FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD50 → Desert Oasis

Desert Oasis

By janku

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall10643.2243
Fun13362.4742
Innovation4523.5342
Theme6913.6542
Graphics8803.4143
Humor6502.9843
Mood4793.6843

Comments

kason-xiv 2022-04-05 01:39

Quite confusing :P love the run animation though

devparty 2022-04-05 01:41

Fun game! It took me a bit to understand what was going on, but after a while I started to really want to keep these little guys alive. Overall 8/10 game pretty fun!

thulyo-araujo 2022-04-05 01:41

It's so cool

ikilledkenny121 2022-04-05 01:51

Love the animations

spladug 2022-04-05 01:58

The creatures are adorable. I wasn't quite sure what to do for a while. I love the art style and vibe.

mooptychunk 2022-04-05 02:00

I love the blue creatures. I am fascinated and entranced.

joscco 2022-04-05 10:25

I'm always impressed when people do so much 3D animations in their jam games. Really cool! Music has a nice galactic vibe too.

Had a bit of trouble understanding the mechanics though

kaleria 2022-04-05 10:35

SO meditative and lovely! The rush animation is everything :D

janku 2022-04-05 10:38

Thank You all for playing :) Just so you know - Im reading and appreciate all the comments. I know the game is confusing at first, I had to pick my battles, I figured after a minute in the game people will get basic understanding of it, but just for clearing things up I also added some instructions to page. Again, thank You very much for all the comments and useful feedback :)

fnessa 2022-04-05 13:08

Cool game. I like how few controls there are. I feel like the camera controls could have been a bit better. Another idea might be to have the Blups differently colored, so its easier to distinguish them.

andyzyz 2022-04-05 14:46

Great idea. The music is warm and relaxing too. Also the hand paint tutorial is cute.

hechi 2022-04-05 16:58

I really like the atmosfere of this game. Great work.

otterfaelure 2022-04-05 17:40

Oh gosh the sound when one of the little ones gets eaten. x.x This game has such a nice atmosphere until the predator wants to destroy you. I really liked the music and the concept is lovely but also horrifying. Well done.

allas 2022-04-05 20:24

Can't say if there is any gameplay other than trying to rush the little dude when he's being attacked, it is however very relaxing and interesting watching them go about their business.

gandelianna 2022-04-05 21:30

Oh, poor tiny creature, I did everything to keep you alive...

Graphic and sound are relaxing. It's great!

lvl99chicken 2022-04-06 02:08

Love the creatures and environment! The gameplay is pretty simple but the atmosphere is great. I think flat lighting could have worked well here too or more ambient light because they have pretty harsh shadows. Overall good game! Had fun.

ankea 2022-04-06 15:42

Like the idea. Its like casual death game xD

jani-brezavscek 2022-04-06 17:52

Awesome! Nice atmosphere, feels like something I would play many years ago!

re-lo 2022-04-06 20:56

I supose it is for the looks, but this reminded me of the good old times of spore :'c

For me, the game lacks gameplay, is more like an idle game. I felt like runing didn't do much of a diference in terms of avoiding being eaten by the preadator.

Despite this and the gruesomeness of the fact that his fate is either starve or being eaten, the game felt pretty peaceful, and I enjoyed the looks, the music and seen the creatures mind their own bisness roaming around.

And the spore feels... :'c

PS: I don't know if it is a bug or a feature, but the predator eats already death creatures numerous times, instead of the ones that are still alive.

e1m1 2022-04-06 23:06

While I was a little confused by the gameplay, I think the atmosphere more than makes up for it. It is surreal, has nice, simple music, and feels like a world you can relax in. I would like to see how you could develop the world, because I felt some emotions for these little blue critters. I hope they aren't alone in this world! They have good character animations and I think you did a good job at generating some empathic emotions in me.

angiemon 2022-04-07 12:49

hehe. hehe.jpg

Also, look at my dude's chilling up that lion king hill after I successfully chased them away from those hungry damn lizards!

:) Fun and interesting concept, like you're god and taking care of an aquarium (which basically would be earth ;D)

I have to say I didn't get it at first with switching the views (although it says so in your description haha) But it was fun! A minimao would have been nice :D to see those nasty ***** coming :b

btw a little tip for you because those directional light shadows can get quite dark and ain't nobody got time for light baking: watch a tutorial about PostProcessing effects :) Theyre really easy to set up (especially if you're using the universial render pipeline) and basically put a filter over the finished image (like in after effects or something) you can easily polish every game there, and most importantly, brighten up dark areas very quickly without having to worry about light stuff too much :)

good job on completing your game <3

ETA: almost forgot: those feet were FIRE! haha. very fabulously floppy!

ghost-wave 2022-04-09 10:35

Love the vibe, thought I'm not sure I understood the game... It felt like pressing R didn't do anything.

