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Revenge of the Fish's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Controls | #6 | 3.920 | 3.920 |
| Audio | #9 | 3.760 | 3.760 |
| Overall | #9 | 3.749 | 3.749 |
| Theme | #10 | 4.520 | 4.520 |
| Graphics | #15 | 3.760 | 3.760 |
| Fun | #16 | 3.520 | 3.520 |
| Originality | #20 | 3.680 | 3.680 |
| Accessibility | #26 | 3.080 | 3.080 |
Ranked from 25 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Godot Version
3.4.2
Wildcards Used
N/A
Game Description
Conserve the fish's natural habitat by fighting pollution and garbage monsters!
How does your game tie into the theme?
You are spawning fish in the ocean and fight against polution. All sound effects are inspired by ocean noises and we used real fish as inspiration for the art.
Source(s)
N/A
Discord Username
SiRen#3932, Chimpanzee#8377, Sili's GF#5079, ak00mah#3504
Participation Level (GWJ Only)
1
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Comments
This is a really well executed game. The artwork is fitting. The background track is really good to listen to. The best part of the game is the core mechanics. The creature evolution system is very good and refreshing. You’ve managed to pack a lot into an “upgrade system”: regular stats upgrades that are permanent (+1 strength, etc.), temporary powerups (+10 currency, increase stats for current creatures), and behaviours that can be changed dynamically (hunt, collect coins, patrol, etc.). This makes sense for a dynamic environment, where you can change things a bit in response to the current situation. The game did start lagging, especially real bad when I had chosen “collect in the center” behaviour for the swordfish. Didn’t encounter any bugs. As mentioned in other comments as well, I wasn’t sure what some of the upgrades mean.
Took me a few attempts to figure out how to play this. In one of the runs I managed to stick around and beat back the challenging parts where the pollution targets a particular creature and you have to switch. Am at wave 149 now. Although I made a mistake early on and the small fish started costing 6 and couldn’t afford it after that. Managed with the other two though. Until about 60-70 it was about being sure that you can beat off the pollution waves. Then I wanted to see how far I could go. I think the player is quite powerful now, not sure if the game will “come back”. At least until level 50-60 at least I would say the game is really well balanced. Not sure if I can replicate the run though :) But from the first few plays (when I reached upto wave 15-20) the game surely makes you want to improve your strategy and do better each time.
Overall this is a fun game with some cool mechanics, and a refreshing take on the defence concept. Great job!
Playthrough video from wave 83 to 149:
Great feedback, thank you for the nice comment!
From our experience, once you manage to get to wave 80+, you can usually go infinite. We already plan on updating the game balance to fix this in one final patch after the jam is over. Luckily, it's quite rare for people to get that far, you must've figured out a really good strategy! ;)
We definitely didn't budget enough time for the balancing, especially since we kept adding new evolutions almost up to the deadline. However, it's definitely not an easy type of game to balance and hence I am actually very happy with the way it's balanced up to that "breaking point." Players seem to struggle to get beyond 25 at first, then they figure it out but lose at 40-50, which is quite a nice learning curve in my opinion. The problem only arises when people figure out how to get beyond that point, where we hoped the insane amount of cans together with the pollution would stop anyone. This is also where lag starts to be a problem, since we didn't intend for people to even get that far. (We actually already implemented many optimizations to allow 100+ creatures without lag, only once they all start shooting tons of projectiles, exploding and spawning things does it become problematic.)
Again thanks for the comment and glad you had fun!
P.s.: I love how crazy the game gets when you get far enough. Your video really shows this off nicely!
This was very different from the normal protect type games and it was quite fun! However since the health of the enemies wasnt shown it was quite confusing. Besides that, some cards like "+1 strength on melee kill" were quite confusing too because I thought the base species would get +1 strength but didnt see it.
Thanks for the feedback!
I think the issue is that we relied on people's "meta knowledge" of other games too much. We used wording very similar to that used in card games, with a similar structure for similar effects. If the card doesn't state that the effect only affects "active" creatures, it affects the base species. "+1 strength on melee kill" is an effect that gets added to the base creature, meaning if you spawn one it then has this effect. To describe this in a more precise/less ambiguous way, the text would have to be much longer, which is a clear design trade-off. It's tricky... We definitely could've worked and on the card descriptions more though.
Showing health bars is something we discussed and decided against if for aesthetic reasons (to not clutter the screen when there are 100 fish and 30 enemies later in the game). With more time, we definitely would've made it toggle-able.
