This used the theme of the jam really well. Good job!

Fun Game! Reminds me a lot of arcade style games. I like the water theme but I would have loved to see more enemies or enemies that came from different spots. The crabs always came from the same spot. Fun little arcade game!

It's too easy to just stand in one spot and win, and the movement is way too clunky to actually move around anyways.

Other than that, nice concept, nice artwork and music, and I liked the ending.

Nice idea. I got to the innermost part of the island and still lost. Is there a win condition?

I just love getting in the water, can't get enough!

I killed many crabs with my laser beam eyes! Super cool game. I like the shrinking island, it works well for the theme!

I love the theme-shaped letters in the title! I expected to shoot on pressing the key but instead it shoots on release, which made me at first think it was lagging.

@micahtron Yes if you stay at the topmost rock and live until the timer reaches 0 a helicopter will rescue you, and also thanks so much for playing my game!

Not a bad game given the tools and experiences! I like how you said the tide coming in is your biggest problem, vs. crashing your space pod lol... Not bad, it gets crazy once you're down to a three tile island. I don't see a way to overcome at that point without going in the water.

@grahhhhhhhhh a helicopter actually comes to rescue you if you manage to survive on the three tiles, after around 30 seconds. Thanks for the feedback and playing my game! I appreciate it

@superqgs it's quite hard at the end, but the concept works. It would be better if crabs were comming from different directions!

For each tide level, I just stood in the upper-right corner of the island and shot my lasers alternately left and down. Was confused by the first crab that took two beams to kill, I thought I missed it or it was a bug since there was no indication it was a bigger crab. I like that the sounds were of crashing waves, nice fit with the theme.

I completed the game, I like it being kind of arcade game but the game is quite weird.

I liked the audio. Would have been cool if the crabs spawned in different corners and would have been cool if the island wasn't the same each time. At the end the helicopter picked me up but I ran into a crab while on the helicopter so I died and lost.

Quite a good game given that you built your own engine essentially.

Maybe this game would benefit from full 360 degree aiming? It would be almost like a twin stick shooter. The way it's currently set up, the less room you have, the harder the game gets because you have very limited areas where you shoot. This way you could also experiment with other things like crabs that walk diagonally or along different zigzagging patterns.

@DrEvilBrain Thank you! Yeah I'll consider that when I remake this, I plan on fixing bugs and just generally improving on it once the Jam is over.

Crabs patterns may be improved, they only came from 2 spots and it's easy to defeat them.

Anyway good job, especially for a game developped from scratch.

Damn, those pesky crabs! I would suggest making laser more responsive and improve enemy patterns (as already stated by coments above) and these will be a solid arena-survival game.

Nice interpretation of the theme! Also nice to see some non-engine games being made :)

I little on the easy side as the crabs came always from the same places.
Very impressive that you made this all by yourself in pure JS, that definitely means extra points from me.
I also like that while simple, the graphics, sound and UI captured the look of old classic Win 3.11 games very well.
Solid entry.

Pretty great game ! The fact that you essentially built it from scratch makes it even better !

Pros :
- Clear controls
- Nice tide and height mechanic
- The music and the graphics are adequate and give a great retro vibe

Cons :
- I encountered some problems with the laser (does not it at close range)
- Being able to move continuously would have been nice

All in all, good job !

First, great first LD game! It fits the theme very well. I thought the game was pretty fun as well. One thing though, is you may want to add another crab possibly spawning from the top right corner because I was basically able to camp on the top right corner of each layer and shoot my raybeam left and down the whole time. Other than that, I think this is a really neat game. I hope to see more games from you in the future! P.s. good job making it with vanilla JavaScript, I like to make games with vanilla JS as well and nowadays so many people just default to Unity (you can't beat the flexibility of pure JS.)

@nenekiri Thanks!

@alchemic Yes I agree, I'll probably add that in after the Jam

@jose-rodriguez Well the water kills you, but sure as long as you're having fun buddy :D

@bobgar Thanks! It's *supposed* to be a laser gun or something but at this point it's basically laser eyes haha

@nandelind Yeah I had to do that because of sticky keys, but I'll try to find away around that when I patch it after the Jam. Glad you liked the title!

@chocolat-endive Thanks! I'll probably make the crabs respawn at random nodes when I patch it later

@mgoadric Yeah, that's my strategy too but I'm going to try and make it harder after the Jam. Probably by changing the crab AI. Each crab only takes one hit, so that was probably a bug. Sorry! And thanks!

@Naked-Kiwi no you're quite weird

@rkhadder Yeah the crabs are supposed to run away from the helicopter, but right now only one crab does that. I was trying to get the other one to as well, but the deadline was approaching fast and I unfortunately cut a few corners. Sorry, and thanks for playing!

@kubenexion Thanks! And yes definitely going to improve the crabs

@annie-owl Yes I agree and probably will do that when I patch it after the Jam. Thanks for the advice!

