avi 2026-10-20 00:43 ♥ 2
I like the idea of everyone in the town pitching in to build an airship!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD60 → Nimkip and the Quest to Build an Airship
By t-c and jackofcups
| Percentile | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | LD60 | Ever | |
| Overall | 32 | |||||
| Fun | 32 | |||||
| Innovation | 33 | |||||
| Theme | 33 | |||||
| Graphics | 32 | |||||
| Audio | 31 | |||||
| Humor | 29 | |||||
| Mood | 32 | |||||
I like the idea of everyone in the town pitching in to build an airship!
solid progression. not very playable in the small embed version though, have to make it a little bigger or full screen by default. Nimkip sounds are great. โ
Nice graphics and relaxing music. But there are some problems with the interface: Looks like some parts on the left and right side are cut off, and when a figure is at the bottom end of the card, the search icon is no clickable anymore. Also since you move most of the time, maybe good idea to implement a shortcut for it, like right click on the map after selecting the figure. bugs.jpg
@avi Thanks! It was fun to put the systems together and come up with something cohesive. Thanks for playing!
@mocker Is there a way to full screen by default with webgl hosted games? I never knew you could do that. Agreed that the base resolution is pretty small to play on standard sized monitors. Game's definitely not easily playable that small. The sound effects made it in the game in the very last hour! ๐ I'm glad they turned out well.
@grateful-tomato Is this fullscreen? I keep having this issue where everything works fine on my browser, yet even @jackofcups has screen scaling issues where things go offscreen. I... don't quite know how to fix it. I tried hard setting the resolution in Unity, in the game's build settings, and on Itch, but it doesn't seem to cooperate. I'll keep looking into solutions for it. Also, you can scroll the camera by using WASD or the arrow keys, that will help you finish the game and get past issues with actions going off screen. DEFINITELY agree on the move part being more tedious than it has to be, and I like your suggestion. Thanks for playing!
Yes, was fullscreen. But looks also a bit cropped in window mode. Haven't done much for a long time with Unity, but I think there are different scale options. Looks like currently it is configured to scale proprotionally but so that either width or height fills the viewport and the rest gets cropped. I think there is also a proportionally scale option which allows to scale it so that if it doesn't fit, black borders are added. And then there should be a layout manager option to place the GUI elements at the viewport edges, independent of the size of it. bug2.jpg
I like the Nimkip. The controls were natural to figure out. After 7 days or so, the hourglass would spin but the day would not end, the Nimkip population stayed exhausted. Double checking, have you tried on Itch, under Embed Options, Frame Options, enabling Full Screen Button?
Great job on this project! The visual style and audio fit together really nicely, creating an awesome vibe. Super impressive execution within the jam deadline! Left my ratings! Feel free to check out our cat bomb-crafting game when you have time. You can try the updated alternative version I put together (fixed mechanics + working PC): https://naiper.itch.io/meow-bomb-by-naiper
Would love to hear your thoughts!
@chomby Whoops, in going crazy trying to figure out the camera nonsense, I had turned the fullscreen option off on the itch page on accident. It is reenabled now. Sorry about that. Also dang, I thought I fixed that issue with the day not ending... It doesn't happen too often but has a small random chance of happening.
It looks like the full-screen button isn't there on the itch page right now, so I haven't had a chance to play yet, but I may have a (long-winded) answer to your aspect ratio issues depending on how your UI is set up. Basically, Unity will always scale your game to fit your monitor's full height and width of the screen is purely dependent on the aspect ratio of the screen the game is running on. If (as an extreme example) you have an ultrawide monitor and your friend has a 4:3 CRT, your game might look fine on your screen, but the left/right sides might be cropped like crazy on your friend's screen.
Historically, *most* widescreen monitors have tended to be in a 16:9 aspect ratio (so if you develop for a 16:9 monitor, running in full screen will look right for most people), but that's not guaranteed. A lot of apple computers are moving back towards more square aspect ratios lately, and I actually use a pair of 16:10 monitors myself, because I prefer having that little bit of extra vertical real estate for software development, image editing, etc.
Sorry for the long background information dump before actually getting to the solution(s) to the problem ๐ First, you can set your webGL build to run at a specific screen size in the aspect ratio that you expect. If you go to your [player settings](https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/class-PlayerSettingsWebGL.html) you can set your game metadata, but there's also a collapsed section where you can set your webGL canvas resolution. If you set that to something that matches your expected aspect ratio, non-fullscreen builds may work better for you.
