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Godot Version
Godot 4.7.2
Theme Interpretation
Scan for hidden signals, find secret items, and unlock the exit to escape the level!
Wildcards Used
Left Wildcard
The first wildcard (description pending)
Right Wildcard
The third wildcard (description pending)
Discord Username(s)
andrestapa
GWJ Participation Level
5
Team Size
1
Generative AI Disclosure
I confirm that this jam entry does not contain any AI-generated content
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Comments
Beautiful art and 3D models! Nice animations on the characters, too. I had an issue with the web version where the mouse didn't rotate the camera unless I was holding a mouse button. I tried the Linux build and it worked as expected. Camera rotation was smooth, however, the camera jitter during movement ended up being too much for me. I was glad to see the theme play a role in the mechanics though, and great accessibility options provided, too.
Very impressive submission! I look forward to seeing more of your work.
Thank you so much for playing and for the feedback!
The camera jitter was really unfortunate. I've already fixed it, but quite a few people ran into it, which is a shame :(
The theme can be tricky sometimes! I usually go into a jam with a rough idea of what kind of game I want to make, whether it's a puzzle game, a tank game, a sidescroller, or a 3D platformer like this one. The hard part is figuring out how to tie it to the theme without making it feel forced.
And I think my biggest weakness is still communicating things clearly to the player. That's something I'm always trying to improve! This time novody complain so i think i am getting to it.
Thanks again, glad you liked it!
Very Impressive work! Amazed you could cram so much into a game jam!
Thank you so much! I might have gone a little overboard with the scope, but I'm really glad you liked it!
Well, I love your "compiling shaders" screen :D Do you just swap materials and stuff like lights for some objects that are not really visible on screen but are visible inside the camera cone, or how did you achieve the progress bar otherwise, if I might ask? The compilation was btw stuck for me somewhere between 60 and 90 percent for a good minute, not sure if it's just that there are some heavier shaders compiled then or something else (it's not much of an issue, especially with this progress bar <3), the game still stuttered a bit when particle effects were generated, but that's a known thing for web exports afaik and not your fault in any way, so it does not affect my rating at all. And oh... Most importantly, sailing was SO MUCH MORE SMOOTH AND ENJOYABLE than in my game that was focused on sailing, when in your game it was just one of the mechanics... For now (I played between 10 and 20 games though) this one is my favorite so far, nice retro-style 3d platformer with nicely defined simple task, great ui, incredible accessibility and fun controls and mechanics.
Thank you so much! I'm really glad you enjoyed it! Especially the sailing, since it was one of the mechanics I wasn't sure would work that well haha.
About the shader compilation, I have a list of all the objects, materials, and effects used in the game. During the loading screen, I instantiate them in front of a camera on a separate rendering layer, so they're invisible to the player but still get rendered and cached by the GPU.
The progress bar is basically tied to how many resources have been processed, so it's not an actual shader compilation percentage. That's probably why it sometimes gets stuck around 60–90%, since some resources take much longer than others.
I also recently found a bug in my loading system! I was unnecessarily waiting one frame between each material, so it was only processing one material per frame. I changed it to process 8 materials per frame, and now loading is MUCH faster!
GPU particles are still a problem, though. I haven't figured out how to properly prewarm them in web builds yet, so they can still cause some stuttering when they first appear.
And seriously, thank you for such kind words! I really loved your boat too! Let me share a little tip: games don't always need to feel realistic, they need to feel comfortable to play! :3
Wow very impressive! The graphics are amazing and the controls are smooth. I remember seeing you post the blender screenshot of the golemn in the server :D
Thank you so much! Yeah, it's been a loooong road since that Blender screenshot haha. The crab got even better along the way! Really glad you liked it! n.n
A bit laggy but incrediblygood
Thank you! Really glad you liked it! Maybe what you're noticing is the camera jittering a bit.
this is crazy impressive for a solo jam!! you did great!! the camera was really jittery but i think it was my display being at 144hz, i still had a lot of fun with the movement and combat! i'd totally play a larger version of this! great job!!
