Land Ahoy! by Unvestigate

made by Unvestigate for LD 38 (JAM)

It is the year 1492, and the earth is flat. Christopher Columbus is attempting to discover the New World. The only problem is, he keeps falling off the earth! Can you help him navigate the high seas and reach the New World safely?

About

I made the game as a solo developer over the course of two and a half days. The game runs on my homemade game engine. The game is 95% C++ and 5% AngelScript. I used Visual Studio 2013 for the programming. The modeling and texturing was done in Blender and GIMP. I used the awesome space-3d tool to generate the skybox (https://github.com/wwwtyro/space-3d). The font I used is called "Vinque". Unfortunately I did not have time to add sounds.

System Requirements

Windows 7 or newer (64-bit only)
Visual C++ 2013 x64 runtimes
A DX11 graphics card with up-to-date drivers

Note

The game engine is built first and foremost for multiplayer games and it has a client/server architecture which means that even for single player games (such as Land Ahoy!) there is some network communication going on. Depending on your firewall settings you may get a popup asking you to confirm the connection. Rest assured the game is not communicating with the outside world in any way. The only connection is between the client and server within the same process. You can verify this with a tool such as Wireshark.

If the game runs poorly on your machine you can disable some graphical effects. There is no settings menu but you can press F12 to open the debug overlay and then F8 to open the render options. Try turning off SSAO or shadows if performance is bad.

Original URL

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/land-ahoy

Ratings

Given

6🗳️

0🗨️

Feedback

Chrras

24. Apr 2017 · 20:45 UTC

Nice game! Nice concept and I love the visuals. Although the game itself could be a bit longer, I got to The New World in second try :)

🎤 Unvestigate

24. Apr 2017 · 21:05 UTC

Thanks for the kind words and thanks for trying out the game! Yes, I admit the game is a bit short in its current form. The original plan was to have multiple levels but I ran out of time and could only make the one. That's why the level is so small, it was meant to be the "intro level". Oh well, next time :smiley:

Hackschnitzel

28. Apr 2017 · 13:45 UTC

We had the same idea ;-) (Flat World + Ship)

But yes... Your's is much more detailed and polished... And yes... Own Game Engine ;-) You are a Pro...

Congratulation

🎤 Unvestigate

28. Apr 2017 · 16:54 UTC

Thanks :)

I saw your game earlier, it's hard to compare to mine since your is more about the gameplay and this one is more about the environment. But I liked your one a lot. And awesome sound effects! I actually had planned a similar particle effect of water falling off the level but I never had time to implement it. Glad to see you did it :)

LiquidBrain

29. Apr 2017 · 16:56 UTC

Rasmus got a best score of 3, but don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t easy.

We enjoyed this one. Too bad there wasn’t music it would really heighten the mood of this little game. Overlooking that, we loved the artstyle and it’s a really good take on a golf game. We can see that you focused on the aesthetics on this game and that’s awesome for being a programmer. Super impressed that you wrote the engine yourself. Have an awesome day!

*(We'll be back again on Sunday when the judging starts)*

// Rasmus & Isak ([LiquidBrain](https://ldjam.com/users/liquidbrain/))

🎤 Unvestigate

29. Apr 2017 · 19:42 UTC

Thanks guys! You are right, I wanted to spend a significant portion of the time on creating assets. Too bad I did not have time to make more levels since it was quite fun to make the ones I did (I made more than the one that ended up in the game, while developing the gameplay features). And yes sounds would have been nice. The engine has sound support but I did not have time to find good ones to use (and I am completely worthless when it comes to creating sounds myself).

Infecteria looks super nice! Reminds me of the game Osmos.

d3zmodos

01. May 2017 · 08:34 UTC

Cool idea, looks good and very fitting of the theme. As others have mentioned sound would have been nice, but I didn't get to adding sound to my entry either so I guess I can't complain :P

The main thing that bothered me is that you drag in the opposite direction when you want to launch, as if you're pulling back to launch the ship. Was there a particular reason for this? I would have found it more intuitive (and slightly easier to control) to drag in the direction of movement.

deck

01. May 2017 · 11:27 UTC

Simple but clever, also i really loved the concept and graphic, good job!

CPTN-B

01. May 2017 · 16:10 UTC

-Visuals are great

-Controls are very intuitive

-Would have like to see the ship falling into to abiss

-Maybe you could add some more levels (maybe different races trying to find the new world from different lcation on the flat world)

🎤 Unvestigate

01. May 2017 · 17:40 UTC

Thanks guys!

@d3zmodos: I assume I went with the drag-to-launch approach since I worked on a number of minigolf games for iPhone back in the day and they worked like that. Of course, that was because otherwise your finger would have blocked your view. Anyway, it seems it is a matter of taste. @cptn-b seemed to think the controls were allright :smile:.

As for the other feedback, I agree. I would have liked to:

* Add sounds
* Add more levels
* Add more gamplay features such as pirates and sea monsters
* Add more visual polish such as ships actually falling off the world, water particles falling off the world.

These were all planned, but due to time constraints I had to cut them.

Doodlebut

16. May 2017 · 06:29 UTC

Wow, really liked this game, the art style is amazing, and looks super good. The gameplay was also really smooth, and after a couple of attempts, I managed to get to the new world in only 4 movements. So yeah, would love to see this expanded further. :ok_hand:

Jupiter_Hadley

17. May 2017 · 11:53 UTC

Really nice concept! I included it in my Ludum Dare 38 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ-D40BBNhA

🎤 Unvestigate

17. May 2017 · 12:19 UTC

Thanks Jupi! More levels would have been nice, but I am glad you liked it. The performance didn't seem too good in the video. Was the game really running that poorly or was it something with the video recording/playback?

gamechoy

20. May 2017 · 18:32 UTC

I really enjoyed the graphics and general aesthetic of the game. I'd say the weakest aspect was the controls, but this didn't take away too much from it overall. It's a pretty short and simple game but it fits the theme very well and the idea is really creative. Great submission, keep it up!

johnnysix

20. May 2017 · 18:46 UTC

Great stuff - would've liked to have see the ship go over the edge for the lose though. :D

This could easily be expanded for a nice mobile game with some more mechanics, felt like a mix of angry birds and pinball. :)

TwinGhosts

20. May 2017 · 18:50 UTC

Awesome game! lovely style, fun and quick. Would love to see this game in a later stage with more features like the people above explained.

Noice game :smile: