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Shipkeeper's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Gameplay | #180 | 3.412 | 3.412 |
| Overall | #220 | 3.549 | 3.549 |
| Presentation | #237 | 3.706 | 3.706 |
| Originality | #277 | 3.529 | 3.529 |
Ranked from 17 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
What do you like about your game?
I learned a lot of stuff while making this. Mainly I like the whole idea of living as a worker that has to fight horrors while trying to fix haunted ships.
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Comments
Loved it! I think you managed to capture the Lovecraftian vibe. The atmosphere is tense. I liked the enemies. The visuals are neat. I liked how crates and barrels create shadows. The moving barrels were a nice touch too. I didn't mind the speed. It added to the tension and creepiness of the place. Loved the creaking sounds of the ship and enemy sounds. I enjoyed playing the game a lot! Barely survived with only 1 life left:)
Only 1 HP left?! That's an unofficial achievement called "The Princess Way", Shipkeeper PrincessRei35 can tell you all about it XD.
Thank you very much for playing! If you are curious about where the game is going, you can check my latest devlog<3 I'll do my best to make it a full game :3
Good atmosphere especially thanks to the lightning level design. You should use this feature to add an infiltration scope to your game. The pace seems a little too slow to me. Avatar walking animation is missing. But i guess it is all about time. Anyway this game is well done with 3 levels and a smart difficulty progression, no major bug detected (it is just a detail but the space key is not responding at the end).
Thanks for playing! Yeah the space at the end must be kept pressed 3 seconds for it to work, I did it to avoid accidental space press but I do think I overdid it with 3 seconds lol. I haven't really thought about infiltration or stealth for the game, but I'll think about it if something interesting arises. I just added a new Devlog covering all changes that I'll be working on: the animations will be added, and slowness of the game will be fixed. In the next version I'm gonna make sure all these points are covered! Thank you very much for the review :)
I like the idea nice job
Thank you! I'll keep on developing this one <3 I have received a nice response and feedback.
Hi, just finished checking out your game. The atmosphere was really on point, and the 2d shadows really helped the mood a lot. I loved the sound design on this one, I think it helped compensating the fact that sometimes the pace of the game is a little bit slow. As another comment pointed out, maybe the only thing that needs some work are the animations. Those are the only things that this game "lacks" in a way, because all the rest is really polished in my opinion. You should develop it further in the future!
Overall a really enjoyable and moody experience, thanks for submitting it and good luck with the jam mate <33333
Thank you very much! I'm happy you had fun with it! This week I've been preparing some stuff, but I'm definitely continue its development. I'll be sure to keep you all posted with devlogs to show you how it will be continued.
<333
Really cool atmosphere! I particularly liked the moment where a light went out and corpses came out behind the boxes, that part was cool. I like the enemy variety. The way the light hit the boxes and barrels was pretty nice, I found it satisfying to push them around. I wouldn't mind if there were lots more moments where where you get swarmed with enemies. I also liked the humor in the dialogue segments, definitely broke some of the tension. Really great work!
Thank you for playing!!
I'm currently checking the various games I'm being inspired on to see if I can find a way to balance the combat properly, I would not want it to become a simple hack and slash, but to have a more interesting combat, still with moments of tension that justifies the inclusion to more powerful weapons, I do want to include to swarms.
Between some of my inspirations are Darkwood, Teleglitch, GTFO, ShipBreaker, and just recently I learned about Empty Shell. These following weeks I'm getting back to design phase to give proper time to it and see what worked and what not, and how the basic cycle will be implemented.
Hello everyone, to help with performance for streamers, I added a link in the description of the game for the windows executable version. I saw that for streamers, the WebGL was having issues. The windows version is exactly the same, so if WebGL is working fine for you, you don't need to download anything. Thanks for playing!
Hey man that was great!! Perfect use of 2D shadowing for the atmospheric tension of finding the creatures. And fighting them. it is a really neat and perfect dialogue that keeps you engaged with what you're supposed to be doing. I found myself a little confused at the beginning but that's on me for not holding down e and properly reading. but pressing it repeatedly. I loved your entry mate! Short and straight to the task. and accomplishes perfectly the goal it presented that's keeping it on your toes!
Maybe add some randomisation to the enemies like having 2 attacks at 2 different speeds, so it becomes more complicated to fight the enemies. Sometimes I in the last ship found a few Spawnes that didn't spawn my lovely enemies to splish splash them. Good Work!
