That was sick! Everything was so well done and polished. The diving mechanic was really fun to learn and use. I'm typically garbage at bullet hell games, but that one mechanic let me survive much longer than I normally would have been able to, and even got me past the first boss! I liked the upgrade options, and the beam splitter power up was lots of fun to mow down enemies with. I really appreciated that letting robots pass only set your progress back and wasn't a game over, so there was incentive to kill everything (progress and EXP), but I didn't freak out or plow through bullets trying to kill every last thing. Just such a well-designed game! I will say that I was still kind of confused by the green detonator robot, I thought getting hit by it would kill me too. Also, having all the projectiles be the same color as the enemies made it hard to tell sometimes what to shoot and what to avoid when the screen got busy. But this was so much fun to play, excellent work!
sjforeman
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Great idea for a game! I appreciated your reference to the Wes Anderson movie both with the title of the game, and the character art for the scientist guy :) The puzzles on each level were challenging and rewarding to solve. The art and animations were really nice and smooth, especially the details on the submarine and the battle transitions. I wish that each character had their own strength/weakness though, like say the engineer could repair faster, or the security guard could defeat a monster 1v1. I kind of thought that might be the case after the tutorial, but it didn't end up mattering who was on radar or steering. Mostly I wanted the scientist to have a room he could be in to restore oxygen, because on the last level I started with zero oxygen and lost after the first move every time. For a minute I thought that the stats carried over to the next level, so I had fun trying to optimize my solutions accordingly. Amazing job with this, keep it up!
Really cool! I liked the movement a lot, and the background was beautiful. I thought the recharge mechanic was genius, but it wasn't immediately apparent what it was so I spent most of the first few runs trying to hit the bags and getting caught. Once I figured out that you wanted to "near miss" them, I got up to SSS very quickly! I think this system is way more interesting than if you just had to hit targets, and it was very well executed. I also noticed that if you boost away right before you get caught, that's also a 'near miss', and you get extra boost there too. There was a little bug where trying to "Play Again" after getting caught broke the game, and had to be reloaded. But this was a really fun game to play, excellent work!
Really enjoyable game! It was like a fun combination of Snood, Brickbreaker, and Tetris. The background music was very soothing, and the SFX were well implemented. The controls were easy to understand, and the ball pathing was super smooth. I wish there was more weight behind the ball though, like a little screen shake or hit stop when it collided with the fish, especially the pufferfish. The way the different fish all had different interactions with the ball was a good touch too. Nice work!
I need you to know I heard 'Barbie Girl' in the background music, and I appreciated it so very much. Holy cow that was impressive! It seemed like you all had a lot of fun recording and writing the dialogue, and it really shines through. There were so many fun references and jokes (especially to the band Aqua), it was a joy to play through! One of my favorite parts was where the villain starts monologuing, so one of your characters can't do anything, and whenever you switch back to that scene, the monologue is STILL happening like it's just been going the whole time. Such a nice touch! The art and mechanics were so spot-on 90's point-and-click it's like I went back in time to play this game.
I liked the puzzles and solutions too, but I did have a little trouble understanding what to do some times. Mainly, I didn't realize I could combine items in the inventory together until I had been stuck for a little while. I also didn't realize I could pick things up at first, because most of the first interactions just had the 'look' option, so I would do that and then move on before doubling back.
I can't believe you wrote and recorded an entire song just for the end credits. You're maniacs! That you did this in under 10 days is insane. Appreciate that you released the entire soundtrack (!!!) as well. Really fantastic job!
Great work! Cleaning up ocean garbage is a fun idea for a game and a good spin on the theme. I liked all the mechanics in here too. I was a little confused about taking damage from the angler fish though, because I couldn't really tell how much damage I was taking. I also missed that I could use the [Enter] key to go to the next scene the first time, I kept looking for that arrow somewhere on the UI instead. There's some really nice potential here, keep it up!
