Don't Skip the Ship! by Bloham

Don’t Skip the Ship!
Dive into a world of limited space in Don’t Skip the Ship! This Ludum Dare compo game challenges you to manage a tiny port and ensure cargo gets to its destination. Click the yellow area for cargo, strategically place it on ships, and don’t be lazy - a ship sailing away empty means game over! Can you master the art of efficient cargo loading and save the day?
How to play?
- Click the yellow area in the middle to obtain cargo.
- Place the cargo on the ships.
- You can rotate the pieces with the right mouse button.
- You lose if a ship sails away too empty.


| Source Code | https://github.com/Bloham/LD54-Limited_Space |
| HTML | https://bloham.itch.io/skiptheship |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/dont-skip-the-ship |
Ratings
| Overall | 272th | 3.239⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 261th | 3.167⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 214th | 3.292⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 46th | 4.25⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 153th | 3.625⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 218th | 2.364⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 284th | 2.848⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 14🗳️ | 26🗨️ |
I feel like the instructions could be a little clearer on what counts as "too empty", but otherwise nice job! 😄
I wasn't sure how to know whether a ship had enough cargo on it or not. Sometimes the game would end, and sometime the game would continue. I just loaded each ship as much as I could until I couldnt' anymore and that seemed to work for a few ships but a visualized goal would have helped me figure it out.
It was a relaxing experience, although it was hard to anticipate when the boat will start moving away, and then rush to fill it up.
It is completely on the theme of the limited space, but if there were some sounds of sea/docks, it would be even better experience.
It'd be nice to see what the score threshold is for a ship before it sails off. I also had a bug where the pieces would be offset from the "grid" and take up more collider space than they should. Also the highlight not updating like someone mentioned above.
The only couple of things I missed, are a clearer visual feedback of where the cargo is being placed, the color highlight is not very visible. Also, it's hard to say when the ship will leave, or how much cargo it has to have.
Too bad there is no sound either.
Other than that, nice little entry.
Great job!
The game is a bit unforgiving as you don't have much time to plan ahead and there's only one piece available at given time. Maybe having some hold mechanic like tetris, or having more than one piece that you could choose from to give you a little bit more of strategy could be good approaches to improve it
Nice game!
Nice game overall!
This felt like my worst compo project so far. I run into so many problems and I am astonished how so many people like the game... I managed to closet the really simple core game loop 5 hours before the deadline and was about to give up so many times.
But here a few decissions of why.
- The marker of the item placement is so weak as I tried to put the Item away while placing it, so that you can see better where to place it.
- The Items are bigger than the tiles to make the ship seem more full
- the ship is full when you filled it to 70% or 75% (dont remember exacly)
- Random times for the docking of the ship as well as indicators for them where on top of the list, but no time because of other issues.
- Cargo should snap into place, but it snaps into place the moment you click, when the ship is moving the coordinates will be screwed and it snaps a little next to it.
- No sound because of time, and because its my weak spot.
- No more shapes as I run out of time
- The boat was a placeholder I skeched the first day :) I just never came to repalce it.
- Show the score on the game over screen was just a result of no playtesting due to time problems.
Well thank everyone though that you are thinking so well about my game! There were many really good games this time and I am proud to be a part of it again!
I think the torch is unfair that it ends as soon as I can't load it. especially when I get like 5 small boxes in a row. I understand if I got a minimum point or a penalty, but "game over" is a big penalty that only reduces the playing time.
good entry