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Bubble Fish's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Concept | #13 | 4.059 | 4.059 |
| Overall | #30 | 3.735 | 3.735 |
| Use of the Limitation | #34 | 3.735 | 3.735 |
| Presentation | #35 | 3.706 | 3.706 |
| Enjoyment | #37 | 3.441 | 3.441 |
Ranked from 34 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Team members
SamalanderGaming, Tynamo2222
Software used
Just Pico8
Use of the limitation
Shooting bubbles uses up oxygen, which can slow your progress in the game by teleporting you to the start.
Cookies eaten
At least 2
How was your experience with Mini Jam?
As the first game that Samalander has ever made, and the first game that Tynamo has ever released to the public, we don’t have much experience, but the community was really nice and we had a lot of fun. We will definitely be doing another!
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Comments
this was a fun little game. the menu was a bit hard cumbersome to navigate; while it could have been just the three options, the player instead had to constantly navigate around the screen to places that don’t do anything (and never will, if i understood correctly)
entering the boat whenever (X) is held is a bit of a pain, since that means you can’t hold a bubble when you’re near the surface lest you get swept away by the boat
speaking of bubbles: i often wanted to release one directly beneath a fish (so it would float up and catch them) and then continue moving downward. but downward movement sucks the bubble right down with you! i can’t tell you how many fish i’ve missed catching due to the bubble “chasing” the player
Yeah. I totally agree with you for the shop menu. We intended to add a lot more features, but unfortunately we ended up having to code a whole map renderer thing from scratch.
In terms of the boat thing, I keep getting that feedback and meaning to move the top fish down a bit, so sorry about that.
In terms of the bubble glitch, it was really hard to fix. As I said earlier, we had to make something to draw the map from scratch. We didn’t like pico8’s map thing since it could only be moved 8 pixels at a time, so every animation and map tile is a separate sprite that’s being drawn (there is a function for it and a table and stuff so it’s not like we’re drawing each sprite separately). Because of this, the bubble is drawn on a separate layer. The fix for this glitch would be to basically make the bubble part of the map, and I’m not sure how we would do that without re writing a lot of the code. We definitely have a lot to learn for our second jam when we do one.
i’d like to introduce you to the
camera()function :3Really enjoy the upgrade system! The only critique I have is to maybe make the starting movement speed a tiny bit faster.
Got it. The movement speed was tricky since I wanted to keep the player from going super deep right away, so it was either slow speed or decrease oxygen, and I just went with the speed decrease since you needed the oxygen to shoot bubbles.
Oh yeah totally understandable, I had a very similar time balancing my game haha
The game is very cool and has depth with this integrated shop system and the wide sea area. And you met the limitation very well. The music is also pretty well done (especially in the short time with programming and art) and relaxing. One fun thing that I came across by chance is the debug mode when you press Z + X or C + V. I don't know whether on purpose or not, but you could define a boolean variable that you can toggle on and off for the release version that prevents this. :)
Yeah, It's an intended feature to help people report bugs. Originally you turned it on by pressing up and down arrows, but while testing, I found that you would normally press those together while changing directions. I chose to set it as X and Z instead, as people don't usually press those at once. It can be easily disabled by pressing left arrow key and right arrow key, which it says in the title. I left it in because I didn't think it would be harmful or cheaty, just like the debug menu in Minecraft. One thing that it does show that could be considered an advantage would be seeing your exact oxygen level I guess, but there's a bar anyway, so it's not a huge advantage.
I was also really worried about the music. I had bought PICO 8 about a week before I started this jam, and had no prior coding experience with text based languages (Other then a little experience with python a couple of years ago). The music is just a repeating loop that's less then 10 seconds long, so I though it would get boring. One of the things that I added was making the music more muffled while you're under water, and more clear while in the shop. No one seemed to notice it though.
Thanks for the positive feedback!
If it was a conscious choice, then all is well. Even found it very useful because I could estimate where I could stay in which shallow water despite the warning, as well as see the effects of an upgrade. To the music. Personally, I think that even if it only lasts 10 seconds, if it fits and is not annoying, then it's actually quite good. I fail at both points, so I use what already exists. The changes in the music are not actively noticeable, but neither do they have to be. ;)
PICO-8 is of course more difficult with less programming experience, but the game is very good for that and maybe you can share it in the Lexaloffle forum for more feedback and players. :)
fun fact: i accidentally toggled debug-mode and then couldn’t turn it back off! or, more accurately, i had to reach over to the keyboard in order to turn it off even tho i activated it with my controller. since you can’t press opposite directions simultaneously on a controller
Man, I loved this. I unlocked every upgrade. Charming, simple and I loved the unique way of catching fish with bubbles. Just awesome.
Wow! I had to tear myself from this game! But only after I knew how to play! Maybe more of a tutorial for the player? Overall this was really fun and could easily be a winner!
I appreciate the positive review! Was the in game tutorial or the description of the controls in the description of the itch.io page lacking? What could we do to improve it?
Great work! It was fun to progress and venture deeper into the waters and find more varieties of fish. Nice job!
me recuerda los juegos de Atari, me gusto mucho la música y el diseño retro.
https://jhostergame.itch.io/bubble-rescue
This was nice. Enjoyable gameplay loop that makes you want to explore deeper. The water looks pretty good too for the PICO-8 limitations.
I'm glad you had fun. Making people want to continue playing was one of the hardest parts.
Great little game here! Quite liked the idea that the bubbles you shoot to catch fish also drain the oxygen.
Very good game ! Enjoyable as hell and very fun. Controls are easy design is soft and pleasing
I could have played for hours aha
Glad you liked it!
Nice little game. simple to understand and enjoyable to play. Some of the bubble collisions seemed a tad sensitive, I blew up a giant bubble over the fish a few times and it didn't recognise it, perhaps I was out by a few pixels but this could be more forgiving. I liked how to added different types of fish the deeper you went and the limitation tie in was great. nice work!
thanks so much for the review! I think the bubble collisions were tricky for me to code. I wanted it to be kind of easy to catch fish, but I noticed that if I just made it so if the bubble is touching the fish it captures the fish, it made it look really weird when the bubble just snapped to the fish. I’m going to put out a small update in around an hour with some bug fixes and improvements, including collisions. Thanks again for the review!
really love the concept and presentation.
great game.
Thanks!
Great concept and gameplay, favourite part is the presentation and style of Pico-8
Thanks so much! I really appreciate it.
Very good game!
Thanks so much! Glad you liked it
Lovely little game, well done!
This game is good. i like the spirtes and concept of the game
I didn't like 1-bit games. But the game is good.
This is a good game! I really liked the sprites and the air resource management bubble capture. The retro vibe is so solid too.
I don't know what it is about fishing type games but I really enjoy them haha.
Really enjoyed it! Great gameplay, impressive artstyle. Keep on keeping on!
Thanks so much! Glad that you enjoyed it!