Riven by JunaGames
Riven is a arcade top down scroller, you are confined to the safety of your Buoy area! If you traverse to far the sea guardian Ruinik will eat your boat. Try and stay alive in the waters as cannons and bandits fire your way!

Controlls: Move the mouse to sail LMB - Boost RMB - Cannon Fire Middle Mouse Click to pause
Collectables: Barrels - Give you cannon ammo! Planks - Repair your ship Ducks - Give you a duck shield! (exhausts after 1 attack)
I exported a web version and put it on itch during jam hours, the zip on this page is windows only: https://nenufar-games-studio.itch.io/riven <- web version (not as good sadly)
Riven - created by NenufarGameStudio Design, Programming & Sound - Juniper. Lead Artist & Designer - Nali.
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/riven |
Ratings
| Overall | 482th | 3.653⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 436th | 3.583⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 554th | 3.375⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 172th | 4.214⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 454th | 3.806⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 367th | 3.53⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 510th | 3⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 578th | 3.515⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 28🗳️ | 57🗨️ |
It's a little brutal and I wish it escalated more than being completely static? as far as I can tell the only progression was a point where the buoys teleported, its pretty rough in the first few seconds, but quite fun once you get a handle on it. I also wish there was a little bit of music to set the mood, but it's not a big deal.
I love the animations for the ship dying! They need a little elbow grease but the heart of them is there and it's super cute.
Nice submission, great work!
Overall a solid entry. Great job!
I played about ten runs before I went trying to find the list of powerups I remembered seeing somewhere (in itch.io page) and also found the left mouse button speedup. It was a literal gamechanger! It was much more fun and the powerups were easier to gather. The duration allowed outside the buyous is perfect to go for one trip to left or right side, so when I was being too greedy the Ruinik got me. Great work on that timing.
The art style is very good and polished for the sprites, love the birds flying over.
One small thing that as a player I would like, is that when I lose a run, I could still see how long I traveled. Now usually I would go overboard in such a situation that I was intensely looking at the gameplay so I have no idea how far I got on my tries.
I liked the game very much, nice work!
- Overall style
- Solid take on the jam theme
What I didn't like:
- Game is a bit too hard, it would be nice if it was easier in the beginning.
- When you are about to get eaten circle grows out and you don't understand when you will be eaten. It would be much more clearer if circle would shrink on you...
- Canon balls a hard to dodge...
Suggestions:
- It would be nice if you have shown controls in the game and also show some text explaining what pick ups do. I found out I could fire only after a while :)
**Thank you so much for playing my game!!**
I really appreciated and respect all this amazing feedback! I wanted to code a cleaner project so on day 2 i ported my game over to a fresh project hehe. This gave me lots of space to add juice like shaking and animations but it disallowed me the time to balance my game. Apologies for that, but alas it's a game jam so we chill :D
I'm glad even though there wasn't a balanced progression or clear tutorial people could still have fun and enjoy it for what it was!!!
I'm retroactively updating the game with the following features:
- Bottles give you boost that tracks to boost meter drained by LMB
- Enemies / Collectables spawn rate will have a progression curve
- The buoy movement will be more centered for easier consistent gameplay
- Bandit boss fight will be added back into the game
- Ruinik(Kraken) boss fight will be added to the game
- Better pause menu with music controlls
- A tutorial section to allow the player to learn the game
- Update on death animation visuals
If you want to see these updates play out feel free to join my discord!
https://discord.gg/a2mN7avg6C <-- this is a server where I make & share games :D
Otherwise keep an eye on my itch.io page as I'll be posting an update there :D
Thank you again for your wonderfull feedback and for being apart of this awesome event :)
Also, those cannon balls move probably 5x too fast D: