Boat&Friends by averagebrownie

[raw]
made by averagebrownie for LD 40 (JAM)

Welcome to our relaxing (physics crazy)​ game Boat&Friends screen1.png

You will be departing on a small boat with crates of supplies, your purpose is to arrive on the other shore with the highest amount of crates you can.

Hold [left mouse button] to drag crates onto your ship. The crates will be scattered around the sea, and you must make sure your ship is balanced by controlling the weight on either side of the boat.

To do this you can use [A] or [D] to lean your ship to the left or right. This is our first attempt at Ludum Dare, the graphics are ours, and half of sounds effects are too. The other half is thanks to the world wide web.

Thank you for playing our game! :)

  • Edit: If you are intrested in post-LudumDate thoughts and some continuation read though comments there are and will be more of lenghty comments by me about it. Look for blue avatar

Ratings

Overall 436th 3.573⭐ 43🧑‍⚖️
Fun 290th 3.622⭐ 43🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 107th 3.866⭐ 43🧑‍⚖️
Theme 141th 4.024⭐ 43🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 562th 3.524⭐ 43🧑‍⚖️
Mood 505th 3.378⭐ 43🧑‍⚖️
Given 24🗳️ 20🗨️

Feedback

Seththefirst
05. Dec 2017 · 11:48 UTC
I don't know if I was supposed to do that... But if you keep pressing A, without any cargo on top of the boat... you keep spinning like a ball. hahahahaha
Maybe you should restrict the rotation of the boat, to avoid this kind of behaviour.

But I really liked the game, and the theme implementation..
Congratz.

![Captura de Tela 2017-12-05 às 09.46.54.png](///raw/f51/z/d6ad.png)
juliensnz
05. Dec 2017 · 12:18 UTC
Really nice idea and fun to play. But it seems a bit too hard for me
kamtar
05. Dec 2017 · 12:51 UTC
haha, yes bad time managment.. there are quite a few bugs and it's not properly balanced that's why we didnt implemented any failure state - only score. Thanks for trying it out!
vlandemart
05. Dec 2017 · 15:50 UTC
Neat little game.
It certainly deserves extra score for options and nice UI
HDtv
05. Dec 2017 · 17:50 UTC
This game is surprisingly difficult. At first it seems like there will not be much too it and then the waves start rocking and it gets a little crazy. I was only able to get one package to the end.

If you forget about the goal and just rock the boat it starts flipping all over the place and is pretty entertaining to watch.
Elemental Zeal Game Studios
05. Dec 2017 · 18:02 UTC
Nice solid entry, and enjoyed the use of physics. Well done. :)
Egor
05. Dec 2017 · 19:44 UTC
@kamtar That was great!) Didn't expect any physic based stuff) Got a bit confused using contolls (left & right) expected to sprint , but figure it up later on. Don't know if it would be hard enough to make boxed of different size or shape it could add some nice tetris flavor. Anyway thanks a lot) it's a nice game!
SuperCrunchy
05. Dec 2017 · 19:55 UTC
Quite funny and well made!!

I didn't encounter many bugs, the result of pressing right while empty is hilarious!
GerardB
05. Dec 2017 · 19:57 UTC
I really enjoyed this. It's challenging and cool to get through the whole thing with all the crates.

And fun fact about the game, if you have no crates on the box and keep the left arrow pressed the boat will start gaining speed while frontflipping, its hilarious XD

I had a lot of fun! Thanks and congratulations on your entry!
Jungle
05. Dec 2017 · 19:57 UTC
this was very funny!! It is a very hard game. Great mechanics. Congratulations

![Capture001.PNG](///raw/129/z/da84.png)
ArturasD
05. Dec 2017 · 19:59 UTC
Really nice concept! Enjoyed playing it very much. Good job! You could fix that funny bug where boat rotates as crazy :D
allanolivei
05. Dec 2017 · 20:00 UTC
The relationship with the theme is perfect. I loved this game.
I am the best in this game.

![journey.png](///raw/68c/e/z/da8c.png)
jelch
05. Dec 2017 · 20:00 UTC
Cool idea! Would be neat to see short levels and different sized cargo.
V-Ad
05. Dec 2017 · 20:00 UTC
Great game with physics based gameplay !!!
Erlatronics
05. Dec 2017 · 20:00 UTC
That was hard! I like a challenge. I thought it would be way easier but it was good. Also Maybe there should be some way of giving you a score in the end so that you know how you did. You might like my entry, it has some simiularities. It's also about ships and their physics, and how they act when they gain weight.
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/sanka-viking-a-viking-warship-simulator
Christoffer Sundbom
05. Dec 2017 · 20:00 UTC
Nice game! The only cons i can think of is one round takes to long and there are no high score screen ? or someplace you can see your score after completing a run and being returned to main menu :) other than that everything is good :)
Nick Rafalski
05. Dec 2017 · 20:01 UTC
Very fun to play. The physics were very predictable and not too chaotic (which sometimes happens in these games). Getting a ton of boxes to all line up perfectly 3 high felt really good. Starts out easy but gets hard as soon as you mess up a little, which rewards patience and expertise.

