Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD57 → Steel Coffin
By chrisbeck
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 371 | 3.63 | 31 | |
| Fun | 491 | 3.31 | 31 | |
| Innovation | 217 | 3.63 | 31 | |
| Theme | 91 | 4.24 | 31 | |
| Graphics | 344 | 3.86 | 31 | |
| Audio | 286 | 3.55 | 31 | |
| Humor | 357 | 3.01 | 28 | |
| Mood | 247 | 3.87 | 31 |
One of my theme submissions was crew. Thank-you for the great crew game. Feedback: I found it a bit hard to see the crew quarters. I think it would have been helpful for the bottom right 'room status' to be in the same pattern as the actual rooms... although maybe that was by design to make the repair room more important?
@runningopenloop Thanks for playing! That’s great feedback regarding the visibility of the crew quarters and the room status layout. I'll definitely take that into account. I hadn't put any thought into the order/position of the room status UI, but laying it out in the same order as on the actual ship is a great idea. Thanks again for taking the time to share your thoughts!
Not easy for controls (I don't have qwerty...) but quite fun anyways ! And the texts and story are great ! Love this game.
Hey i really likes the game, a few things id. have to say are the controls (i am not on qwerty), also sometimes i found it hard to move the crew. The game might be a litle bit long so it fells repetitive but the graphics are really enjoyable and the mechanics is pretty cool so it was okay ! I succeeded on the second try so im happy :)
@lucasito Thank you for the feedback and kind words! I'm glad you enjoyed the little story and the game overall. I never thought about non-QWERTY keyboard layout when creating the game, I'll make sure to add the ability for custom keybinds in future jams. Really appreciate you sticking with it despite that! Out of interest, what keyboard layout are you using? :smile:
@celian Thanks for playing! Really happy to hear you enjoyed the game overall, especially the graphics, means a lot! I completely understand the challenges with the controls for non-QWERTY users, it's definitetly something I'll address in the next game. Great job on completing the game on your second try! I'm so glad you stuck with it and had fun. Thanks again for your feedback!
Really good games the tutorial is a BIG+ Incredible work Not much feedback on the sub's movements, so a shader on the water to show its movements would have been cool.
@redscipio Thank you so much for playing and the great feedback. Really glad you enjoyed the game, and it’s awesome to hear the tutorial was a highlight for you! In the past LD games the players have always felt a bit lost on what to do so it was always a priority to get it in.
Really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts!
I think my English level don't be capable to describe, how amazing that game is! You really cooked here.
Design is great, very into detailed. The controls are a little too hard
@juliocezar Thank you so much! I'm so happy you enjoyed the game, your English is great - you got your message across perfectly! 😊
Thanks again for playing and for the kind words!
@ayu Thank you so much for playing — I'm really glad you enjoyed the look and feel of the game! I hear you on the controls — they can be a bit tricky, especially during tense moments. That’s definitely something I'd be looking to refine and improve in future jams. Thanks again for the feedback, it really helps make future games better!
Wow, looks like some serious game. And another submarine one, I love like those. I can imagine how, after some work, it could become complicated submarine survival manager, with some RPG-elements, trading etc... Anyway, it's interesting as it is too. Tho I couldn't understand why I loose. I guess captain lost some hp, but idk why. I heard some alarm, but there was no visual effects of attacks, so idk how enemy attacks actually work.
Game's pretty neat, but I feel like you're trying to do a lot of mechanics at once. The whole maintenance and repair loop felt a bit too simple and too complicated at the same time. Feels like there is too much data on what is going to happen, but not exactly what it really means. Perhaps active repair instead of a "in this amount of time this thing will break" might have been more intuitive
Nice management game
Really great game, I think this is a solid base for a more fleshed-out game - impressive that you built all these system over the course of the jam. At first I felt a little bit overwhelmed by the tutorial, but in the end the gameplay loop was pretty straight-forward. Of course it became repetitive after some time, where one could add some random events or similar. Moving around the crew was a little tedious sometimes, because it just moved them to another room than I selected and sometimes didn't move at all, because you apparently had to hit the correct spots inside the rooms which were hard to find.
This was a refreshing take on a sims management game. I did have some difficulty seeing the different rooms. They were very dark and hard to decipher. Outside of that, really cool concept and art direction.
Really cool idea! You nailed the theme! The title is fun:) The music fits the atmosphere perfectly, and I really like the graphics. I almost made it to England! Great work!!
@sami822 Thank you so much for playing — really happy to hear you enjoyed the concept! From the start I thought that expanding it into a deeper survival sim with RPG and trading elements would be a great idea. Maybe something for the future!
Sorry to hear the cause of failure wasn’t clear during your run. There are 3 methods of losing, if the captain loses all of their health, if the sub hull percentage in the bottom right reaches 0%, or if the sub dives below 300 meters. I didn’t get time to add proper visual feedback for attacks during the jam unfortunately.
Really appreciate you sharing your thoughts!
@providence Thank you for the honest feedback — it really means a lot! With hindsight, I absolutely packed a lot into the core loop, and striking the right balance between depth and clarity was a challenge, especially within the jam timeframe. Looking back, I should have probably cut some features when the time pressure started to hit.
With the repair system, I wanted to give players a sense of looming pressure, but agree that it could feel both overly predictive and unclear at the same time. Moving toward a more active repair system where issues arise dynamically (rather than on timers) was the original idea but as the deadline started to approach, I had to settle for the timers.
Thanks again for playing and sharing your thoughts!
@pusheeneiro Thanks so much! I'm glad you enjoyed the game — it means a lot! 😊
@skosnowich Thank you so much for playing! I'm really glad the core gameplay loop clicked for you in the end, even if the tutorial felt a bit overwhelming at first. I originally wanted to have a short gameplay tutorial but as time moved on I had to settle for the text one which is never the best way to communicate the game to players.
You’re also spot on about the crew movement. You actually don't need to drag the crew into specific spots, but there are issues with the hitboxes that occur when the character is dragged over the border between rooms.
Really appreciate you taking the time to play and share your thoughts!
@kidabra Thank you so much for playing and for the kind words! Really glad you enjoyed the concept and art direction. FTL and Bomber Crew were the biggest inspirations for the art style and gameplay.
Totally understand the feedback on the room visibility. I wanted a moody, atmospheric vibe, but it may have tipped a little too far into "hard to read" at times.
Thanks again for your feedback!
@filgru Really glad you enjoyed the game! Thank you for playing and for the feedback!
@chrisbeck Trust me I made the same mistake with my jam too. I have like a whole room that I spent like 5 hours on the graphics/effects and design which in the end didn't get enough mechanics worked into it beside a lag button for the webversion xD
I hope you're joining in on october again too. That way we could compare between these projects and our next ones :D
Very cool idea. I liked the premise and the management of the systems. Had a little difficulty getting going with the repair timers and the hull damage. But once I realized 2 people were needed it made more sense. Very cool entry!
Great idea. I had some troubles understanding how to move the submarine, had to go to the description a couple of times until I understood that it was just the arrows and not the wasd. Had to play the tutorial twice to actually get the hang of it. I think it was a little long and it overcomplicated things. Got my submarine sunken once, didn't really understand how, but then I understood that once they got you, they got you.
I think the formula is nice, just needs some little tweakings here and there. I had 3 dudes still on the movement related chambers, and used the other 2 to repair everything once in a while (the one in the timers room and the one in the radar room, that help others go faster). Also I kept the submarine on the deepest part, and just decreased speed to 0 when the ping timer was near over. Maybe some mechanic that makes you go back up would have added to the experience. Also I didn't understand what the healing was for, I never got injured.* Some little bugs here and there. For example, if you remove the guy on the chamber that lets you sink, the sub will go up, and the background fishes will go up to the sky 😅
Overall I think it was good. Getting to the end was satisfying. It makes you feel like you really are inside a sub! Screenshot 2025-04-11 005035.jpg
Mechanics is pretty cool
one of the most in-depth games I have played so far this jam!
Unfortunately, the run where I finally knew what exactly I was doing had the sub going a lot slower for some reason and ended with the game freezing on me.
First of all - great details! Visuals are great. Game play is a little bit difficult to understand natively.