Fun little sea game. I found controls comfortable. I wish enemy ships fire from sides, too. That would felt epic fight. A nice game overall.
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Pixels And Plunder's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall | #44 | 4.104 | 4.104 |
| Gameplay | #53 | 3.806 | 3.806 |
| Authenticity (use of resolution restriction) | #57 | 4.667 | 4.667 |
| Visuals | #59 | 4.167 | 4.167 |
| Audio | #61 | 3.778 | 3.778 |
Ranked from 36 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Did you work in a team?
This was my first game jam so I worked by myself. I had a lot of fun making this.
Was the resolution a challenge?
I'm not an amazing artist, actually I'm pretty bad, but I think the low resolution was a good limitation to spark my creativity. I'm pretty happy with how the art turned out.
What did you learn?
Like I said this was my first Jam so I learned a whole lot. One main thing was to limit my scope. I had a lot of ideas that didn't make it so I'm hoping to continue the game in the future.
Comments
Nice little game. I'm digging the simple aesthetics. Controlling the ship sadly felt a bit awkward and it took me a little time to figure out how to aim and shoot, but the idea is pretty cool!
Submitted
Space DisgraceA delightful pirate game! The art, while simple, do a great job setting the scene, and conveying the information it’s meant to convey, and the enemies are challenging without being frustrating!
The controls, however, are a little awkward. Tying the speed up and slow down mechanics to the direction your moving, for instance, is a good idea, but that only seems to work if I’m going directly vertical or horizontal and not on the diagonals… or, at least, the mechanic doesn’t work well on the diagonals (I think I sped up once on the diagonal, but it didn’t feel the same as going up/down/left/right)
I think my biggest issue was with the aiming. While I could understand why I couldn’t shoot forward and backwards (most boats couldn’t, I would think), shooting in the other directions was… tricky. For instance, if I’m heading up and aiming to the left, if I have to turn my boat, for instance, to the left (moving up-left diagonally) , I’m no longer aiming to the left relative to the boat, but I’m still aiming left relative to the screen (hope that all makes sense). This aiming scheme, for me, gets very confusing, especially in the middle of a fire fight with another boat.
One other suggestion I have is, for the forts, maybe give them a little bit of an “aim ahead” AI. I found I could cheese those forts by just going full speed in a circle around the island and they could never hit me because their cannon ball took too long to get to where I was. With an aim ahead, I think, the forts get a little more challenging as the player would then have to vary their speed or direction because the cannon balls would be a little more accurate… OR… (I just thought of this while writing) make the forts spawn enemy ships! Player is cheesing the fort, swimming in circles around it, all of a sudden, there’s an enemy ship! Now the player has TWO sources of cannon balls coming at them!
Anyway… A very enjoyable game, even with the control issues I had. Very well done!!
Submitted
TacComThank you so much for the detailed feedback. I agree the controls definitely could have been better. I plan to change them a little in a future update. I kept the shooting direction relative to the screen since if you where sailing down pressing left would aim right and that doesn't feel natural to me. I think I'll try to add a setting option so players can select they're preferred shooting option. I do like the idea of having the forts spawn ships!
I liked the concept, the gameplay and art was decent and music and sounds were fitting. I felt the ships movement was abit slow even when holding down and found that tapping worked better. The shooting controls were a little finicky maybe pressing the arrows to shoot without needing space bar would work better. Good work on your first jam.
Submitted
Gauntlet of DoomFun game, even though getting used to the decoupled navigation and firing takes quite a few tries to master. Nice catchy piraty tune you got there! Very nice job, this could have easily been a good arcade (saving the controls…) in the days of Ramart.
Submitted
Golden Star SheriffYARR!! This is a great little plundering game!
Mastering the helm took many a tries, but nay impossible. Many forts been ransacked and scurvy dogs sent down to Davy John's locker.
Ye sea shanties also be great tunes!
YARRR!!! You be a fine lad ye be!
Translation
Ey, nice pirate game you got there!
It took a little while to get used to the controls, but it wasn't difficult.
The music is also nice!
Great job! Keep up the good work!
Submitted
The Thief TrapFun game! I like the ship combat, though the controls took some getting used to. Great job with the pixel art!
Submitted
ZeroFlip64This was awesome and addictive! I love the ship combat, strafing around enemy ships and shooting cannons at them was immensely satisfying. The controls fit really well, controlling a ship isn't supposed to be trivial, so I liked that it took some actual practice to get the hang of moving the ship and firing cannons at the same time.
The map was also surprisingly big and full of content, it felt like every few seconds I ran into a stronghold or a group of ships which was great. I'd 100% play an expanded version of this with upgrades and some more enemy types. The art also came out really good! Everything was very readable and fit the pirate vibe perfectly.
I managed to end with 5400$ before getting sunk by a group of ships! Well done!
Submitted
TRYH4RDGreat game, *especially* if this is your first jam. The graphics and text, both very easy to parse, the controls felt very natural. I love that the sail is an indicator of your speed. I would absolutely play an expanded version with some sort of larger goal, maybe upgrades, some kind of minimal story? Great great, stuff.
Submitted
Pocket VolleyballBeautiful pixels. Reminds me of Overboard on playstation many years ago, that was a great game and this feels like a fantastic pixel rendition of it. Sounds and art top notch!
Submitted
Trappy SnailI like this. The music is great, and once you play with the controls for a minute they're smooth. Made it to about $3500 before dying. Found two treasures, too! Hadn't found any when I played the first time during the jam. I kind of wish you could find a port and buy ship repairs or something, but hoarding the coin is a fine pirate plan, too.
Submitted
Aurora Runealis
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