Squid Shot by puyo

[raw]
made by puyo for Ludum Dare 51 (JAM)

Squid Shot

Squid Shot is a simple underwater platformer/racer. The theme adherence is "you must breathe every 10 seconds".

"Obtain the Legendary Treasure!"

RECOMMENDED: Play on the itch.io link below! (We'll leave the LD embedding, but it messes up the pixel dimensions a bit)

Controls

  • [W][A][S][D] Swimming movement
  • Mouse Aim the squid grapple
  • [Mouse 1] Fire the squid grapple

Crew

  • elim - Code
  • puyo - Design, Graphics

Sound and music are just samples we had from the recent SFX/Music pack on Humble Bundle.

More Info

You can swim, but its really slow. Your fast movement comes from pumping your squid onto walls and sea creatures, which will latch and grapple you to them.

The goal is to reach and unlock the treasure chest at the bottom left of the map. Once unlocked, the Legendary Treasure will be released, and if you're quick you may retrieve it before you run out of breath and need to resurface. Don't worry, it will float to the surface itself. There are a couple of routes, probably all of which need some luck in the current tuning.

We had a larger scope for the puzzling aspect, but toned it down to be able to complete.

puyo's thoughts

I'm happy with the general tone of the level.

The graphics are about what we expected to achieve in the time, though I'm really happy with the basic swimming animation.

I would have liked more time to add better puzzles (switches, boulders to unlock routes, where the 10 second timer makes more sense i.e. needing to explore multiple side routes in under 10 seconds to reveal viable routes to the treasure).

The grapple in its basic form shows a nice idea for underwater exploration instead of regular swimming/propulsion which is often bad in platformers. It's still really far from perfect here, but could feel nice with (for example): tuning, extra camera space, done in 3D, ability to detach grapple and maintain momentum etc.

Tools

  • Godot 3.51
  • Aseprite
  • Audacity
  • Github

Ratings

Overall 970th 3.109⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Fun 971th 2.922⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 701th 3.188⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Theme 541th 3.703⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 845th 3.188⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Humor 519th 2.95⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Mood 1033th 2.844⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Given 36🗳️ 46🗨️

Feedback

coolbeens
04. Oct 2022 · 06:50 UTC
I really liked this! The graphics were cute and the controls were super fun to play with. I liked to grapple :D especially because it was a squid! and I got the treasure!! Yay!! Great job!
karataskn20
04. Oct 2022 · 13:36 UTC
Such a cool concept. Loved it!
amarokczukay
04. Oct 2022 · 14:07 UTC
very nice game! the animations are really good (loved the electrocution), and the grapple mechanics are really good! Really good work overall!
i found a really fast way to get the treasure, but if it was located deeper and there was some air bubbles to breath at some places under the water, it could be even better. but it's a jam game, so i'll stay with : very nice game! :D
Aune
04. Oct 2022 · 17:48 UTC
Hi,
A bit short but the challenge is there and it is extremely effective. Not bad the anchor trick.
I think this is the kind of game we are looking for. I'd like to see an extra component with the other mouse click to put more holds.
Keep going like this. Great Job
LDJam user 299757
05. Oct 2022 · 01:56 UTC
I have hard


Also, great game!
🎤 puyo
05. Oct 2022 · 11:13 UTC
@coolbeens @karataskn20 @amarokczukay @aune @triangle-point
The original scope was a bit larger and included some of your suggestions, but things kept interrupting us over the weekend. Probably the best thing was how we were able to not panic and reduce the scope to at least present something playable!

We wanted some simple things like pressing R to reset the whole round, a little bit better art on the environment and sea life (happy with the player and squid), also to see the player be able to stay above water and not run the timer.

The big idea was to have several checkpoints (underwater air caves) with a series of puzzles in between.

Anyway, thanks all, glad to see many have acquired the One Piece! :smile:
chingle
05. Oct 2022 · 15:23 UTC
I had fun with this game especially when the player gets electrocuted XD I really like that you guys added that anchor trick and speedy fish trick because it is very rewarding if you discover it. Great game!
LandoSystems
06. Oct 2022 · 05:37 UTC
Fun game. A handful of fun things to interact with and cute graphics. Fun to explore and try to find the quickest ways around the map. Bonus points for squid based grappling hook :squid:
Lukein
06. Oct 2022 · 10:13 UTC
I messed around with the anchor way longer than I'm willing to admit

Great game!
Frankey333
06. Oct 2022 · 14:49 UTC
Diving and finding treasure sounds nice.
But somehow, taking the surface taxi fish was way more fun and satisfying than it looks like :D.

Great entry.
Cosmo Nectarine
06. Oct 2022 · 15:20 UTC
Such a cute little game. Gameplay mechanic is very fun to use :D
Plepletier
06. Oct 2022 · 15:52 UTC
Great game, the grapple works very well! kkkk The first time i was electrified I laughed a lot! Good job!
rolferm
06. Oct 2022 · 18:16 UTC
Really fun, I wish I had more time because I'm so slow.
exaggegen
06. Oct 2022 · 18:20 UTC
Perhaps it is worth developing some more puzzles, adding items that help the passage and something like a few treasures. In general, a very fast and cool game,
Lvl99Chicken
07. Oct 2022 · 03:16 UTC
Fun short game. At first was a bit frustrating and WASD wasn't working but refreshing the page fixed it. I enjoyed the challenge and grapple was fun! Well done
La bread
07. Oct 2022 · 03:27 UTC
Loved the grapple mechanic, I wished there were air bubbles or something underwater so you could go deeper and deepr, but thats not necessarily the theme this time around! Pretty fun
candlesan
07. Oct 2022 · 03:41 UTC
Quite challenging! I like the cute use of a squid as the thematic wrapper for a "grappling hook". It took me quite a few tries to finally got it but that made it all the more satisfying when I finally got the treasure.

Would be fun to see additional levels, each of which could be complete in 10 seconds.
PxGluz
08. Oct 2022 · 08:59 UTC
Really loved the artstyle, couldn't make it 'til the end since I didn't know whether or not I was able to get some air some other way, or if there was a faster way of getting down. It would've been nice if I the breath timer was always 10 seconds when you were on the surface, made me wait a lot of times just so I could get a good diving attempt.
Malai
14. Oct 2022 · 11:30 UTC
Oh, those electric fish were infuriating xD
Then i nearly got it and I hooked that damn shark!
AdrianGray
16. Oct 2022 · 18:45 UTC
Interesting concept, a bit hard to get through the electro eels ).
Didn't took long to understand the base mechanics of using fish/envioranmetn to move around.
Nice little game overall!