julienlussiez 2026-04-20 12:15
I liked the mood and the visuals!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD59 → The Hunt for Red April
By xedur
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 181 | 3.91 | 25 | |
| Fun | 262 | 3.63 | 25 | |
| Innovation | 124 | 3.87 | 25 | |
| Theme | 102 | 4.28 | 25 | |
| Graphics | 347 | 3.89 | 26 | |
| Humor | 1.91 | 8 | ||
| Mood | 127 | 4.15 | 25 |
I liked the mood and the visuals!
Looks great and the concept is really fun, although I did struggle with the feel of the controls quite a bit. Great entry though.
Love the vibe. The visuals are beautiful. I found the movement controls strangs, I think a forward throttle and steering would have been more intuative, but thats a small issue. Nice work!
Thank you all for your feedback!
@indigowolf, @sam-horner a few players have voiced feedback about the controls, so given that I still had almost 10 hours left before JAM submissions, I went ahead and updated the game to use tank controls. I think that's the better control scheme after all.
@xedur Came back to play now you changed the controls. So much better, could definitely see myself playing a fleshed out version of this.
Really nice graphics and concept! Super immersive. The submarine did feel a little bit slow though compared to the enemy ships. Overall nice work!
This was super cool. Made me remember Silent Service for the NES. I finally sunk the carrier, but I feel I just got lucky with the spawn. But it was like my 20th attempt!! It was very hard. The enemy was really good at finding me, and once they did, I never got them off my back, and they didn't care about the obstacles :D Sometimes I feel like the sonar didn't go off when I used it? Or it didn't work for obstacles? I collided once because of this. Seems to be something up with the green flashing monitor effect also, after playing a while it became very intense. Other than that - very solid entry! Enjoyed it a lot
Thanks for the feedback everyone!
@james-7777 That's by design to make the game a bit more challenging. Submarines are also quite a bit slower in real life than patrol boats and destroyers.
@notime4games The sonar should always work, but it has a cooldown (visible in the lower right corner). The enemy ships are on the surface and sail over the obstacles. I figured it'd be easier that way and make the game a bit more difficult (as well as easier to program the AI. :sweat_smile:).
Very thematic and immersive! Also challenging in a good way, had to go for quite a few tries before finally sinking the Red April, but it was never frustrating, only motivating me to get better (and maybe a bit luckier with the map placements, haha).
I want this in fullscreen :(
Years ago, i tried making a platformer with a similar concept of echolocation/blindness/alerting enemies. It was terrible and half assed, literally the worst game i have ever made. So, seeing you execute that concept well is weirdly therapeutic.
I found myself retrying an absurd amount of times, despite being miserably obliterated. Every death has a reason and feels fair. Navigating blindly is high risk and high reward. Game gud.
Really cool atmosphere! I don't quite have the skills to sink the Red April, but quite pleased with myself for at least managing to land one hit on it :smile:
very cool concept! Good job
Cool graphics!
I really really REALLY tried but I find the game too difficult :(
The art, sounds and atmosphere are great though, and I really love the whole concept! It's quite tense trying to balance pinging to see your environment with sneaking through and avoiding the other subs. It's also a little frustrating that they can go right through obstacles.
I would LOVE to see a polished and fleshed out version of this though, the core gameplay is awesome
Really liked the idea and it's fun to play, just wish there was a difficulty setting. The sounds are very good and controls are smooth. Fits so well with the theme and like the title too! :)
Aaah I was wondering when I'd see one like ours!! ^_^ I quickly forgot which direction I was told to go in at the start so a reminder of that might be helpful. I worked it out, but initially had the same problem I ran into on ours where the camera follow makes it hard to tell if you're moving or not - a bit of easing on the follow sorts that out nicely though.
And of course I highly approve of the use of the theme XD
Aiming felt a little unwieldly, but I enjoyed the concept! I liked the thrill of blindly navigating an area and waiting for foreign signals.
The game has a nice design, but I still haven't figured out what the enemy torpedoes are. The turn for aiming is slow, which makes the enemy ships have time to sail away
This is brilliant, but also hard asf, I cannot do what I think in my mind, but I don't think that is game's issue, it is well made, good, but just hard. I can imagine the amount of tension and fun it offers if beat them all, but I just can't
We used a similar idea for our game, pretty good but you really need to try hard!
@shernik they don't have torpedoes. The enemy destroyers and patrol boats have depth charges.
This is the most atmospheric entry that I have seen so far! Great job on the feeling of the submarine hunt!! The ref to the *Red October* I also very much like :).
It's a truly immersive game!!! Now, I wish the field was *less* busy, or that all submarines (yes, I thought all were submarines) would be... slower. Why? Because that would make dying a bit harder, which is very easy right now. It seems to me a problem of balancing. Another way to balance this would be to make cavities larger. Oooor... also add a minimap which holds the last-indicated position of anything detected (mostly ships but could work for terrain).
I died 7 times, some of them quickly, and TBH it's a bit hard to try 8th time, regardless of the great *mood*! I also thoughts those are other submarines, *not* boats above water. Those depth charges... aargggh got busted more than a few times :D . Sometimes less is more.
Thanks for the entry! :) I love it anyways!
Saw a screenshot of this on the blog and definitely had to try it! Love the minimal, arcade-y aesthetic which you really nailed. The sonar and depth charges vfx and sounds are great too. Just enough to sell the idea. Also, the title is a great reference to the classic Sean Connery film -- love it.
Game design is very solid in my opinion! However as others have noted, the game is quite difficult. Here are some possible improvements one could make to make it a bit more smooth for the player and give them a fighting chance: - Perhaps make the depth charges from enemy ships less accurate, at least at first. Maybe their accuracy increases slowly over number of sonar pings the player produces? - Could increase the armor / health of the player sub a bit, to allow them to take several hits before mission failed. - Similarly, could allow bumping off of terrain and taking damage rather than instant death, similar to above.
Overall, the retro vibe is really great and you have a solid design here. In my opinion, with a little bit more "grace" toward the player, the user experience could be taken to the next level. Congrats on a great entry!
loved it! i found it quite compelling to try again and again, despite the difficulty. i agree that a bit more grace through lives or hull health would add a lot to the experience as i did eventually give up on trying to sink the carrier.
Really immersive atmosphere! I tried weighing down my spacebar to keep the sonar active for better sight, but it just made me a target and I died faster :) The visual style gave me feeling for those old DVD games. I didn't manage to sink the carrier, but I had a blast playing.
The sonar, the scanline-monitor, the darkness and glow of targets--you nailed the submarine hunt. I love how everything looks and sounds.
Many submariners were sent against the Red April, and many submariners perished in the depths. This is a hard game. The enemy is overwhelming. I think the physical obstacles that the enemy could move through really made it hard, because it forced the player to ping often and draw down the horde.