FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD49 → Red Flag (Le Temps des Tempêtes)

Red Flag (Le Temps des Tempêtes)

By wakobu, achiru, antbrl, bgdu67 and Graios

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall1514.0244
Fun1583.9744
Innovation2413.7944
Theme5723.7244
Graphics7443.6044
Audio1683.9244
Humor4263.4342
Mood3543.7843

Comments

evn 2021-10-05 04:08

Fun game and very well polished!

ollieoa 2021-10-05 08:02

I was too dumb to win this one. I feel like it is a bit difficult to understand what is going onscreen, and it was painfully hard to shoot the seagulls.

With that said, it wasn't buggy, and the procedural generation seemed very fun to figure out and implement. It had a nice feel to it overall! Well done!

cjce 2021-10-05 17:13

I loved the visuals and the idea behind the gameplay. I think it could need some tweaking so the difficulty ramps up a bit maybe. But a great idea and a great execution!

skallywags 2021-10-05 17:15

This game was a lot of fun but surprisingly challenging. I loved the audio design especially the sound the cannons made when they hit the water. I couldn't get very far, unfortunately, but I definitely enjoyed the experience.

cannashblue 2021-10-05 17:16

Good job! It took me a minute to figure out what I was doing, but it's good! I can only make it to 20/30, but want to keep trying. It's fun. Thanks for the game!

fear-games 2021-10-05 17:16

Yarr the gameplay be simple to pick up yet difficult to master, The wave generation is effective. And the seagulls be the scourge of the ocean

archfan7411 2021-10-05 17:19

Great game! Feels well-polished especially for a game jam.

alpharock6 2021-10-05 17:24

Really enjoyed the overall mechanics! I'm curious how you set and coded the waves/movement? The aiming tips were really nice, but after I while I found myself running and gunning as fast as I could. But that only got me up to 20/30 :)

Nice job!

martta 2021-10-05 17:38

Wow this was awesome! It reminds me about the golden age of flash games. I used to play simple games like this for hours and hours and it was so much fun. The game was really polished and the gameplay was FUN! The audio was little bit too simplistic, but it did the job. For a game jam game maybe little bit too difficult, it took me 4 tries to win the game and for the 2nd and 3rd play through I was already 27/30 which was little bit frustrating. One of the better games out there!

drsmey 2021-10-05 17:43

Cool idea! The rain is a really nice touch.

fractal 2021-10-05 17:43

I didn’t manage to win it unfortunately, but I went up to 26/30! Well done game, kinda hard to figure out what happens on the screen, but it still feels somehow playable.

wakobu 2021-10-05 20:16

Thank you all for your awesome feedback :v:

@skallywags Haha I made the sound effect by dropping a small object into the water :droplet:

@alpharock6 We dynamically generated points of a godot line 2D. We had a lot of trouble to make this debug this feature :sweat_smile:

@martta Thank you very much ! I think we all miss flash game golden age :smile:

antbrl 2021-10-05 21:06

@ollieoa Thank you for the feedback! We just made the seagull hitbox bigger in v1.2 :)

@alpharock6 We are considering making the game open source. The code is not very pretty though...

We have reduced the game objective from 30 to 25 ships in v1.2.

bgdu67 2021-10-05 22:50

@alpharock6 Here are some additional details concerning the wave generation.

We start by defining a line of points with a uniform x-spacing and random y-offsets from each other. This is our base wave. Every so often, a new target wave is defined. We then slowly morph our base wave into our target wave and display that. Once our displayed wave is exactly the target wave, we define it to be our new base wave and we generate a new target wave, etc. That way, we have something dynamic. We can control how fast we morph between waves and how large our random y-offsets are allowed to get. We use this to simulate weather effects on the water.

We generate a polygon based on this line (and update it constantly) to simulate the wave. Entities movements are constrained to the line (for the most part).