@sixbeeps Thanks! Yeah I've always preferred not using engines or making my own engines :D

@jesus-gonzalez Thanks so much!

@jlv Thanks! I totally agree and will be improving it after the Jam

@jared-york Agreed! A crab at the top right corner is a really good idea, I've noticed that most people do use the camping strategy and another crab might encourage more movement. I totally agree with the vanilla JS thing, my friends call me stubborn for not using engines but I don't care lol

You've made a pretty effective frantic shooter. I like how bright and colorful the aesthetic is, and building an engine from scratch for the jam is impressive. I do feel like hit detection with the crabs and laser was a bit wonky, but there were only a couple of times that really caused me any problem. I do think the game could benefit from a little more enemy variety as well. Those crabs were vicious, but a shark or two couldn't hurt :P Overall, pretty fun game!

@garris First of all, thanks! I put most of my time into the engine so it’s so nice to hear people acknowledge it. yeah unfortunately I had to build the hit box detection system thing pretty poorly due to just running out of time(pun not intended) , you have to actually hit the crabs directly for it to register, and even then it doesn’t work every time. I was originally going to add sharks too, but again the time limit got me. I’m still planning on adding all the stuff I originally intended and just improving it in general after the Jam. Thanks again for playing my game this is making my week lol

surely you challenged yourself a lot with this project. Lot of features can be added but you are aware of that.

Congratz

Good entry. The theme was nailed. The changes you suggested are all worth doing. I would like the crabs to spawn in random places. I worked out how to handle them pretty quickly and then the challenge was gone. It is solid and everything works well. Well done.

Initially, I tried creating a game using a framework because I like coding and the challenge. Time was running out and life took over, so I had to switch to the unity engine mid-jam. The fact you made a fully functioning game without an engine should be credited in itself. Super Work!!

Only feedback i have is that the enemy spawning is very predicatable.

The game is really fun and quite well done for a newer developer, especially without any engines or anything! It seemed weird that some crabs take longer to kill than others but I'm pretty sure that's intentional. A simple score system would be neat as well but great job!

Nice job making the game without any libraries or engines! Graphics were good, audio was also nice and the idea was great. Overall, I had fun playing it. :slight_smile:

@superqgs All right, I had posted a thread asking if people wanted honest and harsh reviews, and you asked for it! I already posted on your game, but I'll give you a bit more in depth review, the good and the bad.

The good
I think you should be proud of what you've made, learning to develop is a long process and you get get better every game you make. The tiles were different for each "stage" which made strategy easy to watch passively when the timer was getting low. The concept is right on, running out of space was nailed and I really like the interpretation. Not sure if this could expand into a full length game, but for a jam, I think you picked the right sized concept, and as you get more efficient at logic, you'll find more time to polish the game up and really make it shine, this is a great sized idea.. when you try to do too much (like I usually do) you find yourself half-assing too many things, and the game suffers. Perfect sized idea.

The bad
A lot will come with experience. The controls are a little funky, both slugish, and using the two sets of arrows/WASD, I didn't like that I moved with the arrows if I only wanted to turn, but I found I could just turn by shooting a laser in that direction. There wasn't much of a challenge once I found the tile I could camp on and just hit "A" or "S" when a crab approached. Their AI was see-through, and only had two spawn spots. Lastly, I would advocate spending even just a half hour doing sound effects. Bfxr is a great tool for people like me that don't know how else to do them! Sound FX could be applied to laser shooting, crab getting hit, movement, helicopter, tide coming in. Don't know if this would help you, but when I develop I pick one thing (animations, sound FX, etc.) and play through and keep an eye out for each one of those categories, and see what I have in my skill set to do that item.

All in all, it's really not a bad start! I would reiterate, that this concept is perfect for a short game jam, just get more efficient at design, then spend a day making the game "juicy" (sound FX, animations, special FX, etc.) This really isn't a bad entry, I think you can grow as a developer fast if you put the time in :)

And by all means, feel free to tear my game to shreds! It's how we learn!

This is pretty neat! The controls don't feel quite right. Maybe they would be better if I could hold down a direction and keep moving instead of having to continuously spamming it. Also, the music doesn't loop well. A fade out on the laser could make a big difference, too. Overall, this game has a lot of potential. Some new levels could add to the experience. Well done :)

Pretty solid for a first LD entry. Good job (some love from Pilorekt stream :smile: )

Hmmm , not bad, add some polish and redo the shooting (maybe a few mechanics) and I betcha it could stand on its own 2 feet.

Not bad, especially for a first jam, and don't give up.

It was pretty nice, just needs to be a bit polished. I also wasn't sure if I could WIN this game or if it was a high score thing?

All in all it was pretty and 8-bit, so, awesome! Plus, crabs are my favorite animal so you got me there!

Nice game! I had a similar idea at first but strugglet with the implementation. Great job, keep it up

Great job, especially for your first Ludum Dare! Thanks for sharing your game with my stream awhile back. Your game was played around 1:30 into this vod: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/299401837