Wish there was at least a 'high score' kept track for you in the game. I was expecting a real game-over screen the first time I completed it, so I didn't even realize what my score was.

Still, lots of fun. Congrats!
Sir Magic
05. Dec 2017 · 20:02 UTC
### What you did well:

This is one of those rare games that creates a really good sense of mood. The simple music, water splashes and gentle movement of the boat made me feel as if I was actually sailing. The mechanics were great and I liked the way you had to move the crates with a sort of elastic band feel.

### To Improve:

Try and throw the player off a bit more. Have a massive storm halfway through the journey or make the boat swing for no reason, this would make the gameplay feel more interesting. Also, when you have enough crates, the A and D buttons barely do anything. Maybe you could consider increasing the rotation speed?

In conclusion, an interesting game and I enjoyed it very much.
Corndog
05. Dec 2017 · 20:02 UTC
Really difficult. I was only able to keep about 2 crates.
Bartosz
05. Dec 2017 · 20:03 UTC
Loved physics and pixelart!! Props for graphics!
Great job overall - could be little easier to actualy swim forward (i got stuck in the middle of ocean :P)

Spring on boxes should be little bit more tight like for me. Music very calming - i know it's not yours but great choice to this type of game :)
MrLeePerry
05. Dec 2017 · 20:06 UTC
Super props for making something physics based. That's like kryptonite for short time periods, it seems.

Nice audio and splashy effects as crates interact with the water :)
mshopf
05. Dec 2017 · 20:10 UTC
Very cool mechanics, it's a rare gem getting a game design like this! Graphics is reasonable, and it's really surprisingly difficult to get many boxes to the shore. I didn't manage more than 25. And that's only because I was constantly fishing ;-)))
grey
05. Dec 2017 · 20:11 UTC
Soo... this https://youtu.be/4ZXUAqBaucU just happened... 10/10 would play again
RobotsAndMuffins
05. Dec 2017 · 20:19 UTC
I really enjoy ships games. Very goog try for your first jam! Agree with the very difficult mechanics, an also the bugs. But is cool to get your boat out of the world! :) Great job. I think it needs just a little bit of tunning, and it will be really cool!
Xeloglaz
05. Dec 2017 · 20:29 UTC
Very nice game. It's really funny that sometimes ship can go and spin like crazy:joy: As for Ludum Dare its really great 7/10 would roll again
Cawrtz
05. Dec 2017 · 20:29 UTC
Nice little game!
The pixel art is simple but effective ; the concept is very catchy and fits the theme well.
If I had one flaw to point out, it would be that the hold on the crates is a bit too elastic.
Well done :)
Tatos
05. Dec 2017 · 20:35 UTC
Quite difficult but interesting game. I would love to see a post-jam version of it because behind this simple idea hide a really fun game.
kamtar
05. Dec 2017 · 20:37 UTC
Thanks for that big feedback! Yes I agree with most of it.

This game should have been lot more complex and with a strategy meta-game over it but we realised that its just not doable in that time. So we decided to strip it down. Thats why it feels like there isnt any "closure" to it. We just didnt put score table etc.. into our time frame (including bugs).

I wanted to add atleast areas with storm but again bad time managment.

But after seeing how few people played it i realized few new mistakes:

- The boat leaning [A,D] was mainly implemented as a "emergency" option and not to be usead as all-time control. Which i think is mistake.

- I should have add increasing waves with distance that would allow some learning curve within level.

And also i think we forgot some physic code in a time-dependent code because it looks like physics is behaving little bit differently on every computer.. lol

Anyway we think we are going to polish it and release it as a free game for android (would be ideal for touch)
Antoine Vion
05. Dec 2017 · 20:54 UTC
Ahah very cool ! i liked it, and the pixel art is very good :) !! gj [Capture.PNG](///raw/68b/d/z/daf9.png)
(you can pull your boat if you put a lot of case and you pull a case to the direction you want xD) i liked it gg
JCMonkey
06. Dec 2017 · 00:36 UTC
nice game, though im really bad at this :D
Arvejeitor
06. Dec 2017 · 14:39 UTC
Nice game
The physics adds a lot of fun!
Flaterectomy
08. Dec 2017 · 19:22 UTC
A fun little physics game, but it seems to lack a little bit of incentive to try and do well. Simply arriving with a higher number of supplies didn't excite me, so I started playing with the physics instead pretty quickly. The people before me all seem to have covered the rest of my feedback already. More variation in cargo sizes and weights, bigger waves/weather type, etc. I'm glad to read you're going to continue with it.

The art is pretty solid. It's a simple but elegant way of simulating water. The crates appear to be scaled differently than the rest though, which is a pet peeve I always point out when I see it. :wink:

Nice one!
Jajo
15. Dec 2017 · 18:05 UTC
This is a pretty solid game. Screwing around with the physics is a lot of fun!
Alex104
23. Dec 2017 · 17:44 UTC
Neato mate!
Jupiter_Hadley
05. Jan 2018 · 00:06 UTC
Funny game! I included it in my Ludum Dare 40 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdHqgfn9vOI