LudumData

Schooling by Retrisma

[raw]
made by Retrisma for Ludum Dare 57 (COMPO)

The sea is a cutthroat place...

fish_18.gif

Put your strategy skills to the test in this roguelike deckbuilding card game!

fish_19.gif

CONTROLS

Mouse only! Click and drag to play fish cards.

fish_17.gif

TIPS

fish.png

The number on the left is power, and on the right is health.

You can play as many fish in each lane as you want.

The red arrow on the bottom indicates which lane will attack next.

The red arrows on the top indicate which lanes the opponent will attack.

If an enemy attacks an empty lane, you'll get hit instead. (Your health bar is shown at the bottom.)

Fish attack (and are damaged) in the order that they are played. Think out playing them carefully!

Fish are damaged and killed forever. Only sacrifice them if you need to!

Made in 48 hours for Ludum Dare 57 Compo by Retrisma. Please leave feedback! :)

Source Code https://retrisma.itch.io/schooling
Link https://retrisma.itch.io/schooling
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/schooling

Ratings

Overall 27th 4.026⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Fun 22th 3.947⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 62th 3.763⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Theme 142th 3.605⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 61th 3.974⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Audio 94th 3.5⭐ 17🧑‍⚖️
Humor 149th 2.706⭐ 19🧑‍⚖️
Mood 104th 3.639⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Given 10🗳️ 10🗨️

Feedback

BadPinkChicken
07. Apr 2025 · 11:54 UTC
Like the idea! Love the feel of it, the pass button was a bit confusing I felt that I will not attack. I enjoyed it
LDJam user 382954
07. Apr 2025 · 12:09 UTC
Nice game! The gameplay is simple and the difficulty is low. The early content is a bit lengthy, but it is super fun to play until the end (o—▽—)o

(The skill of the final boss is so strong...

I wonder how you animate the fish swimming? Frame by frame by hand? It looks so vivid!
grid96
07. Apr 2025 · 14:57 UTC
That's a really cute little game! Absolutely love the simplistic graphics and effects! Took me a while to understand what's happening, but once I it was fun. Didn't manage to beat the orca though.

Well done!
creekyasher
07. Apr 2025 · 20:44 UTC
this is really cool! the art style is really nice and i love the sound effects!
Joel Davis
08. Apr 2025 · 03:44 UTC
This was really good. Very confusing, needs to give more feedback to the player and make it clear what's happening but really solid game. I'd love to play a "remastered" version of this, great thematic fit for a deckbuilder and the little animated touches like the bubbles and swimming fish were great.
LDJam user 384191
08. Apr 2025 · 10:58 UTC
Great idea! I was a bit confused by the controls, and I agree with previous comments about needing more feedback, but the idea is very promising and the result very polished.
Phlip45
08. Apr 2025 · 18:48 UTC
I played without reading the rules and I think I figured out everything through the game itself, so great job on the design. I love this style of game so I'm predisposed to liking this one as well. Great graphics, animations, and serviceable sfx and music make this the best compo game I've played thus far.

I will say that if you are looking to work on this game more I think it needs some sort of action after having played all your fish. Either another card in the deck that allows you to buff your fish or damage the enemy, or maybe the ability to move one fish to another lane per turn if you don't play a card or something like that.
Foursay
08. Apr 2025 · 19:59 UTC
Nice entry! I really like how the concept is built around DBG-style gameplay. That said, I did find it a bit frustrating that once I ran out of attack or power points—especially since your fish’s power can be neutralized by taking hits—I was left with no options and couldn’t do anything else. I wish there were some kind of fallback or recovery mechanic in place.

Overall, the gameplay is fun, and it’s always great to see a Pico-8 entry. Nice work!
designernap
16. Apr 2025 · 13:32 UTC
Took me a while to work out the ins and outs of this but a really nice end result when I did. Great mood too!
deformhead
21. Apr 2025 · 15:44 UTC
Really nice!

So much work for the COMPO timeframe, well done! :clap:
thomz12
21. Apr 2025 · 19:15 UTC
Well done! This is very polished, which makes it feel very fun to play. Even when it's not entirely sure what to do in the beginning.

Super impressive you got this done for the compo, kudos!
rbbhn
23. Apr 2025 · 17:32 UTC
This was super impressive (even if I was terrible at it)! The fact that you managed to make a fully-fledged deck battler for Ludum Dare is incredible, and the polish and juice you've managed to pack in on top of that is commendable. I really don't have a lot to say for critiques, as I don't really trust myself to judge the mechanics of card-type games, but if I had to give one piece of advice, I'd say that adding an in-game tutorial for how the battle progression selection tree system thing-a-majig works would be a good idea for the future. Other than that, stellar job, and congrats!
wisstopher
23. Apr 2025 · 20:56 UTC
This is one of my favorites of the whole jam. It took me a moment to get going after trying to play it blind, but after understanding what to do it was great. Would love to see this expanded. Well done with this!
Verbante
23. Apr 2025 · 21:09 UTC
![lddump.png](///raw/f79/31/z/6c6c1.png)
Won with only one fish!
It feels great to see my cards swim in circles. Every card game should do this I think