The Hunt for Red April by XeduR
The Hunt for Red April is a submarine stealth game built around a single tension: sonar is your only way to see, but every ping you send reveals your position to the enemy.
You command a lone submarine hunting an aircraft carrier, the Red April, escorted by a fleet of destroyers and patrol boats. The ocean is pitch black. Destroyers patrol the map and when they detect you, they chase your predicted position and drop depth charges.
This game is played best with headphones (and audio turned on).
This game was initially supposed to be a COMPO entry, but I realised that I couldn't produce the required quality sound effects by myself, so I pivoted to JAM and sourced the original audio files from Pixabay.
Objective
Navigate by sonar. Sink the carrier. Evade enemy ships. Torpedo the carrier twice to win. Avoid depth charges, terrain collisions, and running out of torpedoes.
Controls
- W/UP: increase throttle.
- S/DOWN: decrease throttle.
- A/LEFT: turn left.
- D/RIGHT: turn right.
- SPACE: emit a sonar ping (reveals terrain and ships, but also alerts nearby ships).
- SHIFT/CTRL: fire a torpedo.
HTML5 build
The game is playable over at my website (hosted over GitHub Pages). The game uses localStorage to remember your choice of having audio turned or off, so I couldn't upload it here. I'm also guessing ldjam.com will lag out of existence once the submission deadline approaches.
Update #1
There was almost 10 hours left before JAM submissions, so based on player feedback, I went ahead and updated the submarine to use tank controls. Now you control the throttle and turn using A/D or LEFT/RIGHT arrows.
Ratings
| Overall | 182th | 3.913⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 263th | 3.63⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 125th | 3.87⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 102th | 4.283⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 348th | 3.896⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 127th | 4.152⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 28🗳️ | 25🗨️ |
@indigowolf, @sam-horner a few players have voiced feedback about the controls, so given that I still had almost 10 hours left before JAM submissions, I went ahead and updated the game to use tank controls. I think that's the better control scheme after all.
I finally sunk the carrier, but I feel I just got lucky with the spawn. But it was like my 20th attempt!! It was very hard. The enemy was really good at finding me, and once they did, I never got them off my back, and they didn't care about the obstacles :D
Sometimes I feel like the sonar didn't go off when I used it? Or it didn't work for obstacles? I collided once because of this.
Seems to be something up with the green flashing monitor effect also, after playing a while it became very intense.
Other than that - very solid entry! Enjoyed it a lot
@james-7777 That's by design to make the game a bit more challenging. Submarines are also quite a bit slower in real life than patrol boats and destroyers.
@notime4games The sonar should always work, but it has a cooldown (visible in the lower right corner). The enemy ships are on the surface and sail over the obstacles. I figured it'd be easier that way and make the game a bit more difficult (as well as easier to program the AI. :sweat_smile:).
Years ago, i tried making a platformer with a similar concept of echolocation/blindness/alerting enemies. It was terrible and half assed, literally the worst game i have ever made. So, seeing you execute that concept well is weirdly therapeutic.
I found myself retrying an absurd amount of times, despite being miserably obliterated. Every death has a reason and feels fair. Navigating blindly is high risk and high reward. Game gud.
The art, sounds and atmosphere are great though, and I really love the whole concept! It's quite tense trying to balance pinging to see your environment with sneaking through and avoiding the other subs. It's also a little frustrating that they can go right through obstacles.
I would LOVE to see a polished and fleshed out version of this though, the core gameplay is awesome
I quickly forgot which direction I was told to go in at the start so a reminder of that might be helpful.
I worked it out, but initially had the same problem I ran into on ours where the camera follow makes it hard to tell if you're moving or not - a bit of easing on the follow sorts that out nicely though.
And of course I highly approve of the use of the theme XD
The turn for aiming is slow, which makes the enemy ships have time to sail away
It's a truly immersive game!!! Now, I wish the field was *less* busy, or that all submarines (yes, I thought all were submarines) would be... slower. Why? Because that would make dying a bit harder, which is very easy right now. It seems to me a problem of balancing. Another way to balance this would be to make cavities larger. Oooor... also add a minimap which holds the last-indicated position of anything detected (mostly ships but could work for terrain).
I died 7 times, some of them quickly, and TBH it's a bit hard to try 8th time, regardless of the great *mood*! I also thoughts those are other submarines, *not* boats above water. Those depth charges... aargggh got busted more than a few times :D . Sometimes less is more.
Thanks for the entry! :) I love it anyways!
Game design is very solid in my opinion! However as others have noted, the game is quite difficult. Here are some possible improvements one could make to make it a bit more smooth for the player and give them a fighting chance:
- Perhaps make the depth charges from enemy ships less accurate, at least at first. Maybe their accuracy increases slowly over number of sonar pings the player produces?
- Could increase the armor / health of the player sub a bit, to allow them to take several hits before mission failed.
- Similarly, could allow bumping off of terrain and taking damage rather than instant death, similar to above.
Overall, the retro vibe is really great and you have a solid design here. In my opinion, with a little bit more "grace" toward the player, the user experience could be taken to the next level. Congrats on a great entry!
The visual style gave me feeling for those old DVD games. I didn't manage to sink the carrier, but I had a blast playing.
Many submariners were sent against the Red April, and many submariners perished in the depths. This is a hard game. The enemy is overwhelming. I think the physical obstacles that the enemy could move through really made it hard, because it forced the player to ping often and draw down the horde.