dominic-graziano 2025-04-08 17:54
super cute! took me a min to figure out the controls but once I did it was easy to play and really straightforward. artwork is super cute :)
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD57 → Captain Death
By sarah and frozenfire92
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 268 | 3.75 | 24 | |
| Fun | 324 | 3.54 | 24 | |
| Innovation | 177 | 3.75 | 24 | |
| Theme | 282 | 3.93 | 24 | |
| Graphics | 234 | 4.06 | 24 | |
| Audio | 1 | |||
| Humor | 204 | 3.45 | 23 | |
| Mood | 275 | 3.83 | 23 |
super cute! took me a min to figure out the controls but once I did it was easy to play and really straightforward. artwork is super cute :)
-It took me 10 minutes to figure out how to play this game. -When the number of segments is upgraded, the compasses begin to block the screen, so you have to choose directions almost at random.
But it's quite an exciting and enjoyable game. Good job
Oh, I didn't realise at first that you actually have to press on wheels to select the angle!
Very cool concept and the quality is amazing. Really just a minor gripe with tips and tutorial about controls. Wonderful in everything else, always a joy to review your LD games.
Took me quite some effort to understand how to play even with the lengthy tutorial which is a shame cause the game looks cute! Not very clear at first that you have to click inside of the angle wheel to confirm your toss. Also I feel like you cannot really get any fish without upgrading first (seems a little counter-intuitive). Music is chillin'
A bit confusing at first but it ends up being fun! Would be nice to have some kind of loose condition.
I had some difficulty figuring out the controls at first and was unsure why my lines were really short until I realized there were upgrades for that. I really like the art and enjoyed the game mechanic once I figured out how it all worked. I thought the idea of having death go on a fishing trip quite hilarious so kudos for that too. And the fine print at the beginning ... lol
What a cute and pollished game! Great fun! I admit, it took me a while to figure out how the controls work, but once it snapped, it got into a great package and fun experience! Once you upgrade a bunch of times and reel a lot of fish in, it takes quite a while until you can cast the next line, so a HUMBLE MASTER ANGLER like myself has to watch their catch turn into gold stars quite a long time.
Also it would be nice to see a preview of where the hookshot would go, since it's a bit difficult to estimage with the length and segment count changing every cast.
But that's just me, suffering from success because of my overwhelming skill at the game.
sorry, i didn't figure out how to get past "how to play" -dialog...
Needing to have the mouse on the wheel in order to select the angle was not as intuitive as I had hoped for but fun game once I figured that out!
I liked it! I struggled like the others at the beginning, but once I figured out the controls, the game became fun. I also think the initial line length could be a bit longer, or maybe having more fish near the water surface, that would help players get a better feel for the controls.
I really liked the art, and I loved the little secrets like the fog and the hidden star (I got it!). It was cool to find out.
When I had multiple segments, I sometimes felt like I didn't want to set the directions for all of them, but it was manageable by just clicking any random spot for the others.
Overall, it's a fun game with cute details and chill background music. Good work!
Neat! Took me a minute to figure out why my cast was so short, didn't realize that you're basically expected to immediately buy an upgrade or just get lucky with a fish being close to the surface. It also wasn't clear why my line would sometimes turn red and retract, I'm assuming it was due to hitting some obstacles but then it's not clear which ones are okay to hit and which aren't (not sure on that one)? And as someone else mentioned, once you get a bunch of upgrades it takes too long for the star animation to finish before you can throw your line again, especially since your actual star count doesn't go up during this animation so you just kinda sit there and watch. Overall though, this is a really neat idea. I like the angle mechanic, it's a creative twist on fishing and can easily lend itself to some fun puzzles where you have to navigate down. Cute game, death is on vacation and they go fishing and honestly, that's a vibe.
Fun, cute, great mechanic, great job! First fishing game I actually like!
The intro itself was already great before I even started playing!
I was _really_ confused at the controls. When I was casting my line, I thought it was showing me a preview of the direction the line was going to be cast. By accident, I hit a fish, and then it clicked. Perhaps if you included a GIF of that in your description and/or itch page, it would be a little easier to parse than the text instructions.
Once I figured out that I could catch multiple fish at one time, I spent more time than I should trying to get a huge chain of fish in one cast. Making a huge zig-zag shape with 10 segments, and then scoring tons of points after reeling it in felt really nice. Although the shark was my proudest catch, the swordfish was my favorite design!
Art-wise, the cool icy color palette was super pleasant, and the contrast-y orange sky above is a nice touch.
The cherry on top was all the Mario references as treasures! I have a feeling you'll enjoy my game - check it out if you get a chance!
