Love the tutorial part with actual demostration is how to use game mechanic. And the art style is simple, clean and have silhouette key, that is amazing at this point. Nice work!

Русалкокот с фотоаппаратом - это что-то новенькое! Спасибо, интересно было заняться фотографированием огромного кальмара ^_^

@xarina777 Thank you for playing and for the compliments!

@xpoho I had to use Google translate, but thank you!

I'll make sure to play both of your games soon. :)

What a pleasant and cute game! The concept was super fun and I loved watching the all the creatures pop out in terms of colour once their photos are taken. I can definitely see this as an educational game aimed at children that could be used for teaching about ocean life.

I found the execution of the mechanics to be quite strange. I haven't seen a game that uses steering with the mouse but doesn't make use of clicking with the mouse at all. During my gameplay, I was constantly trying to click to activate the camera, and I feel like this is the most natural form of controls for a game that involves the mouse. It's also odd that this game has slingshot mechanics for moving - it felt unnatural and I personally feel like the game would have felt a lot more inviting to its exploration concept if the movement were more smooth and constant. I would have also loved to see more responsiveness to the mouse in regards to steering the character rather than just having the cat always face in one direction.

Nonetheless, the game was simple enough that the control scheme didn't stop me from playing entirely, but overall, the controls felt like they were more suited for a puzzle game than a little open world adventure like this one. I like the graphics a lot, and the music is calming and wonderfully fitting. Love that bassline against the bell arps. The whole track gives off those wonderful "cute and chill ocean exploration" vibes that I could listen to for hours (actually I'm listening to it right now while typing out this review :3).

@random-storykeeper Thanks very much for this review! I'm glad you liked the music - it's always nice to get props from other composers! I checked out your LD 48 entry and the music is fantastic. Your stuff on your YouTube page is awesome as well.

Very nice game. The graphics and music created a wonderful atmosphere. It was interesting to play, but the controls were not always clear.

As some people here might have mentioned already, hats off to the menu haha! I was a little confused how to start the game until I realized you have to take a picture of the fish to start! Really nice way to introduce the mechanic.

I do like how when you take a picture of an animal/plant, you "identified" all of those animals in the level. That was a nice touch so that it made it easier to find which animals you haven't taken a picture of. I do think the visuals are a little "flat" but as a programmer, I can't judge, but it is really charming! The giant squid almost got me.

Good job! It's almost as if Pokemon Snap was underwater. But you're a cat. That's a mermaid.

What a really pleasant and cute game! It's really nice to see such a unique one at that~

I can definitely see this as either an educational game or a fun whimsical one, if you put some fun mechanics to make snapping a picture a bit more challenging!
* Since you use the mouse, it's actually more natural for you to use the mouse buttons rather than pressing F, which also makes the controls a bit awkward.
* The way that you move is also awkward, since what people usually expect being in underwater is that your movement also slows down, giving some friction at least than just continuously going in one direction until you a wall.
* The visuals are also a nice touch!
* Though the ground itself is a bit flat, it does contribute to visibility and makes it clear what you need to take a picture of is still a silhouette.
* That said, I do love the detail of you filling in other instances of the same thing, it's like coloring a world into place!
* Though I thought the game would end after taking a picture, or something happening at least.

Here's better instructions:
> Hold and release "Space" to move the mercat towards the cursor.
> Hold "F" and aim the camera pointing towards the cursor. At full range, release to take a picture!
> Move the mercat and take a picture of the fish above to proceed.

This will prevent players being confused at first.

I do want to play more this game if you flesh it out and I would love to see the gradual growth of an environment the more you take pictures and be in awe what you could see with the full set! You already got the feel of a calm environment snapping pictures.. I wonder what else you could do!

@oladushek22 Thank you for playing! The controls keep being mentioned as an issue, as well as the instructions for them. I'll have to practice with other ways to handle that.

@kaabiikaze Thank you for compliments!

@fiakaiera Thanks for the thorough comment! Multiple people have mentioned the camera control being awkward, so I'll have to take a look at that. Unfortunately with the movement, I wasn't experienced enough to know how to make it feel "right". That's something I'll have to work on. Also, thank you for the suggested rewording for the instructions. Honestly, I'm not sure if I'll get back to working on the game, but this does give me some ideas on what should be worked on and what to keep an eye on in the future. So the comments are really appreciated!

Dunno why, but remembered Aquaria. Soft cat-ocean-dive with lite music. Potentially a very nice game, when finished (do it, please). Some cute cat animations and mechanics added would be nice. Dangers, like hiding from sharks in the cavern, while having a picture - a real cat-dive photohunt! Polaroids with funny angles of creatures and postcard wishes ("Lighty luvs!" (c) lanternfishes) could be a nice touch. Cute work, man!

Very clever control scheme, but mashing space repeatedly was a bit of a strain. I adored the character and the charming, friendly tone of the whole thing. Great work!

@ardorugus Thank you for the comments! The polaroid idea could be really funny! :)

@noble-robot Thanks for playing! The movement works a bit more effectively if the space bar is held for a while before releasing. Though honestly I know the movement is something that could use a lot of work regardless.

A super simple and very relaxing little game. There could perhaps have been more gameplay, but I liked it the way it was. Overall a pretty good jam game.

Really nice game ! love the theme ! A small improvement that could have a made a massive different would if you gave the fish :fish: :blowfish: some AI that made them move around. It would have really given the world some life :D great job :fish:

EDIT: Another small improvement would be if you rotate the oceanographer cat to the direction of the mouse! Would make it easier to tell where your going :)

Short and cute game! Liked the art, so pleasant and calming. +1 for the menu.

A very cute and charming game. A couple issues I ran into: taking a picture of two things at once kind of bugs the text out. Also it's possible to get outside of the map bounds, leading to some interesting behaviour But I think you'd have to be trying to break the game to run into these, which I tend to do. Sorry about that.

Nice relaxing game, this would be fun for young children too as there are no dangers or conflict.

There was something off with the movement though, the inertia changed direction rapidly. I think it has to do with gamemaker's default movement systems (haven't actually used it but the same thing happens in some basic movement in clickteam fusion). Also, pressing space to move towards mouse was weird... You could maybe stick to wasd -movement for this kind of game or alternatively put the swimming and photographing to mouse keys.

Anyway, it was fun to search for things to photograph and nice that there was several number of the same entity so you could take picture from just one of them... and the sea would have seemed emptier if there was just one of everything. Art was also very nice and the mercat is just sweet! I wished she had more animation.

Cute game ! Good idea to make stuff you found already colored, it looks nice and it's clear. Interactive menus are usually a terrible idea imo (cause they are fun the first time, annoying after that) but in a jam setting it's just great, as most people are only going to play the game once or twice. Well done !