OceanMen by Talia
----------------------------------------------------------------- Help the diver make the boaters happy. -----------------------------------------------------------

Tools: Unity 2021 / Krita / beepbox.co / Audacity
| Link | https://taliavali.itch.io/oceanmen |
| Link | https://taliavali.itch.io/oceanmen |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/oceanmen |
Ratings
| Overall | 197th | 3.763⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 415th | 3.368⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 423th | 3.25⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 263th | 3.868⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 294th | 3.684⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 187th | 3.632⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 115th | 3.868⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 30🗳️ | 0🗨️ |
- The music sets the tone really well for this been an ambient game
- simple game loop
- fluid movement of the player and the simple controls
Suggestions:
- Randomize the item spawn locations for replayability; ideally have more spawn locations than items so that the spawn locations aren't always the same.
- A 'fastest time' scoreboard for players to compete with their best times
- ad pick-up and turn-in sounds; ideally in the same key as the droning background music; this let's the player contribute to the background music
- An end-game condition that gives feedback to the player that they have gotten all of the items; you can implement it in such a way that it's not disruptive to the flow of the game for players who like to continue diving after completion.
Bugs:
I found that it's possible to try and swim to shore on the left side and get stuck near the beach, forcing you to refresh the browser and start over.
Also "Help the diver to make the boaters happy" confused me at first, I read it as "(Help the diver) to make the boaters happy" and I thought I was going to bring items down to the diver. But it's actually "Help (the diver to make the boaters happy)" The "to" throws it off. Just "Help the diver make the boaters happy" is what I'd say.
But yeah, loved the audio and graphics.
One small suggestion would be to indicate to the player early on that they can not have more than one item picked up at a time. I ended up spending some time diving deeper to obtain another item only to find that I couldn't. Maybe having two items at the start side by side might help indicate this.
I loved the relaxing ambience and the mechanic was simple and enjoyable.
I could think of a few improvements (Like having the flashlight flip directions, and maybe even a deeper "have to scan with flashlight" mechanic), but all in all this was fun and comforting for one person in 48 hours.
Great job!
Great game, good job.