Glad you liked it! The camera jitter was caused by using two different update rates:
_process()for the camera and_physics_process()for the player movement. On some hardware, this can cause noticeable jitter. I've already fixed it in the patched version! Thanks for playingWhen seeing the shader loading screen I was like "wait, this is godot, right?" 😅 the graphics are great, but the death-animations were always a full game freeze, even on decent hardware. The level was big (especially for a jam game) and lots to explore. Nice game.
Maybe the explosion particles got left out of the prewarm list! And yeah, the map was huge, which kind of backfired on me. It was submission day and I was still working on the map, thinking, "I don't even know what to put on this island... WHY DID I MAKE SO MANY ISLANDS?! D="
Glad you liked it! I'm always trying to make a better game with each jam!
Heyy,
Derping around as a frog and killing crabs was an interesting experience, the graphics for this are amazing!
you really outdid yourself in scope, being a one man band:D
Nice game, keep it up!
Making the crabs was surprisingly easy! I only had to model one leg and make a tripod gait system, where three legs always stay on the ground, and that's pretty much it!
I usually work with a team, but sadly they couldn't make it this time, so I went solo.
Thank you! And yes, I'm already thinking about what I'd like to make for the next jam!
Hi again !
Once again your job is amazing :D I love the atmosphere and the controls are super-smooth. Your game is super-well polished too. The lamp mechanic to detect and reveal hidden objets is nice too.
I just couldn't get off the boat by pressing E, I tried to re-load the page and tried on different islands but it didn't work so I couldn't go very far. I'm playing the browser version on a Linux computer, and I have an azerty (not qwerty) keyboard, I don't know if it may be related ?
Still, I didn't think people could achieve a game so complete and polished for a jam.
Thank you! I'm really glad you liked my work! :D
To get off the boat, you need to reach another dock. There's one on each island! I know it feels a bit rigid right now, so that's something I'll definitely improve.
But please give it another try! There's a ton of other stuff to explore, and feedback like yours is super valuable to me. Thanks again for playing! :D
I'm amazed you managed to create such a high-quality 3D game in just 9 days!
The music also fits the visuals perfectly. Absolutely fantastic!
That's a wonderful adventure that I didn't know I need. Thank you!
This is such a charming game. The presentation stood out immediately. Even the shader-loading screen felt thoughtfully designed.
The character, islands, and overall art direction work really well together.
I enjoyed the loop of hearing the detector, tracking down a buried object, and switching tools to bring it out of the sand. The platforming felt responsive on controller, too.
I didn’t reach the end, but I spent a good while exploring!
My main difficulty was the canoe handling. When steering with the stick, small vertical movements would also make me accelerate or reverse, so it was hard to hold a consistent turn.
I also found turning behaved differently depending on which face button I was holding. That made travelling between islands less comfortable than exploring on foot.
The sound effects were good, and the tropical music suited the atmosphere nicely, although I could hear where the music loop restarted.
Overall, a really polished jam entry with a fun combination of platforming and treasure hunting. More predictable canoe steering would make exploring these islands even better.
Thank you so much for playing and for such detailed feedback! I'm really glad you enjoyed the art style and exploration!
I agree about the canoe controls! Actually, you can just hold forward and use the mouse to steer, or the right stick if you're using a gamepad. You can also use the arrow keys or left stick to move around. I recently updated the controls so you can steer using the left and right buttons too! (But that will only be available in the patched version once the jam ends.)
And thanks for pointing out the music loop! I'll take a look at that too.
I really appreciate you taking the time to explore the islands and share your thoughts. Feedback like this is super valuable to me!
Glad to hear you’re already tweaking it already. The art style and exploring the islands were easily my favorite parts, so I’ll be curious to see how it feels after the jam.
Omg you made this alone?? This is insane! There's a huge amount of details for such a short amount of time. The only thing I noticed was the camera was a little jittery, but that's probably cause I'm using the web build :P Such an amazing entry, great job!