The music and art were such a perfect match. I missed a few casts because I was enjoying the scenery and not watching my bobber. Incredible work with this! The water ripple effect and reflection was gorgeous, and the way the music transitioned to an upbeat song when you hooked a fish was lovely. Adding the tension mechanic to the actual fishing line, instead of a UI element, was really, really clever, I liked it a lot. I did get confused by the line of sight mechanic at first because I tried to play without reading the itch page though. Everything else was really intuitive, and even that I figured out after losing the first few fish and realizing I could move the camera. Very impressive work!
I am so glad someone used the color interpretation of the theme. Really outstanding game! The puzzles were difficult but not impossible, and they were rewarding to solve. It was a little hard to understand what to do at the start, but once I figured it out, I had a really good time trying to finish each puzzle. The color gates were such a brilliant way to use the colors are mechanics. I refuse to paint anything red! Great work with this!
Really nicely done! Barely made it through day five, that was a close one. Those bears are NOT messing around. The art and story were very cute, it was nice just to run around the farm. It did take me a little while to find the actual tower defense part of the game though, because so many things had that [!] above them that I ran into all of them thinking they might be different. Once I found it though, I really enjoyed it, I think you did a wonderful job scaling the difficulty up with each round, and I think the abilities were well balanced. Great work!
Nice point and click game! I really enjoyed the art, and the mechanics were very smooth. It was cool that every puzzle piece had its own separate SFX (or at least I think they did), it helped to differentiate what I was clicking on. I did wish it was easier to differentiate the interactables from the background objects like the corals though, because I found myself clicking on lots of things that didn't do anything. I think the excellent SFX implementation helped move me along when that had me stuck. I did also like how the puzzle pieces interacted with each other, it was like the whole aquarium was one big Rube Goldberg Machine. Great work!
A+ satellite joke my friend.
Thank you so much for your feedback! I absolutely understand where you're coming from when you say that maybe the second part should be the main game. I also kind of thought that to be honest, but I made the second level on the last day and didn't have enough time to fully second guess myself.
The playing and reading was something I was worried about while I was working on the game, I appreciate you pointing it out. Unfortunately I don't think I was able to get it to where it needs to be. Definitely room for improvement!
I guess it's true only an alien would have such immaculate knowledge of how the Aqua satellite moves in space... Also, I'm sorry for my embarrassing lack of sharks and harpoons. Won't happen again!
Really cool idea! This inspired me to look up what Iron Lung was, because I'd never heard of it. I love the old 90's Doom aesthetic of this game, and I really appreciated that there was an overlay when you hovered over something that told you what to do. The controls were so smooth and responsive! I thought the precision of the submarine was very impressive too. I did wish that the steering wheel and viewport were closer together, because I felt like I needed to fully stop to look out the window when I came close to an obstacle. I think the compass would also benefit from some kind of directional marking. Great work on this!
That was really nicely done! You could really feel the weight of everything you moved. I liked how some puzzles could be solved in multiple ways, and it wasn't super punishing except for the last scripted event (which was very cool and unexpected). Crashing into blocks to make them fall was very fun. It kind of felt like an underwater '2048'. I wish there had been a checkpoint before that final room though, because I got caught under the rubble a few times and had to restart all the way from the beginning. Great work!
This game is so beautiful. The way the player interacts with the water is so impressive. Everything is so polished and fluid from the controls to the UI. I loved the idea of a "carrier pigeon" delivering mail on jetski instead of flying, this game had a ton of humor! What I enjoyed most was riding out on the open water and doing as many flips as I could or quick fishtail turns. A few times I did end up getting stuck on rocks and had to just let the day end because I couldn't get off.
But it was kind of a tonal clash for me. The game was fun and humorous, but has an unfortunately very real and kind of horrific setting. And once I had that thought, I couldn't get rid of it.
Still, this was a really incredible game, and I hope you keep working on it after the jam!
Very fun game! Love the spin on a fishing game. The controls were really smooth, and it felt good to catch a fish. It was fun trying to get them all! Very satisfying to manipulate the harpoon in the water. The upgrade mechanics were well thought out and impactful, you immediately felt like your harpooning got better with each one. I swear I never saw that fourth fish though, it is my white whale.
At some point my coins went <null>, so I had to restart. I also thought that the rocks underwater would interfere with the harpoon, and was kind of disappointed they didn't. Like the game made me feel like I wanted to weave the harpoon around obstacles and into tight passageways and whatnot, because I liked the feel of the harpoon so much.
