Very nice game, and quite fun! Has an extremely close feel to old SNES games and very early computer games like Fairy Godmother and Chip's Challenge, which is awesome. I had a few problems with movement and collision, that being there were quite a few times where my ship would sit in the ocean and I would be clicking the hell out of the screen and it wouldn't move for a good 10 seconds, and there were many times where I couldn't pick up people in the water. I would have to sit on them for a while for them to be added, or go away and come back. Both of these things contributed to my death in the final round, so that was slightly frustrating. There were also a few times when treasure and people would spawn too close to icebergs to be collected. All in all though, it was awesome! I enjoyed the story that went along with the game and how it built up from being easy in the first round to difficult in the third, and the small bits of dialogue that began each level. I'd almost hate to give you any suggestions because I wouldn't want anything I said to ruin how the game feels, but I would suggest to make an instruction page within the game rather than in the comments. It was easy to miss because I look at the comments after I play the game! Along with this, I am also excited that you made it in GameMaker! I also use GameMaker (and put in a submission too!) and this game has shown me a completely different route I could take with future games, especially since I'd love to recreate the early game feel as you have done. Very well done, and I'd be excited to see more from you!
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Thanks man! I appreciate your kind words on the retro "feel" of the game, as that's kind of our jam, and seemed natural with the theme of gamejam.
As happens to us far too often in these game jams, 80% of the development happened in the last 12 hours. I absolutely missed all the edge cases you ran into! There were many more features that got cut in the interest of time, and the goal of the game actually changed in the last couple of hours to make it playable.
So as you say, the game doesn't explain super well, but if you couldn't pick up additional Crew, you probably had 12 crew already and they wouldn't fit. There should be a message or some way to notify the player, but there isn't.
All of your suggestions were super valid! There was a "How to Voyage" option in the title screen, but it got cut for time. We'll continue to develop a bit on the Android version after the competition, and it will absolutely go back in.
I've used Game Maker for ages :O I use Unity and XNA and other stuff as well, but I always find myself coming back to GM for gamejams for the ability to prototype super quickly.