Basil by Abdul Zakkar

[raw]
made by Abdul Zakkar for Ludum Dare 45 (JAM)

screenshot_0.PNG

A game of survival - manage hunger, thirst, and temperature - how long can you survive?

A Ludum Dare 45 Entry!

Theme: start with nothing.

You play as Basil, the only survivor of a plane crash at sea. He is left with nothing but his wits.

Help him survive as long as possible by managing his hunger, thirst, and temperature. Be strategic about your decisions!

Controls:

W A S D or Arrow Keys

SPACE to interact

MOUSE to select items

P or ESCAPE to pause

You've survived a plane crash... screenshot_4.PNG

But how long will that last? screenshot_1.PNG

screenshot_2.PNG

screenshot_3.PNG

A ZIP file will be downloaded. Extract the ZIP file, open the subsequent folder, and run LD45.exe to begin the game.

Log:

Bug fix 10/8 - Difficulty scaling was dependent on frame rate, fixed.

Ratings

Overall 251th 3.771⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Fun 150th 3.804⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 529th 3.208⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Theme 133th 3.979⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 283th 3.958⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Audio 256th 3.563⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Humor 321th 3.196⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Mood 510th 3.391⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Given 20🗳️ 29🗨️

Feedback

Nisovin
07. Oct 2019 · 22:20 UTC
Definitely a very solid game! I only wish there were more options of things to do.
Bocodillo
07. Oct 2019 · 23:57 UTC
Really like it, reminds me of Raft. I'd like more variety in the things to build but what's there is really well done.
🎤 Abdul Zakkar
08. Oct 2019 · 01:56 UTC
@nisovin thank you! With time a certainly would have :) I would love some suggestions about other options.
Adnonymous5
08. Oct 2019 · 02:41 UTC
@bocodillo I've never played that before but definitely will now! And the feedback's much appreciated, that seems to be what a lot of people are saying. Definitely would've loved to add more resources to collect, things to build, and even maybe more meters to manage had we had some more time. Alas 😆
chawls_v
08. Oct 2019 · 05:08 UTC
Really liked it, was a cool take on the theme and a lot of fun. Liked the music too!
Joseph Yannessa
08. Oct 2019 · 05:20 UTC
Really great aesthetic and solid controls/interactions. Also a lot of emphasis on explaining the game which is good. It was super easy for 6 minutes and then I died. Would have been good to know the hunger/thirst rates increase over time! Also would be nice to be able to repair rafts or collect driftwood underneath the platforms
MechWarrior99
08. Oct 2019 · 05:25 UTC
Feels pretty nice and polished. I would say the pacing was pretty good for the first 8-ish minutes. But then it started to drag a bit. Like others have said, adding more. But a simpler solution could be to just increase the rate at which the stats decay overtime.
Overall, a pretty solid game.
🎤 Abdul Zakkar
08. Oct 2019 · 05:27 UTC
@joseph-yannessa thank you very much, and I appreciate the suggestions! Raft repair is a really good idea. I also agree that difficulty could come in phases, maybe a *hunger up* or *thirst up* announcement in-game. With the difficulty, I was struggling to balance giving first timers enough time to understand the game, while making it challenging for better players.
🎤 Abdul Zakkar
08. Oct 2019 · 05:30 UTC
@mechwarrior99 Thank you! I've noticed some people struggle to get past 6 minutes (including me), while others fly by 10 minutes! It's kinda strange, something to look into :D
jakemchugh1
08. Oct 2019 · 05:38 UTC
This is a great concept and I enjoy playing it! I like the crispness of the artwork, I do recognize that once you have yourself set up then it is really hard to lose the game, it essentially turns into how long your attention span is.
paulhocker
09. Oct 2019 · 03:43 UTC
well done -- very polished and everything works -- gets a little repetitive -- thanks for making it
Falu
09. Oct 2019 · 05:34 UTC
I love survival games, and this one in the water is particularly interesting! I love how you grab stuff floating in the water and build with that. Good job!
el_fideo_rubio
09. Oct 2019 · 18:38 UTC
hey man the game is super cool the sprites look really hight quality, and I had fun playing consider a different layout for the UI for better readability.
Marcus Otterstrom
11. Oct 2019 · 13:36 UTC
Well done! This game is really polished and controls well. I think like other's have said, a way to repair the decaying platforms would've been a good addition. Another small thing would be to maybe change the controls for changing items, since you didn't really have use your cursor for anything but that. Perhaps the arrow keys would've been nice, or even the scroll wheel to cycle through them. It just felt a bit off having to care about the cursor when nothing else in the game demands it. It's a fun game though, solid entry :slight_smile:
🎤 Abdul Zakkar
11. Oct 2019 · 16:24 UTC
@marcus-otterstrom Thank you for the feedback! The controls and UI are definitely the weak point of this project, and this helped me learn a lot about how best to make the user interact with a game. Especially from the feedback I have been getting, thanks :)
Xotsu
12. Oct 2019 · 23:13 UTC
Cool game with a nice original idea! Had a lot of fun playing
Random-storykeeper
13. Oct 2019 · 08:54 UTC
Needless to say, I was pretty salty about my score. :smirk:

