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Lighthouse - The Storm Shepard's itch.io pageRate this game
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How does your game fit the theme?
You are a novice lighthouse keeper in a post-apocalyptic world where the entire continental America got destroyed by a nuclear experiment gone wrong.
The shockwave of the explosion caused a massive tsunami that flooded most of Europe and Africa and Asia.
You are one of the few survivors and you have to keep the lighthouse running as another storm is looming on the horizon.
Did you write all the code and made all the assets from scratch?
The game was made entirely from scratch, including the code and assets and even the engine itself.
We are using just HTML/Svelte and TypeScript/JavaScript and (S)CSS.
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Comments
Visuals and audio are really well-done; the first ship moving slowly was a bit annoying at first, but it really helps with the atmosphere of the whole experience and makes getting new ships that much more satisfying. Graphics and premise are also well-done and on-theme. Having voice acting for the old keeper was also a nice touch.
Controls could use a little bit of work, though - navigating the map before getting the zoom function is a touch too slow on mouse/keyboard in my opinion, and ships moving while in other interfaces makes it much more likely to accidentally crash, especially when transferring to/from the lighthouse. (Selecting a new ship to move it a touch closer to the lighthouse in order to load it up with gold, then selecting lighthouse while not realizing you still had the ship selected would often just send it happily sailing directly into the lighthouse, which was pretty frustrating while still learning the ropes of the game.)
I think I also ran into a bug. My ships would occasionally merge with one of the towns to the south and I couldn't drive them away - trying to click to select the ship just opened the town interface. I think this is because the ship got entirely overlapped by the "open town interface" area, but that still seems like something that shouldn't be happening.
Overall, good work! This seems like it has a lot of space to grow with some more time put into it, and I'd love to see how that goes if you go down that route.
Thanks for the feedback!
We are looking into possible solutions to make the user experience better & better whilst also keeping mobile cross-compatibility.
The zoom function unlocks after buying the an item for the first time, this was to prevent people getting overwhelmed at the start, there are 2 towns within a 1 second pan window of the lighthouse to buy from. A suggestion we will be adding to update #1 post jam is scroll-wheel click & WASD to look and pan the camera, and scroll to zoom. this should make PC exp better, also want a way to select boats without needing to click them.
> My ships would occasionally merge with one of the town
This is a bug we really want to fix in patch #1 yea,. we added extra padding to the boat's hit-box so you can at least click the sea in the corners next to the boat to regain control, but thats not a true fix.
I'm really happy where the team & I managed to get in the very short time span :D
Sounds like a good plan for moving forward.
And yeah, this is genuinely impressive, especially for engineless.
I really liked the visuals. The starting scene with the lighthouse is so cool. The fog effect was excellent. Even the supposedly crappy ship looked good. Sound effects were nice too as were the ambient sounds.
Recommendations:
- Let players move using WASD keys. Moving around the map was awkward with the mouse alone.
- It was difficult to land at ports as you would select them when trying to move there. Maybe make right click move the ship while left click only selects objects.
- Ship moves very slowly, I guess there are upgrades. But maybe make more events happen along the way.
- Background music was absent when I played.
It's a very bleak game, for me at least. I understand you went for a certain ambience and that is fine, but it can be a bit off putting for some of us.
Thanks for the feedback!
Glad you liked the visuals :D Props to the art team they did a great job! :)
We tried being as inclusive as possible and made everything mouse & touch-control's so its supported on mobile, update #1 post jam will be adding key-bind support for most common actions in game.
An alternative way of selecting node's & drawing paths does look like something we can look into. Right & Left click would work but worry that that would be confusing ( also how would we make a mobile alternative for those ), something we'll have to think about for sure.
Additional ships do make the game a lot faster, but I do agree it takes a while to get to that point.
Background music had a weird interaction with switching tabs whilst it's loading, still haven't figured out how / why fully. We can get it to stay 100% of the time whilst playing in & staying on page. There's 5 tracks 2 in Credits & Story & 3 during gameplay. Always with a 30second silence between them as requested by our sound guys :)
We went for a dark & somber vibe as it's post-apocalyptic flooded Europe, would you enjoy there be a "less sad option"? We have versions of the map that are more vibrant and could tone down the fog for that.
You could use a destination marker that's moved by clicking on the ship and dragging to the destination point. Not drag-clicking could then be used to select ports. That should work with touchscreens and mice.
