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Sailing in the Dark's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Graphics | #1 | 4.760 | 4.760 |
| Audio | #4 | 4.120 | 4.120 |
| Overall | #18 | 3.760 | 3.760 |
| Originality | #23 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Theme | #29 | 4.240 | 4.240 |
| Fun | #42 | 3.360 | 3.360 |
| Accessibilty | #64 | 2.800 | 2.800 |
| Controls | #75 | 3.040 | 3.040 |
Ranked from 25 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Godot Version
4.3 rc 2
Wildcards Used
N/A
Game Description
Sailing in the Dark is an atmospheric game where you will explore an open world of islands and archipelagos with your monster-ship, and discover what caused the Great Night.
How does your game tie into the theme?
Due to the Great Night, an in-universe apocalyptic event, the player must navigate dark waters to discover what happened to the archipelagos and islands in the region.
Source(s)
no
Discord Username(s)
ccadori
Participation Level (GWJ Only)
3
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Comments
Loved most things about this. It felt really polished, and with the description in the page and the UI it was clear what to do. One thing that I think could have improved things is when you are sailing around with no mines or pickups there isn't any visual indicator of progress. The sea is all the same. Maybe if you could see waves, or something else that gave an indication of distance traveled. Really amazing game though.
this is really.. really cool.. especially for the time frame! As someone who also made a horror-ish game, this gave me nightmares! Good job :)
Noooooo :'-(
Well... first of all it's a really really really good entry, arts, atmosphere, all is really great. The whalish sound is.. perfect <3 But arf' there is one tiny thing that could have made the game perfect, control remapping. Actually, default godot controls WASD are set to the french equivalent ZQSD but here not.. don't know if you've change anything or so ? And remap menu is not available. Well, it's really a tiny thing as I can switch to english keyboard easily but, at start, when you can go back (as S is a common key), and then discover that you can't turn to the right it's a little bit frustrating.
But well, enough cherry-pick VisioTempus, you made a really cool game so congrats. Sure that your game will be, if not top 1, top 5 or 10 ! Oh and there's different langage for islands name, nice idea. I loved to discover the 10 islands
I'm so sorry to hear that, VisioTempus. It was actually 100% my mistake. I understand your frustration. I would have felt the same.
Regarding the island names, I took inspiration from Western countries/cultures that explored the Caribbean (and others) islands in the past. Maybe I should have added Portuguese too. β±
I intended to also add some cultural differences in the characters, but I couldn't implement them in time.
Also, thank you for the kind words, I'm not that fixated on the ranking, but I hope you are correct π
This game looks and sounds great.. I think I may have seen someone streaming development on it? I found that having one light was basically useless and stopped using it. I was only able to find one island before I died. Unfortunately I was unable to read the small text in the pop ups, being able to make this fullscreen might have helped with that.
It appears Iβm in the minority. Whilst I found the visuals, the audio and the overall atmosphere praiseworthy, the cumbersome ship-beastβs controls put a cap on my enjoyment. Perhaps an upgrade in the form of making the ship-beast more easy to control would have been great. Not saying this to criticize, but as feedback for your next games.
Hey, Londolan, no worries, the ship's movement is something I will definitely pay special attention to when the jam review time is over. π’
I appreciate your review π
The ship editing was so polished and the visuals are so good, it really impressed me. I just wish there was a sketchy map or something, I felt lost and didn't know very well what I was supposed to do. Overall, great work!
Great game! It was such a cool and well designed game. It was relaxing and stressful swimming in those waters!
This is by far my favorite game in this jam!
I fell in love with the art style and the overall concept.
Really great work on this one.
Cheers!
Wow! This was a blast to play and pulled me in immediately.
My beast ship was very difficult to control, to the point of being frustrating at a few points, but I will give you tremendous props for making it feel weighty -- there is immediately an impression that this is a large, unwieldy creature that is difficult to steer. I also love the ability to upgrade your ship, although I do feel like the options were a little underpowered. For example, I wish the lights had illuminated things better or maybe extended my viewing range.
I love the allusions you make to a deeper lore. The text, the aesthetic, the audio -- everything is suitably mysterious and eerie. There's some really nice worldbuilding here, and you made really good use of the theme!
Overall I found this game unexpectedly relaxing. It was quite a zen experience cruising around in the darkness snagging pick-ups while looking for the next island to visit. Also, oh my god the artwork in this is beautiful; I'd love to know what you used to create it -- it almost looks vector based, but I think I see a lot of subtle texturing here and there, so I'm guessing Photoshop?
You did a great job with this!
Hi junkgolem, thank you very much for the detailed review and kind words π
I had a lot of fun implementing the game lore, it is heavily inspired by works of weird and horror literature, like Jeff Vandermeer and Lovecraft π (I know, he wasn't a good person)
Unfortunately, the editing/building part of the ship ended up not being finished, I implemented these blocks as the initial ones, and I intended to add more that would be found exploring the map. I ended up not being able to do it in time.
About the art, I work with a mix of vector art and bitmap textures. I think it gives a very unique style! At the moment I use Affinity Designer, which is very similar to Adobe Illustrator (and allows bitmap editing along with vectors).
Interesting idea and gameplay.
Visuals are pretty calming.
Game is atmospheric.
Anything inspired by Sunless Sea is an automatic 99/10 π’
Great work on the visual design! It's very pretty for a dark-themed game. The ambient sounds to the environment worked really well, too. I liked the writing, and the basic light/dark mechanics, though I would have liked to see the theme play an even larger role.
I didn't find controlling the ship very enjoyable. Though it was a living ship, it still piloted like a stiff boat. Maybe a trade-off of organic maneuverability for man-made parts/additions? I'd also second the feedback of the silhouettes of pickups vs. mines being too similar.
Really beautiful submission! Looking forward to your next game.
Hi Maaack, I agree with your points, I have tried some alternatives for motion control during the last days, but I didn't end up getting a result that I was happy with. Maybe in a future update.
Thanks a lot for the detailed review π
Amazing art and atmosphere! The haunting ambient music and the constantly looming threat of mines really puts me on edge. I really like the palette and art style, and the amount of sprites is mindboggling. Its a very distinct signature's very recognizable of a CCadori production.
The gamenplay loop of collecting scraps to upgrade your ship is really fun and addictive. If there were more parts to add (e.g. to add health capacity, or to give special skills) that would really round out the package. The upgrades can even be unique to the port-of-call to add extra flavor.
One issue I faced was the difficulty in telling apart the on-screen entitys of the same size. Powerups, mines and even the port indicator (which was a helpful and nice touch), were hard to tell apart. Resulting in unexpected mine contact. Perhaps giving a shader glow for mines touched by the player's light will help ease this, while also adding to the utility of using light.
Overall, a really solid entry! Well done, and looking forward to your next art piece.
Thank you very much busride studio for the detailed review and kind words!
I will take your points into consideration for an update once the jam review time is up π
Easily my favourite game from this gamejam
Thank you for the kind words Dan Hoang!