Thank you very much for the review! I'm definitely adding more variety to the monsters attacks. I want to achieve a satisfactory combat flow <3 The holes where the corpses spawn from have a probability of spawning from 0 to 5 enemies. That's why some does not spawn anything, and is totally random, just to keep you on your toes and play with your mind :v. Light bulbs also have a 20% probability of breaking, with some exceptions. Thank you for playing! <3
That was an interesting game, for sure! One thing I really liked was your use of the 2D shadows to hide monsters behind the barrels and crates, the zombies in the final level coming from behind the darkness as you came close with your lantern was pretty cool to witness! Which, by the way, I think you did a good job with the atmosphere as well, the way the game moved at slow pace and you had to fix/clean the floor while you kept hearing the wood cracking or what sounded a lot like steps, pretty spooky! You also managed to make quite a bit of content for a game jam game, keep it up!
My main critiques would be: that I felt like the animation needs some work, the blob has one frame to indicate it's about to attack but it really doesn't look like a wind up. It took me a while to understand how its attack worked, but once I did I just didn't got hit anymore. Also, was there any reason to turn off the lantern? As it is I don't see why it needs to have a button to turn it on/off, just leave it on. Lastly, I also felt like there was too much to clean up in most levels, it just made them drag on a bit too much. I liked how in the first level the lamps would just break as you approach them, fixing these made more sense and helped create atmosphere but most of the time I felt like that mechanic wasn't the peak of the gameplay loop.
But yeah, I think this game is above average. Thanks for making it, and good luck!
Thank you very much for your review! Yeah, definitely the animations need to be completed. Actually, there is no animation at all XD. They are all just static frames. Some managed through animator, and some by a programmed control. Animations were going to take some time, and I decided to do just enough to feel the movement. The corpse was a special case where I just animated 4 frames (but didn't programmed attack frame, lol).
The idea of the lamp was to have it use fuel, which I really wanted to add, so you could rely on other light sources like the candles and light bulbs. But well, due to time constraints, I was not able to program any of that, since it was going to need a fuel source (like Amnesia: Dark Descent) from where you could get more oil for the lamp. For the official release, I want to give real purpose to the lamp so it does not feel like you can just have it turned on forever.
As for the fixing stuff, I definitely want to make it more fun and interactive. Maybe integrate puzzles, use resources, etc. Make it feel like you are learning how repairs work, and make you feel like an experienced shipkeeper in later levels.
Ah! So much to do, but that's the fun part. Thank you very much for playing! <3
This game is pretty cool! The vibes are great, the sound effects are nice and crisp, and the story is pretty cool, although the shipworker felt like he was a bit too laid back in dire situations. This game has an issue of feeling slow, though. I felt like doing stuff took quite a while, speeding it up might make the game flow a bit better. The biggest oddity is that for whatever reason, I don't know if it is just me, but when I use the attack, I always point down-left. I'm not sure if it is just me, but it was harder to play the game because I'd always need the enemy to be roughly downwards to attack it. As well as that, there isn't much animation, but it's consistent that there isn't a ton of animation, which is actually good, as inconsistencies in that could look funky. Overall, this game has some cool ideas, with good ambience, good environmental artwork, and a funny shipworker helping you, but feels a bit slow and can be a bit hard to play. Nice Work! (also sorry if the review sounds harsh, just trying to point out some issues that could help with the full potential :))
Not harsh at all. Thank you very much for your review! Slowness in the flow of the game has been an issue with a lot of players, I'm definitely gonna pay attention to it. As for the attack, I'm now realizing that I never specified that the character attacks towards the mouse cursor. So if your cursor always stayed in the same corner, you are going to attack towards it always. Thank you very much for playing! With all your info I'm gonna make this game grow!
Cool! good to know that you're ready to continue this game! As well as that, a suggestion for the future: maybe you could make a system where you could get cleaning & cutting tool upgrades, like a vacuum or a pair of clippers, so that you could theoretically have different playstyles! (just a suggestion obviously :)) Thanks for the response!
Totally! I'm gonna take my time thinking on fun mechanics for the fixes and the tools and weapons. I even wanted to add an inventory and the shotgun for this version (even the graphics were ready), but I run out of time XD
Ouch! well, good luck with the improvements!