Second (and I'm sorry for burying the lede), I actually started the jam by working on a pseudo3d game using rendering technology based on the old Sega SuperScalar arcade cabinets, which was going to be very resolution-and-aspect-ratio-dependent, so I spent some time trying to solve this problem before pivoting away from that idea (for now!). I haven't 100% battle-tested this solution, but adding this script to your camera and setting that aspect ratio constant *may* make sure that things scale as you expect: https://github.com/Koolruz/unity-resolution-scaler
@koolruz Hey thanks for all the advice. You know, maybe it's just being in the super tired state that I'm always in at the end of game jams... but it literally never occurred to me that it was an aspect ratio change thing. I've made scalers in the past for different aspect ratios, but I was like.... I SWEAR that if I just hard-set the resolution in the project, settings, and on itch, that it won't do this. But I was very wrong. I made a quick screen resolution scaler for the UI components, even though that's not like... the correct way to do it exactly, but it should be putting the UI elements on the screen in the right positions now (I hope? I tried it on my phone which does a completely separate resolution and it's fixed there now). Thanks for the sanity check and all the help. Much appreciated! Also let me know if the fullscreen button isn't there for you still? I was positive I put it back before you left the comment, but I've made so many random changes at so many times that it's impossible to keep track of ๐ข
Yeah, it's back! I probably started writing my comment before you put it back (sorry!)
It took me awhile to get the public repo set up with my resolution scaling script, because I had to remember how to set up my git config for my seldom-used public-facing github account ๐
Edit: Though there are now *two* fullscreen buttons, one which doesn't change the game resolution but hides the itch UI, and one which changes the game's resolution. The UI seems to scale properly on my 16:10 monitors, except that the "Day 1" text gets cut off to the right of the screen. Everything else appears to be correct! :)
Hello! Do you think it would be possible to compile a downloadable version (for Windows)? The web version doesn't load for me unfortunately ;_; I tried with VPN and without VPN and I am not sure what the issue is. It would be great if I could just download the game and play it ^v^
P.S. I specifically voted for the theme Rain during the Theme Voting in hopes of getting a continuation of the Rain Saga... Damn it! xD
@kanity I added a windows download .zip to the itch page. Let me know if that doesn't work and I'll try something else! Also it's funny, I don't think either of us suggested "Rain" as the theme, but we definitely voted for it ๐ I was surprised it did as well as it did!
Fun, I like the simple and intuitive controls, always good when a game doesn't require a ton of explanation. Cute art style. Good work!
@t-c
Thank you!! It worked :)
And the Rain theme... It could be fate!! I guess I'll have to wait until next jam in hopes of the new part ;_;
On topic of this game though! xD Right away I wanna say I *love* the sound the Nimkip makes when I click on it >v<
The music and overall feel of the game is relaxing, I really like that! And it makes me feel nostalgic because it reminds me of some games I played in my childhood (Warlord II, for example)
I love how the city changes visually as it grows; and how we get so many upgrades! My jaw dropped when we discovered boats! And we even get to see them on their boat when they are sailing... And the boat design is gorgeous!! Luckily my Nimkip ran out of steps so I could feast my eyes on the boat properly!
My jaw dropped again when my city started floating!! It's SO pretty!!
And I found... (the elephant) ...it's been fun noticing them in lots of games! And why didn't I add any? Damn it! xD
I wanted to get to it and try to interact but then... VICTORY! xD And I was forced to finish playing :')
Honestly I would love it if the game just let me keep going xD
Ok, final thoughts!! I really enjoyed the game! It's nostalgic and fun, I would definitely play a full game of this! Nimkips are super cute, the process is relaxing, and I love exploring the world ^^ I liked the upgrades system, the PRETTIEST visuals (the city! the boat! everything!), the feel of the game (it is comfortable to play, feels polished!), the relaxing music, and how my Nimkip confidently sailed the grass on the boat to get over 1 tile of water included in his path >:) It was very enjoyable and I wish I could play it longer =P But ofc that will have to wait until you make it into a complete game and publish it on Steam! :D (along with the whole Rain saga obviously)
This was charming and peaceful! I was actually really bummed out when I won, because I had planted an entire swarm of Nimkip and it was really satisfying sending them out into the world to gather resources.
