Neptune's Whispers by JortvD

[raw]
made by JortvD for Ludum Dare 48 (JAM)

image1.png In Neptune's Whisper you, a lively submarineman, are tasked with finding and freeing the queen of the sea. If you don't you will have to face Neptune's wrath! You will have to be careful throughout your journeys deeper and deeper to the bottom of the ocean. Keeping track of your oxygen is advised, as picking up items as well as taking damage decreases your supply. If you run out of oxygen... Well, I hope that is obvious. Good luck seamen and seawomen!

image2.png image4.png image5.png


Controls:

Use W, A, S and D to move your submarine around.

When close to the "house" use E to stash your inventory and to upgrade your submarine.

Fire your weapons using LMB or SPACE.

Hint: when aiming with your mouse, try keeping the cursor close to the edges of the screen. This way you have more precision when controlling your weapons. We also found that browsers as Firefox sometimes have issues with the inbuilt mouse tracking for Phaser. Using Chrome is recommended.

Another hint: submarines cannot hit enemies from all angles. Try to lure them towards an angle were you can hit them.


All artwork was made in house for this LD jam. We hope you liked the game and if so we would like to hear your feedback. This was our first time using Phaser, so there probably a good amount of bugs (and we know of some of them). If you find any please report them to us, and we'll try to fix them!


In our experience using a desktop computer and running Chrome is the most stable way to play our game.


Changelog:

27-4 14:40 - Changed some settings to make the game a bit easier.

29-4 14:30 - Changed the submarines to make them a little bit faster.

Ratings

Overall 1101th 3.421⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1307th 3.079⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1082th 3.083⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Theme 238th 4.132⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 619th 3.921⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Audio 730th 3.417⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Mood 1026th 3.421⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Given 18🗳️ 9🗨️

Feedback

Jaco van Hemert
27. Apr 2021 · 12:06 UTC
A nice idea and ambience, but aiming the weapons seemed practically impossible (unless I was doing something wrong?). Also a bit quiet maybe?
I did like the exploration and upgrading though.
Archie Evans
27. Apr 2021 · 12:25 UTC
Its a tough break when the enemies spawn above you and you can't shoot them, they can completely block your exit path as there's only 1 way to the exit. There's real promise here but I just move to slow to finish it! Really cool take on a Motherload-like game though.
Vitor Milioni
27. Apr 2021 · 23:30 UTC
Very fun, i really like the concept and the way it plays, i think the design itself is very nice, i'd have very little to add honestly, my only criticism would be to make it a tiny bit faster to move around, it feels heavy and clumsy at time, but overall incredible work, very solid and fun! Also, very fun take on the Wellerman for the soundtrack :p
Nathansbb
27. Apr 2021 · 23:55 UTC
Would be nice to be able to dump some resources if you're at risk of dying.
The aiming cones could be a bit clearer, plus the cannons aiming would freak out and spin to opposite direction(upward) occasionally. This wasn't an issue with the harpoons.
Pretty cool game
filgru
28. Apr 2021 · 22:35 UTC
Quite nice design of the wooden submarine. I really liked this whistling melody:) Overall I felt like this submarine was moving way too slow and I had some problems with aiming during defending myself. But other than that, good job!
guladam
29. Apr 2021 · 07:52 UTC
The music fits soooo well! :v:

A cute, simple yet fun game.

My feedback:
- Insanely great cover of the song
- Pleasing, well-fitting art and aesthetics
- Simple, yet fun gameplay

Although I agree that controlling the submarine can be a bit frustrating at times, it gives Neptune a heavy feel. I assume that this is what you were going for in the first place.

All in all, great job, fun game! :shark: :octopus:
Amberley Cole
29. Apr 2021 · 09:45 UTC
Cute music. Game was a bit slow to hold my attention. Got halfway though looking for enough iron and was reluctant to continue. Art style was nice.
Kmoor
30. Apr 2021 · 12:14 UTC
It's hard to fight a bit but overall its a fun game and i love the music :D
Gabriel Corbani
02. May 2021 · 01:46 UTC
Love the music and the graphics, a few things I noticed are
- It took like 2/3 minutes to load (Maybe that was just me)
- After my first death Some wood resources were displayed again but the attack did nothing to it, so that was a little confusing.

Overall fun experience though! :D
VixenMink
11. May 2021 · 03:05 UTC
I had issues with the controls but I like how this game looks and feels.
chtimy
11. May 2021 · 19:32 UTC
The game is cool!
I have a bug when I upgrade the submarine. The spears do not trigger the wood anymore...
Otherwise the graphics is cool!
Thank you
saintchristopher777
12. May 2021 · 00:37 UTC
Love the art, and I will always 100% vote up a catchy sea shanty! I do concur with everyone saying that the aiming/shooting is a bit dodgy, but I think the main issue is the super slow movement overall. I like the mechanic of treasure reducing the air meter, that's pretty clever.
legavroche
12. May 2021 · 02:33 UTC
Really liked the music and overall style, but as others mentioned, I found it tough to control the shooting. It felt like sometimes it would launch the other harpoon and not the one I intended. Not sure if I missed this, but I also think there should be some mechanic to refill the air gauge when deep in the caves to avoid needing to constantly resurface as that breaks the fun explorative aspect.