Stranger Fish by Millhow

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

Welcome to Stranger Fish !

You love exploration ? You love funny fish design ? Then, I think you would like our game ! On Stranger Fish, you can control a submarine with a shark design (we call it the Sharkmarine).

sharkmarinemini.png

You can go down deeper and deeper to find many imaginary fish, some of them are cute, some of them are funny and other are creepy !

The goal is to find all of them the fastest as you can, your best score will be displayed on the main screen if you want to challenge you to beat it again.

We hope that you will enjoy your exploration and will like our funny little fishes !

gamescreen.png

Ratings

Overall 1129th 3.395⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1307th 3.079⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1475th 2.789⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Theme 893th 3.658⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 387th 4.132⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Humor 383th 3.421⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Mood 522th 3.789⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Given 5🗳️ 9🗨️

Feedback

baconn00
26. Apr 2021 · 10:21 UTC
Great game, reminds me of feeding frenzy so much. The control is a little bit off too, I can't seem to use ASDW to move around and have to find another keys. Love the theme, the music is very related too. Espcially the flashlight when going deep underwater, very detail. Great job.
Rob Parker
26. Apr 2021 · 10:22 UTC
I really liked the art style and the idea of the game! It's solidly implemented as well.
I think one thing i struggled with was finding the fish in each step. Maybe something like a sonar that can be used once every so often would help, otherwise i found myself swimming around for ages trying to find the last fish on a step.
landsykes
26. Apr 2021 · 10:25 UTC
@baconn00 Hi, thanks for your feedback ! For the control you can go on the option to change if you have an Azerty or Qwerty keyboard :open_hands:

@rob-parker I'm happy that you've enjoyed the idea of the game ! We didn't think about adding a sonar but you have a point it would be a interesting feature to add, when we release it we think that finding the last fish would add some difficulty on the game but I agree that it can be frustrating :cry:
m11
28. Apr 2021 · 14:07 UTC
Such a nice art style!
StarvingMilk
28. Apr 2021 · 14:10 UTC
adorable im still confused on the controls but just saw your thing about keybords. idk if Azerty's are a big thing but that is probably why im struggling. will give another shot, might wanna have a pop up or sumn to get people to pick the right one before starting.
Carraka
28. Apr 2021 · 14:11 UTC
I also started the game with Azerty and thought the game was broken at first. Maybe an indicator on the main screen telling you which keyboard you're starting with so you know whether to switch? And a way to return to the menu to change options after already starting the game.

I only found 2 out of 3 of the fish in each stage ... I swam around a lot too, but I guess I didn't have the patience. It would have been nice to be able to zoom in on each fish you find after you collect them. Some of them looked super cute and creative, but I wasn't able to see them for very long before my sharkmarine just gobbled them up.

The light at the bottom was a nice touch.

I like the above sonar suggestion. Other improvements could be making the environment more visually interesting or even dangerous, or having finding the fish give you something that would help you explore deeper.

Did I mention these graphics are a delight?
StarvingMilk
28. Apr 2021 · 14:30 UTC
figured out the controls and had a blast. I personally have nothing but love for video games that are simple and involve exploring, and this totally satisfied this niche. It seems like something i would want to play while in a zoom lesson and bored out of my skulls, with tons of replayability for someone who's looking to distract themself. Very well made in this respect.
Cresceda
28. Apr 2021 · 14:34 UTC
Cool art and fitting music. I liked the premise and I didn't find any bugs or glitches. I do wish there was something more to do than just swimming back and forth until you find the right fish. Like a buying system or something. Also, make sure to let people select the right keyboard.
landsykes
29. Apr 2021 · 10:38 UTC
Thanks for all your comments :smile: I add a comment just down the game in yellow to inform users that the game is for Azerty keyboard default but you can change it on the option

@carraka I just add on the bottom game page and in links on the ludum page a picture with all the fish :fish: Hope you will enjoy them :smiley:
Carraka
29. Apr 2021 · 12:32 UTC
Yusss, these fish are amazing. I'm going to go share them with my artists.
tanis
01. May 2021 · 14:45 UTC
Very nice graphics and it reminds me of a game I played on the iPad a long time ago but I can't really recall the name.
Hugison
07. May 2021 · 10:34 UTC
The game looks really nice. The fish look really good as the shark submarine. Music fits very well and creates a good mood. The darkening in stage 5 is also really nice and the light of the submarine.

Had the same issue with the controls. But that already was reported, so lets go onto some things with the gameply that I would improve:

Most of the gameplay for me felt like luck. I just swam around and waited for the fish to spawn. So there was no real challenge for me. I think it would be better to add a bit of vhallenge or player involvement like a sonar wich was mentioned earlier. Also I thought that the area was pretty empty. If there was a fish it was the fish that I needed to collect. So having more dofferent kind of fish swim around would be more interesting and also would add a bit of challenge to find the correct fish.

Well done and I hope my feedback helps. Cheers
betovf
07. May 2021 · 11:58 UTC
The design of the fish is amazing! Very funny but it could be more challenging. Goog job! :wink:
saintchristopher777
07. May 2021 · 15:22 UTC
Neat little game! I like the sharkmarine (all the art, really). The levels with lowering light, and eventual giant spotlight needed for visibility is good. Actually finding the fish collectables is pretty rng - I think having more environmental exploration would be cool. Good game!
Ausstein
07. May 2021 · 17:00 UTC
I really liked all the meme fish. That was a funny idea and the reason why i tried this game. I actually managed to find all of them. The gameplay is a little boring after a while, you just go left to right and back until you find all of them. The graphics are great tho. And it fits the theme how you have to go deeper and deeper to find all of them
SIGILL
08. May 2021 · 22:38 UTC
Cute and relaxing game, but some of the fish seemed very elusive; I haven't been able to find them all! Some way to get an indication whether you are close to a fish or not might've been a nice addition. I also felt a bit claustrophobic, there is relatively little space around the player to see the surroundings/the game feels very zoomed in.
Mololo
17. May 2021 · 14:20 UTC
I love the graphics, the gameplay is entertaining and the music is great. Some sort of indicator to make it a little bit easier to find a fish would be great, but overall you did a great job and especially for a first game.

Good job.