I absolutely loved the audio - I know that I'm repeating myself by saying this, but the sound effects when you picked up wood/stone/gears was *so* satisfying. The music was also really relaxing and helped me get sucked into the calm gameplay loop.
In terms of constructive feedback, I only have a minor nitpick which came from my playstyle of "plant as many Nimkip as physically possible" ๐ By the end of the game, I had so many Nimkip that I couldn't keep track of who had or hadn't moved yet, and I ended up wasting most of them. It would have been really helpful to have some sort of indicator by the "end day" button letting you know if there's nothing else to do, or if you have more Nimkips who can still act.
Overall, well done! :)
These litle guys building themselves an airship is such a nice idea. I like that poking around old ruins is what helps their town grow. That tiny steamship is adorable.
I left my ratings! If you get a chance, please check out and rate our game too: [Robot Workshop](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/60/trashfight).
@landosystems Thanks a bunch for playing! Usually the games we make for LD require a ton of tutorials and intros, lucky for this game, with the mostly mouse control scheme, just hovering over things for a small explanation worked as a tutorial of sorts.
@kanity Thanks for the extensive review! Please don't be mad, but I was the one who vetoed making the next part of Rain for this jam. We might put it on hold for game jams and try to make the real thing! I'm glad you liked the sound effects. I had to rush to make them in the last hour of the jam, so I'm glad they came together so well. All those videos I watched on learning how to make sound effects helped me with a couple of tricks to make them, and I'm glad they came together the way they did. The music was the last 15 minutes ๐ - I was almost resigned to publishing another silent game.
I played a lot of the Civilization series, that was my primary inspiration. Not having any enemies or time constraint I think helped give this one a more relaxed feel that I was happy with. I'm super happy with the boats! @jackofcups absolutely nailed it on that one. Same with the airship city. There are actually not 1 but TWO
!> elephants! (I was going to make this an elephant emoji but the hidden text still shows emojis ๐ hidden.
I was planning on having a 3rd way out in space (since there's no cap to how far you can move the camera) but completely forgot.
I regret not letting people keep playing. Another thing where I kind of knew I should have that in, but didn't have the time at the end. Thanks again so much for playing and rating our games! I'll be over to do the same for your game in a bit!
@koolruz alright, glad it finally worked! Thanks again for the help. Yeah I definitely regret ending the game the second the last condition is met. The game's actually still running behind the victory screen, so all I had to do was reenable taps and hide the screen and it would still be playable, but alas... so little time.
I'm glad you liked the audio! It came together literally in the last hour. In the past I spent a decent amount of time learning tips and tricks for sound effects, and these came together much better than they had any right to, for how crammed for time I was. I love sound effects, I think the way you make them and the things you can do for audio manipulation is super cool. I wish I learned more of this in the past.
And I totally agree!!! Even with only 5 Nimkips.... there really does need to be some kind of indicator of how many Nimkips can still act, or at least a "next nimkip" button you could press that would jump you to the next available Nimkip. I think it's a huge QOL feature that'd be a great inclusion.
Thanks for playing and leaving thoughtful comments. Much appreciated, and looking forward to see what you make next jam!
@youpz Thanks for the kind words! We really enjoyed the aesthetics on this game, so we had fun leaning into it. Also, definitely will get around to rating yours! I usually always rate any game made by people who leave comments on mine. I just do that a bit later in the jam. ๐
Nice Game! Though, I find that it took a long time for one single turn, but the experience is pretty plain.
I did not notice the resources needed to upgrade, so I wasted some time keep mining. Also, there were soon so many Nimkips that seemed unnecessary.
Generally, it feels like a good experience, the graphics are great, I just hoped to see more things during the process.
@t-c Keep me posted on the Rain's journey to a complete "its own thing" game then! And - do you mean to say that if I replay the game, the design of the airship may be different?:o (and now I want to look for the SECOND... you know... xD)
Space would for sure be ambitious! I think it's all right how it is though, without the space :) I do really like there's no pressure and it's more relaxing.
