FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD48 → Deep Sea Explorer

Deep Sea Explorer

By interface

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall6983.0924
Fun6612.9724
Innovation8552.2823
Theme4893.5224
Graphics7372.8124
Audio4463.1324
Humor4702.4024
Mood5273.1124

Comments

interface 2021-04-26 04:01

230 coins is my personal best.

ianthebee 2021-04-26 14:01

I like this game. However, the movement feels just a tad sluggish

oysuta 2021-04-26 16:16

This was a fun and refreshing entry, a lot of the games have been a bit dreary, so it's nice to see a bright and fun take on the theme.

Some feedback: the craft could move a bit faster, and the game could be improved dramatically with a better camera. It mostly shows what's behind the player in the direction they're moving (for example most of the screen is devoted to what's above me if I'm moving down), which isn't ideal because... well, you can't see where you're going! Not a problem unique to your game of course :P

interface 2021-04-26 16:29

The slow movement was intentional to add to the difficulty, but it's good to get the feedback that it doesn't feel right. I'm using the standard camera follow option from GameMaker, which isn't exactly ideal. I could widen the margin so it starts scrolling sooner which may help. Thanks for the feedback!

the-baldur 2021-04-26 19:40

Very nice and pleasant little game! Love the music, it's so cheerful and fun! The art is also nice and colourful. Great game overal :)

sam-wallach 2021-04-27 21:26

Fun game, the art and music are cute! I love the shark cue music, but it does clash a little being overlaid over the other music.

justinmullin 2021-04-30 01:33

Nice low-key treasure hunt, I enjoyed this. I do wish the sub was a bit faster, but I think maybe I was meant to relax a bit. =) I laughed the first time I heard the "Jaws" theme as a shark came onto screen. Love all the character in the environment!

jogy34 2021-04-30 04:14

Nice game, music was relaxing and the jaws tune from the sharks was a great touch. With the really slow movement of the sub and not really any danger from the sharks, anchors, or mines it ended up getting monotonous fairly quickly though.

hempuli 2021-04-30 04:27

Haha, I liked the soundclip the sharks were accompanied by! Nice little exploration game, it was a cool detail that the oxygen tanks and chests weren't always 100% upright but actually positioned based on the ground shapes. Got a high score of 190!

hydezeke 2021-05-01 02:30

Nice and concise! My oxygen level was my biggest danger- the obstacles and enemies weren't much of a threat. I like that the game has a lot of audio for everything. Feels very complete.

link270 2021-05-01 05:13

Cool, I enjoyed it. The shark sound felt a little bit out of place and was constantly playing, the music was very simple but I think it needs a little more layers to it and it would be quite a bit better. Overall not bad, I had fun. Good job!

uzpykes 2021-05-03 09:50

Nice relaxing game. I liked the 3 types of obstacles in the game - one moves horizontally, one moves vertically and the other stationary, had some great situations where I had two outmanoeuvre 2 or 3 of them at once. I think some colliders of the terrain are bit rough as I was sometimes hitting or getting stuck on seemingly empty space (thankfully it doesn't deal damage but is still a bit annoying)

fueelin 2021-05-04 07:19

I liked it a lot! Really pleasant art, music and sound effects. I was pretty happy with my high score - 170 coins - but it did a good job of motivating me to keep wanting to find more! Really great job overall, agree with other comments that it feels like a complete game!

jitspoe 2021-05-04 14:07

Here's a link to my vod if you want to watch my playthrough again: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1006662463?t=4h41m46s

Intuitive and easy to pick up and play, but still challenging enough to be interesting.

vixenmink 2021-05-06 04:08

I liked this one a lot. Great job

lazyalarm 2021-05-07 02:25

I especially like the sounds on this for some reason. I don't remember what that instrument is called but I hear it in all of the Mario beach levels and I am quite a fan. I also thought it was quite creative to use the anchors as an enemy! Controls were definitley a bit slow however.

interface 2021-05-07 03:47

@lazyalarm steel drums. The slow controls were intentional for the feel as well as difficulty but many people have commented on it so yeah... live and learn :-)

lelulagames 2021-05-07 15:52

A cute little exploration game that has some potential. The sub was cute. The graphics don't feel cohesive though, like they were pulled from separate asset packs. For a game jam that's fine, but you might consider that if you take it farther.

