lil lighthouse by Boxofcuriosity
A game where you collect fish to upgrade a lighthouse, defending from the dark.
This is my first ever jam, so treat me well :sob:
Only changes made post were to do with the scaling of the UI, webgl sucks




| Link | https://boxofcuriosity.itch.io/lil-lighthouse |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/59/lil-lighthouse |
Ratings
| Overall | 173th | 3.925⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 106th | 3.9⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 136th | 3.85⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 339th | 3.9⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 314th | 3.95⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 364th | 2.906⭐ | 18🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 238th | 3.947⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 23🗳️ | 3🗨️ |
And then its your first game jam and wow. Very good job in scoping and making such a polished clever game.
I wish that it was a bit easier to tell when fishing time was up and it was time to get back to the lighthouse, but overall really nice! well done
I didnt really feel a difference when upgrading my boat idk it was hard to steer for me maybe that was a bug idk.
Anyway I really enjoyed it :D
I found the boat pretty frustrating to control - I know that's part of the challenge, but even with an upgraded boat I felt like I was slipping on ice, and that kind of turning makes it annoying when trying to gather tiny little fish in the dark. The very small view radius doesn't help when you're venturing far from the lighthouse. On that note, the time between waves is very tight, and again even with lots of upgrades I often barely made it back in time - which can be a death sentence when the higher health enemies start coming. It felt like I was blindly stabbing out into the dark looking for tiny fish with no chance to make it back before the wave started. I think some tighter boat controls and a bit more leniency there could go a long way (and maybe some sort of radar to help with finding fish?)
Great work, especially as a solo project! The atmosphere and core loop are great, and I think you've got a great foundation here :)
Should probably note that I "broke" the ship turn speed upgrade by making it increase at a negligable rate :sweat: I had issues with scaling it too high and balancing happened late so something was bound to be missed

I'll save the game here to try again later.
A really cool idea to combine two types of gameplay: a collectible game and a survival game. It was a really great choice.
I found the boat's movement strange. I know it has those skids that boats use, but it's difficult to control. Actually, it's hard to aim the boat to the place you want. In some directions, I had to keep pressing in alternating directions for it to go where I wanted.
Overall, it's a really cool game. I reiterate that I saved it here to finish.
Congratulations!
your art is simple enough and gameplay loop is very satisfying!
balancing is pretty good except for the rotation speed but as you said, something was bound to be missed!
anyway I had a lot of fun, thank you!
Not sure if the boat had health or not? By the end I was letting the lighthouse autospin and zooming around (which was super fun), but that might be one more extra layer of balance. The boat controls did feel a little weird, even with upgrades, but was still fun! It'd be nice to have a slight UI change (ie. gold color, star) to know when an upgraded was maxed out, and some of the audio pops were a little harsh in my headphones.
Played this way longer than I should, because it was that fun getting all the upgrades! Great job!