Whalestrom by aevek
The year is 3055. Humans have expanded their reach to beyond the stars, but their hunger for expansion came at a cost. A species of space whale was discovered and was hunted to near extinction for it’s exotic meat. Today, only one remains. A safe haven has been found in the N76-GD4 Nebula, but the journey is treacherous. The galaxy swarms with rogue AI units and aggressive space jellyfish. Defend your whale and use your plunder to give it life. And at all costs: Keep. It. Alive.
Original soundtrack composed in 72 hours by BROOD MACHINA (https://broodmachina.bandcamp.com/)
It sounds like people are running into a bug in the tutorial, so if no more prompts appear after killing the enemy on the first level: After you kill the first enemy you need to fly close to the whale and press F to deposit your resources, then press G to move on. Sometimes the tutorial prompts break and don't tell you to do these last steps.
Controls
W/S = Pitch Up/Down
A/D = Roll Left/Right
Q/E = Yaw Left/Right
1 = Select Target in Front
2 = Cycle All Targets
F = Give resources to Whale (when in range)
Mouse = precision steer
Left shift = Throttle Up
Left ctrl = Throttle Down
Right click = Shoot Missiles
Left click = Shoot Lasers
Credits
Programming - Jake McLeman (@aevek)
Programming - Eli Wulff (@Bongard22)
Programming - Keenan Wulff (@keenan-wulff)
Programming - Erick Holloway (@DrSnowDude)
Programming, SFX - Chris Meese (@floppynub)
Music - Dylan Satterfield (@BROOD-MACHINA)
3D Art - Matthew Rom (@WaylandTheSmith)
3D Art - Hayden Yeagley (@Rhoka)
2D Art, UI design - Joel Barkley (@tubulartreehouse)
Screenshots
:whale:
| Youtube | https://ewulff.itch.io/whalestrom |
| Youtube | https://ewulff.itch.io/whalestrom |
| Youtube | https://ewulff.itch.io/whalestrom |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/whalestrom |
Ratings
| Overall | 667th | 3.727⭐ | 46🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1107th | 3.375⭐ | 46🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 1233th | 3.279⭐ | 45🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 948th | 3.778⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 155th | 4.435⭐ | 48🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 148th | 4.058⭐ | 45🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 888th | 3.139⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 484th | 3.798⭐ | 44🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 64🗳️ | 54🗨️ |
A few things that were off for me were the juxtaposition between the super high detail game assets vs the simplistic UI elements, I think upgrading the icons and the UI would bring it all together! It was also not very clear how to progress throughout the game, so maybe a bit more UI to show the player what to do!
Overall really well done submission :)
Oh also in your submission here it says Windows link, but inside there is a mac download as well, so make sure to say that so more people can enjoy this game!
The UI work doesn't really fit the space theme. The flying controls are quite bad and you forget half of the buttons if you manage to complete the tutorial. This project could have benefitted from a little more focus on game design and a testing session.
I love the theme and story tho! Good job on most stuff :)
The player controller needs some polish; my input felt too sensitive and the damping felt like it was stopping me from doing certain manoeuvres smoothly.
I don't think anymore enemies spawned after the first? (Unless I couldn't find them, I'm not sure)
Overall, a solid entry :D Great work!
I also think I experienced a bug where the whale was getting damaged, but the health bar wasn't updating. I lost the game whilst the whale was apparently still at full health.
A little bit of work to slow down the game and tighten up the controls would make this such a phenomenal game! Keep at it!
The movement felt very confusing though. Too sensitive. Also, damn hard to go where you actually want to go ;)
Can I find your game also on indiexpo website? The channel is linked with them.
The background score was cool and pumping. fit the theme of the game very well. I also liked that the space god was a whale :) very mysterious
Very good job all in all! This jam could use some more space dogfighting games
As for specific suggestions, adjustable sensitivity would be an obvious useful addition. Personally, I found myself overshooting where I was trying to point; so maybe a button to automatically stabilise to where you are pointing? That might take some of the challenge out of it though. Otherwise, maybe an automated 180 flip, just to give you more control over where you want to be pointing. (I think it said to use 1 key to orient toward the nearest enemy but that never worked for me)
@gamer-fates most of us have worked together on various separate projects, but this was the first time all of us had worked together. Its amazing the new things you can learn about project management in a jam like this.
It was destiny. I had to play it. But man do I suck at space shooters! The art in this is fantastic.
Played on stream: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/599995465
Unfortunately, the flight controls though were quite not there, but I can see the work being put and with a bit of testing and polishing on the main controls, this could be something really cool with a lot of personality.
And i would make the radius for collecting much bigger - i missed them constantly even when i focused.
Aside from it's clunkyness it sounds and looks great and very polished (love the player ship model). I can only imagine how hard it must be to coordinate in such a big team - but the result is pretty cool.
But great work, like the world building you put in at the start. The tracks are pumping too. Whale gods in space is crazy, yet it makes so much sense.