Really nice work!
Great game! That was really fun! The recharge mechanic was really interesting once I figured out how it works. I liked being able to test different builds out to see which playstyle I liked best. Having the shadows appear before the fire was a great mechanic to let the player plan their route and adjust on the fly. I think this was a super polished game that just needs a little balancing to be great. Well done!
This was a fun game! The water movement felt really nice, and I enjoyed the art quite a bit. The swimming animations was SUPER realistic, I couldn't believe it was pixel art. I liked how the camera could pan a little bit ahead in the direction your mouse was pointing too, to look ahead for danger. I enjoyed just swimming around looking for the armor pieces and upgrades quite a lot.
But I felt like the harpoon was inconsistent. Sometimes it would launch out and stick, and sometimes it would instantly retract before leaving the character sprite. I had to kind of cheese the flashlight area by swimming around and luring the big fish into the open area because I couldn't do it the right way. As soon as I got the gun, my enjoyment level skyrocketed. Especially once I learned that bullets (like fish) can go through walls.
The angler fish boss was a really fun fight as well once I understood that the light that rotates around hurts you (and also that I could just hold the fire button instead of mashing it). I thought it was a really smart mechanic to have the player regain health by doing damage, it actually encouraged me to get into fights throughout the game.
Great work!
That was such a satisfying game to play. I love how the upgrades work, the bottom two are super creative and make the game so much fun. The first time I had a throw start skipping off planes in midair was amazing! I think my best throw made it almost 20,000, and was just constant moments of, "How much farther can this go?!" and "C'mon planes! Hit a plane!"
My only complaint is that I wanted to hit spaceships or the moon once I got above the airplanes. It seemed to kind of cap out on the scale. But ricocheting off planes, birds, and parasailers didn't really get old, I just wanted more! It's the kind of game that makes a player greedy.
Amazing work!
Amazing job with this! The puzzles were fun to solve, especially the one where you need to use a wooden box to dive down and shoot yourself up. The sound effects made with water samples are ridiculous, what a cool idea and great execution! I also really enjoyed your humor in the narrative, it made me laugh.
The art and animations were all really cool and slick. The water drain effect especially was really impressive, and I enjoyed watching it for a bit every time I'd solve a puzzle. But sometimes it takes a really long time to drain, especially in the second to last level I felt like I was standing next to the exit for a while.
Looking forward to Aqua Boy's Metroidvania return!
Very fun! The art was very cute, reminded me of Gunter from Adventure Time. This was a very smooth platformer! Everything was super responsive. Swinging around was hard to get the hang of at first, but very fun afterwards to do my best Spider Man impersonation. I especially liked when I realized that I could use my momentum to go in almost a full circle to get on top of the block I was attached to. Having that ability almost gave the game two modes: easy mode was doing the loop and landing on each block before proceeding, and hard mode was going block to block without landing.
I unfortunately did clip through the walls once when I got to the top, and wished there was a way to restart from my last checkpoint without dying, because I was unable to find any water on my side of the iron bar :*( The only real issue I found though was with it being a web build while in full screen mode. When I would try to click on platforms near the top of the screen, the browser would assume I was trying to exit full screen and would drop down that big X button, which would take my mouse out of the game just long enough that I would miss the platform and fall.
But other than those two little things, I had a ton of fun playing this game! I wasn't able to make it to the final checkpoint, because that last level (maybe last level?) with the iron death walls was diabolical! Really great job with this game!
Very nicely done! You absolutely nailed that Zelda feel, it looks really great. The turn in order was not super complicated but you also didn't just swim around in a circle. The islands were just far enough apart that you could drown on the way there (and I sure did) if you missed or ran into something. I really liked the success sound effect. I liked how the docks led you from one island to the next, it gave me a sense of direction without needing a map.
The first time I played I was a big dumb dummy and didn't realize that the egg lady was putting out the basket for me to pick up, so I wound up swimming to every island and getting all 9 aquastones without making a single other trade, thinking that something would be on another island or was behind a tree or something. And the yellow bananas on one tree being different from the others made me think I could pick it up and give it to the monkey. Again, very dumb of me, but that is what happened.
