Here Be Monsters! by ethankennerly

[raw]
made by ethankennerly for LD19 (COMPO)
HERE BE MONSTERS
Sail the world and map the monsters

CONTROLS
Arrow key: Move your ship
After you find the cannon:
X or Space: Shoot the cannons

HOW TO PLAY
To win: Map 100% of the world.
To get food: visit any city or eat a small fish.
To earn gold for your treasure and map: sail to any city.
If you die: You return to your visited last city.
You lose your treasure and insurance deducts 5% of your gold.

ADVANCED CONTROLS
Ctrl-1: Return to normal speed
Ctrl-2: Too easy? Try double speed (very hard!)

Ratings

Coolness 6% 89
Overall 3.47 41
Audio 1.29 181
Community 3.00 91
Fun 3.50 33
Graphics 3.13 86
Humor 2.50 83
Innovation 2.80 113
Theme 4.00 18

Feedback

quin
20. Dec 2010 路 12:41 UTC
This is a good bit of time wasting fun. The only change I would make would be for the ship to have an extra couple hitpoints, which get repaired in cities for 1 gold a piece.
馃帳 ethankennerly
20. Dec 2010 路 15:09 UTC
Thanks Quin! I added that to my todo list. Now recovering from the weekend's crunch...
Starspell
20. Dec 2010 路 18:58 UTC
I really enjoyed the game - enough to get to 77%. The game needs sound and music. However, most importantly, it needs a button to toggle on an overlay of the map you are making. I can only imagine that if you were stuck at 99% and only were missing a few square somewhere in the map that I'd be too frustrated to find them.
Jonny D
21. Dec 2010 路 01:19 UTC
I like it.
zdanielz
21. Dec 2010 路 10:45 UTC
fun game!
Sos
21. Dec 2010 路 20:14 UTC
Double speed is sooo cool!
Dslayer27
21. Dec 2010 路 20:58 UTC
It was good, eventually got to 95% and spent forever looking for the rest... to no avail.
馃帳 ethankennerly
21. Dec 2010 路 22:58 UTC
@Starspell and @Dslayer27: Absolutely needs a world map. Alas, if only I had finished that. Likewise for sound effects. I've bumped these to the top of my post-compo todo list.

@Sos: Like double speed? Do not dare press Ctrl-3 (quadruple speed). Quadruple speed is sheer madness. You have been warned. Return to normal speed at once! (press Ctrl-1).
stevejohnson
22. Dec 2010 路 05:20 UTC
Very enjoyable! I wish those giant sea monsters would drop more than one measly coin, though.
馃帳 ethankennerly
22. Dec 2010 路 17:59 UTC
Thanks Steve! I have an idea to make the treasure more rewarding. For what it's worth, the red ruby is worth 20 gold.
ranklar
22. Dec 2010 路 21:32 UTC
Nice game, I just wish there was a way to get 100% of the map explored without spending a long tedious time :) maybe just explore all the cities? Nice job, you need some music! Would be nice if the treasure had some meaning as well. I like the multiple monsters, and things to kill, very nice.
馃帳 ethankennerly
23. Dec 2010 路 20:32 UTC
Thanks Ranklar for your insight! I'll consider ways to complete it faster. If you're an insanely talented sailor, you could try the double speed Ctrl-2, but never ever try Ctrl-3 (quadruple speed). ^_^ And I'll consider uses for the treasure.
thristhart
25. Dec 2010 路 15:54 UTC
Dying was no punishment against my 500 gold treasury! I got 100% explored, heck yeah! PoV described the Fun category as "Did you look up at the clock, and found it was 5 hours later?" That's this game. Great work. (Also, I felt like the world map was just the right size - captured the largeness of a whole planet while still being doable)
馃帳 ethankennerly
25. Dec 2010 路 20:08 UTC
@thristhart: You made my Christmas. ^_^ Thanks. Good job mapping the whole the world! Although I guess I've played it more than anyone else, only one time did I get 100%
droqen
28. Dec 2010 路 02:57 UTC
This game was pretty solid but not very interesting. I was not driven to explore! Included 'combat' was not intriguing enough (or murderous enough, says the person beside me) to hold my attention for very long?
bernardfrancois
28. Dec 2010 路 19:48 UTC
Interesting game.

I liked the variation in the map and in the enemy types, but got bored after a while (getting 100% is quite a tedious task), so I gave up at 65%.

I think this could be an interesting concept in multiplayer (where you could try to kill you opponents and send them back to their city, with a domination mechanic where you can steal each other's city).
badlydrawnrod
30. Dec 2010 路 19:44 UTC
Ouch. My aching back. It must have been good as I discovered the whole world, before eventually dying of scurvy due to a diet of nothing but herring.
Endurion
31. Dec 2010 路 19:05 UTC
Nice game!
Must be my must-have-all-syndrome that let me map all 100%.
Thank god you were generous and it doesn't have to be every single tile ;)
Quite nice, not too hard. I hoped for a few equipment enhancements for my ship.
philomory
07. Jan 2011 路 20:05 UTC
A good game. I hesitate to describe any game put together in 48 hours as 'too big', but if any one is, it's this one. I think you either need to make the map smaller, or perhaps preferably, the sight range larger. It was entertaining at first, but it felt like it was taking forever to explore the map and I didn't feel like I was accomplishing very much, which slightly detracted from the fun. Also, I might have found a bug (or maybe not): I know that when you die, your cargo is lost, but it appears that your un-turned-in map progress may also be lost... that is to say, it's still mapped out, but I didn't get credit for it in terms of percentage, so it may be impossible to reach 100% (I never got far enough to say for certain).

Those things aside, this is still a very good game and I think with a bit more polish it could be a lot of fun to play.