Firefish by Snicklodocus

made by Snicklodocus for LD29 (COMPO)

Firefish is a frantic arcade-style game where you melt rocks to free your fire-spirit brethren. Juggle control many fishes at once while outrunning rapidly cooling lava behind you. Find powerups and choose the best fish for each. How long can your school survive? How many firefish can you save?

Controls:
Space: pause
WASD or arrows: move
1-0 or numpad 1-0: select spirit
q: select next spirit
e or numpad period: use powerup

Thanks for playing!

Web (Unity)	https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/45659926/Firefish/Firefish.html
Gamejolt (Unity)	http://gamejolt.com/games/arcade/firefish/25729/
Windows (8 mb)	https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/45659926/Firefish/Firefish%20Windows.zip
Source	https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/45659926/Firefish/Scripts.zip
Original URL	https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-29/?action=preview&uid=22794

Ratings

Coolness	60%	3
Overall	3.47	278

Audio	3.26	253
Fun	3.15	433
Graphics	3.41	393
Humor	2.14	776
Innovation	3.79	124
Mood	3.11	449
Theme	2.45	1064

Feedback

NiallM

28. Apr 2014 · 13:15 UTC

This is really cool. Love how the complexity rapidly increases as you free more fishes and the cooling lava starts to hem you in.

Khopa

28. Apr 2014 · 22:28 UTC

This is really good. I love how it speed up.
Well done !

cirolve

29. Apr 2014 · 01:38 UTC

Interesting concept,a bit slow at first, although good job on the graphics.

greysphere

29. Apr 2014 · 01:49 UTC

Really fun. Controlling the multiple fish was really well done. Would love to see this with levels with win conditions!

Almost

29. Apr 2014 · 02:23 UTC

At first I tried scattering and it started to take me a while to cycle through all of the creatures and decide on which direction t go. So instead I decided to go in a straight line, in the same direction will all of the firefish. I seemed to be able to outrun the coolign lava indefinitely, and eventually got bored with 20 some fish freed.

🎤 Snicklodocus

29. Apr 2014 · 02:44 UTC

Thank you for the comments everyone.

@Almost: Ah I see how you did that. If I expand on this it will be interesting to think about how to fix that. Maybe spread fish and powerups farther apart.

otato

29. Apr 2014 · 03:00 UTC

Really great job! I decided to try and micro all the fish as fast as I could, which quickly made the game very difficult but still very fun! Unique concept, hopefully you'll work on a post-compo version :)

VDOgamez

29. Apr 2014 · 03:01 UTC

This was nice, and I liked the increased speed the game gets as you can work with more guys at once. Although I am getting the idea that you came up with this idea before the themes were announced and liked it too much.

ghostmaple

29. Apr 2014 · 03:05 UTC

Creative. Gave my brain a good workout.

🎤 Snicklodocus

29. Apr 2014 · 03:05 UTC

@VDOgamez: Beneath the surface made me think of volcanoes and then melting rock. Somehow, when I was trying to think how that could be fun, I came up with this lava fish thing, haha!

bombjack

29. Apr 2014 · 18:20 UTC

fun idea! great job!

twelveplusplus

30. Apr 2014 · 03:46 UTC

awesome music!

Penguincat

01. May 2014 · 03:04 UTC

I agree with some of the other comments that the game starts off a bit slow, but once it hit its stride it's pretty fun. One of the more unique games I've seen in this LD so far :)

minibutmany

02. May 2014 · 02:20 UTC

Started a little slow, but got chaotic quickly!

WhiteWolf93

03. May 2014 · 05:16 UTC

The graphics are really great, that abundant music sound better than usual and the multicharacter feature is pretty fun. Well done!

icereci

03. May 2014 · 12:26 UTC

nice concept with multiple characters.

mrexcessive

03. May 2014 · 20:17 UTC

Hi. Web/Chrome/W7 version didn't seem to support 1-0 on numpad or number keys. Cycling through fishes with q only selects from a subset, but did I get that wrong? (I had 3 fish onscreen but it toggled 2-3-2-3 etc.)

🎤 Snicklodocus

03. May 2014 · 22:24 UTC

Thanks for the comments everyone!

@mrexcessive: That's strange. Thank you for letting me know. I can't reproduce these errors. Anyone else experiencing them?

I would say to make sure num-lock is on but you said both sets of number keys were not working. Could some outside program be blocking or redirecting your input? As for Q, maybe fish #1 was dead?

woodenrabbit

16. May 2014 · 03:37 UTC

What a neat game, I found myself losing track of myself as I played it. I felt a little dizzy sometimes when I switched between fish too quickly, but the game was really fun :)

WhiteWolf93

20. May 2014 · 16:21 UTC

You did very well for the first ld! This game was fun and now that the ratings are ended I'm gonna tell you that I wanna see you in the next ld, because you make me smile with this game :), and i put you in my list of people i wanna rate and comment in the ld30, hope you participate though! Good luck ;)!

🎤 Snicklodocus

21. May 2014 · 21:14 UTC

Thanks again for all the ratings!

WhiteWolf93, thanks for the kind words! I do plan to enter again in August. Hope to see you then as well!