And the process of audio making really is so fun!! You can make so many interesting sounds interacting with the objects around your house, for example. I feel you though on having to do stuff in the last minutes, I was there too with my compo xD
@kanity I will! At the moment, it's nothing more than a budding design doc to actually get started, but hopefully it actually goes somewhere.
I didn't mean to imply anything about the design of the airship. That's definitely just a single image. "there are not 1 but 2" is supposed to be tied to the text in the spoiler.
For the 3rd, I meant to say that, since there are no bounds on where you can move the camera, you can just hold left for 50 minutes and be really, really far away from the main board. So I could place the 3rd to the right of where the board ends if you scroll for 20 seconds or something.
Definitely agree on making audio! It's something I find so interesting and unique that I could easily see myself in a different life having that as my job. It's neat how creative you can get with sounds, and how combining sounds and modifying them can make some really cool things.
One day, I'll actually have a relaxed final handful of hours on a jam. ๐
Hexagons are the bestagons! I also missed the resource requirement at the beginning, it would have been nice to have it more visible in the UI. The ~~Pikmin~~ Nimkip x Civilization is a good idea, it makes for a chill strategy game!
@Yiraa We hung up a sign that reads "Nimkip are an unrelated and unique Intellectual Property not derived from any pre-existing or similar creative work, and any seeming similarities are entirely coincidental." Please refer to this sign.
Not sure how resources are stored, if at all. It seemed like if I mined a resource not needed for the current tier, it didn't fill the bar at all.... does it get wasted?
Didn't hit any bugs. There's not a lot to do here other than collect stuff, it would be nice to have some kind of enemy or external threat.
Love the art style, it's very cozy.
nice work!
Screenshot 2026-10-21 221556.png love this little ship along with the Elephant in the room! the game was great. i had a good time and would like more. a single player civ like would be great.
@t-c Ah, I misunderstood in my excitement! :) I see, thank you for explaining! I am a bit tempted to open the game and hold left for 50 minutes just for scientific reasons but I know you didn't put anything in there so I will restrain xD And yeah, I am dreaming of the relaxed end for the jam as well, with time to polish my entry and regulate audio levels lol! Maybe next time? :)
I played to the end and even got to say hello to the elephant.
The game is very charming but I didn't really feel like my decisions mattered a lot while playing because there was no opponent or time limit.
Also, I found a funny bug using a screen with 2560x1080 resolution playing in full screen. When the ruins are collected, the gears float to the right side of the screen, but because the tech bar is further away, the game freezes. ๐
It would be cool to add a button to switch between nimkips. And add some enemies. Nice and peaceful game.
I like the concept and the Nimkip! I restarted a couple of times, but whenever I collect wood, the bar gets stuck at around 80% and I can't progress :(
@woona Nice! Always glad to hear when someone completes the game you made. Yeah I agree, there aren't really any stakes here. It's meant to not really have a failure state, and to allow you to do things without any consequences. Didn't add enemies or time limits, one for time constraints, but also just to make it so that you don't get halfway through the game and just lose. I can see why that would make the game more dull for some, though, for sure!
I pushed an update to try to fix the resolution scaling bugs once and for all, so hopefully that's no longer an issue!
@gamescodedogs Yeah absolutely! An active Nimkip toggle and some UI element saying how many you have left that can still act would be a super huge QOL feature. Enemies sadly stayed out of scope. Limited time to draw, having to make enemies, attack, take damage, die animations, enemy pathfinding, health bars, etc. etc. But I definitely think civ games like this thrive with conflict. Thanks for playing!
@azahara I believe this is fixed. Can you try again?
@t-c I checked the bug with gears, everything works fine now.๐
Really fun and relaxing game of expansion and exploration. I enjoyed the progression and sound effects, but the music was a bit too quiet. Maybe I could fix that in settings, but by default I didn't really hear it. Also I really wanted to see what the elephant was! Unfortunate that I couldn't play more after I won. Well done!
Once I got the hang of the UI, I ended up enjoying this! I discovered the old tech, levelled up my city, and:
Screenshot 2026-10-23 at 16.02.39.png
The game was a nice length, long enough to get into the flow of things, but not outstaying its welcome.
I liked the art, especially the characters and the ships. I also liked how it was easy to see who still had an action remaining.
I actually didn't mind that there weren't any opponents. A lot of the recent LD games I've played have been difficult, so a more relaxed experience was more than welcome!
