An Unconventional Boat by zell2002

[raw]
made by zell2002 for LD32 (JAM)
Your boat is slowly dying, and you must jump ship to stay alive.
Each boat you swap to will begin to die.
You must follow your compass and make it to the hidden island before sinking.

W = Go Foward
A/D = Turn Left/Right
Space Bar = Swap Boats (when in range)

Made by a team of 3 including myself (http://ludumdare.com/compo/author/zell2002/), jon (http://ludumdare.com/compo/author/jonsul/), and phil

all of the sounds, arts and codes were made for this jam
we used love2d as our game engine, cubase for sound/music and various image softwares for the arts.

Ratings

Coolness 60% 3
Overall(Jam) 3.39 368
Audio(Jam) 3.19 324
Fun(Jam) 2.97 578
Graphics(Jam) 3.79 262
Humor(Jam) 2.44 722
Innovation(Jam) 3.34 351
Mood(Jam) 3.50 206
Theme(Jam) 3.09 708

Feedback

NAL
20. Apr 2015 · 18:49 UTC
Gorgeous presentation and a great idea for a game, if a little simple. My only big complaint here is the scarcity of boats - I could run half my life down going at full speed and encounter nothing, only for the one I finally did encounter to just clip a corner of the screen and be far too far away to take over. Given the time it takes to take one over in the first place I felt the density needed to be upped a bit. This could be a wonderful game with a little extra TLC!
jk5000
20. Apr 2015 · 18:53 UTC
A good idea. A little too often there are no boats nearby, especially in the beginning.
Jungle
20. Apr 2015 · 18:53 UTC
I like it! But I dont know if its fits the theme. Graphs are very great! Congratulations
haveric
20. Apr 2015 · 18:55 UTC
Took me a few tries to make it, but it was fun each time! The controls seems to not always be that responsive, but I think it was just the way I was attempting to maneuver the ships. Either way, great entry.
Ilseroth
20. Apr 2015 · 18:59 UTC
Gameplay seems far too random, as the boats seem to just be random; but an interesting concept for an arcade game.
snesgaard
20. Apr 2015 · 19:02 UTC
Pretty impressive visuals. I would wish that you had a few more mechanics to play with, so that you aren't completely at the mercy of RNG.
🎤 zell2002
20. Apr 2015 · 20:42 UTC
** UPDATED **
hey guys, we decided to spawn more boats, and change the transfer speed - makes the game play much smoother.
cheers for all the constructive criticism !

as for tying in with theme, the ending of game will explain all
Kaijuu
21. Apr 2015 · 09:04 UTC
I love the atmosphere!
It was interesting to play
thecord
21. Apr 2015 · 12:19 UTC
I love the base gameplay, but it depends too much on the random number generator
Tanser
21. Apr 2015 · 12:24 UTC
Simple and yet very nice idea. The execution is nice and I love the graphics!
gene-z
21. Apr 2015 · 12:47 UTC
good game nice idea
borgi
21. Apr 2015 · 19:21 UTC
Cool concep! I really liked the water style and the clouds over it! Nice job!
Sunsheen
21. Apr 2015 · 19:26 UTC
The water looks fantastic! I don't really understand the win condition or where I'm meant to be going. It also still feels very random because you can just get unlucky and not see another boat for a bit leaving you helpless.
Windmill Games
22. Apr 2015 · 12:25 UTC
The game looks absolutely stunning! Beautiful particle effects, gorgeous water and awesome boats.

The idea is simple, but very fun. It took me multiple attempts before finally making it to the end. The game even has some replay value as it is quite random.

Overall an excellent entry!
Windmill Games
22. Apr 2015 · 20:03 UTC
I just wanted to let you know that your game made it into my list of top 10 games for LD32!

https://love2d.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=80063&p=183180#p183180
roving-stone
23. Apr 2015 · 00:41 UTC
Fantastic game! Great visuals, calming music, really unique gameplay premise. Reminds me of Sunless Sea. If you polished it up, and maybe added boats with different characteristics to give the switching mechanic more depth, this could be a great little game.
🎤 zell2002
23. Apr 2015 · 08:00 UTC
@Windmill Games, cheers for the Top 10 award! lol
it really means a lot to us see people enjoying the experience!
We realised after reading some of the comments, that the whole game doesn't come together until you get to the end, which I guess you can see :)

@roving-stone, we did a post-mortem the other day and acknowledged we were missing a couple extra mechanics to flesh out the whole experience. the other boats do have 2 differences : speed and health. Maybe we should have highlighted this more to the player

thanks to everyone for their positive words and constructive criticism!
jsmars
23. Apr 2015 · 13:00 UTC
Really nice concept and presentation.. At first I thought the first island was the goal and tried many times to board it in some way until I realized that the map was much larger.. Really nice job!
AinoraZ
23. Apr 2015 · 19:42 UTC
Very good idea! Maybe lacks some music while in-game. Otherwise really great!
josefnpat
24. Apr 2015 · 04:14 UTC
Really pretty game! Fantastic job guys!
GlowingSnail
25. Apr 2015 · 19:17 UTC
- Don't name your game LD32 please.
- Clever use of shader for water.
- Doesn't fit the theme, sinking boats aren't weapons. Unless you take into account the twist ending, which isn't fleshed enough to make sense.
- Why do these boats even have reactors?
- Thanks for arrow keys support.
bobismijnnaam
29. Apr 2015 · 18:38 UTC
Interesting game. It looked really nice, and the music and sound was pretty and non-interfering. The gameplay felt kind of sluggish, but it was fun siphoning off other boats to stay alive. The border of the world was kind of hard to see. The water is really beautiful! The main menu could've used a bit more work but the rest of the game is really polished, well done.