I meant the tone, not the setting. The diary was intense. It's fine, if that's what you're aiming for. It's not a complaint, just feedback. I just thought you should know.
You think the dairy is intense enough to warrant some kind of trigger warning? If so I can look into adding that in the post jam update.
I couldn’t finish the game because my boat crashed into the lighthouse when I had a lot of money :( I thought it would stop like with the other ports but with the lighthouse, the ship kept running and it crashed. I was in the menu and just heard the boat breaking and after going out of the menu I got game over.
I liked the start of the game and the story. The journal is a great and nice touch of drawings like that in the right side of each entry.
The gameplay at 1st can feel a bit strange because if you don’t buy anything in the shop, you stay with no info about what to do or if you don’t store something in the lighthouse you don’t know about the next objective. At some point the player will buy something and leave stuff in the lighthouse since the boat can’t carry a lot at the start but for this I felt lost at the start, I didn’t buy anything and just went to wander into the sea.
I like how easy it is to get a lot of money, just buy-sell a lot of first aid and objects that cost 5 coins. I like the visuals and the music, it really fits the gloomy atmosphere of the story and the journey through the sea. (Or just keep buying-selling 1st aid in the 2 ports below the map and get a lot fast)
And, I’m not a person who tends to play this kind of game, that is a slow management game, so I’m not the best to say something about the game more than I felt it was slow for me haha. Maybe it can be relaxing or can be good to play if you have something else to watch on the side. (I’m writing this while I try to finish the game and for some reason in my second gameplay the music stopped, I tried to go to the lighthouse to store a few stuff and it happened again, it’s like the ships get into the lighthouse despite I parked far from it lol, well, if I have time after playing the list, I’ll try to finish the game)
But it’s amazing to see this game being made with web dev tools and running well, it’s magic.
Thanks for playing <3
The boats do stop at the lighthouse the tiny little rocks & islands around it are a minefield though xd.
Also make sure your boat is at a standstill and not selected when entering a building else it could drift away a bit.
The game should always let you know the next step after each quest item, if you have suggestions on new / extra lines & story points let me know. :)
Try buying a 2nd boat soon, this can prevent an early game-over and will make the game go exponentially faster! :D
Looking forward to see you beat the game and secure a place on the leaderboard. <3
Oooh, I see, next time I'll check my boat is standstill, I think because I click early the lighthouse did the drift into the earth haha, then tomorrow I'll try again!
And I'll let you know suggestions if I have them
Nice idea! The gameplay feels a bit slow IMO, I think it would improve to move the boat a little faster, and the mouse controls to be a little better (use the actual mouse position and wheel to move around the map and zoom)
Thank you for the feedback :D
Feel like it's mainly a balancing thing, we made the boats move at 10% their original speed as nobody was buying multiple boats when the first one was really fast. Story wise it's a cobbled together boat made by the old lighthouse keeper, any boat you buy from the lighthouse will be 2 to 3x faster than the first one.
Mouse wheel to zoom sounds like a good alternative feature we can add, we do want to keep it mobile compatible too. Using the mouse position to move around was conflicting a lot with the boat path drawing but can be looked at if we have more time :)
Do appreciate the feedback. <3
Very nice! 👍
Thank you :D
The HTML wizard has cast his most powerful spell yet, creating a masterpiece from thin air with the help of his apprentice's. Good job!!
One of them is even learning the dark arts of HTML gamedev itself! 🧙🏻
The team did a wonderful job. :D
I like it!
Glad you like it! <3
This was a neat idea. I thought the ambience was pleasing. I just thought it was rather slow and didn't have the time to play long enough to have enough boats. Good job for working without an engine. Hard work from all members!
Thanks for checking out the game, got any suggestions on the speed of the game?
We know it's a slow start; but buffing it made it useless to have multiple boats around.
The no-engine is something I did for pirate jam and has since become my signature :D Is a really fun challenge to push the base web to it's limits!
Loved the audio and the art! But had real trouble selecting things - either can't select a ship, or when I click somewhere by mistake - ship goes brr in that random position.
Nice job, but needs polishing.
Also, since it's becoming a tradition of me breaking Quinten's games, here's a guide on how to get a lot of coin in the beginning:
local-override game bundle, insert breakpoint at line as shown 1)
launch game, when breakpoint is reached, go few lines with 2) until you get to line 3)
change selling value of "Lighthouse Keeper" to whatever 4)
After dropping of lighthouse keeper, you'll get that amount of coin.
