pretendcoding 2025-04-08 02:20
I would have loved slowly building a deck; I feel like it would be impossible to reach the end of the whale when the cards reset each run. I like the concept.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD57 → Space Whale Veterinarian🐳🌑
By mega-marlon
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 544 | 3.40 | 23 | |
| Fun | 563 | 3.19 | 23 | |
| Innovation | 489 | 3.15 | 24 | |
| Theme | 308 | 3.88 | 24 | |
| Graphics | 611 | 3.27 | 24 | |
| Audio | 1 | |||
| Humor | 304 | 3.15 | 22 | |
| Mood | 682 | 3.14 | 23 |
I would have loved slowly building a deck; I feel like it would be impossible to reach the end of the whale when the cards reset each run. I like the concept.
@pretendcoding Yeah, it's tricky. I was hoping for more of a slow game where the more cards you get it makes you a little more money each time when your deck resets. Thanks for the feedback!
Nice idea ! My anxiety level increased through out my run as a whale belly is a bit claustrophobic for me. Well done !
The idea is pretty simple, but I really liked it! It makes me want to play it longer
nice card animations, why use the d and k key, htey are so far apart. :o also are they set correctly for some reason it always animates the other card or am i seeing things?
@letmebeme Thanks! Yeah, they are animated correctly, the resource earning anim is more prominent though, so it looks like they aren't. They would work better swapped around, you're right! Thanks for checking it out :)
@anekich Thanks for giving it a go!
I liked how many different mechanics there are in the game and how they interact with each other. I think the game is more on a difficult side though, it's quite difficult to get enough money to get good cards and the oxygen resource is very limited.
I also love how weird the game is thematically. 😅 Great job!
@woona Thanks! Yeah, it's one of those classic last minute balancing acts. It seems if you can get either of the cards that give you Oxygen then you can start ramping up resources fast. Thanks for playing!
Great game! The different illustrations are awesome :smile:. The gameplay loop is nice and it's easy to get carried away and do several runs in a row. The only point I can see it's the fading text after loosing a run is a little bit to slow and having a way to skip to quicker to access the shop could be great. Overall, it's a really nice game ! Congrats !
I really like the wonderfully weird lore. so many questions about this world you've crafted :joy: Nicely done.
@ezard94 Thanks for that feedback, I can see the fading text getting in the way after a while especially cause it always says the same thing. I'm glad you got multiple runs in. Thanks for playing!
@khaotom Thanks! Yeah, the world is kinda weird. Not even sure why travelling through a space whale is what heals it, but supposedly that's how it works, someone told me.
I had a blast playing and figuring out the game rules. I found the theming and the core loop interesting and engaging. I think the simplicity of the controls lends itself well for a mobile platform -- with replacing D/K with swipe left/swipe right.
It took me a bit of time to realize that you only get the top-of-card resource bonus for the card you don’t pick. I think it would be more intuitive to the player if you swapped the display those top bonuses dynamically. With the swap in place, the player would get both the top and the bottom on each card, plues the cards would be easier to read and quickly evaluate/compare the two choices.
I liked the idea of limiting the number of turns with oxygen, and challenging the player to figure out a way of getting further. However, I found the oxygen cards to be too strong. After buying 2 of them in a row (+2 and +3) I essentially fully broke the run. I will admit that I was a bit upset that I didn’t get to see the score breakdown when I won, as I tried to maximize the score over distance.
All in all, I think this is a really nice starting point for a constrained deckbuilder. I hope you continue working on it, or at least extend the idea a bit for a post jam update! I love to see more content and mechanics, something like: environment hazards, enemies, suit improvement cards, weapon/tool cards..
@suvi Thanks for the detailed feedback! Yeah if you can spam the Oxygen in gets you through fairly easily. I didn't occur to me at all that the score doesn't appear upon winning which must have been real annoying so thanks for pointing that out! The dynamic swapping would have been far more intuitive as well. Maybe some post jam updates for the future. Insightful stuff thanks!
I agree with previous comments - there are some good points there. In particular, I found it confusing to understand whether I get the resource bonus when I pick the card or when I discard it - just based on the graphical presentation (i.e. if the player should pick one of the cards, then first they should eyeball the card description and only then resource equivalent - it's like the cost of cards in say, Hearthstone: it IS on the upper part of the card, but not centered and quite smaller). With those graphical tweaks and some balance considerations, there's a way for the title to grow into something addictive. I think in overall it's a pretty solid idea, and the take on theme feels pretty unique. Good job!
@mega-marlon Looking for forward to the post-jam update! :grin:
I made it to the bottom!!! Please add more post LD I had so much fun playing. Add music as well please. Great game :)
nice game mate :).
@eugenik Thanks for the compliment!
@jamesgames1000 WOOOOOO! That's so cool to hear! Thanks for the kinda words and I'm glad you enjoyed it :)
@marudziik I appreciate the feedback, I def agree that the resource number is distractingly large where it's currently placed on the cards. UI is what always trips me up in the LDJ haha. Thanks for checking it out!
Very cool game idea, I had fun playing. Also cool animations and cool mechanics in the game, way to go))))
@crozzy Thanks for checking it out!
Oxygen cards are LIFE. Oxygen all day. Nice game :)
@jern Give me that Oxygen!!!!!! Thanks for playing!
:) *whale kiss noises*