Because you can't lose, the only real measure of how well you did is how quickly you won. Might have been nice to put number of turns taken on the victory screen.
Also, as a trackpad user, it might have been nice to be able to pan around with the trackpad rather than using the arrow keys.
Anyway, nice entry!
I really liked the game; itโs super simple to play and understand. I found the pixel art beautiful, and the music and sound effects were great. Unfortunately, I couldnโt keep playing, perhaps due to a bug or an issue with the online version, but I was unable to continue collecting resources. I would select them, but neither the town bar nor the technology bar would progress; they just stayed frozen. Regardless, itโs a great piece of work, Iโd love to see it more polished. Well done! Sin tรญtulo2.jpg
@woona Glad it's fixed! I gotta remember this for next LD ๐
@kash Yeah I found late that the audio manager class I made actually didn't do anything. So I just kind of threw it out and so you can't adjust anything. I purposely put the music quiet, hoping it wouldn't get too annoying during gameplay. Guess I should have turned the volume up a little. Sadly, the !>elephant doesn't actually do anything. Just an easter egg. I would have loved for it to actually do something, but alas....
Thanks for playing!
@rogual Glad you enjoyed and played all the way through to the end! I completely agree! Some kind of "won in X days" counter would have been super easy to implement, and I think could make for an interesting goal to try to improve. Yeah.... I also think supporting different ways for camera pan would have been a good idea. Makes sense why keys don't work super well with track pad. Appreciate the comment!
@emaigualmc2-art Thanks for all the kind words! So, I'm guessing you weren't completely stuck in the screenshot you showed. If you hover your cursor over the city progress bar (I know, it's not obvious at all!) it tells you what you need to do to fill it. It's not just wood that's required for that one! So even though the wood objects go to the bar and make a noise, it's not adding anything to your current goal. You needed to use the most recent technology you got (agriculture) to finish leveling up the city that time. As for your current screenshot with the Nimkip selected but no options showing up... I'm not too sure on that one. I'm guessing you could click the Nimkip again, then one more time to get the options the Nimkip can perform to show up. But that one is weird and one I haven't seen. Once you get 3 more Nimkip, you can continue towards the next city goal. Thanks for playing!
!>Sadly found only one elephant
I liked the art style (wish the airship had more use though, that specifically looks great), progression felt seamless and natural, and simply planting more workforce is a fun idea.
I didn't encounter any bugs and could play from start to airship without issue.
Hi! First of all, Iโd like to say that Iโm an absolute fan of strategy games and everything related to them, and this game hooked meย โย I completed the level! Of course, Iโd like there to be opponents, something like competitive elements, but even so, I really liked the gameย โย itโs calming, not ะฝะฐะดะพะตะดะปะธะฒะฐั, and the tasks are clear; Iโd like to see more content. Good job, congratulations!
:) I like this one! Very cute little dudes. I love all your pixel art! And the mystery elephant... Nice progression, nice upgrades, nice abilities! I think the actual controls felt a little clunky. And I really didn't like having to press the arrow keys to pan around--maybe auto panning in response to the mouse nearing an edge of the screen would help. But I like this game!
Good entry!
The game played well, the music was pleasant, and the sound effects and graphics had charm. I liked the progression built into the game, that was well done.
One improvement would be a clearer indicator of what my city needed to grow, but I was able to figure it out (maybe I just missed it).
One thing I'd like to have seen is a little more player choice or challenge. While I enjoyed playing the game as a relaxing chill little civilization sim, I did feel like I was missing something keep me hooked. I think taking this into a full game could be really fun, either by giving me a choice of upgrade, or a choice of how to avoid or deal with threats / puzzles / challenges.
The music is so relaxing, and I was really surprised by how much progression there was! The game was genuinely enjoyable, and the graphics are absolutely adorable.
The only small issue I found is that you can accidentally trap a Nimkip by planting another one in its only exit cell. You then have to wait for it to grow before you can get out. It's a pretty minor issue, though! I just took the opportunity to gather some wood while I waited hahaha.
Really fun game, and surprisingly addictive! Great job!!
This was a nice and relaxing game to play. I like the inclusion of the elephant. Now I'm wishing I had added one to my game as well. I thought there was a bug where you couldn't plant in some cells near the water, but then I realized I couldn't RE-PLANT. That's a nice little inclusion. Makes the nimkip a more limited resource.