Thanks for the clarification! I thought when you said that you meant +1 for all future creatures. But yeah, you're right about the hp, it'd have been much more clutered if it was shown.
Nice game!
Had fun with the clownfish, was about to say that it was OP, until a message appeared that a toxic spill will hurt them. So, I stopped using them and I lost immediately.
Good job to all the team. You did well!
Thank you for the nice words!
The toxic spill would've hurt them, it's a mechanic we built in to prevent using only one creature from being the best way to play. (The ocean will change color and they start taking damage, it doesn't last forever though. ) You made it pretty far, the toxic spills only appear starting at wave 40.
Very simple but very fun and addictive! Graphics are nice and the sound/music is good. Also, I l
Well polished game. Great sense of progression. I do have to spend more time to work out what a sensible progression path through the evolution upgrades should be though.
This game is hard but it is fun to keep going after that next upgrade to see what you might get! I think randomized upgrades can be a lot of fun for that reason.
My first time I got to round 17 and my third playthrough I got to round 39. The strategy I used there was to throw everything I could onto the swordfish. It worked alright, although I think part of my undoing may have been the "+10 health, but lose health over time" upgrade...
I do think something I would really like to see would be, like, health bars or some kind of indicator like that... it's not very easy for me to understand exactly how the combat works as it stands.
But, it's definitely a fun game, and I may give it a few more tries at some point here. 😄
Thank you for the feedback!
We actually talked about this a lot and decided that health bars or numbers would clutter the screen too much and take away from the "oceanic feel". We hoped that the red blinking when things take damage would communicate this, coupled with the enemy stats you can see on the itch.io page.
If we had more time we probably would've made toggle-able health bars and some way to see the enemy stats in game.
Super fun game, really well executed!
Thank you, my entire team really likes your teams' game as well, it gave us a lot of joy!
It's very satisfying and well-made. I encountered a bug that wouldn't let me get the middle fish though, but it was still playable. I do wonder, how is the fish's movement determined?
Thank you for the feedback.
I would really like to know more about the bug, we did a lot of play-testing and never encountered it. Did the click simply not work or did the bowl not pop up?
There are several movement patterns for the fish (we call these movement evolutions), but I assume you mean the basic one? In short, there is an "invisible" (it purely exists in code) point for each fish, which moves in straight lines, changing direction at some fixed interval. The fish itself always moves towards that point, but will never reach it since the point moves at twice the fishes' speed.
The click simply didn't work, so the fish didn't spawn but it didn't cost anything either
Awesome game, very fun and kinda satisfying. Love the upgrade system.
Glad you like it, we had fun making it!
Made it to wave 15. Nice concept and execution. Good job.
Thank you! The game gets really crazy if you make it far, feel free to try and get to a higher wave. There are some features that only start happening in later waves... ;)
My favorite so far! I made it to wave 16. I thought the difficulty was pretty low and jumped abruptly around wave 15...
Very nice graphics, fun idea
Thanks for the kind comment!
We aimed for a difficulty curve that started slow and then ramps up more and more. We wanted it to start feeling hopeless at some point, since the real solution should be less pollution, not the fish fighting back. But we also wanted a slow enough start to allow the player to figure out the mechanics before it gets very difficult.
The big jumps in difficulty happen at wave 25, 40 and 50. If you manage beyond 50, you found a really strong strategy.
Some of our internal play-testers have gotten as far as 100+ though. Some broken strategies might've slipped through our last balancing pass... Will be interesting to see if any of the jamers can find them.
So neat! Such a great twist on tower defense. Really enjoyed playing each and every second. Will definitely be playing again now that I have more time!
Also keep me updated on the highscores you see!
Thanks for playing, it was really fun to see you try out our game. Your game is a very fun one as well!
P.s.: I think out of all the jam participants you still hold the highest score, especially on your first try.
Our internal high score is over wave 100 though... ;)
Awesome work, love the enemy design very unique and artistic! Found this game very fun, great job!
High Score: Wave 13
Thank you. Our artist really did a great job!
Great work! I was feeling good but then 3 of the tyre enemies reminded me not to!! A nice, cohesive, and simple concept that was really well executed. Great work!
Thank you for the kind comment! The tire is my favorite enemy.
Awesome! Made it to wave 27. This game is a fun challenge!
Thank you! 27 is pretty good, but at 40 is where it starts to get very challenging. ;)