Really great job on this game altogether! Seriously smooth and polished.
Very well done! Super simple but engaging. There's a red line, there's one button, you figure it out fast. The way the fill speed changes was very cool, and it kept the game from becoming too repetitive too fast. Every now and then I'd think, "OK, I have the hang of this." Then it would drop a quick fill on me that was almost a jump scare! The SFX were very nice as well, super clear and changed with the water appropriately.
I wish that the "Enter Player Name" for the high score thing came either before or after you played the game though, because I totally missed it.
Great work!
That was really cool! It was fun to bounce around, especially across water. I think platforms were spaced really well so that I rarely had to slow down or stop, and having the water not be an instant-death mechanic helped that out a lot. For the most part it felt 'safe' to just kind of explore. Dark mode was also really cool. For most of the regular game I had no idea what purpose the lightning bugs served other than just aesthetics, but they are super helpful in the dark. Definitely got trapped under more platforms during the dark mode lol. Also, shoutout to all the art, especially the scene transition which was a really nice touch.
I did think that the character moved just a little fast for me though, even if it was fun. It was hard to really get a look at the environment because it felt like I was flying 1000 mph, so lining up the valves to turn them could be a little annoying at times.
Great work on this!
This game is hilarious (not a choice). I enjoyed the overall tone of the game very much, the art and music really complemented the narrative humor. It was extremely hilarious to launch boats up in the air, as a sea god does. All of the upgrades were fun and felt like upgrades (not to mention the flavor text was dynamite). I liked the clicking on water mechanic quite a bit at the start, but the longer I played the weaker I got (my fingers were tired). It also kinda seemed like the wall was very much a mandatory choice if you wanted to survive, because my little goobers LOVED standing as close to the boats as they possibly could and eating cannonballs.
Excellent work on this!
That was unbelievable! All of the controls were really responsive and fun to use. Especially the cannon jump! The art is really nice too, and I like how your face becomes a wanted poster with how many waves you survived when you lose. My only suggestion is that I had no idea what the pirate NPC was talking about when he asked me for gold, because I didn't recall ever getting any gold. So at first I wondered if I could afford the upgrades, and was like checking to see if they had a cost or something.
Also, I think it was extremely clever that the upgrades were basically a way to let the player choose which mechanics they wanted to play with, and how difficult they wanted the game to be. Really, really smart!
Great work!
Holy cow that looks beautiful. I love that old art style so much. The premise of that anime would be super fun as a game too! Alas, it seems to be unlicensed and not streaming on the big platforms. Heartbreaking. Might be time to bust out an old laptop and risk the more, ahem, cavalier streaming sites.
Jesus dude. By the last level my main thought was, "I really hope that this is just a story he thought up." Simply devastating. Really great job.
The card game itself was very fun and I liked the shape-matching mechanic. I had a lot of fun right up until the point that the fun turned into grief and horror. Very Shutter Island. My only critique is that the game was probably too easy, especially once I learned that I could replay the old levels and buy the upgrades I missed out on. The scripted events and narrative typing were outstanding. I also really liked how the arrow got BIGGER when you combo'd all the bonuses together.
Thank you for this.
This was a fun platformer! The art and animations were all really nicely done, especially the character sprite, I liked the jump and impulse animations a lot. This game was very exacting, and I thought the controls were exacting to match. It was satisfying and fun to learn the sprint+jump+impulse move. I also really appreciated how the restart point would move as the character moved through the level, which cut down on infuriating runbacks and also made dying sometimes the fastest way to get back to where you want to go.
I did think that the spike colliders were diabolical, though that was probably intentional. Where my problem with that comes from is the number of blind drops you have to do. The third level was especially brutal with how the camera was also obscured. I think maybe giving the player an ability to brighten or stabilize the camera for a few seconds (maybe using the Pearls as a limited use resource?) would have been nice. I did make it through to Hard Mode, so it wasn't impossible though. But Hard Mode...oh boy. I could only make it through the first level before I had to surrender.
Really great work on this game, especially as a solo dev. Keep it up!