FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD48 → UnderwOtter

UnderwOtter

By pixelbug

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall3283.6025
Fun2233.6925
Innovation3563.3925
Theme2083.9325
Graphics3653.5625
Audio5612.8725
Humor1053.5722
Mood2863.5225

Comments

smt 2021-04-26 02:41

really fun and super cute graphics & idea, works really well, it's super fun to push the breath meter to the limits

owca 2021-04-26 09:16

Great game. Difficulty is very well balanced. The swimming mechanics are exciting (especially when swimming for the last "secret"). The "15$" at the end made me laugh :) Good work!

torcado 2021-04-26 14:24

this is so cute! and surprisingly challenging! just the right size to not make me frustrated after dying with a bunch of items haha. Also the prospect of speedrunning this is very intriguing, I can already imagine a bunch of different routing options (I even ended up skipping some segments in my playthrough, I got the "last" item before several others, but the price of that makes it less worth it haha)

nice art, good controls, funny dialog, this has it all! great work :)

also sx-1076.gif

cary-stanley 2021-04-26 23:36

Fun game, you really have to push that oxygen meter to get around.

One feedback, I think it would be nice to just collect the item instead of needing to press "E" to pick it up.

ditam 2021-04-26 23:43

Cute little game. Great job on balancing, you can tell that quite some effort went into making the progression smooth!

(I agree that having to press E is a pointless chore.)

sheinxy 2021-04-27 15:25

Cute game, cute otter, cute concept! A very nice approach to the theme, quite challenging but not too challenging, plays pretty smoothly! Could use some music and the sprites could be animated but that's about the only problems I have! (And they're pretty understandable for a compo game)

Great job :D

rubixnoob13 2021-05-01 02:57

This game was really cute! I really like the pixel art, and either I'm really bad at it, or it took way too long for me to master when to boost and when to just swim to make it between air pockets. Very solid entry, though! I do agree with everyone who said pressing E was too much. That caused me to run out of air like 50 times trying to get one of the treasures and turn around and get back to an air pocket while I had air left :laughing:

mrawde 2021-05-02 00:56

Great work! Was fun to keep exploring with each upgrade!

samdwester 2021-05-02 15:17

Cute game, good job. I'd maybe recommend using a different font in the game, but overall good entry

cheesepencil 2021-05-02 23:21

Challenging and adorable. I did not expect to play it for 30 minutes but apparently I did...

pixelbug 2021-05-02 23:49

@samdwester Thank you! I expected there to be font settings to make it more readable but wasn't able to find any, and once I found a font to replace it, I had already written all the lines and it required adjusting all the sizes and dialogue. If I make a low resolution game again, I'll definitely find a low resolution font in advance.

@ everyone else, pressing E felt like the natural decision to me while making it but I can definitely understand it leading to frustrating circumstances while running low on air, so it probably would've been better to make it automatic. Still, I'm happy so many people enjoyed it, and that the mechanics worked out since I wasn't sure how people would react to it while playing for the first time.

miltonnh25 2021-05-04 09:40

Good job on the game. It was a fun time exploring and trying to push where you could take your limited air. The beginning section we definitely the most challenging with only a small margin of error on some of the early pick-ups. I felt like the game was at its best when you got enough upgrades that the timing was less strict and you had more options to explore. Also loved the 15$ at the end, it was a nice touch.

fueelin 2021-05-06 06:59

Nice game! I liked the art a lot! I think it would be nice to tweak the oxygen meter a little higher from the start. It started to feel like I wouldn't be able to afford enough upgrades to really make more progress. I really liked it, though! Nice work!

john-llyod-apolo 2021-05-07 20:27

Great concept for the game. I agree to the other comment that the oxygen meter run out too fast, auto collect would be nice to.

madorly 2021-05-13 01:04

I had fun playing the game, although it was a bit challenging for me! I couldn't beat the game, I'm wondering if it's because I didn't choose the right order to buy the items.

The graphics were quite simple but I really liked the colors, so soft! The "fisherdragon" looked so nice too!

The sound effects were really effective, having a nice music while playing whould have been cool but I know that 48 hours is pretty short for that!

Overall it was a really nice entry, good job!

kotzi 2021-05-13 11:23

Nice game! I like the mechanics and implementation.

I wasn't able to finish it (I felt like the order to pick everything was too defined or maybe just the upgrade path, I'm not sure) but I had a fun time! Maybe you could add some small coins spawning near the surface on every reset? That way, if you're having troubles to get something valuable, at least you can try reaching the next upgrade by collecting those coins.

Anyway, congrats for your submission!

pixelbug 2021-05-13 22:01

@madorly @kotzi Thank you very much!

I did a lot of testing on making sure the items couldn't softlock you, but since certain items were just outright better than others, I had to make a very specific build path in the beginning. Since the end goal of the game is to get all of the upgrades, and all the items add up to the prices exactly, you really have to explore every inch. That unfortunately means a bit of blind exploration, though everyone I watched play was able to get there eventually. (There miiiight possibly be ways to break it? But me and other people have tried to break it already, so for it to be possible you'd probably have to try REALLY hard lol)

There was definitely some room for more balance and making things easier, but I feel like if I expanded this game's concept sometime I'd have to make some big changes due to the inherent problems lol

aune 2021-05-14 21:10

Well done ! I like the concept. I enjoyed playing, very challenging ! ;)