Mediterranean Smuggling

cyt 2023-10-03 04:43

I played up to 2w! This story background weighed on me a bit in the beginning. After civil war started, the severe loss of control and overloading of the ship started to make me think about getting a regular ship to carry an extra person or two, as well as quickly finding those 200 worth of people to load them onto the ship.

Despite the simpler graphics, it does have things that should be there, such as the boat rocking to different degrees. The music was good too, I liked that!

woona 2023-10-03 06:34

I found a game a little bit too stressful for my taste. Depressing theme, sad music and very tight time constraints on each turn.

Also, when you leave some people behind on the shore, the next turn they multiply and get on all the ships, so you can't really auto-load people and have to click around a lot (to prevent them from multiplying).

Despite that, I think this is one of the most unique games thematically in the jam and I'm very glad I tried it! Thanks for sharing your work.

khaotom 2023-10-04 16:27

Interesting concept, especially after a certain event (I won't spoil here) happens. Also, after that I did run into an issue where I lost ships and could not buy anymore to replace them (nothing happened when I clicked buy).

jamesw 2023-10-04 16:29

Yeah I agree it's a bit stressful. Allowing multi-selection for people could help a lot IMO, it could be a square to select all people within the range. And I can see it's not well-balanced. It has a great potential to be a good strategy game. Keep updating it!

dennis-magnusson 2023-10-04 16:32

Props for making an actual serious game. Took a few turns until I figured out what was going on or what I was supposed to do, but once I did I enjoyed the experience. I feel like fact that the game is very unbalanced and unfair is accurate, given the situation it is based on.

james-laird 2023-10-04 16:44

Reminded me of Papers, Please in a good way; the game systems push me to overfill my boats and recreate the same tragedies that happen in real life.

pax-lefay 2023-10-04 16:49

Really difficult subject, it would have been easy to overstep, but I'd say this is handled as sensitively as it could have been. I wasn't able to buy more than 4 boats without allowing smaller boats to sink which... that might be a bit too heavy? Good job on navigating an absolute minefield and shipping a decent strategy game on it.

mango-malarkey 2023-10-05 17:24

Cool and unique concept and interesting take on the theme - well done! I think the game needs clearer win/lose conditions that are communicated to the player, but I think this game could be really interesting because of the mechanic of overfilling boats.

bloodyaugust 2023-10-05 18:53

10/10 would get investigated by Europol for my illegal smuggling ring again. In all seriousness, this is a heavy game, and while I wouldn't call it "fun", I think it conveys the gravity and hopelessness of a situation many real people have found themselves in. As a compo entry, it is fairly complete, with some good polish... but don't take it the wrong way when I say I wouldn't play it out in the wild. It's depressing. Nicely done, though.

jon-curtin 2023-10-06 00:37

A bit of a different take on the idea, kind of dark, but in a good way like papers please or this war of mine. Well done!

lincolnsalles 2023-10-06 01:12

I was enjoying it but suddenly the ships no longer emptied and were almost full to capacity, so they sank. I think it's the rescues, I don't know. So I no longer had much control over the situation. Simple interface. But initially I thought it was fun, after a while I no longer have control over anything, I thought.

kanagg 2023-10-07 11:36

Well executed - congrats on your first entry :) I would like an option to sell/upgrade a ship to fit more people. The style and music all contribute to this fitting depressing mood.

voidsay 2023-10-07 11:47

I don't think that it was your intention, but I cheered when the civil war started, cause I didn't have to drag the "customers" on board any longer. I got old man wrist and game play with lots of small distance clicking is no bueno for me.

Other bad lessons I've learned: I get paid no matter the outcome and sinking ships are business expenses.

I am not exactly sure why I lost. Either I clicked away the message too fast or there wasn't any, I just saw a game over. Did the EU finally get me? Was my 1/4 chance to die smuggling service not appealing any more? Can't tell, would have liked better feedback. I also don't think there was a way to get rid of the smaller boats in my fleet other than capsizing them on purpose.

noya 2023-10-07 11:59

Kudos to you for tackling a serious issue of our time. I think a well-done game can give the player an opportunity for reflection, and I certainly had two such moments with your game: First when I noticed that I only pick the highest paying people for the boat. Second, in the later game, when so many people got on a boat that it would surely sink, I put even more people on it just to cover the costs, knowingly sending them to their death. If those two things were intentional, hats off to you! The music gave the game a very fitting mood. The idea of the gameplay loop is fun, but some choices would go a long way to make me come back for another try (e.g. invest in "body guards" to keep people from entering the boats on their own vs invest in more boats to carry more people). All in all well done! 💜

rolly 2023-10-08 13:55

That's a pretty dark background story, but it's good that you decided to dedicate yourself to such a subject, that sadly fit the theme perfectly. I decided not to overthink it and see it as a management and optimization game (so picking the people who get me more money over the other ones), even though that feels terrible.

The UI was clear enough, even though I got tired of the drag and drop after a while. Careful though, the buttons should write "Send" and not "Sent". It got me confused at some point, as I was wondering why I could load people on boats that were already sent.

The music is nice, definitely adds to the darkness of the story. And Sfx made the game feel very consistent.

I got to a point where I had 4 large ships, so I couldn't really improve anymore. It would have been nice to have a "you win" end screen.

Good job on your game!