I did like the music at first. The steal drum music is always nice, and it felt somewhat appropriate while I was exploring the sea, but after a while the repetition got to me. Thank you for adding a mute key. However, once I turned off the music there was hardly any sound at all. I would suggest adding more background ambient sound, like water, or bubbles occasionally.

interface 2021-05-08 04:40

@lelulagames Yeah I'm really bad at art so this is about as good as I can muster on my own. Given the compo doing everything from scratch and having only 48h (minus sleep and eat etc. I spent 25 hours on this game), there's only so much you can do :-) I'm not much of composer either, so yeah I can only get a few sound effects recorded, and a small loop going within the time limit. And glad you found the mute button, that is EXACTLY what it is for! lol I definitely had wanted to do a bit more art (maybe more incohesion lol) like a parallax perhaps, and more bubbles as part of the scenery were part of the plan, but no time.

I'm not planning to take this game any further. It's not my style of game (playing or developing) but since I wanted to try GameMaker over Unity for once, this felt like an appropriate easy game to develop with a new toolset...

gustavo-christino 2021-05-08 05:22

@interface…

I've played your game here (as you asked). :)

I will make the full analysis soon.

https://youtu.be/lciF4F6MkJw

gustavo-christino 2021-05-09 03:22

**Analysis...**

1 - Mechanics, Learning and Flow: Mechanics of exploring the environment with time limited by oxygen consumption (which can be recovered by collecting a finite number of oxygen cylinders), also aiming at the accumulation of more and more coins (treasure chests). In addition, there are foods that can cause damage (there is a health bar that is reduced whenever you touch harmful elements (shark, anchor and underwater mine)). Learning to play is simple, it is difficult to be able to complete the map completely. Over time we will learn the limitations and details in relation to mechanics (such as the arrows indicating approach and removal of anchors). The flow of the game brought me some anxiety, because it is difficult to get many points (I played a game that I got around 230 points, for example). I suppose that starting oxygen consumption only after starting to play (pressing a button) can be a way to pause at the beginning of the game (other than on the score screen, which I immediately feel like leaving, because losing gives a little bit of anger, hahahahahah). In addition, I suppose it is interesting to be able to recover oxygen at the points where it is possible to climb to the surface (in this case new elements should enter to balance the cost versus benefit of doing so).

2 - Graphics, Audio and Narrative: The graphics are simple and, at the same time, very clear about what is being experienced. The user interface is friendly (I say this because of the arrows indicating about the anchors). Perhaps adding some texture to the ropes (or chains) of the anchors can avoid confusion (in the video I mistook it for something else, hahahahah). The audio mixes fun with tension, perhaps it gives lightness and, at the same time, reminds the player that he is not safe. The narrative is very simple: get gold before you lose (zero oxygen or injure yourself too much). I think it works well for this type of game.

3 - Culture: The game reminds me of films that involve the bottom of the sea, and the music reminds me of animations that involve happier moments on the bottom of the sea. So there is something very interesting to take advantage of in this regard. The game can be polished so that, through gameplay, the submarine can have greater exploratory capabilities (including in waters with different properties (luminosity and others)), in that sense the game could create a new playful approach about machines on the seabed .

4 - Monetization: I suppose the game could have more content, in the sense of starting with simpler goals and growing in terms of complexity and size (but nothing too big), because I thought of monetization as a faster and lighter challenge for smartphones (who knows with advertisements).

interface 2021-05-11 05:25

@gustavo-christino waw dude, thanks for the analysis :-)

gustavo-christino 2021-05-11 11:35

:)