Hi, dev here ! I'm curious if anyone actually got to the grandfather- reply if you made the full journey!
Play game
a long game about sailing's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Style | #106 | 4.500 | 4.500 |
| Overall | #423 | 3.926 | 3.926 |
| Creativity | #854 | 3.833 | 3.833 |
| Enjoyment | #1238 | 3.444 | 3.444 |
Ranked from 18 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the theme?
The game is a 1:1 scale mock version of a Southern Alaskan archipelago, as in, the distances are realistic. It is built to the scale of the real thing.
Development Time
96 hours
(Optional) Please credit all assets you've used
tim.kahn - Pacific Ocean.flac:
https://freesound.org/people/tim.kahn/sounds/174763/
Comments
My first impression was "This person has played a short hike". The vibes, the visuals. Once I encountered the NPC dialogue it was sealed haha.
I wanted to experience this game more, but I kept encountering control issues and frustrations.
My first issue encountered is I didn't realize I could jump, and walked straight off the pier into the water instead of on the vessel. Took a while to figure out how to get back on.
Then I didn't understand how to interact with the facilities on the vessel. I had talked to the NPC that told me the controls, but when they told me to use the space bar to interact with things, I thought that it was going to be objects I found in the water or on other islands. It took me a few moments to understand you have to hold spacebar in conjunction with W/S to use the different facilities.
I almost wish there was a spacebar prompt + the W/S prompt.
Off I went sailing, until I realized I was going the wrong direction, as the compass wanted me to go around the starting island. That felt a little bad having to go the opposite way the vessel is originally pointing.
Then I felt like sailing was a bit slow, but I understood this was a 1:1 - which in concept is cool, and I often want to make realistic games, but I often find the realism diminishes the experience. It's not fun. But I also understand that this game might not be for me. I see people in the comments enjoying it and that's wonderful.
I then realized I could zoom out and that was exciting, it gave context for the scale, and how far I had traveled, that felt good, and made me feel better with how long sailing took.
While waiting on the vessel, I was contemplating how I didn't really understand how to control the vessel, despite reading the instructions from the NPC multiple times. I was pleased to find out that there is a bit of a 'ghost' version of the sails to show you where you should put it depending on the wind. That felt nice.
I then finally get to the first island. The vessel automatically puts it's anchor down, but I want to get a bit closer, so I lift the anchor and try to go forward, when I lift the anchor the vessel moves backwards. "Okay this must be as close as I can get" I think. So I jump off the vessel into the water. That's a mistake my character plummets to the bottom of the water, and I can't move or see where they are. I have to ALT+F4 out of the game. Feeling so bad that I have to restart the whole process. I reload the game and find myself pleased that the vessel had saved its location as the NPC mention, and that my character was now back on the vessel.
So I try to sail around a bit closer to land, this time I'm able to jump off onto land, wonderful! Except the vessel is continuing to move, and starts to clip into the land! OH NO!
I race onto the vessel as it descends into the earth, frantically trying to use it's controls. I try to anchor it to make it stop moving, but this would prove to be my final and fatal mistake. The vessel had now saved it's position in the earth, and anytime I reload the game I rediscover it's interned fate. 
I don't know how to reset the save / progress, I would love to explore this game more, exploration in games is one of my favourite design pillars.
As a closing note I will say, I love how this feels like such a personal game, the location, feel, and mechanics are so bespoke to what feels like the authors interests and I love that.
Wonderful job!
You encountered all of the issues i know of haha, sorry for that. The spacebar to interact decision could have definitely been changed, ive noticed people have been mentioning that as an issue a lot. The sail landing was hard to make work right, and the current implementation certainly is buggy. If you want to reset your save, I'm pretty sure its in "%APPDATA%\Godot\app_userdata\Sail" and you can just delete the "save_data" file. But yeah- thank you for leaving a detailed review! it really means a lot and will be super helpful if we ever decide to finish this up
About your closing note - it certainly is very personal, I have enjoyed sailing a lot throughout my life. To translate the serene feeling from that experience into a similarly meditative game is so rewarding, i hope to make more games in the future that capture that feeling.
Thank you for letting me know how to reset the save file. I wanted to give it another shot.
However, within the first 30 seconds I encountered a bug that made laugh a lot, but every time I got back on the boat it happened again. So I deleted my save a third time and tried again, only to have it happen again.
(This bug can be replicated by moving the ship forward from its starting position along the coast, turning right while keeping close to the coast, the vessel will put it's anchor down automatically for being too close, lifting the anchor will cause the vessel to spin extremely violently). 
As soon as I stepped back on the vessel it launched the character straight into the sky and all I could see is blue.
Very funny, perhaps I am not meant to be a sailor haha.
I'm glad other people have been able to enjoy it, I did enjoy the contemplative moments between islands.
122 days ago(+1)
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed :) In Godot, when you are in Project->Export and select the export preset, there is the "Embed PCK" option under "Binary Format" ticking that just makes the exe contain the pck file too
122 days ago(+1)
haha I probably will end up finishing this at some point after my main personal project ! Thank you for the kind words, I wish you the best!
122 days ago (+1)
Thanks! The art is all Gilmore, you should def check out some of his other stuff if you like it ! > https://gilmo.itch.io/ < (I would especially recommend The Abstraction- it's his best work!)
122 days ago(+1)
I'm glad you found it that enjoyable ! I was worried the game wouldn't be widely appealing, because of its format. But I'm happy to see that you are going to come back, I hope you get around to finishing it! Your progress should hopefully be saved if you anchored :)
It warned you! haha, glad you found it beautiful, the artist did a phenomenal job, like he always does. if you want to see more games in that style you should check out his page! https://gilmo.itch.io/ (I would especially recommend The Abstraction !!)
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