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A jam submission

Whatever Floats your BoatView game page

Lame planes, fight off gulls, hot air balloons and the air force and take your ship to space.
Submitted by Jellybean (@JGriffithsDev) — 14 hours, 50 minutes before the deadline
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Whatever Floats your Boat's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Fun#11303.2563.256
Originality#11913.4883.488
Overall#12283.3333.333
Presentation#15263.2563.256

Ranked from 86 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How does your game fit the theme?
The boat is joined to the balloon, the boat is the player element and the balloon is a target the player must be careful not to shoot else they will fall out the sky.

Did your team create the vast majority of the art during the 48 hours?

Yes

We created the vast majority of the art during the game jam

Did your team create the vast majority of the music during the 48 hours?

No

We used pre-existing audio

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Comments

Viewing comments 60 to 41 of 60 · Next page · Last page
Submitted(+1)

I liked this; simple mechanic well realised :)

I did shoot my own balloon more often than not; maybe the hit box could have been a bit more forgiving there? and I thought the prices for upgrades were a bit steep.

But I had a lot of fun :D

Submitted (2 edits) (+1)

The idea is simple yet effective. The music is funky and the graphics is nice.

The only gameplay-related issue for me was the progression - it felt too slow i. e. I had to do too many similar runs without upgrading anything. Perhaps having upgrades cost cheaper but have less effect (whenever possible) could help - at least it would create a sense of progress.

Waiting to fall down might be a bit long, and it seems like it doesn't affect the gameplay - perhaps making it a short animation would provide an improvement.

Overall, these issues are minor and it is a solid submission, great job!

Submitted(+1)

This game gets better as it goes, the fights against the other ships while swatting down birds get super intense. I really love the sense of progression you get from this game that most games of this type don't provide, it really makes every trip feel worthwhile. Great work!

Submitted(+1)

The game is pretty fun but the Random bird spawning can get a bit annoying when there are a bunch of them in a line, otherwise good idea (wish the upgrades were more accessible though!)

Submitted(+1)

I wish I could play your game, but I've had trouble running browser based Unity games that utilize WebGL. Unfortunately, when I hit the play button I just get an infinite loading screen with the Unity logo. :/

Submitted(+1)

Fun game, very original, and I liked the visual style.  I wish the progression was a little faster so I could rank up my boat faster.  In any case, great job!

Submitted(+1)

It's a fun little game. I actually like the idea of a ship being tied to a balloon. I'd only like to have seen additional movement mechanics, such as firing left to move right. Otherwise, it was a fun experience, and would like to see more microgames like it in the future.

Submitted(+1)

Solid submission, I had great fun with it as I love small arcade-ish games. I'm not sure if it's intentional but you can shoot you're own balloon, if it is that's awesome lmao. Actions have consequences!

Submitted(+1)

This is a really neat and original concept, and I loved the presentation. I think it would be great to have a number say how high you're getting (who doesn't love big numbers getting bigger) and I'd rethink some of the pricing for the Game Jam version. There were items it would take me ages to get. But a really cool core concept.

Submitted(+1)

I feel there's a really solid concept here that would be gold with a bit more polish! I really enjoyed this game, the bouncy music choice, and the art style. The plot was also pretty funny and a great combination for the game design. I really love the amount you can do with this idea!

A few things that bothered me were how early on it's just guaranteed you can't get very far and are forced to repeat the same portion until you get enough money making you just feel stuck at various loops with increasingly long return times. I feel the early game required item costs could be lowered, or perhaps some rebalancing to give the chance to survive to the top. Looking at other roguelites typically you can't beat them on the first go, but you know a really experienced player might have the ability to. It makes it feel more about skill than just raw abilities. I say that because I think post-jam you could definitely keep working on this game and get a lovely bite-sized release with tons of polish and a solid core!

I really hope you keep this one going, I had a great time playing it, great job!

Submitted(+1)

Aside from the slightly grindy progression, it was addictive =) Good job!

Submitted(+1)

Slow progression aside, I feel like this game could better utilize the link between the balloon and the boat. Interestingly, you can show yourself down, and I wish that leads to interesting choices of where to dropship to avoid a bird flying into the ship itself or to tank the hit for the sake of getting higher. I would go as far as to suggest adding multiple balloons, so with 3 balloons you'd be going faster which fixes the slow pace and it adds another layer of strategy where you can't shoot as wide of an area so you choose between going fast and playing unsafe or taking it slow to line up your shots. I'm only suggesting so much theorycraft here because I loved the concept and think it's worth exploring more as a rather unique approach to infinite scrolling shooters :D

Submitted(+2)

This game is really fun! Although I wish it fit the theme better.
I like how you are able to shoot your own balloon, makes the game a lot more challenging! I also like the color theme, the red contrasts the blue environment really well! 


Here are a few suggestions I think can make the game even better ->

  • Add a "reload" bar, whenever you shoot there is a cooldown on the next shot. If we can have something showing that cooldown (like a progress bar) then it would be better
  • Add a score counter, just a simple text in a corner that tells the altitude we are currently at
  • Add a coin counter, currently we can only see the coin counter on the shop screen, but I think it wouldn't hurt to add it alongside the score counter, that way we can see how many coins we are earning per bird taken down/meter floated
  • It would be great if there was an actual string attached to the boat and the balloon that we could see, a simple line renderer should do that job

Overall an amazing entry, could have taken the theme in a better way but fun to play nonetheless!

Submitted(+2)

I liked the idea that have to protect the balloon both from the birds and from yourself. I liked the graphics too. But I think the upgrades were too expensive to explore in this gamejam setting.

Submitted(+1)

really nice game? all though it might be slightly bettter if you turned on viewport scaling

Submitted(+1)

I really liked this game! It reminded me of learn to fly. The upgrades were meaningful, and there were different upgrade paths to get to the end screen

Submitted(+2)

This has a pretty interesting concept, and ties well with the theme of the jam. I like the art and the fact that you get to watch your boat fall all the way down whenever you mess up. :) The pirate-themed music is cool as well and fits the aesthetic.

I think in its current state the major point of improvement would be the cost of the upgrades. The progression feels so slow and it seems like the upgrades are much needed very early on in the run. (Alternatively, you can put up the upgrades as microtransactions and make lots of real-world money LMAO just kidding).

Submitted(+2)

I liked it. It took a bit to get to the fun parts with upgrades, and I think many people will miss that. The basic gun didn't feel super responsive, but once you got 2 guns it was very fun. I guess the other upgrades were also fun. Thanks for sharing it!

Submitted(+1)

Its a nice and simple game, very fun to play, its a little slow at the start but thats fine

Submitted(+1)

Nice and simple game, it really misses so kind of reload indication near your gun. solid entry though, congratulations of finishing it!

Viewing comments 60 to 41 of 60 · Next page · Last page