Run's using that coin method will not be validated for the scoreboard though!
Just wondering if at any point I'll make a HTML based game that you can't crack open XD, I'll keep trying :)
Thanks for checking out the game! :D
The graphics are really nice ! The view with the lighthouse lighting the waters just blew my mind, it's really a gorgeous piece of art !
I also really like the concept of the game ! Love the idea of managing merchant ships to make a profit while getting yourself ready for the storm ! The boat speed and selection could be improved, and it would be nice to actually see how much any of the item are selling or bought for, but the idea is there and the atmosphere is quite great !
Great job !
Thank you for the feedback. :D
The starter boats are made slow to encourage to player to buy more boats & start a fleet, in play-testing the faster boats meant people just beat the game with 1. Buying a new boat in the lighthouse will give you boats up to 3x speed of stock.
We will be looking into adding buying & selling prices to shops in the post jam update, along with a few bugfixes & QoL.
Thanks for checking out the game, and glad you liked the atmosphere. :D
I was in bed, enjoying my rest and suddenly i had a link to an itch page shoved down by throat, held at gunpoint and screamed at...
They wanted my time and attention.. though worst of all... a piece of my mind.
So here i give it:
This game at present has its flaws, the awkward selection on settlements if the boat slips under and some movement issues, though i believe its due to the heavy limitations of it's current platform.
There is a good start to the world building and lore of the game, it is easy to see how this can turn into a kind of a strategy colony sim/ settlement builder game with the light house/-es at the center of it and especially so with the threat of the storm looming in closer with every passing day.
Preparing for the coming storm in the current game makes me feel like i am managing a supply line to ensure my survival and yet it gives me the impression of a colony survival fantasy where your supply lines and stockpile determine the survival of the colony in a world where water level is rising and people are increasingly more seaborne for resource gathering, light houses would be detrimental to survival as a historic figure of navigation, guidance and avoiding danger. I will stop with this here before i get carried away with my thoughts.
The intro of the game gives me the impression of the previous lighthouse keeper as a mad man, why is he so sane afterwards when it is his time to leave and keep tabs on you after you seemingly throw him off in a cage in new rome? At least it looks like he is caged in the cargo transfer screen. The story needs a bit of work, polishing and it can be very captivating and immersive.
I felt like the controls could have been explained better yet i have nothing better to suggest as of writing.
The game needs an economy system.. At the very least a basic price board and a better settlement trade resource generation.
At the time of writing there is nothing to tell you how much will something buy or sell for, all you know is that you will buy something and then sell it for more somewhere else. After playing the game a few times I noticed sometimes a case of being able to buy a certain goods like driftwood and then there isnt any settlement on the map buying it which if i just started playing and bought it all i wouldnt have any money left over which leads to another concern, there is no way to refund or cancel a purchase or sale which i believe is either due to a coding limitation or a lack of development time.
The settlements could display goods they buy or sell from a pooled amount of buyable and sellable goods, potentially taking into consideration the distance between settlements and the deals could rotate based on time progressing, alternatively have the deals be static but manually distributed evenly between all settlements and have a singular non changing map which could let players plan and set up stable routes without needing to worry about a deal/demand change in the future, splitting their attention.
Maybe you want there to be chaos and keep people on their toes and have a settlement consistently buying soup, suddenly crave for bricks and candles and not export any wood anymore.
I could go on but then the comment/review may get way too long. So to summarise:
The potential for this game is MASSIVE, YUUGE, big big BIG.
Depending on the scope this game could rival the likes of Frostpunk, the ANNO series and Surviving Mars.
I hope to see this game evolve.
I am sorry to whoever read to this point.
:3
The visual and audio effects for the game are really impressive (especially given the time constraints and considering HOW MANY there are). The slower pace of the early game didn't land for me personally, but I still think it's a solid game design choice as it fits the narrative. Probably the best thing about this IS the narrative. I loved the journal at the beginning with the scribbles of the old lighthouse keeper! Also not sure if this happened by random accident, but I got my boat stuck inside a port somehow, and as if by magic after trying to navigate it away from shore it seemed like the waves eventually just pushed me back to sea?? So well done on preparing for that issue! Overall, I'm really inspired by what you all were able to create this week.
