This is a really sophisticated idea. It will be amazing to play!
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Tachycineta (Greenlight Page)'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Promising Idea | #9 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Overall | #38 | 2.972 | 2.972 |
| Well Planned Production | #40 | 2.667 | 2.667 |
| Aesthetic / Concept Art | #46 | 2.444 | 2.444 |
| Reasonable Scope | #47 | 2.778 | 2.778 |
Ranked from 9 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Solo Jammer
Solo
This was made by a solo jammer
Comments
Your passion has really gotten me excited to play this game!
I am really interested in the flight mechanics that you are describing, and from the sounds of it you have enough experience to develop it.
One question I have is, what is the goal of the game?
- Is the game purely a bird survival simulator, or is there a destination you are trying to get too?
- There are a lot of mechanics involved with flight, and you even have detailed out the feather game. Is there achievements or goals that you are going to give the player to motivate them to engage more with these mechanics/minigames?
Submitted
Welcome To Welkin Concept JamI've given that some thought as well. I don't think I have the ability to intuition required to have the mechanics be fun enough to just fiddle with in a kerbal space program kind of way where you just kind of want to tinker with what you can do. I think it will need to be sort of a survival imperative. I put in a heart rate, (or breath rate I haven't decided) toggle that adjusts the speed you can flap (and ideally stamina/health drain). I set it so that at idle the drain is zero, but... you can't flap fast enough to actually fly... I like that a lot. So you try and fly but you can't get it unless you engage with the mechanic. I think choosing a swallow or a swift will help with that a lot. You have to be in flight to eat so... As of now I think survival simulator is probably the right scope. If I can get to the stage where there is a tutorial fledging level, a survival/attract a mate level and a raise a baby bird level that is a complete game, but might be beyond the time limit for a solo beginner like myself. I think maybe food-health-song quality might be the way to go where you need to have built up enough strength to consistently sing a good song to get a mate as a player goal.
Great concept! I'm impressed by the level of thought you put into this. It seems you have done your research with these birds and have experimented in other jams with what worked and what didn't. When moving forward with your game, it sounds like you'll have a strong foundation to work from.
Some points I think you may want to consider:
(Only brainstorming here, these aren't suggestions)
- Keep in mind the balance between realism and player enjoyment. I think you're right to move away from the plane controls as those don't seem natural, but controls that are too complex might turn away some players.
- Instead of solely relying on a health bar indicator for how the player is doing, you could also add visual elements for this metric. Maybe something like the birds plumage becoming more vibrant in colors as they eat more insects - signifying a healthier bird. Something like that.
I'm excited to see how this turns out! It's nice to see such a unique perspective on a game concept. Good luck on the project. :)
As far as your first brainstorming bullet point where I am right now is that the numpad (84562) controls the flap direction. 5 being a neutral up. 5 all of your thrust goes up, and the others are half in their direction and half up, so you still kind of fall and need some up flaps to stay aloft. This is pretty intuitive but has drawbacks for changing camera direction. I need to work on banking for that I think. I haven't quite settled on a banking mechanic for turning the bird yet (perhaps numpad 7 and 9) but I don't know how those should translate into animation that looks like something birds actually do, they don't really lead with their nose like a plane.
The second point you bring up is something I think I need to take really seriously. It is really nice because I already had already planned on using a feather texture that lacks an RBG color map and just using those channels to mask different feathers (I get my normal and roughness from displacement anyway). Point is for the feathers that are sexy plumage (the blue on a tree swallow) I could lerp between a muted blue and a bright one based on how healthy you are getting. I wouldn't have thought to do this if you hadn't mentioned it. I already want to track the players progress and use it to make the bird sing better based on how well you are doing.
I absolutely love this idea. Your thoughts coming out of your previous bird-flight-game experience are exciting, and your enthusiasm for the birds themselves is promising. I really want to try out these flight mechanics. I'm looking forward to see what you make!
(Fingers crossed for a web build, if at all possible!)
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