Of course, such a line hardly resembles a wave (sharp edges everywhere!). In fact, we use it as a basis for generating a Bézier curve, aka an easy way of obtaining actual curves. Bézier curves are defined using a set of position points alongside a set of control points. The position points are points through which the curve is forced to pass and the control points allow us to control how the curve behaves between these points. We are not very creative with control points for now, we could get some interesting wave shapes by putting less restrictions on them (we always define the pair of control points of a given point to form the same angle as the line going from the previous point to the next one).

Also, we don't use one wave but two that are swapped every so often (when the ship is on wave A, we can generate wave B and place it at the end of wave A; once the ship has reached wave B and can't see the end of wave A/beginning of wave B anymore, we can regenerate wave A and place it in front of wave B, etc). We have to take precautions so that the waves line up and have a continuous derivative at the transition point (in other words, they should line up smoothly). We really should be using only one wave and updating it continuously as it would be easier and more efficient, but we did not find the time to make such a change to the architecture once it became relevant.

We make use of shaders to add detail to the surface of the water (smaller waves), without any impact on entities movement.

pixelydian 2021-10-05 23:33

This was AWESOME. Can't believe I haven't seen more "unstable sea" takes on the theme, because it's a great idea! AND this was very well executed. Great job on the intro and the sound effects were entertaining (poor seagull!) I had fun!

julienmc 2021-10-05 23:54

Loved the aesthetic and the music, and the controls were really cool!

alpharock6 2021-10-06 00:43

@bgdu67 Wow thanks for the super detailed answer! Really appreciate the insight :) So if you're connecting multiple Bezier curves along those points, basically using the "wave" generation you described in the first part to construct a spline that the boat travels over? Is the small wave shader doing vertex displacement on the same points that define the curve?

fabioecco 2021-10-06 01:49

Wow, great design, nice art style and music, one of the best games I've played so far!

shellocity 2021-10-06 03:32

really clever idea! And boy is that sea unstable. I didn't get super far but i felt like the gameplay held up really well. Music was great; I also really like the weather changes, though it did get a little hard to play at one point due to darkness

always-prepared 2021-10-06 05:11

Super fun gameplay. I enjoyed figuring out the cannon mechanics and the waves must have been fun to implement!

wolfhead 2021-10-06 18:44

i was successfully, nice game.. remembers me at good old times with BallerBurg but wit Ships ^^

bgdu67 2021-10-06 21:28

@alpharock6 Yes, we use the "wave" generation I described to get some points which we make our curve go through. We then "bake" it so as to obtain a classic 2D line which very closely approximates our curve and this is the line we use to build the polygons that represent the wave. We do not directly apply the displacement shader to the points we use to define the curve, but rather to the ones obtained by baking the curve built using this first set of points.

squeele 2021-10-07 21:05

Félicitations les gars, je peux pas noter mais taf super solide, bravo! Trop cool le taf sur les vagues et le gameplay est vraiment sympa ;)

ultrarat 2021-10-08 04:22

Nice entry. The weather system really makes it more interesting to look at and I kind of felt it made the seas choppier like it should but that was probably just the game progressing.

I do wish there were something a bit more attention drawing as I got lower on health. My death was a bit of a surprise as I wasn't watching the HUD.

( aaaarrrggh... A fine game matey, and other pirate phrases. )

wakobu 2021-10-08 05:06

@ultrarat Thanks for the feedback ! The weather actually determines the amplitude of the waves, it is not related to your progression :wink:

wakobu 2021-10-08 05:33

@alpharock6 @always-prepared I added a link to the code repository if you want to take a further look at the wave generation

concker-88 2021-10-08 11:16

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLIXrQfku9g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lqrigjRcGM

(déso j'étais obligé en lisant le titre)

wakobu 2021-10-08 11:19

@concker-88 Merci, t'es le premier à avoir fait le lien :heart:

shared 2021-10-08 19:11

Impressive game, fun mechanics. Had a good time !

potkirland 2021-10-08 20:26

fun little game i love skillshooting games ! it was a great advanture

wegpast 2021-10-08 20:36

ça c'est du bon pti jeu :) Bravo pour cette entrée les darons ! C'était fort sympathique à jouer, Arrr ! Bon le faite de pouvoir spammer sa mère le camembert les boulets rend l'aventure un peu facile, mais c'était tout de même super marrant. J'ai surtout aimé la progression visuel du jeu avec cette tempête sur la fin. ça ferait un bon jeu multijoueur au final...

Merci pour ce petit moment de piraterie !

guilloteam 2021-10-08 20:46

Un p'tit jeu bien sympathique ! La physique des tir est super chouette, j'ai passé un moment à essayer de tirer en l'air pour que ça me retombe dessus hahaha ! Est-ce qu'un partie des bruitages est fait à la bouche ?

Bravo !

arktas 2021-10-08 21:08

Really good idea to but some random function generator as a rail wave. Maybe it will be more immersive if you contextualize the deforamtion with the weather :). A good work, well done !

fluffygamedev 2021-10-08 21:39

Awesome idea! The gameplay is fun and the graphics are gorgeous. (PS: J'adore aussi le nom d'équipe ;))

wakobu 2021-10-08 21:45

Salut mon petit @guilloteam. Je me suis chargé de tous les bruitages. Sont faits à la bouche tous les sons des mouettes (sauf le grincement qui s'entend quand la mouette spawn; ça c'est mon lit)

wakobu 2021-10-08 21:46

@arktas the amplitude of waves is actually depending of the weather :wink:

graios 2021-10-08 21:50

@arktas Though it's not that noticeable if random f*cks with you

m0dsat 2021-10-08 22:00

Nice game. Really liked the music and sound. Quite addictive, but the difficulty is high... got to 9/25 and was reasonably happy with that :) Thanks for the game

funemaker 2021-10-09 00:20

I really like this! I really like the simple visual style combined with the fairly sophisticated (as far as I can tell) wave generation, weather patterns, etc. (We also have some boating in ours, but player is a horse!)

cirno 2021-10-09 02:33

The atmosphere of defeating all the enemy ships in the sea wave and storm is great. It's hard to avoid enemy bullets using acceleration or deceleration but it's good experience to repeat clicking and destroy enemy ships with tons of bullets.

2021-10-09 04:02

I feel that the quality of life features you added went a bit beyond what is in the spirit of the rules. I encourage uploading a version with just the bugfixes, and no QoL updates that you didn't intend in the original release.

bgdu67 2021-10-09 09:52

To anonymous (I guess you are not going to see this since I can't tag you on account of you being, well, anonymous).

Fair enough, we really should at the very least keep a link to the initial version and not just to the GOTY release on this page (not sure why we don't) and we'll make sure one is uploaded today (**edit:** that was just done, thanks @antbrl).

For transparency, here is a complete (I think) list of the post jam changes that are not straight up fixes : - goal decrease from 30 to 25 (balancing) - seagull hitbox tweaking (balancing) - enemy health bar display (qol) - random enemy aiming time (fluff) - "minor graphics and sound improvements" (qol, and tbh I don't know what these were, I think that the seagull volume was a bit too low initially and no idea as to the graphics part) - support for arrow keys (qol, less sure about that one being acceptable or not; to be clear, we did not add acceleration and deceleration post-jam, just some additional key bindings to these actions)

Anyways, the whole postjam updates part of the rules is not as strict as I think it should be. The fact that you are allowed to publish a postjam version during the grading period means that most people end up testing and grading your postjam version no matter what (assuming both jam and postjam are available).

antbrl 2021-10-09 12:02

The original version of the game with bugfixes only has been uploaded (v1.0-bugfixed). The web version is still v1.3.

graios 2021-10-09 12:34

The minor music issue I corrected was the "Colere De Neptune" intro part wasn't at the right volume when it started playing, so we had a first sound at the normal volume then the crescendo (from low to normal)

concker-88 2021-10-09 12:46

@wakobu Je me disais aussi qu'il y avait quand même peu de chance que ce soit une coïncidence. Maintenant, il faut rajouter un cheatcode qui remplace les bateaux ennemis par des têtes de Nicolas Sarkozy. Et à chaque tir, il sort une petite phrase genre "pour Audible", "double rations de frites" ou "quelle indignité!".

