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I’ve entered a few jams before, but none since becoming a parent two years ago (turns out your free time goes bye-bye, who knew?). So even though this jam’s dev period was longer than most of the jams I entered before, I knew from the start that I pretty much had like 6 hours or so available (around 2 hours per day on the weekend, bouncing up and down with my daughter in the baby carrier, and whatever little time I could grab here and there in downtime at work or during lunch breaks).

I knew I needed a simple idea to be achievable in the time I had available, and when I saw the theme it came pretty quickly, although honestly I kinda worked backwards from realising I could backronym “SPIN” to describe something serious. I basically started thinking of words starting with ‘N’ and as soon as I had ‘navigation’ the rest fell into place: navigate by spinning the earth. Then I just had to come up with the rest of the title. Serious & Precise International Navigation. Nailed it.

I had more ideas I’d have liked to implement if I had more time to work on it:

• highlight the target country
• boost/brake power-ups so you have a chance to adjust your spins (probably limited use, 3x per run or so)

And I would have liked a bit more time to work on exactly how the planet spins:

• currently the speed is set by the average speed of the mouse drag. I considered making it a “click and drag an arrow to set direction and strength”, which might be more familiar to players (something like what SpIn A Hurry did in this jam!), but decided that felt less like spinning the planet than the method I went for. Not sure I’d make the same choice if I started again. Even if so, it might feel better with some more complex curve defining input -> speed rather than the linear relationship I have now.
• and currently the planet slows down at a constant rate. Again, I wonder if some sort of curve might help it feel more intuitive/predictable/satisfying.

Overall though, given the time I had available and the fact it’s my first completed project in Godot*, I’m pretty happy with what I put together.

Serious & Precise International Navigation

*I say my first completed one because I do have an older Godot project I’ve been working on for a while, at least in theory, but I don’t think I’ve opened it this year.

Nice concept and execution! I made it to 18 months before that dastardly taxman took my farm.

Love the taxman’s cackle, 5/5 on audio for that alone.

This is just my personal take but I see it as being intentionally vague so you can interpret it however you want. I’ve secretly just been giving everybody 5 for seriousness regardless of whether it’s a game about volunteer sailers trying to survive world war II or a game about a dog who wants to roll in ALL of the mud.

I think this would benefit from a little more variety in the paths available, but I really like how you interpreted the theme and the choice of audio and art assets. Nice entry :)

Fun idea, it would be nice if there were a better way to know where you’re heading (arrow pointing towards the destination/nearest shop/etc) but this is pretty nice for a game jam in such a short time. Great job :)

Nice job, this is a fun little game. I actually played first when you posted in the community section before submissions closed, it was already good but you’ve done a nice job with updates since then too. I got up to 75 ships guided safely before I couldn’t save a crew.

I think it would have been nice for there to be a bit more of a challenge, but all the other comments seem to think the steering was tricky so maybe not.. but I had fun with this, it’s a nice idea and I like the art style you’ve put together.

This is by far the most serious entry I have encountered so far.

I really like the phone dial interpretation of the theme, and some nice writing. I had fun with this, really good job (especially for a first time).

Fun game, nice way to use the theme and good audio to go with it.

I’m terrible at this kind of game but I still had fun with it. Fun name too. Nice job!

Ah, ok. Now I have it working. Updated the score - nice entry!

Thanks for playing and for the constructive feedback! That’s actually pretty similar to one of the ideas I had on my list if I’d had a little more time - I wanted to add ‘boost’/‘brake’ buttons with a limited number of uses per run, to give some opportunity to fix those spins where you get the direction right but not the speed.

Thanks for playing, and the feedback! I actually wanted to add exactly that but I’m new to Godot and ran out of time to figure it out.

So, I didn’t understand you were supposed to keep rolling until the mud is gone until almost the very end of my first playthrough. Until then I thought it was basically just an open-world dog-rolling-in-the-mud simulator and in all honesty I was here for it anyway.

Then once I figured that out I played a second time and got ending D “You are the very embodiment of freedom”.

Love the art style, audio complements it really well. Overall: 5/5, good dog. I mean game.

I’m really impressed with this. Very satisfying watching the planets make their orbits and watching how they affect the planets nearby. I also think you did a great job with how the scoring for different types of planet encourages you to put them in the appropriate places.

Only thing I’d change: I’d have liked a little more, uh, space.

Platformers aren’t so much my thing but this really impressed me. Nice imaginative use of the theme and really well implemented.

This was fun. Great music, especially the way it intensifies as you progress through the story. Really nice job, especially for a first game!

I can’t seem to get past the start menu - I can move up/down but I can’t select anything: clicking, hitting enter, start, etc. nothing seems to start the game.

If you upload a fix let me know and I’ll try to look again and give a proper rating.

It also took me a minute to figure out what I was actually looking at - once I worked it out, I thought it was a pretty good effort. I thought it was a nice touch to make the direction of the spin matter.

I think it’s a shame this was in my queue at the very start, before you’ve uploaded the finished version. It’s obvious you’ve put a lot of work in, I like the visuals, but.. I can only rate on what I see and I can’t figure out how to play anything. I’ll try to take another look tomorrow, because what I see makes me think you do have something good once you’re done.

I’m terrible at it but that’s my problem and not yours. Really nice work.

No shame in that - I’m an actual software developer for a job and I’ve lost count of how many game jams I’ve entered but failed to submit anything because I just couldn’t get even the most basic version of my “simple” idea ready in time.

You might want to do some basic programming tutorials. Not spend a huge amount of time on them, you can totally dive into the game dev side pretty early on, but just a super basic introduction to get more familiar with the terminology. The problem you had with the “move_and_slide” is something you might have solved yourself if you knew what the error message was telling you, but if you don’t have that familiarity it’s just a string of scary computer words. Unfortunately I don’t have one to recommend specifically.

For what it’s worth, the idea itself sounds perfect for a beginner doing a first jam. Lots of people go way too ambitious, this is something you can definitely pull off if you get that basic foundation.

I agree with the other feedback about control scheme, but the idea uses the theme really well and definitely works as a game. Nice sound, too. Good job!

I agree with the other feedback about the difficulty curve - it stays very easy for too long. But balancing is always really tricky in a limited time. Nice job overall! I made it to level 19

yeah, the controls generally could do with more work. thanks for playing!

This feels really polished for such a short dev time. Nice job!

Thanks!

Managed 90% on my first try. Nice twist on a classic!

Nice idea! I’m clearly terrible at this because I nearly lost to the AI even though there is none. But I had fun while doing it!

Nice work! Cool idea and well executed.

(First try: 2 games submitted, 103 bugs destroyed)

Interesting idea, definitely integrates the theme nicely! I think this kind of game is very tricky to balance in with such a tight time limit

I love this so much! Concept and execution are both great.

Fits the theme great and the graphic design is cool!

Sound design is cheesy but works great for the style. Nice job!

Some people might suggest I should have spent more time debugging or adding a score system or balancing, rather than recording a demented version of the Tetris music with four separate guitar tracks. But what do they know?

simple but effective idea that fits with the theme, well executed too. nice job!

I had fun with this, nice entry :)

great job with the audio!