Great graphics, but really don't understand anything, code combinaison to obtain items ? Assemblage of items to validate teleporter ? When i launch the game i was happy, the graphics was good, little rpg vibe, useless pnj (lot of say hey that's a good day bro hum..), after i just find objets to interact witch redeem me 3 type of item or code with color, size, and material. Well too complicated and confuse. And i can walk on the water and explore outside the map, i found nothing ...

@robowarrior1982 Thanks for checking it out! Totally get how it could be confusing, if you want to get on the main path make sure you talk to everyone at least once, then speak to the mayor. From there it should be much clearer!

Game has some nice views, the ocean, the manta ray with people on it is a cool idea. I did however struggle to progress. Although I knew I had to visit the temples, I couldn't figure out what the menu was with the red block, aged and something else, no matter what I chose, nothing happened. So not sure if I needed a specific order or something? But anyways, there is a bunch of custom sprites and graphics, which made the game look cool and interesting.

Hi, I'm a bit confused as well. I spoke with everyone, and then with the mayor and checked out the temples, but the UI didn't allow me to pick up any of the items I found. I'm sure I'm missing something! That aside, I think the sprites look great (sp the main character one) and I loved the ambience sound of the sea waves.

@skyystorm @ladybenko tldr: go back to the mayor after checking out a temple, then the townsfolk will have hints for picking up the materials. I know this probably could have been a lot clearer!

I saved the ray! :D

I couldn't figure out how to collect items, because I thought it was a pick-one-of-three menu when it was in fact a menu with cycling options. For those that get stuck here, you can press up or down to cycle through the options and then once you've filled the proper selection in all 3 slots, you can interact again to get the item if successful.

The game itself was enjoyable and I liked the little world you've built. There was a lot of walking back and forth trying to find all the caches again :D but I like that you can use the markings on the manta ray to navigate around the place.

Good job!

The art is delightful. I love the character designs, and the water shader is nice to look at.

I like the note taking aspect, and I've been thinking about making a mystery game myself. I think if the game requires notes like this, you should have some sort of built in place for the player to take notes in-engine.

I like how nobody tells you what to do for the stork eggs. You need to just intuitively determine that one for yourself.

I assumed the game would take place under the sea, so reading "different energy in the air" made me pause. Just ignore me being dumb in the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=va54OshTgDM

Gamepad controls don't seem to work for me (trying the web build).

Hey, great character designs and implementation of the theme were great. Really original setting. I loved the 'The Urchin' in particular.

I imagine with some more tuning time, the playthrough path could have been a little more straightforward (at least in the beginning, when the player's getting oriented).

I think while feeling like you were on a huge ray was cool, with the trial-and-error nature of the puzzles (or even the path forward), minimising travel time is really important to avoid player frustration.

Overall a nice entry - well done!

Love the dialogue, and the small but important detail that the dialogue boxes are either on the top or bottom of the screen depending on where you are. Great atmospheric background ambience, as well.

I have no idea how you implemented the funky water waves, but love the visual. Overall the graphics are simple, but do the job well. (Love the derpy looking birds in the sky)

I was a bit confused but it got clearer over time. Well done on this entry!

Cool idea and looks really good! I hope you continue developing it. It's a bit confusing like others have said but I see a ton of potential in it.

Incredibly solid look, story, and general vibe. The graphics are charming (the noise shader for the waves is fantastic!), and the interaction model was solid. The actual gameplay was a little thin, and I was never really quite sure what I was doing, but the overall execution of what was there was spot on.

Really nailed the theme as well - and the names/personalities of each creature was clear, which is impressive given the development timeline!

I liked the graphics and the general idea but I couldn't seem to collect anything, it just said to make sure you collect the best material. Maybe I'm just misunderstanding something.

Really good writing and the story was engaging. I was hoping for a little plot twist of some kind because of the way how the characters were talking (it was giving me vibes of some kind of bigger mystery). That said any kind of ending is an achievement on its own when it comes to game jams :D Story wise, I was absolutely satisfied with what I got here.

Audiovisuals were top notch and matched gameplay perfectly. The art direction in this game is really well executed. The art style is simple yet detailed enough to distinguish things very well. On top of that it was very consistent across all the game so I could feel like everything was part of the same experience and it helped to keep immersion a lot. Additionally the audio with waves ambient and SFX also helped creating a really good mood (with a nice water shader as a cherry on top!).

The gameplay was a little too long and passive for my taste. I'm not sure if you wanted to create a puzzle game with nice riddles or storytelling driven experience, because for the puzzle game the gameplay required from me too much walking but on the other hand from the story perspective it all was too condensed in one place so the flow of storytelling wasn't consistent enough for me to create good dynamic. There either was info dump in one moment or nothing was happening when I was just walking long distances to get a thing after a thing (I was playing/talking with one NPC at the time without any notes so maybe that's why beating the game took so long).

I think if you would focus more on the UX for the player, it would create much better experience overall and could fill the gap between puzzling and talking phase. For example an option to display logs with messages under a specific key or option to skip text animation with spacebar or small indicators showing where is what if we already found those things. It would already significantly reduce amount of the total distance you need walk through to beat the game.

Overall it was a really nice and engaging experience. Looking at the fact it was a compo game, you definitely created a jam-highest quality mood.. and I really liked it! Good job!

Nice story and atmosphere! I really like how you gave each character a different way of talking. A suggestion I would give would be a way to see the ingredients required so that I don't have to go back to the temples each time to remember what to get.

Managed to save the ray!

Anyway, this was really nice. I enjoyed all the characters here and some of them (Hugh Mann...) were hilarious. The concept was also very cool, seeing the complete ray in the title screen and then suddenly walking on it as a huge map really nailed down the feeling of a Tiny Creature. The puzzles were also pretty fun once I got how the game works: I liked how everyone managed to describe the same three qualities in (mostly) different ways, and the egg one - which is hinted in the stone tablet instead of an NPC - was a cool surprise. Not to mention the tiny fishing minigame at the end of each temple, I did not see that coming!

As others have said though, this was incredibly confusing. I started interacting with the stashes & temples way too early and didn't get a thing. The UI for them was the most confusing thing imo - pressing up/down on each button to change its content was very unintuitive for me, and I kept trying to press them only for the selection to end without any feedback. Perhaps showing small up/down arrows above & below each button would help? Or making interact cycle between the options instead of picking them, and adding a separate confirm button would be clearer? The temple insertion UI was better, but still pretty confusing before I had any items. Nevertheless, this sort of issue is very understandable with the time constraint, and I did eventually figure it out myself.

Overall, I enjoyed this once I got how it worked! The writing and setting were definitely the highlights here. Great entry!

I love the relaxing ocean sound and the art! However I did have some difficulties figure out waht to do until I read other comments. I wish there are better instructions on the interactions/UI. And walking back and forth can be a little tedious. Overall, great atmosphere, and I enjoyed the dialogues.

Loved the visuals and the classic sound effects, I felt like playing again my old Game Boy haha

A very ambitious game with an interesting setting (that fits the theme) with a big world to explore. It was a bit difficult to progress, but of course that is also part of the challenge. Good job!

Nice game! Very nice graphics, and very interesting concept, it just took me a while to understand how to advance in the gameplay. Overall, good job!