I had a hard time understanding the controls, but after reading them I think they are pretty interesting. I haven't played many boating games, but the idea of aligning your sail to the wind isn't something I've seen before. It feels a little odd that can seemingly align your sail with the wind and then move in any direction(?), and it can feel pretty bad when you are having a hard time aligning yourself. the fishing minigame i also found a bit hard to understand. It would keep ending as I sailed over it, and i wasn't sure how properly position the catching circle on fish that weren't exactly on the radius. I think the biggest thing the game probably needs in its current state is UI/etc that better conveys what's going on, but If you were to expand the game out, i think it could be cool to have stuff you can do/manage on your boat when you are having a hard time catching the wind. The game also looks nice, and the logo is awesome.
Viewing post in Sail: Get the F!$h Home jam comments
Hey! Yeah, the sail mechanic was borrowed from Sea of Thieves actually. We originally had more “realistic” sailing mechanics, where you couldn’t just go in any direction, and unfortunately we felt that was was a bit too hard to understand, so we switched to this simplified model which we knew people had some experience with (in Sea of Thieves). It is true that it’s a bit hard to tell whether or not you have the sail aligned properly. We ran out of time to add a more accurate wind indicator (i.e. something like wispy wind lines), so you kind of just need to go by the direction the clouds and sea foam are moving, and watch the sail and listen for the sail flapping noises.
For the fishing minigame, you can only fish while you are on the fishing spot, so if your sail is still aligned with the wind, the ship will keep going and you auto-stop fishing once you are no longer in the spot. I agree that we could have made that a bit clearer, but that was another thing we ran out of time to do :(
Love the suggestions about stuff to manage while the wind isn’t in your favor, and totally agreed that more UI/tutorializing are necessary. Thank you for playing!