Overall, great work!
(Also I didn't know that I could win at vacation, but I'm here for it!) Screenshot from 2025-04-10 19-03-13.png
I think I've earned a vacation! :D
A very relaxing game. It started to get slow after I started filling the boat.
Some were hard to find, but nothing that patience can't solve.
Simple and beautiful art. The compendium is charming in itself.
Congratulations!2.png
At first, I felt a little lost... but once you understand how the compasses work and start chaining a lot of them, it becomes pure joy. The atmosphere is very pleasant (graphics and music). Great, for this little gem of gameplay.InfinitelySarah.CaptainDeath.png
Loved the vibe in this! The graphics are so cute and pleasing. Also really liked discovering the many nice little details, like the sword fish and the fact that death wears the crown when you've fished it up. The game mechanics were innovative and the hookshot system got more and more crazy as you upgraded (in a good way).
Great music, artwork and mood! Nice job!.
Relaxing and chill game, nice artworks and music, lags a little when playing for too long but still playable, as I finished it. LD#57 Captain Death.png Well done and good job!
Like many have already said it took me quite a while to figure out how to actually you the hook angle mechanic. While it is very unique and innovative I think the implementation is just a touch off. I totally get the idea of having to plan out the route your hook needs to go. However as you upgrade the length of each section the work you just put in to plan a path based on the old length just goes out the window and you have to experiment again, and repeat this every time you make that upgrade. The more sections of line you buy the more the screen is covered up in all of the compasses, further obscuring the players ability to plan their route. I think one possible solution to this could be to have the player choose the angle after each individual section of line. So you cast the line, it travels down and then at the end of that section another compass would appear and you would choose your next shot angle. If you want to keep the planning a route aspect I think I would simplify the upgrades to only number of segments and somehow make the angle selection of all the segments less obtrusive on screen. Other than that all the art was suuuuuper cute and as a whole it all looked very cohesive. Overall well done for coming with a very unique take on a fishing game, great job!
@dominic-graziano @friend-pirozhok @nicekot @frag-machine @slyp @recursor @tosmaster @tero-pulkkinen @leo115 @pabloa31 @vary @katastudios @andrewkennedy @euler-moises @bismark @vidarn @eugenik @lereveur @rhoka
Thanks for trying out the game everyone! Sorry it took so long to get back to rating all of your games and giving more feedback. I've been sick since mid jam and I wasn't feeling well enough to play games the last few weeks <3
As a lot of you said, the UI was a struggle and I know it is. We really weren't sure how best to arrange the compasses on screen, I really only tested it out with 3-6, so I didn't realize the screen was so full with 6+ until TOO LATE to change the design really. I meant to go back and change it so that you could click ANYWHERE on the screen instead of just in the compass, but I forgot haha! But the compass issues are ALL on me haha (I'm not the best at UI).
As for the difficulty of planning your shots, the idea was kind of you would make a shot, and then on your way down take note of which way you should go next time and adjust your angles accordingly. You can still see your previous angles while you're picking new ones, so that was meant to help. I specifically wanted the player to have to choose all the angles FIRST rather than at each stage, because that is really most of the challenge of the game. Although a cute little angle chooser at each step could be really nice!
The overall theme of the game was meant to be a bit silly and 'dystopian' in that the company sends you to a vacation but the fine print says "bring your own hook." And then my idea was that I could either start the player with a few upgrades, or just have the game start with 50 stars so that the player can decide how they start with the initial upgrades. It's virtually impossible to catch a fish without an upgrade, that's actually intentional haha. Death is the one who took such a short hook on vacation, you should be upset at Death!
I was so focused on the art this jam that a few other things didn't get as much attention as I would have liked. Like the rocks that make your hook retract, if you look closely, any rocks that the fish swim BEHIND, will break your hook. They are a slightly different colour, but I meant to go back and add a bright red outline when you hit a rock, I just forgot (again). The castle in the bottom right, also breaks the hook.
I didn't realize there was a bug relating to the fish showing the +Stars. I think the star count went up DURING the hook retracting, but it was meant to go up during the fish animations at the end! So I can see how that would be less satisfying to see, my bad lull
I had hoped to get more refinement into the hook 'Upgrades' but ultimately decided to go with it being a bit more arbitrary, and the changes meant you had to be careful about upgrading and re-teach yourself how to fish sometimes. That was all actually intentional game design, sometimes players will just upgrade willy nilly, without putting much thought into it, and I was trying to figure out a way to make them think about it more.
Overall, thanks so much for all the feedback! <3