vladcfg 2025-04-07 09:42
Not entirely sure what’s going on here, but overall, I enjoyed the game :)
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD57 → Heads Up
By quadtree
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 218 | 3.20 | 22 | |
| Fun | 192 | 3.10 | 22 | |
| Innovation | 92 | 3.57 | 22 | |
| Theme | 97 | 3.77 | 22 | |
| Graphics | 211 | 3.15 | 22 | |
| Audio | 160 | 3.18 | 21 | |
| Humor | 143 | 2.75 | 20 | |
| Mood | 152 | 3.37 | 22 |
Not entirely sure what’s going on here, but overall, I enjoyed the game :)
It's a cool idea for the game. I like the atmosphere of it and enjoy the song a lot! The idea for the fish chariot is funny and cool
I also thought the look was pretty nice, especially giving off the deep sea vibe. Honestly, my favorite is the main menu, it had me wishing the rest of the game had that nice blue fog :)
The controls are the main issue with this game. The idea of buoyancy control is neat for this type of thing. The problem is this hinge-like fish just moves up and down with not too much sense of control or reason. It becomes a liability where tight sections are more about managing this physics quirk instead of focusing on your buoyancy and horizontal movement. I think the main reason for this is the fish rotates around the player instead of vice versa.
Also there was a bit of trouble with the grabbing thing. Often it just wouldn't work on the kelp/sunfish. And it seems even though you can try to grab gems, you have to collide with them to pick them up.
I think an important feature to add is just some kind of buoyancy indicator. It's hard to tell what the max float/sink speed is, and sometimes it's even hard to tell if you're floating or sinking because of the momentum. Since it is a core feature, that kind of player feedback is important
There are also some performance issues, significant lag spikes when you load certain sections. Also when you die it's a big lag spike. Those are key areas to learn to optimize around.
All in all, this is a nice game with a very cool atmosphere. Definitely sells the theme.
Great background music, and I really like the controls once I got used to them. The 2.5D works really well for this. Fun little game and just the right length for a jam. Well done!
Like it, but i'd want more accurate player controller.
Cool game! It was interesting not having total control over the vulnerable bit. Well done!
Interesting concept, but I found the controls too hard. I sometimes found it hard to see which I was going, especially if there was no blue wall in sight. In that case it would be nice to see the background scrolling behind the player, indicating the player is going the other way.
I managed to finish the game! :smile: Even though it was not clear to me where/when the end of the level would be, so it always came as a surprise. :wink:
I like the ocean colors and the background music, although I think I would pick a different instrument for the melody, or at least I would make it a little less loud compared to the rest.
Overall, nice entry!
Fun game overall that matched the theme nicely. You had a lot of really interesting feature-rich gameplay that was well built out / explored.
I personally struggled quite a lot with the controls - was initially unsure of why I kept rising, until I realized it was my buoyancy I was controlling rather than my height (perhaps on me for not initially reading the description). Additionally, I found I would often ram into various corners and get oneshot (I think it's because I was getting juggled between collisions).
Cool stuff though, man. Looking forward to seeing what you make next time.
Maybe I'm just weird but I actually loved the player movement in this. It had a sort of derpy octodad/qwop-type thing going which made it hilarious without being too frustrating.
I think it would make more sense to allow the player to click "in a direction" rather than requiring the cursor to exactly line up with the hit target. It's difficult to click on a moving target, especially when camera movement, player movement, and mouse movement are all somewhat independent and the target (in the case of the enemies) is moving quickly. Clicking to grab/hit things felt very finicky.
I liked the music too! Something about that main melody really jumped out at me for some reason.
Nice game with QWOP-Vibes undersea.
I did like the atmospheric music and I didn´t mind the controls, but if I wanted to tweak the game even more, i would tweak the level design and/or the timer. Specifically the last two levels were a little bit more open, so that you could get lost in sea, but the timer kinda rushed you to find the exit. But we all had to finish the game in the given time.
So overall a really fine game !
Screenshot 2025-04-20 212220.png
Sounds need some work
Super fun game! Controlling the character was a bit difficult, but I feel like that was part of the charm.
A hard but also a fun little game.