I like the atmosphere, justice for the goverment shipworker(somehow was able to manage on 1hp twice at the end was scary because i was not sure if i would die or not lol) Would so play more of it in the future!
I'm definitely working more in this project. I want to see it get to full potential. Thank you so much for playing it. It was very fun watching you go through it!
I like the art style and the atmosphere is on point! Great job :)
I think the items to fix could do with perhaps a bar or something to show how much progress you've made. Also, the main character could do with some animation...
I enjoyed playing it - thanks for the suggestion :)
Thank you! Yes, definitely will add full animations <3 Also I'll make a rework on the fixing process to be much more interesting <3 Thank you for playing! <3
The art style is pretty good and gives off a pretty creepy atmosphere. The gameplay is interesting but there's a few annoyance, like how if you're not holding RMB, then if you attack and then start backing out your flashlight just immediately turns around making it so you can't see what you were fighting, and every action being just a bit too slow. It definitely has the potential to be a really good survival horror game. Good job on the jam!
Thank you! Yes, I took that movement style from Teleglitch, however, teleglitch does not have limited vision, so when the character moves to one side or the other, it does not feel weird. So now I'm checking how it was done in Darkwood, which implements vision cones. I will definitely improve that movement, and action times so it does not feel that slow. Thank you so much for playing! <3
Art is good, gameplay is ok.
I liked it tbh
Fun for a while, but it felt a bit slow. I didn't like the voice on the speaker; I felt there was too much flavor text. However, I did appreciate that the fixing sound wasn't a monotonous beat. It's an original idea though; not many people would create a "fixing" exploration game with this theme.
Thank you! I do feel like the gameplay may get a little monotonous. I plan to add variety to the fixing process, like repairing a broken floor should be different from fixing a light bulb, like different mini games (And also, needing resources). As for the flavor text, did you feel the need of explaining the mechanics too unnecessary? Or just the data about the monsters? Or all text in general?
Thank you so much for playing!
The issue with the speaker is that it’s annoying; it doesn’t feel like he is building the world or anything. He even makes jokes, there’s no explanation for why you are doing what you are doing. Also, is always bad when the game doesnt even start and some dialogue pop up stoping the gameplay.
I know he is mostly there to teach the controls, but that could be done with a button promp when encountering the broken stuff
Regarding the minigames, I don’t think that’s the problem. The main issue is that there is no sense of urgency, no real reason why you, as a player or character, are fixing these ships. There’s no menace or anything. I know there are monsters in the later levels, but I’m not talking about that. Also, since the character is so slow and the character’s range is limited, those monster encounters just make the game annoying. Additionally, something I’ve seen a lot in games is that enemies take more hits than necessary, turning the challenge into annoyance.
Making the fixing process a little bit faster could be good. Requiring some materials (that you need to scavenge inside the ship, I saw some boxes and barrels there) in order to be able to fix stuff would be fun.
Also, that way, you could add exploration to the formula. In some of those explorations, you can add some “lore” or story with the speaker, or maybe finding logs of the old owners of the ship.
Maybe you need to keep the “ghosts” of the ship happy and need to be fast at fixing the ship to not disturb whatever creature resides within it. I know they are eldritch monsters or whatever, but that idea is really overused and most times, misses the point of what really is an eldritch monster.
So, you need to be fast and fix the ship while not disturbing the monster or whatever that lives inside it.
To add to the horror you could add a “noise” thing, making the creatures in the ship react to your fixing and running towards you, so you need to run fix, then run again.
Maybe the problem is that there is no challenge, I dont really know. When I saw the monster there was no need to defeat those monster, unless they were on your way.
Very interesting points and suggestions. I'll take them into account! Thank you very much!
Sorry if I sound like an asshole, is not the intention, making games is hard I know.
Not at all <3. Thank you very much for taking your time to do this review <3 I'm very interested in hearing every experience I can :3
Very original concept! I like it! Love the cover/main menu art! Congrats on the submission!
Thanks! I did experiment a little with that splash screen art, I usually draw more on the cute & clean side, but since horror was needed, I decided to use more a more rough and dirty look. I'm glad people liked it <3
This game has a lot of potential i like the graphics and the story (also the entire game idea)
Thank you! I always wanted to do a horror themed game like Darkwood or Teleglitch, and I also like games like Hardspace: Shipbreaker. Originally I was thinking on making it set on space. But then I decided to go for a more lovecraftian/sea horrors theme. Thank you very much for playing!