![basil - score 7-03.png](///raw/360/1/z/29824.png)

Overall, I was on board for this game - well, half on board and half in the water. :joy: It is a little confusing learning how the game works, but once I got the hang of it, that's when it got fun...and the difficulty started to ramp up. Making this an endless game felt kind of bleak, since the boy never calls for any help, and his desperation grows the more he's all alone, trying to survive. But it overall works for the premise of this game.

Don't know if this was intentional, but I found it strange that the game starts out in fullscreen during the cutscene and then goes into window mode when playing the game. What's even stranger is that when starting the game again, the cutscene was windowed the second time I opened the application.

I thought that having the balance between spending time in the water to collect materials and then build with them or use them to cook food was a good idea. Everything seemed to work fine; the character movement was good and the music was bleak, but had some nice tones that fit the mood. I really like how washed out the character looks - that suited the mood perfectly.
🎤 Abdul Zakkar
13. Oct 2019 · 19:46 UTC
@random-storykeeper Wow that's better than I ever did :D awesome to see people beating the devs! Mine was 6:52 :D

I am a bit weirded out by that fullscreen bug though

We first started building the game thinking it could be a web game, so I locked it at 800x600. Then I realized, being absolutely new to web dev, that I need to have it written in javascript (I wrote in C#). By then it was too late to go to js, and the UI was built for the current screen size (whoops). So I was stuck uploading a small window game that must be downloaded. A lesson learned!

Thanks for the feedback on learning how the game works, it's definitely something I want to improve on as a game dev. Finally, I'm glad you enjoyed the music and mood :)
BrokenMirrorMedia
19. Oct 2019 · 23:46 UTC
This was a really well made game, probably one of my favourite survival-style game I've played in this jam. Everything was simple enough to grasp, and the bars went down fast enough that I was still engaged. Good work!
Elemental Zeal Game Studios
20. Oct 2019 · 02:09 UTC
The game was pretty fun though once you get the rhythm of things it can be a bit monotonous. The graphics were good, the audio was nice, and the game was funny. One thing that made things a bit harder than it otherwise could have been was the instructions in the top right seemed to progress some times before I had done the intended step. Overall a nice entry. :)
heyycap
20. Oct 2019 · 06:45 UTC
Great job! I got a little over 7 1/2 min. Good thing I'm a pretty fast swimmer! I'd like a different sound effect for each type of item pickup. Also a way to cook more fish at once, like a frying pan or something. Or to keep warmer while swimming, perhaps a moving raft. I couldn't pick up items that floated by me while standing on the raft; I had to be in the water.
celsyum
20. Oct 2019 · 06:50 UTC
liked it , prety much 2d raft game
Bungalow
22. Oct 2019 · 06:54 UTC
Really cool concept and take on the theme. Really cute art and seemed well polished. Awesome job!
Mr ChocolateSalmon
25. Oct 2019 · 20:49 UTC
Excellent and well polished game! Was literally bout to make a comment that there wasn't enough challenge after everything had been made, but then noticed that the rafts burnt up after a period of time. Simple but fun! Good job!