Great game ! Really liked the art and music, the overal experience was very polished.
As a comment : I had a some difficulties figuring out what the different bars meant and how they refilled. I also found myself struggling with the concept, I had the feeling / urge to buttonmash whilst the game wanted to seem calm / relaxed. Maybe it's just me but I thought I'd let you know. Still really loved the carefree atmosphere of the game !
Hi! Thanks for your kind words!
The left gauge is fuel, which is replenished by visiting villagers. The right gauge is a differential altimeter, which shows how far your neutral buoyancy point is from your current height. I might update the game description to mention that.
I've just shipped a post-jam patch that tweaks the controls a little (you can now hold down climb/descend over time), improves some of the presentation, and allows you to maintain more momentum coming out of air streams - level generation is pretty roughshod in terms of air stream placement, and prior to this change, I think many players were doing most of their movement via lateral thrusts instead of just using that for adjustments.
Hi! Just played your rework and I must admit that placing more airstreams really does add to the game. The ambience is much more calming and it helps against button mashing, which is a great great plus. Really dig the rework !
P.S. I'm guessing reducing the friction of the balloon to conserve more energy could add even more calmness to the game, but that's just my opinion.
Anyway, cheers on your game !
Glad to hear you enjoyed it!
The number of air streams is the same as the previous build. The main gameplay change in this build was to decrease the "friction" that you experience when not travelling through an air stream, and that makes it a lot easier to drift into the next stream along. Reducing it even more might make the game more enjoyable in some cases, but I think it'd start to detract from the core aspect of looking for and learning the positions of useful air streams.
If I were to do further development on this, I think my primary focus would be to improve level generation so that it more consistently creates air stream placements that are interesting to discover/navigate (or move to authored levels). Since I knew I wouldn't have time to address that during the jam, the game puts an air stream above and below each island, going in opposite directions, and for a quick and dirty proof-of-concept, it works, but it's definitely a long way from robust in terms of providing good experiences ^_^
