Floemobile by DecrementedPalindrome
An earthquake has destabilized the ice floe, and what better excuse for a race!
Race through the glowing checkpoints and try to beat your best time.

| Link | https://decrementedpalindrome.itch.io/floemobile |
| Link | https://decrementedpalindrome.itch.io/floemobile |
| Apple macOS (untested) | https://decrementedpalindrome.itch.io/floemobile |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/floemobile |
Ratings
| Overall | 1107th | 3.237⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 893th | 3.289⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 1045th | 3.026⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1178th | 3.026⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 850th | 2.75⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 1138th | 3.026⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 22🗳️ | 6🗨️ |
My best time so far is 44.12


The ice flow effect was really cool and the graphics were simple but effective
Great job putting this together in time for the Jam
@skleembof (and everyone else who found the handling difficult) I definitely agree that driving experience isn't as good as it could be.
The reason for that bug that you encountered where the vehicle seems to randomly stick to the ice is that the ice is actually a shader which means it has no collision. There is an invisible collider under the snowmobile that uses the same equations as the shader to work out its height and angle. I was surprised that that worked at all to be honest, but I think that it's pretty cool that it does!
It does have a couple of flaws though, the main one being that the floor is _moving with the vehicle_ which messes with the friction of everything and makes it harder to make things feel right on both the ice floe and dry land (which has normal collision).
The other problem - the one that causes the stickiness bug - is that when you are trying to drive uphill in the same direction as the waves the ground is constantly moving away from you, which means that the snowmobile can't get any traction and seems to be stuck. I tried to design the map so that you are usually on dry land when going in that direction but there are still some sections where it happens.
I think if I were to expand the game I would make it so that there is different physics on the ice vs on dry land so that I can tune them better and I'd use less of the ice, perhaps with smaller waves as well.
If anyone knows how to efficiently make a real collider with a changing shape like this then please let me know!
Here's a gif of an early development version where you can still see the collider :)

I made a few laps and the controls felt fine for the most part. What I found strange is that the camera does not always turn with the player. If you get turned around, or turn a lot to the side, the camera stops following. But maybe it's normal for racing games (?).
A nice entry overall. The theme feels kinda tacked on, though ;).