I got confused about how the route assignment affected the transportation portion. I understand that it decides how far you travel, but after I reach the first stop I have to mash continue a few times until eventually it sends me to a new route assignment. Questions aside, I did enjoy the art and especially the audio. Additionally, I think that seasickness (spacesickness?) is a cool mechanic that was implemented well. Good job on the COMPO!

Space Whale!
Interesting take on the delivery method, but great gameplay
A well themed side-scroller bullet hell.
Nice submission :)

@glove The idea was that you have to fly all the routes in the order that you planned them. But it seems that I introduced a bug shortly before submission and didn't catch it. So now you just have to click on *continue* as many times as the amount of planned routes it seems...

Edit: After checking the rules again I noticed that I can fix minor bugs. So I fixed it. Thanks for pointing it out!

Being a space delivery whale is awesome! Nice game, it looks good and plays well. Limiting the amount you can move with the sickness meter is a cool idea. Overall well done!

Interesting concept. I think the whale gets sick a bit too quick. But other than that I enjoyed what I played there!

I had a little trouble selecting the routes, and that's a shame because I think there was an idea behind this mechanic. Overall it's fun to play and this whale is really stylish. On the other hand the loading each time I did not understand?

@coro-yy That is true. I wanted it to be a bit challenging, but I guess the art and music aesthetics would fit better to a more relaxed gameplay.
As a little hint: If you change direction while already moving Deli gets much more sick, than if you start moving from "standing still".

@tasakasama What trouble did you have? Are the instructions unclear or is the interface not communicating well enough? I think it is not really clear that you have to start from the home planet (blue outline), which can make it confusing with more than two planets. I tried to show this by manually designing the first two days to better show how the route planning works, but I think a bit of help text could have made this much more clear. Just didn't have enough time left unfortunately.

Regarding the loading: The planets on the map can have packages that need delivering (you see them orbiting around them), if you have a route starting from such a planet it means you pick up the cargo from that planet and bring it to the target planet. So you have to load the cargo to Deli's back every time you pick up a delivery.

I click that select a planet but nothing more happened, suddenly it was spam click so that it makes the road well and that I can play

- I like the space whale concept, that was neat
- good art style & music & sound design
- not easy to stay alive and also not sick (I didn't get higher than 2 days even once I figured out how to not die day 1)
- takes a while to restart the game when you die

I like how complete the game feels! having to pack the packages adds a lot to the theme and the overall feel of the game! Balancing sickness and avoiding bullets was also fun mechanic!

Really cool idea, art and sound the music and effects felt really polished. Found it difficult but in a good way I didn't realise how much I randomly flail around in games until I had to stop the whale throwing up.

Loading packages onto the whale was a nice touch.

One thing I would have liked was a graphic or animation of the whale vomiting would have added some more flavour to the continue screen.

Was difficult for me as I realized that too many inputs at once would cause Deli to get too sick. Neat concept, and liked the detail of loading cargo onto Deli. Good work!

@thaprofesional I really wanted to add a puking animation, but sadly I didn't have time for it. It would have been so funny to see a space whale vomit into space.

Cool game. I think the sickness meter limits you a bit too much, but I like the concept of it. I also seemed to not beable to do more than one delivery, as there was not start button.

@wevel First of all thanks for playing!
Did you plan all the routes for the day? In the upper left corner you see how many trips you have to plan.

@theguy Ah, no I hadn't. I suppose making that slightly clearer would be helpful.

@wevel Yes you are absolutely right. I tried to communicate this with the design of the first two days, but it is still not obvious. For some reason it is very hard to see the counter in the top right. Friends of mine who tested the game had the same issue.

I guess it is too far away from the action so that you don't really look up there.

The title made me think this game was about delivering whales, but delivery by whale is fun too. :wink:

Object clicking detection seemed a bit off to me.. I had to click on upper parts of planets and packages for it to register and in the menu I actually had to click above the buttons (maybe that only happens on my non-standard 1920x1200 screen resolution). Planning routes is fun, but putting packages on the whale gets a bit tedious after a while. The whole flying through space part of the game was a bit too easy for me.

@flying-dog-fish Thanks for playing! Really interesting that there seems to be a problem with the hitboxes on that resolution. I assumed if it works for 800x450 (which is the native resolution of the game) and on 1920x1080, then it would also scale to other resolutions.

Thanks for the input I will check to see if I can find the problem!

the space whale is super cute!
making sure Deli doesn't puke was a bit too difficult for me to figure out (from reading the comments I see now how I could have done it) but I really like the idea! nice chill and relaxing atmosphere as well

There's some cool concepts here. Art and sound are top notch. Using "stamina" for each movement took some getting used to and felt very limiting.

