Watery Crave by Zathnic

Fizzy got stuck exploring a cave. Why must adventure be what she crave'? Better help her out, or this place may become her grave!
The little fish got lucky this summer was so very hot. The shrubbery she got stuck behind was carried by the water, and once enough of it dried out, there is finally enough room for her to sneak out, after months of waiting! But now the cave isn't underwater anymore like it used to be - there are just little water pockets, and Fizzy can't survive for long outside of them, so she always has to make it to the next one quickly. The deeper she goes, the closer she will come to reaching her lake's full body of water - and the closer she will be to reuniting with her family.
* Controls: * - Arrow Keys - R to restart - Q to change zoom level

* Changelog: * - fixed a crash on Mac - made the game run at the same speed on all monitors - fixed broken input on high refresh screens - removed jitteriness on high refresh screens
Sound credits: https://freesound.org/people/sforsman/sounds/384195/ https://www.zapsplat.com/music/fish-flap-around-on-floor-slimy-wet/ https://www.zapsplat.com/music/interior-cave-ambience-muffled-wind-blowing-outside/ https://freesound.org/people/akemov/sounds/255597/ https://freesound.org/people/Kayrabey07/sounds/543934/ https://freesound.org/people/Robinhood76/sounds/96742/
Ratings
| Overall | 918th | 3.515⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 913th | 3.348⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 704th | 3.394⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1124th | 3.485⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 1046th | 3.576⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 835th | 2.75⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 1086th | 3.364⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 296🗳️ | 57🗨️ |
```
Watery Crave>java -jar ld48.jar
```
might help to add instructions at the top!
overall really nice game, very smooth, good graphics, music and sounds. The level design was challenging, and intriguing! Nice work
Art could use a little work, you want your damage zones to contrast with the rest of the game as much as possible. The bouncy mushrooms were a good example of this, and I wish the thorns were as bright. Loved the fish flapping anim though.
openjdk version "1.8.0_282"
```[LWJGL] GLFW_PLATFORM_ERROR error
Description : Cocoa: Failed to find service port for display
Stacktrace :
org.lwjgl.glfw.GLFW.glfwInit(GLFW.java:827)
com.badlogic.gdx.backends.lwjgl3.Lwjgl3Application.initializeGlfw(Lwjgl3Application.java:81)
com.badlogic.gdx.backends.lwjgl3.Lwjgl3Application.<init>(Lwjgl3Application.java:88)
basecode.mycactoos.game.app.AppObj.start(AppObj.java:27)
ld48.Mainclass.main(Mainclass.java:27)
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ExceptionInInitializerError
at org.lwjgl.glfw.GLFW.glfwCreateWindow(GLFW.java:1842)
at com.badlogic.gdx.backends.lwjgl3.Lwjgl3Application.createGlfwWindow(Lwjgl3Application.java:450)
at com.badlogic.gdx.backends.lwjgl3.Lwjgl3Application.createWindow(Lwjgl3Application.java:394)
at com.badlogic.gdx.backends.lwjgl3.Lwjgl3Application.createWindow(Lwjgl3Application.java:380)
at com.badlogic.gdx.backends.lwjgl3.Lwjgl3Application.<init>(Lwjgl3Application.java:108)
at basecode.mycactoos.game.app.AppObj.start(AppObj.java:27)
at ld48.Mainclass.main(Mainclass.java:27)
Caused by: java.lang.IllegalStateException: GLFW windows may only be created on the main thread and that thread must be the first thread in the process. Please run the JVM with -XstartOnFirstThread. For offscreen rendering, make sure another window toolkit (e.g. AWT or JavaFX) is initialized before GLFW
```
You should really look into using the HTML5 target and make the game more accessible in that way.
I will try on another computer later.. As I said long time user and fan of LibGDX so it's worth the effort :)
The game really makes you feel like a fish out of water. I think this game could really use a camera drag margin. It was very jarring to have the camera fixed on the fish and shake rapidly up and down. It made it hard to see, especially with how fast the fish is.
The art style was really good though, and I enjoyed the sounds! Please don't take the criticism too harshly, it's just that this one thing prevented me from getting further into the game. Still, for a jam game this is surprisingly complete and well playing. I enjoyed how the fish thrashed about on land :D
I have to say that it is a bit to difficult for me, but what i saw was great
freeze the game for me but not big issue.
Not to be that guy... but the jam rules says you have to opt-out from graphic or audio categories if you are using 3rd party assets.
And some extra score for using my old favourite java library :)
There's a bug with the inputs, sometimes an arrow key doesn't work. Maybe if you hit e.g. up and right at the same time? I'm not quite sure, but sometimes the inputs are funky. Also, occasionally the bouncy flowers don't bounce me any higher.
- Good sfx and really nice background music
- Easy to learn, hard to master!
- Nice graphics
- Did find the sprites (esp those spikes!) a little dark to see sometimes.
- Definitely a challenge to control!
I tried playing your game however the game did not recognise the button presses something like 80% of the time. I don't know if you have a fix for this bug but the game was nearly unplayable.
I decided not to rate overall and fun, since I can't really rate that without the controls working properly
I'll post my attempt of a playthrough on Youtube once it finished uploading
https://youtu.be/Zgmwsyyw2Io
Thanks for the feedback so far, glad you at least liked the concept, even if there wasn't much to say about the gameplay so far. The dissonant flute is actually intentional, but I can understand not everyone liking it :P
https://youtu.be/XLhk-6TLy4I
The fish looks really good and has great animation!
Maybe you should add more contrast between the tiles (It's kinda hard to tell the spikes apart from other plants).
I got stuck for a long time at a part where a bounce flower would bounce you up to the exit, but would always bounce me to high into the spikes.
Air control is a little frustrating, but it's a good idea. It gives you a continuous alternation between the stress feeling while in the air, and security feeling while in the water. Exactly as a fish would have (I suppose so).
It is also a good idea to have put hurting spikes in the water after some checkpoint. It modifies the gameplay you initially established. At start, you alternate between stress-air and calm-water, then you alternate between stress-air and not-so-calm-water. A nice evolution.
I loved the sound when the fish comes back to water after a long time. She takes a deep "breathe". Very funny for a fish.
Nice graphics, but as others said, the difference between spikes and safe blocks should be more marked. Also, I find the dark shader a little too dark.
The physics when bouncing around felt a little bit on the slippery side, especially since there was no friction - once you start moving, you keep moving, and acceleration is pretty fast.
Sometimes I would land on the bouncy flowers but not get bounced high... I wasn't sure if this was a bug, or if it was intended that you had to bounce on a specific spot. This was sometimes frustrating in the challenging bouncy sections because I'd *think* I did everything perfectly but then I would fall to my death because I didn't bounce high. I ultimately decided to call it quits early due to this and the somewhat slippery controls.
Fun game overall, though. Could be really awesome with some more features and some polish.