Signal surfer by poddub
📡 Can you handle this signal wave? 📡
Get points in air 🚀
Multiply them on wave 🌊
And see how far you can get 😉
⌨️ Controls
Click / Space / Enter * 🔥 Boost on wave 🌊 * ⬇️ Dive in air 🚀
⚠️ Known issues
- ⛰️ Visual glitch with track in web version (will be fixed in post-jam version)
- 📺 CRT shader (break web version if enabled in settings)
- 🔊 Missing sounds (completely ran out of time)
💬 That's my first public project, so I would be grateful for any feedback 💬
💚 And thank you for playing 💚
| Link | https://drive.google.com/file/d/11K3o4yV60UgnVH2FMnaGkPxJl6Ryo9Xw/view?usp=sharing |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/59/signal-surfer |
Ratings
| Overall | 112th | 3.59⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 61th | 3.705⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 197th | 3.115⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 219th | 3.128⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 117th | 3.615⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 200th | 3.145⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 19🗳️ | 21🗨️ |
But its different enough. Love the higher you go the more things collect.
That said its hard to know when you are about to die.
Even though the controls are just one button, I still spent quite a bit of time here. Cool game
also have thoughts about making this down to 0 more fun, thank you for such detailed feedback 💚
The arc prediction is a really good idea but it doesn't quite feel accurate enough to make use of for the dives.
I wish I knew what caused a game over to help me learn what do to a bit faster!

The LD one did work, though, so I tried it... And it took me multiple attempts before I figured out the feel of the game. At first I thought I was losing due to how the map is built (like getting multiple increasing hills one after another, so I kept launching and slamming into an uphill slope), but eventually I've managed to mitigate it.
The feeling you get once you launch and get the zoomed out view is pretty good. But I'd agree with people before me, having some air control, especially during those moments, would have been amazing.

The first several tries ended too quickly, and I didn't realise how exactly the game over mechanic worked. I feel like the game could be a little bit less punishing in those initial moments, as it feels if you'd get a bit more time during those early attempts, you'd get a hang of proper controls more quickly. Because the restarts happen so fast in the beginning, it doesn't feel like you're able to learn much about it. But eventually it clicked and I did start getting some better scores. Eventually I even got up to 6 digits, so I think that's a pretty decent score already. ;)

Overall, it's a really good idea, pretty well executed, and looking amazingly good! Especially for a compo entry. Well done!
Just add a "-2" to the url to find it :)
It took a while to figure out how to "surf" properly.
Here's how Tribes goes:

But nope! It's like upside-down tribes, where you have a gravity pack instead of a jetpack! So I was playing against thousands of hours of brain-wired instinct on this one. But I was really intrigued to see how it went.
And the problem was, this movement system was really fun to experim-GAME OVER
Hold on, I mean, I was trying to dig in and learn-GAME OVER
wait something is wrong and I'm not sure wh-GAME OVER
gaddammit!! I just want to pl-GAME OVER
So the first feedback I would give is let me play. You as the developer probably have NO CLUE how bad I am at your game. I got my first game over before I even moved! So believe me, you wouldn't believe it. I suggest finding random friends and strangers and forcing them to play WITHOUT SAYING ONE SINGLE WORD. Do not tell them in advance what to do, and for pete's sake do NOT say anything or answer any questions while they play.
I did that early in my jamming days and I learned a TON that I've never forgotten. You just cannot believe what and how much your players misunderstand until you see it with your own eyes, and for me I had to see it repeatedly across several projects and really get a clue.
For example even now I still don't know what causes game over in your game. Is it something to do with that spreading meter at the top of the screen? What causes that to fill? Is it simply a timer? Sometimes it seems to move at different speeds but I never understood quite how.
The second thing is that I kept feeling bad about this moment:

That's not even the perfect capture, but moments like that kept slamming me out of the flow state. Totally a skill issue I am sure but it was my experience regardless. Can you alter your design so that this is still a fail/bad state, but yet is somehow more fun to experience?
Now the things I loved:
I love new innovative movement systems and this one was a very cool iteration. I think your surrounding design choices could make it shine even more, but that core is really cool. You also have VERY nice polish all around it in terms of the graphics effects. Having fullscreen was huge, and the way you put the tutorial there but non-obtrusively was a nice touch. So many little animations from your team-name intro to the buttons and screen transitions, a ton of care that really feels nice.
I also thought the camera was really well done -- and that is a way you could have easily failed. It's tricky to get the compromises right and I thought you did well there. The projection of your landing is also a really nicely-done smart touch.
So overall really good! I just think you didn't anticipate how much I sucked and needed some space to test, learn, and explore your movement system.
Nice entry!
Cool game! Love this scaling effect when you bounce high, feels surreal :) Insance level of visual polish btw.
After couple of minutes of getting used to controls it started feeling very smooth.
I think it has nice potential once sound is added.