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A jam submission

Heart's Desire: Blue SeaView game page

Destroy ocean pollutants in this micro-tactics game! Made with Löve for LOW REZ JAM 2017.
Submitted by Max W (@xypotion) — 12 minutes, 56 seconds before the deadline
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Heart's Desire: Blue Sea's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Enjoyment#154.1504.150
Overall#294.1254.125
Audio#303.9003.900
Authenticity (Use of 64x64 limit)#574.5504.550
Graphics#663.9003.900

Ranked from 20 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

Awesome graphics! You made great use of the screen space and I like the unique concept for the game.

Submitted(+2)

Nice one! Lots of unique enemies that fit the theme perfectly. Also really well polished in terms of game flow, the interface, different music for different areas, etc... just an excellent entry overall! 

Developer

Thank you very much, rogueNoodle!!

Submitted(+1)

Fantastic game! Very fun turn-based mechanics. Terrific audio and visuals, and a super fun strategy element.

The one thing I would change is making the fonts easier to read. It felt like they were bitmap fonts that were scaled up so they lost some clarity.

I found the last boss impossible to defeat. (Maybe that's the point?). I really like your message and you conveyed it in an enjoyable (and pretty adorable) way!

Developer

Thanks, I'm really glad you enjoyed it! The last stage & boss are definitely tricky, but great job getting that far. I definitely agree on the text readability... it's one of my biggest regrets with this project. I was originally planning to draw all of the info pop-ups, but I ran out of time to do that or find a better low-rez font to print with. Next time for sure.

Submitted

If that's your only regret then you can safely say you had a successful and solid game jam :) I'm sure we all know that feel of running out of time, haha.

Submitted(+1)

Fun game :D

Developer

Thanks! :D

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Really nice game. The visuals are nice, the music and sound effects are appropriate, and the gameplay mechanics are very interesting. I love the variety of different enemies that make you approach battles in different ways. The one thing I don't like is there seems to be a bit of luck involved. Is the special attack random or do I just not understand it? Anyway, I made to stage 8.

Developer

Stage 8 is nearly the end, but it is pretty tough! Nice job getting that far. 

Yes, the special attack hits up to 3 random enemies, sorry that that was unclear. Future versions will definitely have better abilities & explanations for that sort of thing. Thank you very much for playing and commenting. :)

Submitted

Great little tactics game! I did find that the bosses left a little to be desired: Greed and Apathy were the only two that felt like they presented a unique challenge; the earlier bosses were mostly just a damage race and so you won/lost based on how you performed in the level up to that point.

Overall though, it's a solid entry!

Developer(+1)

Good analysis, and true. Gluttony and Invasive Species can kinda screw you if you were counting on collecting nearby fish, but they otherwise play the same as the rest. Making bosses more interesting is definitely a goal for the next version! I'm hoping that giving the player more interesting abilities creates more opportunities to experiment with the enemies, also.

Anyway, good job finishing it & thanks a lot for your feedback!

Submitted(+1)

Man, where do I start? This is one of the best games I've played in this jam and this is the best game concept I've seen lately. Yes it is really that good. 

You can also see the author made with love, paying close attention to detail, with some fun animations here and there.

Please keep working on this game and ship it to mobile. Id love to help in any way. Im jealous!

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Moving forward, I would change the main char from a blue heart to some kind of mascot/hero people'd identity themselves with. 

I also think there is just a bit too much text early game, and I dont like to be interrupted mid game as well. Maybe that could be better ballanced

Developer(+1)

Thanks so much, Diego! I really appreciate it. I'm glad you could tell the game was "made with love", because that pretty much summarizes my whole design philosophy. It's a thing I look for in games, too.

I'll let you in on a secret: this entry was basically a 1st prototype for a mobile RPG I've been designing for years. I wanted to test out some of my "micro-tactics" combat ideas and figured this jam was a good time to do so. The next prototype will probably be similar to this one, except bigger, prettier, and designed for mobile devices!

Submitted(+1)

Great overall entry.  Gameplay  was fun and engaging. Though I managed to go into each boss fight with enough health, there didn't appear to be a way to regain health during a boss fight. Maybe some smaller minions you can retreat and pick off for some health gain.

Developer

Some bosses have that! ;) Although the adds are more of a hindrance than a boon, haha. If I'd had time to implement powerups, there would have been healing, for sure, both manually and enhanced "fish-healing". I will almost definitely include those in future versions... although the bosses will also get harder, hehe.

Thanks a lot for the feedback, I'm glad you liked it overall!

Submitted(+1)

I was hoping I will not be the only one with turn based game. Great art and usage of so little space!

Developer(+1)

Thank you very much! I will check yours out today. :) *turn-based high-five*

Submitted(+1)

Great game concept. I like the sound fx. Showing hint during start is also a good idea.
Sometimes you think you can move but its not reacting and then you see you haven't any AP left.

Developer

Thanks! I agree, turn flow feels a little bit awkward before you get used to it. I hoped the day/night cycle would clarify that, but it's really easy to miss when the 3-pixel sky changes color!

(+1)

Nice story and game! I included it in my LowRezJam compilation, if you’d like to take a look :)

Developer(+1)

The unstoppable Jupi! Thanks for the feature, glad you liked the concept. :)

Submitted(+1)

This game is really fun!  I loved the audio and the gameplay is intuitive and engaging.

Developer

Thanks a lot, glad you liked it!

Submitted(+1)

Wow! I like the original concept of this game! Somehow you've managed to combine rouglike and match3 and maybe something else! You could probably also add some kind of rpg-like level-up system or something like that. I hope to see more of this :)

Developer

Thanks! Sadly, power-ups like stat growth & additional special attacks were planned but cut in favor of polish in the last couple days. Believe it or not, match-3 mechanics were also planned (but cut), like enemies powering up if 3 of the same species formed a line. I will most likely add these elements in a future version! I'm glad you liked it & thanks a lot for the feedback. :)

Submitted(+1)

Yay, I managed to clean the ocean! A fun game and surprisingly lenghty. A neat idea with great enemy and boss variety and an enjoyable turned based combat system. Well done!

Developer

Congrats!! I'm glad you liked it, and thanks!

Submitted(+1)

Very nice game! It took mea while to learn but when i did, it was so fun! Good job!

Developer

Thank you! :)

Submitted(+1)

Cute game, nice theme. Love the enemy diversity and the bosses. They all seem really well thought out with their different effects. The music fits the game well. The art is also really nice! A really well made and cool game.

Developer

Thank you very much! :)

Developer (2 edits)

Basic Controls/info:

  • WASD or arrow keys to move. Moving into an enemy makes you attack it.
  • Space or Enter to use your special attack (or confirm menu selection on title screen)
  • Blue fish = heal 1 HP
  • Red fish = heal 1 SP
  • Press V repeatedly to reduce the volume.
  • If you're defeated, you can Continue from the same level as long as you don't close the game!
Submitted

I tried the .love version and I got an error:

sounds.lua:74: attempt to call method 'getDuration' (a nil value)

Traceback

sounds.lua:74: in function 'checkBGMTimerAndTransition'
main.lua:153: in function 'update'
[C]: in function 'xpcall'

I have Love 0.9.1

Developer

Ah, interesting. Yeah, you're going to need Love 0.10.0 at least! Sorry! I should specify on the game page. Thanks for letting me know about this. :)