WHALE HOUSE by Besto

[raw]
made by Besto for Ludum Dare 46 (JAM)

whale house.PNG

ld2.gif

In the not so distant future, the surface of the earth has become uninhabitable for humans due to a sudden infestation of blood thirsty mutant crabs... The only defense they had was to create whales, specifically breed to act as housing for humans. Everyone agreed this could only be a good idea.

Controls

Keyboard and Mouse

ESCAPE - QUIT F1 - FULLSCREEN

Move - WASD

Aim - Mouse

Laser - Left Click

Jump - Space

Jet Pack - Space​ in air

Controller

Move - Left Stick or D-Pad

Aim - Right Stick

Laser - Right Trigger

Jump - Left Trigger

Jet Pack - Left Trigger in air

How to Play

Crabs will spawn and attack weak points inside your whale house, if this happens your whale will take damage. Although the whale regenerates rather quickly, the more damage the whale has taken the more of its blood will fill the screen. The crabs will not attack you, but if you stay under the blood for too long, you will drown. With your trusty laser and jet pack you must vanquish all crab invaders. If you use your laser too long it will over heat! If this happens you must wait for it to cool down all the way, or dive into the pool of blood and help cool it down.

Changelog

Fixed bug where armor upgrade effected laser size.

Ratings

Overall 392th 3.868⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Fun 254th 3.868⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1263th 3.263⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Theme 853th 3.816⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 322th 4.263⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Audio 288th 3.861⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Humor 716th 3.294⭐ 19🧑‍⚖️
Mood 810th 3.618⭐ 19🧑‍⚖️
Given 29🗳️ 7🗨️

Feedback

beanslasher
21. Apr 2020 · 03:55 UTC
I liked how the game felt! The graphics and overall style was very well executed! Great job!
raguel
21. Apr 2020 · 03:57 UTC
Good game! Liked the concept.
BadPiggy
21. Apr 2020 · 04:00 UTC
The pixel art was great and the audio was nice. Rather decent take on the theme with the blood of the whale forming. Great game man :)
Catalystl
21. Apr 2020 · 04:04 UTC
This game has had the best graphics I've seen so far in the jam. The sound design was also good and made blasting away the lobsters fun. I would add another addition to the moveset to help the character move around faster though. Good Stuff! My highscore was 40.
JAsonsumm1
21. Apr 2020 · 10:00 UTC
interesting idea! Maybe we will have to live inside whales ???
room606
22. Apr 2020 · 20:12 UTC
Hello, Art and visuals look addictive and nice! Any chances for Linux boys to try the game? =/ Maybe, HTML5 version somewhere on itch.io? Thanks in advance!

![shot_084.png](///raw/ec0/e1/z/32891.png)
juako
23. Apr 2020 · 22:00 UTC
Nice game! super polish and I like the mechanic of the "blood" rising istead of just having health
Keppu
03. May 2020 · 07:55 UTC
Quality of this game surprised me. Graphics are excellent and I love all the little polish that have been added. Gameplay is solid and it's something different from all the other games. Good entry!
guladam
03. May 2020 · 18:01 UTC
I liked it very much. As the others have said it is very well polished and interesting. The difficulty curve is a bit too high for me, I couldn't beat the first wave. Maybe I would have toned down the spawn rate of the crabby boiz for the first level to make a bit easier for noobs like me.

Well done anyways, it is a great game :)
Duke
03. May 2020 · 18:18 UTC
Awesome! The game play feels very polished and high quality. The controls are tight and mouse aiming works like a charm. The art looks great and the animations feel weighty and responsive. Damage feedback is on point and killing blood crabs is very satisfying. The upgrade system is a nice addition to keep the player invested. Jumping and jetpacking also works very well. You did an awesome job an all technical aspects, in my opionion.

The balancing and wave progression has some (almost expected) balancing issues. The first wave was somehow the hardest with the weak laser and the sheer amount of enemies you had to juggle. With the first damage upgrade, thinks got a lot easier. Even the blue crabs didn't matter much. With each wave and an additional damage upgrade, the game almost played itself :) just go from cell to cell and kill all crabs. Rinse and repeat. Would be cool to have more and different enemies. Maybe some, that can even attack the player. Or changing level layouts would be nice. I got rather boring from Wave 6 and on, since nothing really changed and I've already seen everything game play wise. I guess that's all due to the time limit of the jam itself. Considering this is a one-man-show, it's pretty awesome to see what you could deliver.

All in all, VERY good entry. More people need to play this. Make sure to play, rate and comment on more games to get more exposure. It's going to be grind already being so far into the rating phase, but you gotta pull through. Good luck!
🎤 Besto
04. May 2020 · 07:36 UTC
@duke thanks very much for all the kind words! and as for the feedback i agree on basically all counts and as you already mentioned it basically all comes down to the time limit. i obviously waited to do any balance tweaks until the game was already technically done, so i didnt have as much time as i would like to really fine tune things. with games like this its really tough to walk the line between making things too easy, or making them completely impossible, even when making small tweaks. getting balance right early on is one of my biggest weaknesses for sure!

@guladam the first wave can be a bit tough haha, but upgrades make things much more manageable after the first wave
mharring
07. May 2020 · 00:08 UTC
Neat game! The platforming and jetpack felt great, and the laser was fun to use. Could used some tweaks to the balancing - I found it quite challenging and didn't make it passed the first wave so I never saw the upgrades and different crabs. Anyways, I had fun playing this one. Nice job!
Boaz
08. May 2020 · 08:03 UTC
Good game
JUSTCAMH
09. May 2020 · 00:54 UTC
Hey, the game was pretty hard but that just encouraged me to play longer! I like the idea of the upgrades, but I could never feel any improvement, I'd imagine there's small stat boosts, but I never felt like I was doing more damage, or that the heating was decreased. It'd be nice if they were bigger boosts so that you could feel it and know that you're getting stronger. I also wish there was some music, but the sound effects were suitable. The art was amazing and I love the mechanic of the rising water. The game was really fun, and whilst I doubt I'll set any records, my best score was 1858. The only other score post that I'm seeing is 40, and I beat that by a fair margin! Overall the game was awesome! :heart:
JUSTCAMH
12. May 2020 · 23:37 UTC
I don’t understand how this game scored so low, it was awesome! It’s crazy you made this solo, I’d swear these results are rigged.