The Smuggler's Map by Phanelly
For quite a while the archipelago has been blockaded by the Marine due to an high rate of piracy, and all resources entering its waters are thightly regulated. There is certainly much money to be made by someone daring enough to sail from isle to isle bringing these much sought goods to the people, but this brave smuggler would have to contend againts pirates and the Marine itself... and some say that the waters of the archipelago are stalked by terrible monsters, or even worse...

In this game, you play a foolhardy bootlegger set on getting rich or die trying, gathering and then delivering specific resources from port to port in a procedurally generated archipelago. The more delivery you make, the richer you become, and the fatter the bounty on your head will grow, as the Marine does not take kindly unlawful activities. As you get richer and the bounty on your head increases, the difficulty will ramp up, earning you even more rewards, and attracting even more danger. For how long can you keep it up?

Set sail in this hand-drawn archipelago; Brave the waters! Evade the dangers! Get rich!
| Link | https://arcanesalad.itch.io/the-smugglers-m |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/the-smugglers-map |
Ratings
| Overall | 287th | 3.85⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 466th | 3.567⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 79th | 4.083⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 20th | 4.55⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 33th | 4.65⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 724th | 2.857⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 82th | 4.233⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 16🗳️ | 11🗨️ |
This is of course nitpicking on the highest order and after I understood the UI everything made sense and felt right. Good job and keep up the good work!
Great job, congrats mate!
A few minor nitpicks:
- In the second half of the game (After I had around 400.000 score) no more pirates or navy would appear. Nessie was just chilling in the middle of the map. I just had to plot my course around her.
- Reading the legend on the right was a bit annoying. Maybe remove it completely and add the "source"-island to the requests. Something like: island A -> treasure map -> island B
- The island shapes could be a bit more distinct, to recognize them with one glance. (Halfmoon- and Bridge-island were good examples :thumbsup: )
All in all a very good game. Nice graphics. Fitting music! Good job! :)

@hedroncrab you are right about the boat drifting away, it was such an annoying bug! Luckily I managed to fix it like one hour after your comment, luckily soon enough before the end of the jam ahah!
@stefan-funke thank you for the meaningful feedback. Weird about the ships not spawning anymore! I wonder what caused it. I like your idea about the redesign of the legend, we well think about it when we redesign it. And thank you for the feedback on the island shapes, such a good idea <3 Also I see you reached 1 milion, I hope you found it funny.
I really love ship control mechanic^^
It was fun to run away from pirates but i don't understand how to destroy them. After playing 6 minutes session I was being chased by 4th pirates ships. Iw was scary😱
Overall i really love tha game. It's really good project!
Awesome graphics
My respect to the artists❤️
@hoeleboele I will rub this in my programmer's face for a while :eyes:
@jkyd Yes maybe I went a bit too on the pretty side instead of he readable one :sweat_smile:
@stefan-funke Congratulation! I hope you had a good laugh! And yeah after all monsters spawned I'm afraid enemy boats do not survive for long . Sorry to hear that the Snake decided to chill out in the middle of the map lol. Thanks for the great feedback anyway :thumbsup:
I cannot respond to everyone but know that all your comments are very appreciated and cherished!

Also, i think it would be very helpful if I could change the font in settings because it's little hard to read
But everything else is great! I like the graphics and mechanics!
Some constructive criticism:
- It usually struggled trying to identify which island has the resource that I currently need. Although there is a legend, the fact that everything is the same colour made it somewhat frustrating to pattern-match the islands on the right to those on the left. To solve that problem you could use some sort of colour-coding (e.g. give each resource a colour and apply that colour to parts of the island that offers the resource) or provide a tooltip that displays when one hovers over an island or clicks it and that displays the resource.
- Since the pirate ships' speed is similar to that of the ship one controls, the point at which it becomes nearly impossible to deliver resources is reached rather quickly. The problem here isn't that it makes the game difficult - it that it makes it feel *unfair* (at least to me). I'd love if the speed of one's ship increased with each new pirate ship that spawns (or if it already does, to make the increase stronger). That way, beating the game would feel more like a test of my skills, not of my patience.
Thanks for the feedback!
I had a pretty difficult time reading the legend at first; I feel like some colors would have been a more helpful guide. That said, the player has plenty of time to figure things out before the pirates arrive. This did make the game a bit of a struggle, though.
The idea of using a quill to draw out the path the boat will take is pure genius! I never would have thought of it and it is very creative. Unfortunately, I also think it's the major thing that's keeping this game from being more fun. I had a hard time controlling things using the track pad, which led to me being sunk by pirates :(. I suspect that just clicking and dragging to have the boat move in the current direction of the cursor would be easier for the player to control. Or maybe a compromise would be to slow down the pirate ships in order to compensate.
Like others commented, the cognitive link to do for the player between supplied and demanded wares being visually placed on different sides of the screen was also the hardest part for me in the game.
The gameplay and controls are not interesting and polished, but I believe it could be improved with more time :)
Excellent music!
Excellent environment and creatures!
I agree with some comment that the legend on the side is a bit tricky to navigate or read. But just showing the island liek "go there", "go here" would probably make the game too simple. Not sure how to solve that issue. But I still had a lot of fun. Even with dying a lot on my first 5 runs or so
@frabjous-studios , @amunonra , @noskro I promise to design a better UI next time LOL (And Noskro, do not pirate too much or the Marine will come, or even worse.... :eyes: :laughing: )
Minor nitpicks:
- Since my patience is `null`, ships felt slow.
- Triggers are way bigger than the sprites
Overall very good game. Well done!
Very hard to go away from pirates, and select your ship feels a little bit bug, bacause I can't micro dodge when someone close. It always rotates to some direction that I don't need.
Also I liked the idea to draw your path, it's nice
Graphics and sounds are great
@ping78 yes, the dock triggers are way bigger in order to make things easier for the player. If instead you're referring to enemies' triggers, I thought I was precise and fair with those. Let me know which one you think feels weird
@sneakyfox yes you're right: micro movements are very difficult because if you click anywhere else than the exact center that's gonna be the first destination of the path. I should have fixed that but I had much other stuff to fix first ahah.
@noskro yarr harr
I was referring to enemy/player triggers. Seeing that distance between the sprites, did not feel correct.