Glad you liked it! Thanks so much! The camera jitter was caused by using two different update rates:
_process()for the camera and_physics_process()for the player movement. On some hardware, this can cause noticeable jitter, but I've already fixed it in the patched version! Thanks for playing!Camera was very jittery for me, and particles sometimes dropped framerate to zero for a second. Still very cool that it is even possible to make such a game in that timeframe. This is a big achievement, I think.
Glad you liked it! It was definitely a big achievement for me haha. The jittery camera is mostly caused by low FPS, so that's something I still need to work on, especially for lower-end devices. If you want to give it another try, the desktop version should run better! You can also turn off shadows in the settings to improve performance. Thanks for playing and for the feedback!
Yeah, I tested the desktop version, it was pretty much the same for me. I have rtx 3070, but maybe it ran on integrated graphics? I'll check out tomorrow.
I wasn't saying you're playing on a low-end device haha, just that performance on lower-end hardware is something I still need to work on too. But I think I just figured out what's causing the camera jitter! The camera interpolation runs in
_process(), while the player movement runs in_physics_process(), so the different update rates might be causing the jitter when FPS drops. I'll try to fix that in the next patch!Thanks for your feedback! This one was really hard to catch because it never happened to me haha. Thanks again!
Oh, yeah, I lowered my framerate to 60 fps and it became smooth! That's something you might put in the description.
I can’t believe you soloed this project. It made me think a lot of Mario 64 like you mentioned. You had the shaders load ahead of time. I should have done this on my entry but it only lags 2 -3 seconds one time so I choose to do more polish instead. Really beautiful world.
Thank you! I already have a development pipeline, and with each jam I try to build on the systems I made for previous entries. That way, I can focus more on the game itself without having to reinvent everything from scratch, like menus, navigation hints, save systems, and so on. It really helps when you have so little time to make a game haha!
Still super impressive! I can tell you’re not a novice. I spent a ton of time on our entry haha. I made the menu ahead of time.
Dylan and I tried your game and really enjoyed it! We liked the art style, found the gameplay loop fun and engaging, and thought the controls felt good overall.
Feedback: One thing worth looking into is the audio balance, as some sound effects were extremely loud and a little deafening. Adjusting the volume of these effects would help create a more comfortable experience. We also noticed that the camera felt quite jittery at times, which caused some motion sickness. Smoothing out the camera movement could help make the gameplay feel much more comfortable and enjoyable.
Bug:
We also noticed that the Linux controls weren't displaying correctly in the HUD, showing placeholders like
{tool_use}and{confirm}instead of the actual control prompts. Fixing these would make the controls much clearer for Linux players.Overall, we enjoyed the experience and think these adjustments could make the game even better! :)
Glad you both liked it! Thanks for playing and for the detailed feedback! :D
Audio balance is definitely something I need to revisit!
About the camera jitter, it's actually caused by FPS drops. The camera already uses lerp for smooth movement, but I think I need to try a different approach to handle those drops better.
And about the Linux issue, I forgot to include the XML file in the export settings! xD
Here's how it works: I have a PNG spritesheet with all the control icons, and an XML file containing their coordinates and name tags. Then, in my text, I use tags like "{tool_use}" or "{confirm}", and the system automatically replaces them with the correct icons based on the player's input device and action mappings. If the XML file is missing, it just displays the tags as plain text.
Thanks again for taking the time to play and give feedback! Really appreciate it! :)
Oulala! This is a very ambitious submission!!
For the sake of being constructive, because it seems like you are very good at making games (and game jams), I think you could have reduced the scope a little bit (dont get me wrong, you did a very good job!!).
The most fun I had was when I figured out you could long jump between island, that was great!! But then I was psyched into oblivions until I had to restart:
When I re-spawned, I saw the boat (that I missed initially), then it took me a while to figure out that I could only get out of it near a dock (which isnt a bad thing either). Which made me wonder, why a boat? (if it was to avoid doing swimming animation I 100% get it haha). This kind of situation also happened on different mechanics that felt optional/single use, which “diluted” the fun.
I think you would have a very solid vertical slice if you merged things together, reducing your workload and improving the “synergies” of the mechanics, for example:
All of this to say, I think you would benefit from finding things to remove from you games than things to add haha.
This game was very impressive, you can be very very proud, the visuals, fighting, accessibility and UI’s are all super good!! And all of this in a 1 person team is a serious brag!!
Let me answer a bit, because you really took your time to write all this, and I appreciate it! So let me share a few things:
First, I don't know if I'm that good haha, but thanks for that! I do game jams to challenge myself and keep tuning my formula for making games. So far, I think I'm getting better at actually finishing games, but I'm still not very good at communicating things to the player. Everything you pointed out is really valuable, and I'll definitely consider some patches!
And I think your main point about removing things instead of adding more is something I really need to work on. I tend to get carried away with ideas and mechanics, and sometimes forget that making them work together is more important than having more of them.
Anyway, thanks a lot for taking the time to play and write such detailed feedback! I really appreciate it, and this is exactly why I keep doing jams!
And feel free to check out some of my other games on my profile and leave some feedback there too! It really means a lot to me, and I think it's a big part of getting better at making games!
Thanks for writing back too!! You are very good about taking feedback (thats a cool skill!!)
I see!! And yeah, i get what you mean, its easy to get carried away!!
Very polished and pretty for a 9 day jam, great job! I think my main complaint is that, at least on web, is that there is this uncomfortable judder on everything in the environment except the player when the camera or player is moving, and the restrictive camera angle made it hard to look at what I wanted to sometimes. But this is really, really well done for a game jam!
Thanks a lot! The judder is probably caused by FPS drops in the web version. Turning down the shadows in the settings might help, or you can try the desktop version for better performance.
About the camera, could you tell me a bit more about what felt restrictive? You can move it around with the mouse, but I'd love to know what could be improved!
The vertical angle seemed very restricted to me, I was always being forced to look down from a very high angle at the player and ground when I wanted to lower the camera to look at the other islands off in the distance sometimes
I see! I'll patch it once the jam is over. Thanks for your feedback!
Kaz and myself encountered this on both the windows and Linux export versions as well, I believe it had to to do with maybe how the camera is set up as it was with character movement not camera movement I think.
It has some límits defined to make it feel more like a top down and avoid player clipping camera with the ground. But i didn't relize it could feel less natural. It already fixed in the patch versión. Thank you
Amazing controls and polish. I was really impressed by it. If there is one flaw I can see in the game, is that if feels a bit aimless at times, but just interacting with the game is really fun
Thanks a lot! I think player motivation is one of the first things you should define when making a game. In my case, I had a pretty clear idea of the game I wanted to make and went straight into building it haha.
The original idea was that the little golem was actually an alien who crashed on this planet and needed to find the missing parts of his spaceship using the radar and flashlight.
Since I already had that in mind, I figured I'd leave implementing the player motivation and story for the end. Sadly, I ran out of time haha.
Wow, the polish on this is crazy, movement feels good and snappy. Some of the controller mappings are a bit weird, like "X" for confirm and not "A" on an xbox controller. Even your menus are incredibly tight. I didnt see a Credits menu option. Did you make all the art, models , SFX, and music yourself?
SUPER impressed for a Solo to make this in a Jam! Nice Job
Thanks a lot! Yeah, it took me a bit haha. I recycled the movement system from an old metroidvania project.
For the menus, I have my own template, which I mixed with a project template I found on the Wild Jam page.
I left out the credits since I made pretty much everything myself, except for some Kenney assets I used for icons and a few other things scattered around the game.
As for the controller mapping, you can change the layout in the settings. I took out button remapping because it was already griddy enough haha.
Thanks again for playing and for the feedback! You should check My other games :D