Thanks for the feedback <3
We put a lot of effort into a polished interactive story & tutorial as it was one of the main pieces of feedback I got on my previous 2 jam entries. :D We also went all out in adding SFX to almost every interaction in the game, it made it feel so much better!
Glad you enjoyed the visual novel aspect of our game, took a lot of fiddling to get the journal to work using CSS xd.
I didn't really understand the controls, so it was hard to play. The ship didn't really want to move where i wanted it to, and moved slowly when it did. And then at some point I died without really understanding why. It definitely has a cool vibe though.
Everything is done with mouse / touch controls, you can tap the boat so it glows red, after you start drawing a path ( mouse-down & move ) If you release the boat will try follow the path. Hitting land however will make you crash, you die if you run out of boats & have no money to buy new ones, you win if you manage to prepare the lighthouse for the next storm.
The art & sound team did a great job in setting the vibe & atmosphere. <3
If you need any help feel free to contact me on Discord. :D
made all in HTML/Svelte... thats crazy
Svelte & HTML & Typescript for gamedev OP! :P
I rated almost every catagory 5 stars because most aspects of this game land perfectly. Perfect sound design, great art and even the voice acting was awesome.
The only gripe I have is with the gameplay. This could be a consequence of this kind of game not being my cup of tea, but the boat is extremely slow and watching it slowly sail to different ports got a bit lame. Still, great job on everything else :)
Thanks for playing & the awesome rating :D <3 <3
Tip from the dev, try going for like 4 & 5 boats suddenly they'll go too fast! :o As the boat you start with is 1/2 - 1/3'rd the stat total of boats you buy.
Again thanks for the great ratings :P
I had a bit of trouble playing the game, the ship just kind of floated off doing its own thing and no amount of clicking or dragging could fix it.
Im going to come back to this one tomorrow so i can give it a fair rating (pretty sure im the problem).
Love the jam page, love the voice acting. The news papers were really cool too. Can tell your all very passionate about what your doing good job on submitting for the jam!
Feel free to reply with some pointers so i can figure it out :P
Some pointers from me : Tap the boat once ( glows red ) and start drawing a line towards a port don't overlap with the boat sprite you don't have to :) Try getting a 2nd boat going quickly Itt'l double resource gathering speed.
Thanks for the compliments on the art story & voice-acting <3 We absolutely loved working on this project; even put in an allnighter to iron out a lot of code before submitting today :D ( if you need any additional info / help feel free to add me on Discord )
Love the voice acting, and I felt the story, art and music were well crafted. I felt that the one thing missing from this game was either a mini game you could play after your boat's course is set or a way to speed up travel after you chart your course. Otherwise, great work!
I was just able to beat the jam version, once you start having 4 boats around there's no time for minigames! :P
Lot of feedback I got on previous jams was about story & tutorial, so we put a lot of focus and polish into that for this jam, really happy you enjoyed our writing. <3
When recording the lines I was cringing so hard at myself thinking it was going to flop haha
but I'm glad you liked the voice acting!
A very well-made game, graphics and audio are so good. i loved the voice acting and the cutscenes. Gameplay and UI wise a bit lacking but thats fine.
very well made 8/10
It's a really cool game! It's a little slow in the beginning, but deffinitely something I could poor a lot of time in. Am looking forwards to see what it will bring when playing it more.
It's a slow start but once you get 2 / 3 ships going it speeds up really fast! :D
Thanks for playing our game! <3 If you manage to beat it please share the final time it took you to prepare for the storm :o
The audio design is great and some of the art looks stunning. I would definitely pay more attention to the fonts, try to stick to 1 max 2 different fonts and avoid the default Unity font!
Thanks for checking out the game <3
We are using 3 fonts, one of them is only used on the main title. "convincing_pirate"
"black_chancery" we are using as a fancy names font for the boats & "manus_magnifico" we are using as a pixel writing font.
Bit confused about the default Unity font comment as we are not using a game engine at all, all is written in just HTML JS & CSS ( check inspect element :P ).
But for accessibility reasons we allowed "manus_magnifico" to be switched out to your default system font. :D For you that might be the Unity font you were talking about.
In hindsight probably should have used another fallback font for accessibility, It's something we can look at a future jam.
hm, i was sure that was the Unity font xd. Its for all the text such as the description of the newspapers on the bottom of the screen. Props to you for making this without a game engine, really impressive. My point was just that it looks a bit messy with different font styles, and a singular style would be more seamless. Thank you for such a detailed reply!