Port Panic

I see ships.
I see maps.
Not so much the chaos…. is the panic the chaos?
I learned to use the "bounce" to help me navigate.
Good job.

I played Port Panic for just over 10 minutes, over 7 attempts. My final High Score is 251 points. Here are my thoughts:

The gameplay shows promise but there is a lack of challenge. I wonder how much more fun the game would've been with just a few tweaks. For instance, you could've had random water currents that push you to the side. Or pirates that try to steal your booty. I thought the game was better when I self imposed to not hit the land mass (like the retro game "moon lander").

Overall I think the game is good for what it is, especially for a, what I assume is (and forgive my arrogance if I got it wrong), a first-time game jam. It is difficult to make a game in 48 hours, let alone without any help. Us team compo guys have got it easy. You managed to ship (again, forgive my pun) on time, with something that touches at least 2 out of 3 themes, with graphics and sound.

For some more suggestions: the game sometimes gives you very short routes. Perhaps when generating the next location, check the distance from the ship's current position and keep picking different targets until you find one that's a minimum distance away. You could very easilly improve the timer too, by making sure that the time + time reward is capped (I got it up to 40 seconds or so, that seems a bit high).

@TheGrumpyGameDev Thanks, and yeh I didn't really hit the Chaos theme as hard as I originally planned, but I felt the game was in a good state to count as finished.

@yuang Thanks for the feedback, and while I agree with some of your points, I'm not sure some of them would make the game any better, especially with the arcade game nature of this jam.

For example, the challenge you mentioned of not hitting land could definitely add a interesting spin to the game as an extra gamemode. The reason there's no penalty for hitting land is because I went the racing game route, where crashing into land just costs you valuable seconds. I considered adding a health bar mechanic, but ultimately I just think the game is fine in it's simple form.

Which sortof leads into your point about adding pirates trying to steal your gold or currents that can mess up your route. My original idea for this game was quite similar to what you're describing, where instead of racing the clock, you were avoiding landmines and firing at enemy ships to make your way around the world without dying. However, when I started making all the systems, I found it was more fun to make and play a racing game, and in it's current state, adding enemies that block the path would be like adding enemies to Flappy Bird, or adding obstacles to dodge in tetris. My goal here was to make a simple arcade game that has a simple mechanic. I feel adding extra mechanics could be fun for a seperate gamemode, but I think this executes what I wanted it to.

More importantly though, adding elements like enemies would introduce a much bigger problem, RNG. I've seen alot of games that run into this problem, where a seemingly skill based game is ruined because there are things the player cant control that can ultimately screw them over through no fault of their own. For example, if you have 10 seconds left and you need to get to the next location, whether you can get there or not is entirely dependant on whether the game randomly decides to put an enemy in your way or not. That's not fun, that's the game screwing you over based on RNG. Thats the same reason the game won't give you a Next Port across the map. If you have 10 seconds left and the game decides to give you a port that's 15 seconds away, there's nothing you can do, which is why I specifically designed a system where the game will only give you closeby ports. (Basically each port has a list of acceptable next ports). Not really considered that some routes are "Too Short", so you might have a point there. The game will also never send you back to the port you just came from, which I think leads to a decent path-routing system that makes the game fun enough to play.

Some of the ideas are for sure interesting, I just don't think RNG controlled forces would fit with the style of the game I've made.

PS. I will be beating your High score within the next 24 hours, Muhehehehheheh

Pretty satisfying in its final version! (considering the scale, that must be the fastest sailing ship ever!)

Bouncing around obstacles is pretty fun. All I missed was a "hand brake"/sliding mechanic for that "perfectly timed tight turn" racing game feel.

Enjoyable game! Although my high scores leave a lot to be desired, heh.

Nice one. It's really a simple "connect the dots" type of game, but it's the physics that makes it fun. The controls give you just enough control, and the bounciness makes it all feel good, even if entirely unrealistic :)

Not a huge fan of the repetitive and somewhat random sounding music and sound effects, but it's better than nothing.

Thank you for adding the minimap. Even though the locations are all well-known, it does help to know if you should be aiming for the east or the west coast of Greenland, for example.

Simple and funny. The bouncing is interesting.
I personaly find the inertia a bit too strong.

Concerning your explanations about the RNG, I find it would make the game more fun and less repetitive. I understand your point but don't completely agree :)
It's a bit dry as it is.

Cool action game!
Little ship sliding through entire world Ocean, nice ;D

It's uneasy to control, but I think it's exactly what it should be. Uneven edges of the Earth add extreme while driving.
Little game, in which it's easy to play, good job!

This is a clever concept. It is simple but still offers a suprising amount of challenge, especially with the ship not slowing down straight away, so corners have to be anticipated.

How did you make the world map collidable? Did you create your own map and then make that solid, because that must've taken a long time :) You could consider making maps procedurally generated in order to add a bit more challenge, but this doesn't stop it from being an excellent little game.

The game is well made, and easy to play. Well done!

I liked this mechanism of pixel-level collisions. Kinda reminescent of Lemmings or Worms era games.

I was nice to work my geography out and think about shorcuts (north pole anybody?).

Timer was kinda short at times but kept me challenged. Fun game to play!

@IronScorpion Thanks! Procedural Generation would be a fun addition if I ever make another version of it. As for the current maps, I found a few ways to cut corners. Firstly, I took screenshots from Google Maps then just used filters to get a perfect silhouette of all land, so I just needed to colour it in. As for the collision, I was worried it would take a long time, but luckily I didnt need to do anything, because I forgot that Unity defaults to using a sprites shape as the collision shape when you add a Polygon Collider to it. so it auto generated collision for everything, which was handy.

@oparisy Thanks for playing, My original plan was to add Antarctica along the bottom of the map with it's own corresponding Port, but I ended up liking the fact that the Minimap neatly fit the whole map in shot, so I just left it to the main continents. I spent a long time trying to balance the Timer system so that it gives you a reasonable amount of time for each journey, and I think I've got the difficulty curve going pretty well at the moment.

It was funny to play but sometime feel unfair when your next city is very far and the timer doesnt seems to adapt to it. Also when you go from Alaska to Kamchatka you can't see the yellow glow on the selected city ( eastern russia ) probably because of the map modulo.

@benjamin Thanks for the feedback, there is a system where the game should only give you nearby cities for your next target, so I'm guessing maybe I just missed a few connections that are a bit too far. As for the glow when crossing map boundaries, I just didnt have time to make a system with the glow correctly teleporting with you.