My whale got buged out and didn't move :( liked that put package system, maybe could be used to determine weight, more heavy wins you more money at the end but the whale gets more slow.

@baknik Thanks! Yes it is limiting. It was supposed to make it more challenging. But as many pointed out it is a bit too sensitive, so it is too difficult right now. Happy to hear you liked the rest of the game!

@jpbaraky You actually get more score if you are flying a route with cargo on your back. It's just not communicated.
Adding the weight to the controls sounds like a fun idea. Thanks!

I made it to day two, but it is quite difficult.

I think the sickness meter would have been a little more successful if the controls were analog, either through the mouse or through a controller input. Then it would be a bit more about moving very smoothly through the space rather then trying to find a spot that you can just sit in to not be hit. I can see that being very satisfying.

On day 2 I had to make it through a ton of space and you only get the 3 hearts the whole day. Some health powerups would have been great to see, or even just healing one heart upon arrival at a planet would have made the game feel a bit more fair.

Other than that, the controls are very precise which always feels great. The graphics are great, especially for Compo. Music and sound effects are very good too! One of the most solid entries I've seen this Jam. Thanks for making it!

@phlip45 Thanks for playing! Yes you right I imagined exactly what you described for the sickness meter. Analog inputs would have been so much better, but somehow I didn't even think of using the mouse. Then it would also have been mouse-only and mobile friendly. Great suggestion, thank you!

Great game I really like it!
Great job!

cute game! the sickness was a good idea but i think the implementation is a bit wonky - if you press up and right at the same time, or similar you instantly get super sick, which made me fail basically every time (i managed to complete one transition without my whale puking or dying because i cant move enough).

I really like the idea, especially since I feel like the movement fluidity and full control is a key part of many shmups - I think if you manage to figure out some better enemy patterns that allow this in a more fun way it could be a really fun interesting game, currently it felt a bit too hard (although im in no way a shmup afficionado so take it with a grain of salt)

What a weird little entry :smile: the sickness was a little harsh for a jam game ... (too difficult) but managable. The second level confused me a little ... as I didn't quite catch that I needed to back as well :smu

Good job aside from the little mentions above :thumbsup_tone1:

:purple_heart: :dart: :frog:

Got an error while trying to download the linux version _'An error occurred during a connection to w3g3a5v6.ssl.hwcdn.net.'_ I can still download other itch.io things, so it's probably not on my end?

Anyway. This can be a very relaxing game in a way... The 'sickness' mechanic makes it a sort of enforced zen experience -- if that makes sense at all.

The art is all over the place in terms of fidelity, but in such a way that it comes off as charming. The initial logo doesn't seem like much will be going on, then the whale is cute, but enormously pixelated, and then there are the more subtle 2d pixelart planets, connected with almost early 3D looking ribbons. If I where an art-critic I'd call it 'eclectic'.

(Having to drag the packages to the wale is a nice diversion that helps hammer home the theme b.w.t. -- Music fits the mood.)

I found that, while your score stays very low, if you instead of getting captured, make Deli sick (I should apologize to the whale, given what I did to them repeatedly...), you continue on with the next (stretch of) mission immediately, circumventing the pirates. This doesn't seem to be intended?
I think it would make a bit more sense to have a complete game-over -- from the text I think that was maybe what was intended (what would probably also work; the loss of a single whale-heart ... or maybe Deli needs to slow down a lot when they get sick).

@remco Thanks for the detailed feedback.

Regarding the error: I also get this error in Firefox, but not in Chrome. I really have no idea where it is coming from or how I can influence it, since I just uploaded it to itch like I would other files.

Yes my art is all over the place, since I have zero art training and I am by no stretch of the imagination an artist. But I'm quite happy of how it came out in the end, even thought it's by far not perfect or good :sweat_smile:

The mechanic of "skipping" the trip by making Deli puke is semi-intentional. You get way less points than if you would have finished the flight as intended. So you get semi-punished for not finishing but it's not game over. But after recovering a bit, Deli is fit to fly the next route!
It is somewhat of a "cheat strategy" that you can make Deli puke all the time to get a good score or just make her puke when you only have one heart left so you get to the next day with full health again. But it would take you a lot longer to get a good score this way and its no fun at all (without even speaking of all the vomit floating in space because of that).

Thanks for pointing out all these points!

I really enjoyed this game! I liked the art and thought Deli was adorable. I was also really interested in the idea of a bullet hell where movement is limited. I think maybe the movement was a little too limited, but I still really enjoyed trying to keep the movement as minimal as possible. Great work!

cute game, nice graphics, original idea. the sickness meter was a bit too sensitive but i guesss in the future you could add upgrades like inertial dampeners that you buy at some planets to dampen motion sickness. would like to see a full game based on space whales one day, would be interesting.