This looks really well made! But the controls are an absolute game killer for me. If W is always going to be forward, why not make the world be vertical and scroll up? I understand wanting to use tank controls for a boat, but it just felt really bad to control. The combat was really satisfying when I could hit things. And your 'health' being your ship taking on more water instead of gold was a really cool idea.
Overall, you knocked it out of the park on this game. Well done!
Even if this had been a vertical scroller, the boat can still turn, and you have the same issue. There are other solutions, like having the keys map to absolute direction, but that loses a lot of the flavor of controlling a ship (turning, trying to keep enemies abeam, etc.). Alternatively you could have the camera attached and rotating with the ship, but then it wouldn't be a scrolling shooter.
The only other good option I can think of would have the vertical axis control the set of the sail (Furling/Unfurling) and the horizontal axis the wheel, but we didn't have time to get to this.
Thanks for playing!
