gameplay was left a bit boring because controls were difficult on keyboard and mouse (Controller may be better? idk). I wanted little more content in the game, rather than just shooting enemies.

willoxs 2020-04-23 13:43

As sndr says the controls need a slight overhaul - i would say commit to keyboard only or have the mouse control be more precise and intuitive. And the W/A keys should have a reverse option for the casuals among us xD

And i would make the radius for collecting much bigger - i missed them constantly even when i focused.

Aside from it's clunkyness it sounds and looks great and very polished (love the player ship model). I can only imagine how hard it must be to coordinate in such a big team - but the result is pretty cool.

erebus 2020-04-24 00:34

Very impressive submission. Thanks for bringing it by the stream!

eldogg 2020-04-24 21:47

The whale and ships designs are great. I like the jellyfish enemy types, wish I could look at them up close, maybe they could be bigger? The pickups should probably happen automatically as its quite hard to navigate your ship to grab them. The controls could do with remapping as the A+D keys would be best swapped with Q+E as I probably want to change my yaw more than my roll (I think thats what those terms mean).

But great work, like the world building you put in at the start. The tracks are pumping too. Whale gods in space is crazy, yet it makes so much sense.

josephbyam 2020-04-26 22:39

This is just a ton. You put a lot of work into this and it makes my head spin.

poupi 2020-05-02 12:33

Lot of work but controls needs some work to feel great imo.

tobiasw 2020-05-10 14:47

Unfortunately I can't rate the gameplay because the game is running too slow on my computer, but I can definitely rate the fantastic art and music! It's especially impressive considering how short the jam is - not many make 3D games after all. And I really liked the crayon tutorial in the beginning.

marcmagus 2020-05-10 19:42

Thanks for bringing your game by my stream for us to check out! If you'd like to watch again, the highlight is at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/617113701