oh dude, same here. If it weren’t for time and teammates restraining me, I’d have wanted to do so much more. They very much helped keep me in line, even if just for sake of making me ask “Would that be too much for everyone to do?”
thanks for the feedback! Glad you had a positive experience with our submission! I think ultimately the boat will be made a bit more friendly to drive, as it seems from other feedback not everyone sees it as positively as you do. And to be fair, most probably don’t have experience with boats in real life so they are left to what they know from video games where they are mush more friendly to pilot at low speeds.
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.
Environment and atmosphere were great. The fishing didn't really feel too great though. I caught a salmon but only because I couldn't figure out how to reel in the rod for a long time. After that, I either wasn't patient enough or couldn't tell when to reel in the line.
Honestly, the fear of a shark showing up had me on edge the entire time. I suffocated before I saw one if they do exist.... I think the hitbox and/or aiming for the spear gun is slightly off because a lot of shots that felt like they should have hit just didn't. Could very well be user error as well though.
Neat overall and I like the idea behind the fishing minigame. I think it needed to cook a little more as I ended up frustrated by it more than anything. The target fish moves too quickly and erratically to feel like a fair challenge. While I was able to catch all 6 fish I hooked, it came down to the wire (3S or less) and did not feel like it was my fault or like skill could overcome the challenge. It was just too unpredictable and erratic. Perhaps if it were to pause longer after a longer move to allow the player time to even reach it before it moves again, or turning it instead into a contestant speed movement without the sudden high speed movements
The rest is really nicely done and I like Benchy and the motorboat sounds. Clever use of what's available.
if you want a direct comparison, the linked game here was my first ever submission for a jam and first game ever packaged. There was so much more I wanted to do with this and I just didn’t have the time or knowledge to do it. Also worth noting the environment there is a barely modified version of the default UE4 Third Person Template.
I fully understand all that you said and feel it myself. Having a deadline really does light a fire and is super helpful for me. Otherwise it’s always ‘eh, I’m tired next weekend maybe, when I’m less busy.’ And guess what never happens.
I’ve had that happen a few times myself and didn’t have time to rework things so that it didn’t happen. The fish pull strength is determined by the size of the fish, and I didn’t have enough time to test and tune things so that larger fish don’t just immediately rip free.
Thanks for giving it a try. We’re going to put in a little more effort on the game to present a better portfolio project and address some of the feedback we’ve gotten here. The feedback is much appreciated!
Water and environment look great! I think it needs some sort of feedback when catching a fish. Without having the inventory open i had no idea that a fish was caught. Additionally, something else to sink money into would be welcome, perhaps upgrading the house to prepare for retirement ;)
that’s all ManMadeOfGouda’s doing. I’m super glad he was able to do all that, because I am no artist. I have negative skill points in artwork, I think.
So cool story, originally the runes were gonna be used for a sort of spell casting system. Then were changed to a set of modifiers, then finally to just a single penalty modifier due to time constraints. We have some plans after jam to add in a bit of the stuff we had to trim back and turn this into a solid portfolio piece for us. Not sure if we’ll end up Steam-worthy but I want to get it to a much better and more feature complete state.
Excellent all around! Environment and atmosphere were great. I really like the cooling towers in the distance, adds a nice touch with people being so irrationally afraid of them. Why is it always spiders though.... lol Not a fan of spiders.
SPOILER:
STOP READING SPOILER AHEAD:
The ending was totally expected but still got me. Something you could have done that would have been similarly great is to have one last return to the dock, but this time the spider under the dock moves on top and when the player turns towards the noise, it JUMPS at them.
It probably did, but because of the smooth floor and everything else being in motion, there is no frame of reference to see that it is reeling in. I restarted the game the first time before realizing I just couldn't tell it was moving.
First game ever, awesome work! That alone is worth something for sure. Keep going with what you have learned and make some more small experiences like this.
For critique, the biggest issue is feedback to the player. When reeling in there is a solid color featureless floor, wandering fish, and undulating water; none of these provide any info to the player that the bobber is being reeled in. Something as small as turning the camera 180* towards the player and/or sculpting the floor could do wonders. I like the idea. The Nintendo Wii basically spent a whole console generation on "waggle to win" and you used it to make a fishing minigame! I don't mean that as a negative thing, just that you, on your first game ever, landed on an idea that clearly works.
Seriously, good work and keep going, make more games! I plan to and hopefully we'll cross paths again in the future.
Unfortunately due to life issues for the whole team, we didn't have the time we would have liked to really test the fish curves and properly pad out the difficulty where it needs to be. Thanks for giving it a go and for the feedback!
Nice idea. Using a rhythm game for fishing could be a great fit for something like a Crypt of The Necrodancer type of game where rhythm and music are incorporated into something that isn't explicitly a music game.
Oh cool! Well hopefully the Gods and fate will see you find success with your project! Anywhere I can keep an eye out for it or has it not yet been shown off anywhere?
Okay, it seemed like a few times they dies in one shot, but I couldn't ID a point to aim at for that to happen. I figured it might have been a random crit chance.
I could see this being enjoyable with some more polish. As it is, i got frustrated with the diving. Seems like no matter where I aimed, it wasn't the right spot.
Fun and stylish, but unless I missed something, i think the sharks may be a tad too strong. I upgraded the harpoon first day and still struggled to keep sharks off the boat at night.
One other suggestion is maybe swap sharks for some sort of eldritch creatures. Could help explain their appearance only at night. I like it and could see it being even more fun and a solid portfolio piece!
Do you use a lower sensitivity on your mouse? Perhaps we should add some sort of calibration into the game to make sure that regardless of personal mouse settings it can be adjusted to keep that from happening... Something worth looking into, thank you for the feedback!
Oh, also I like the runes as stylized elements. I am Norse Pagan so they carry a bit more meaning to me and its clear they were just used as decoration, but I'm not one to get upset about things like that. Seems silly to do so. They each have a few meaning associated with them, might be worth looking into for future projects to give things a little more depth.
You must not have hit any of the harder fish. The basic fish are dead simple, but some absolutely require the upgrades from the store. I flat out could not catch one that i had hooked from a hotspot.
Absolutely stellar work! (lol) Loved it. Cool idea, fun to play, and well made. I think our fishing mechanic (see Mythic Fishing) is mechanically similar to yours. All the rest is way beyond what we were able to pull off. Excellent work!