@klengh !> I think the other one is pretty tough to find. It's just in the opposite corner of the first, but it's definitely a late game thing and probably requires mining resources far past what you need.
Yeah, actually doing stuff with the airship would be really cool! Sadly, we only got as far as "it'd be cool if we had an airship in the game somewhere" - but actually giving it functionality would have been really neat. Glad you didn't run into any issues. I know what causes *some* of the issues people are seeing, but no real clue as to why they happen. Thanks for playing!
@lvsth0pe I'm glad the game worked for strategy game fans! I know it's pretty bare bones, but I think the base is pretty solid for building on. Definitely competitive elements would be great! Some kind of enemies, choice on what to research and when, for getting things done quicker, things like that. Also I was hoping I could sneak in at least one more level, but even with making a level editor I completely did not have the time. Thanks for the comment and for playing!
@ukulelefury Nice name! Definitely feel that there needed to be more ways to pan the camera. Wouldn't be too hard to do, just the first thing I came up with and never even thought to change it after ๐ And also for sure, streamlining controls I think would also be something to make the game feel way better. Thanks for playing and for leaving a comment!
@tobius Definitely! Having no indication that hovering over the progress bar was the ONLY way to know what the city needed to grow was definitely not great. Tried to make this one a bit more free-form instead of challenging, but I think I went a little too far in the "do whatever" direction. I've noticed that I tend to make things maybe a bit too challenging for game jams when I try to add difficulty, so I tend to err on the side of "too easy" instead, which.... you know, gotta find that healthy balance. And totally agree with either enemies, upgrade choices, or some timed component/objectives would add a lot to what's there. Thanks for the comment!
@ethernal-tech ๐ yeah I got a Nimkip stuck one time when playing like that as well. Issues with having only one unit per tile, but I think I also could have improved the pathfinding by having a second flag for "passable" and one for "can end turn on" - or something, so you can walk through planted Nimkip. Thanks for playing!
@tsaot Including an elephant in your game boosts every score by 1 star. That's just a fact. Actually, if you hover over grass tiles next to water, it will tell you how many more it can grow. It's a super complex formula... it's #Nimkip = AdjacentWaterTiles. I think even 1 Nimkip for grass next to water even still is way too generous, but I figured why not let people go overboard if they wanted to. Mine out the whole map, put a Nimkip on every space.
Pretty cute game and concept! I confess I got a bit troubled to understand the goal, and also a bit distressed at the fact that the pixel art was in different proportions to other elements on the screen. Nice entry!
Pretty cute game and concept! I confess I got a bit troubled to understand the goal, and also a bit distressed at the fact that the pixel art was in different proportions to other elements on the screen. Nice entry!
Wow okay, you got a lot of long reviews here! So I'll keep mine short. The pixel art is beautiful and the sound design is lovely. The interface is really intuitive but I think the UI animations could be a bit faster to make gameplay feel more exciting. I think the main thing it's missing is any sort of peril (enemies, starvation, whatever) but it seems like you have a nice base game to build off of if you choose to!
@tanjou I drew the UI at the game's resolution, but I used a different pallette and was not the main artist, so I can see how that'd be a clash. Definitely needed to telegraph goals a bit better instead of just delegating everything to information on hover. Thanks for playing!
@ruthiepee Haha yeah, it turns out, when you're a chatterbox, you also get long comments in return ๐ What can I say, I like typing out long responses on games I find particularly interesting or ones that I spend a lot of time on. You want to know what's crazy, I actually quadroupled the speed of the resources going to the bars late into the dev process! Imagine how much slower the game would have been. I totally agree, there's a slowness/clunkiness to the overall game, and it's mostly tied to the UI. And definitely. Enemies, time constraint, multiple levels with smaller, clearer goals... SOMETHING was missing from the game. I have a tendency to make LD games way too difficult, so I try to err on the side of caution and when in doubt just let things be a bit on the easy side. I guess a bit too much this time around. Thanks for playing and for the comment!
Really enjoyed my time with this! This was my first Nimkip experience and I can safely say I had a good time. ๐ Loved the Civ inspirations and the feeling of growing a field of little guys to explore the world. Overall, well done! ๐
