For the price of an Ocean
Controls:
If you're moving the character, click on any adjacent square to move them there.
If you're moving the boat, click on any adjacent square except diagonals to move the boat in a straight line in that direction.
If you're looking at a dialog option, click on the check button corresponding with your desired response.
If there's only text on the screen, click to continue, or wait for it to continue on its own.
Description: A short game I made for the Extra Credits Game Jam #5. This is the second jam I've been in, and the first jam that had a reasonable time limit, my first jam having lasted 8 hours, for reasons beyond the reach of my memory. The game even fulfills the requirements of the "Extra-Voice" Challenge. I'm pretty happy about that.
Play as a character from a landlocked kingdom, wandering out beyond their home, in search of the sea. Sail a boat in straight lines, avoiding (or sometimes using) obstacles. Earn money. Make choices.
It's pretty short though. I hope you enjoy it.
Comments
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I agree with the above commenters and just want to say that I enjoyed playing this :)
Glad to hear it. I really should get back to upgrading the code, now that I've dealt with some of the other things in my life.
This was a great little story! The puzzle elements were nice, and I liked being able to choose difficulty! (Always hard mode for highest profit for me!)
The introduction of new elements to the puzzle such as rocks and wind were great addition!
Additionally, your story was short but a nice message about giving people a chance!
Thank you for this game! Good job! Would love to see this remade in the future with improved art, and more puzzles!
- The Comment Pact Club sends its regards -
Ah, a fellow CPC member. Welcome
Thank you for the feedback. I have ideas for more puzzles, so that should be possible. The desire for improved art seems to be a pretty common one, so I'll make a note on that, certainly.
What starts out as a standard "move one way until you hit obstacle" quickly turns into a more interesting game with more things to think about (winds, cargo, spikes..). The introduction of new elements right in the game were well made. There is some room for input convenience: Clicking anywhere in the correct direction could get you moving, having a larger play-area (even just scaling the art up by a factor of two or three..). Your idea to use keyboardinputs is great, that would make it much more convenient.
The credits made me laugh. :)
Thanks. I have some ideas about how I can change the code to make ship movement easier, but some are a little complicated. Still, those are going to be one of the first things I try to update when the evaluation portion of the jam finishes.
Edit: Also! Yeah, I regretted the 30px square size about a day in, but knew I didn't have the time to go back and change it if I wanted the game done on time. In the future, I think 40px is going to be my minimum square size... maybe even larger than that.
A really well written story that could exist on its own. But in addition to the game it makes a well rounded experience. If you were to polish up the graphics, add some music to set the mood, this could be a really cool game! I could definitely see this on mobile.
Thank you. I've been considering that. I'm not a great artist, so besides cleaning up the interface and making slightly smoother scene to scene transitions, there's not much I could do personally in the art department. I'd need to find and team up with someone who actually knew what they were doing on the art front. Maybe I'll find someone. We'll see. An attempt will be made.
Check the discord! So many talented people are on there!
Cool game! You had a good sense of pacing - when I felt that I was getting used to the mechanics, you introduced a new one. I liked the in-universe difficulty settings you established. And that last puzzle was tricky!
I did find a small bug, but not a serious one. Once you've beaten the game, replaying it will skip all the levels. On the plus side, it made it easy to see the other ending.
Damnit! I thought I'd fixed that bug! I'm looking at the code right now and the relevant lines all point it at the right level. It's not even a relative variable that can be changed! I hard-coded the "New Game" button to point to "Level 1", so... small though this bug may be, it's going to bother me until I figure out what's causing it.
Anyhow, thank you for your feedback. I had intentions to make the difficulty settings actually affect the story, with cash being used on certain dialog options, but I realized by Sunday that I didn't have the time to write that in. Who knows, maybe when the jam blows over I'll take what I learned and make a new version with deeper storyline. And better controls. And more mechanics. And blackjack... and hookers...
Maybe... we'll see.
Just remembered some other feedback I had. I liked the story. It was surprisingly compelling for a game jam game. I also appreciated that you could click to skip past text boxes or wait for them to play out themselves.
I figured the cash ended up being related to something cut for scope. It felt like something that would have been an easy decision to cut for time.