(Vous passeriez sans conteste meilleur jeu de la Jam, au moins dans mon cœur)

wakobu 2021-10-09 13:02

@concker-88 Casse toi pov' con pour le game over

concker-88 2021-10-09 13:11

@wakobu Les possibilités semblent infinies... :smirk:

remco 2021-10-10 13:39

I really like the music, which fits both the general atmosphere, which in turn fits the theme!

The waves felt good to sail over! Having played both the 'bugfix' version of the original Linux build and now (to check this) also the web-version ... I don't think the version I played on Linux actually contained (all?) of the bugfixes: I wasn't able to move backwards (zoom out) or forwards (zoom in) there, seemingly at all.

You can get pretty far by just rushing ahead and having a good spread with quick volleys, instead of carefully aiming :-)

P.S. With regards to the part of the discussion about post-jam uploads: For what it's worth, I'm one of the people that always does download the jam-version if available, and I appreciate both being around. As long as people provide a list of changes and (unless those changes are game-breaking bugs) there is a separate jam and 'continued development' version, I'm a happy camper. After all, sure, part of the responsibility is in the developers hands, but we have some responsibility as raters as well to pay due diligence if the developers have _clearly_ indicated what's what.

dob 2021-10-10 22:22

Very cool concept and game. I loved the visual style, and the gameplay was unique and interesting. I found it pretty hard to aim and shoot, but I think that's the challenge here. Music, sounds, font, and weather were all great, although I had a hard time seeing my cannon balls against the night sky.

wakobu 2021-10-11 05:54

@remco Thanks for the feedback and your comprehensive point of view :wink: My first jam was LD38, and I perfectly remember your game. I actually replayed it several times over the years :carrot:

remco 2021-10-11 06:59

@wakobu It's so nice to hear that someone remembers that game! :smile: While it wasn't the first I handed in (LD 32, 35 and 37 went before that), it was the first one that I felt was more or less 'finished' or at least didn't have some glaring problem with it, and the first one people seemed to actually want to _play_ beyond just the gimmick. I still remember it as one of my 'good ones' for those and other reasons. :rocket: I'm surprised it still runs properly for you ... I found out later that there was a bug in the code that's supposed to slow it down on faster machines.

inokentii-best 2021-10-11 18:07

Very fun game)

keith-wang 2021-10-13 03:25

A nice way to present the theme. Kinda difficult as well. I can see the trail of enemy bullets when they aim, but I can only see a short straight line when I aim... Might be easier if I get to see my bullet trail as well.

antbrl 2021-10-13 12:40

@keith-wang We thought knowing the exact destination of the cannon ball would make the game too easy. As there is little to no shoot cooldown, you can adjust your shot very quickly to balance the lack of trajectory hint. Maybe we should add an easy mode with this feature :)

vphyre 2021-10-18 03:29

Very fun game. It was a very interesting interpretation of the theme.

The graphics are simple but nice.

The sound is very good, both the music and the sound effects.

The gameplay is really fun and refined. it's cool trying to load the shot and hit the right angle to destroy the enemy ship.

Overall it's a cool game! Congratulations.

jin9310 2021-10-18 08:12

Really nice take on the theme and overall quite fun gameplay. At first it was bit harder for me to get the hang of the controls, but it can be handled pretty fast. Great job!

animawish 2021-10-20 03:40

nice game! love the style, the huge waves were really funny