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Illusive Sturgeon's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| How well does it meet the theme? | #8 | 4.143 | 4.143 |
| Quality of gameplay/level design | #16 | 2.857 | 2.857 |
| How enjoyable is the submission? | #16 | 2.571 | 2.571 |
Ranked from 14 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
I liked the music and the feel of the game, i think a tutorial on how to fish would have been nice. I also liked all the subtle details like the footsteps sounds changing depending on the surface, being able to swim, and that it can become night time
Hey thanks for the feedback! It did need the tutorial but i didnt complete it in time for the jam. Did it on the friday but didnt make the 6 oclock cutoff time.
Nice work on the character, my daughter recognized it immediately. Everything else looked lovely as well.
As for the fishing, i mostly felt frustrated. It took me a while before i finally came back here to see if there was any direction in the comments. Even then, trying to gauge depth with Q & E was difficult to do with the distortion from the water, so I ended up just dropping it up and down while wiggling with A & D.
On the actual catch part, I am still unsure what the two gauges are. I get the flat one being overall tension, but twice I got the round gauge to about 80% and the line snapped. I'm not sure why that happened either time. I like the ideas, but better player feedback is needed, I think.
So there are 2 ways the line can be snapped, tugging too hard, or having too much tension on the line for too long.
Makes a lot more sense with the explanation. I thought that if either meter maxed out it would snap.
Regardless, having a submission ready to go is a win 🍻
I liked it. Good time
Thanks! It needs some work but its my first game and i'm gonna actually finish it into a real full feature game
Loved the graphical style, the UI, and the music. The fishing part is nice, the only thing there that I couldn't tell how low or high the fish is so I lower or lift the light on the bobber so it was a bit hard to catch a fish. Struggled a bit with reel in and reel out buttons (seen them on the screen but didn't know that I have to press them with the cursor :D).
Liked the you can turn on the boat lights and in addition I bought a head light :D.
Wish you good luck with the game, and hope that you will continue with it.
Thanks! I will continue with it in the future as i plan to add the spear fishing (couldnt manage to do it in the initial timeframe). Sorry about the lack of ingame tutorial, i didnt get to update it before the cutoff time as i misread and thought it was ending submissions on the 31st.
Now that you mention it, i will add more info for the bait to show the depth. I also added buttons to reel in and out.
Thanks for playing!
There is a good amount of mechanics that work very well together. Having to reel in and out was a good mechanic to implement.
The character reminded me of Luffy from One Piece haha.
I think having a mini tutorial to help the player catch their first fish would have made it easier to get the hang of things, but fortunately when the fish did hook on, everything was pretty intuitive from there. Also clamping the mouse movement a little when moving around and driving the boat would have helped as I did feel quite dizzy in some points (but that's mainly on me for not wearing my glasses hahaha)
Overall it was a very nice entry, very relaxing - could see this becoming a nice cosy adventure game in the future!
Thanks! That is definitely one big flaw it has in this version. I already fixed the tutorial aspects in an update but didn't do it in time. As it stands, I have to agree with everyone about it being well designed, but lacking in direction as it doesn't have a goal. Once the jam is over I will upload the version where i added more unlockable items that require a certain level to use and increases the catch chance of the Illusive Sturgeon.
In the future I may make a full game out of it where I add in the harpoon fishing and some more ideas i have.
Overall tho I am proud as this is my first game.
Edit: Yeah the character is definitely inspire by luffy. When i was modeling i made the hat and was like "I know what i must do!"
You clearly spent a lot of effort on this and there's a good foundation to develop further. The fishing mechanic wasn't quite clear to me and I didn't get any fish to bite. That said, I've tried fishing in real life and wasn't a whole lot more successful, so maybe it's just a lack of talent on my side. =)
That said, this does feel a bit overscoped for a game jam. I think it could've been better with slightly smaller scope but a bit more polish.
Hey! Sorry, i did the polishing of the UI for the UI on friday but didnt submit before cutoff time.
You have to move the bobber around while raising or lowering the bait to hit a fish in the water. that will trigger the reeling in phase where you have to reel in which brings the fish closer to you (also visible and inline with the catch progress bar), and reel out to release the tension on the line
You had a lot of different systems implemented and they all worked but the game lacked a cohesive feel, the style of the UI and environment didn't look right together. I didn't enjoy the fishing mechanic as much as some of the others I've tried. the boat moved but wasn't fun to drive. The game had all the working parts but it didn't feel like it had any direction.
Thanks for the critique! I did spend the first 27 days focusing on functionality over direction so thats my bad. I didnt pay attention to the cutoff time for the Jam and thought it was yesterday so i didnt get to upload the UI friendly version with directions, the extra bait options that increase the catch chance for the Illusive Sturgeon etc
All good man, I was the same. Up till 1:30am trying to get my file size down to 1Gb only for my boat to not accelerate properly in my shipped build despite working in editor. And I had no tutorial to help the player.
Okay this is my new favourite. The developer was generous with their attention to detail. The atmosphere was fantastic, the fact that you can swim is really cool and I loved that the developer put the UE starter content chairs and table in the bedroom. I had a good laugh at that.
Only one issue I had was that I got stuck and could not "get out" of the boat. But overall, superb work on this one. Well done!
Thanks! I didnt get to upload my finished version with onscreen options. You have to press shift (if you didnt rebind the key in settings) to exit the boat.
I like the simplicity style of this game and ran not into any major bugs. For me what was missing is a "why" to fish. Also controls were not very intuitive. I really liked the minigame for fishing! Also great implement of oxygen system! (Bonus points for Ruffy ^^)
Thanks! I added the Illusive sturgeon and extra bait options and more but didnt get to reupload in time. For the controls i added button options to reel in and out as well. (Not sure if thats what you meant by not very intuitive controls, if not you can share your ideas with me and i'll try to implement it). After the jam i'm gonna update to a version with extra fishing rods etc (i have an idea for one that has a camera attached to the bait or bobber to give you a better angle, that way i can reduce fish count based on a difficulty setting but still have it being balanced). Also the moment i designed the fisherman hat i knew what i had to do for the rest XD
I didn't to upload the update or the devlog in time so I'm just gonna leave the devlog here and a bit of instructions. So after you cast the bobber, you can move around with the assigned keys (default A, S, D; you cant move the bobber forward, you may have to recast the line). You can move the bait up and down in order to hit a fish, which triggers the reeling in. Keep an eye on the line strength and tension so that your line doesn't snap!