Still I must commend you because the whole atmosphere is really well done : 5/5 for mood.

animalx 2022-04-09 10:41

I too want to spend my day roaming around, looking at interesting rocks and eating fruit now. Loved the atmosphere. A bit confusing at the start, but once I got the hang of it it was quite fun! Hits the theme right on too, well done!

zombiebust3r 2022-04-09 13:53

Good vibes and interesting concept, the animations were funny and well done. Definitely needs some work gameplay-wise. Maybe change the controls to a point and click instead of using buttons. Still, nice entry for the jam.

skleembof 2022-04-11 15:57

Very unique atmosphere, reminded me a little bit of the old Creatures games. The graphics are really charming, very janky animations but in a good way that fit the overall tone of the game, and the background music really adds to the mystery of the world.

The gameplay could use some work though because there really isn't much you can do to control the outcome. It's more of a starvation simulator than a game. I think a big part of the problem is the camera controls being too restrictive. You should be able to click on a Blurp to snap the camera to it. That would make it easier to get it away from the predator when its hungry.

You could also add some more commands besides just rush. Stay with the hands off approach but include commands that you could suggest to the Blurp that it might or might not follow. Like if the predator is close and hungry you could suggest that it hide, and if it listens to you, it would run to the nearest hiding spot. Or suggest that it sit down to rest or sleep so that it can recover some energy bar or other resource beyond just hunger.

Obviously this is a very complex game to develop in 72 hours and you did a great job putting something as unique as this together. I don't think there's another game of the thousands in this jam that is similar

japes 2022-04-12 10:11

Interesting concept, I've tried (and seen other try) to make an "ecosystem" type game and it often fails, this one does much better :)

Presentation is great, the graphics/animation are very good and the sound adds mood without getting annoying/repetitive.

I did feel like I didn't have too much agency in the game, it was more a chilled sandbox experience, like watching an aquarium or something. But overall not a bad experience :)

wfmg 2022-04-12 14:39

The Blubs are very cute and it really feels like an alien planet, but the interaction is a bit diffuse. It took me a while to figure out they're on predetermined paths and will go to eat eventually. It's also very hard to keep track of the predators. There should be a way to switch between each blub/wide view directly instead of just cycling through them. Very innovative game.

zachsbutt 2022-04-12 15:57

i really liked the art style and the atmosphere! there wasn't much in terms of gameplay, but i appreciate the chill pace this game offers. i mostly just felt like an on-looker. i ended up just leaving this on in the background, checking up on the blups every once and a while.

i would say that the pure black text could be a little hard to read at times, but aside from that the game was pretty clear.

arttu-halonen 2022-04-12 16:08

Fun idea and cute creatures! Especially nice work on the animations! It took me a while to understand what the game was about, and then the game seemed to go on forever with the two last creatures surviving, leaving me somewhat confused. A really unique concept, keep it up!

jonah-srg 2022-04-12 16:48

What an ambitious simulation for the compo. The art and animation here is really compelling, these little blue guys seem totally oblivious to the danger in their world, but you can't help but feel obligated to guide them to safety. Their careless trot about this wasteland puts you at ease until the dino hungers. I want to critique the slowness of the camera movement and harsh fixed angles as they make it quite challenging to rush forward the Blups in imminent danger, however there's a perfect cruelness to it. It's lack of control makes the game much less of a God sim and much more of a locked-box terrarium in which the player's influence is purposefully contorted. This employ of the theme is one of my favorites so far, the inevitability of natural selection running its course in plain sight.

I think I have run into a bug in which the dino is able to eat and restore its hunger level where a previous Blup had died. Perhaps their extinction can indeed be delayed by a sacrificial offering...

cdunham 2022-04-12 19:50

Nice little simulation game. Goes a bit slow, would be nice to fast forward through some of the parts so the player isn't waiting for things to happen. Having more interactivity with the creatures would be nice too. Overall a neat game though

caudatecoder 2022-04-14 08:22

A very meditative game! It's like watching an animal tv show on an alien plant. It's quite easy and gets repetetive after a while so after about 15 minutes I felt like there's not much more to this game. Also I believe there's a bug that lets the predator to eat a blup that was already eaten hence prolonging the game.

But overall a really innovative and unexpected take on the theme :heart:

I was streaming my playthrough of your game. Here's a recording in case you'd like to see it https://youtu.be/P3HI-2edlag