Ocean Scanner

Use your sciency sonar to discover new fish species!

Welcome to Ocean Scanner

You are the proud captain of an ocean-exploring science vessel responsible for searching for new species.

You can't see everything underwater, but with the help of your sonar, you should be able to find and collect those new fishes.

How to Play

Click on your boat to send a sonar ping. This will temporarily reveal nearest fishes.

Click on fishes while you still can see them!

Voting results

Overall
17th
36%
6.500
Graphics
8th
16%
7.357
Audio
21st
44%
4.714
Gameplay
27th
58%
5.214
Originality
7th
13%
7.929
Theme
11th
22%
7.929

This game entered in the Solo competition (45 entries).

Comments (14)

Aukadauma
 • 6 years ago • 

Very cute graphs, very good concept, I love it!

Caique Assis
(@caiqueassis) • 6 years ago • 

Hey!

Loved the simple, low poly graphics. I only found out I could rotate the cube later, but it's ok - the player learns that when clicking.

If the fish were actual fish, and it was easier to click on the dots, this could be even more polished. But it's a nice concept! Liked it for its simplicity.

B1naryB0b
 • 6 years ago • 

Great concept! It just needs a lot of polish at this point. It would be interesting to see this concept put out in more detail.

StudioWaterzooi
 • 6 years ago • 

Hey, nice concept indeed buto it's too hard for me to click the fishes.
There is also no real visual indication if you've actually hit them or not (other than the fishes left counter of course).

benjamin
 • 6 years ago • 

You need to add the click and hold to rotate view to the control list !
There's poetry in this game. Minimalistic but focus on the gameplay itself. I played it 3-4 time in a row I would say it's difficult but fair.
Refresh to restart is a bit cheap, it ruins the mood and the polish you added to your game.
I also had display bugs on space betweens lines on intro page ( lines were overlapping )

RodMolina
 • 6 years ago • 

Just played it and it was very nice!

I believe its a great idea, y liked playing it a lot, I would just expand a bit the mouse click detection area for the fishes, because it needs to be clicked fast most of the time the firsts clicks I made where unaccurate, and if it makes the game easier the number of pings could be reduce, just to keep it challenging,. Also some, audio or visual, feedback on the fish clicking.

Great job!

benjamin
 • 6 years ago • 

Oh and also a small shockwave / circle fx when ( + sfx feedback ) when you successfully click a fish would add a lot !

Sílvia Cavadas
(@silviacavadas) • 6 years ago • 

The concept is simple and nice, as well as the graphics, and the ocean-exploring theme fits really well.

I agree with the comments above: the fish disappear a bit too fast/ are a bit too small, at least for a first level. Maybe one could add some levels with progressing difficulty?. Also the lack of feedback when hitting a fish accentuates the feeling of clicking in nothingness and makes it very hard to understand when is a click valid.

fullmontis
 • 6 years ago • 

The game is simple but enjoyable. The sound was very annoying to be honest, i think a little equalization to lower the higher frequencies would have made it more easy on the ears.

I don't think they disappear too fast personally, I found it as a challenge and be faster to catch them. I think that a visual indicator that you caught a fish other than just a number would be better.

automatonvx
 • 6 years ago • 

Nice concept, agree some feedback when you manage to hit the fish would be nice, and obviously some low poly fish instead of dots would be nice, and agree that the beep is a bit annoying at the moment

oparisy
  • 6 years ago • 

Thanks everyone for your comments, much appreciated!

I stand my ground on the dots-instead-of-fishes part, as I clearly wanted to show a radar effect superimposed on actual water. On everything else, your suggestions are spot on. I understand the lack of visual and audio feedback makes catching a fish unsatisfying. Also the hitbox is definitely too small (didn't think much about it when developping it: I just did a collision test with the spot, and lacked time to playtest and polish it).

I spent some time on camera movements (and locking), and I'm pleased to see it was discovered without explanations (even if I agree those were lacking).

HuvaaKoodia
 • 6 years ago • 

A simple demo. There's not a lot of interactivity at the moment, as such gets boring quick. A small environment like this could hide all sorts of surprises under the surface. There's potential here.

I would prefer right mouse button for camera rotation. No need to lock the rotation when pinging that way.

Clean, stylish visuals. Audio is lacking. Some splashing of water would have improved the ambiance considerably. The ping sound is slightly too strong for my ears too.

Ok work in places. Further interaction design needed!

Overall: 5 (Average)
Graphics: 7(Good)
Audio: 3 (Bad)
Gameplay: 3 (Bad)
Originality: 6 (Above average)
Theme: 6 (Above average)

PS. You should set the platform as Web.

euske
 • 6 years ago • 

There wasn't that much gameplay, but I liked how you can rotate the water. The UI was excellent! Gameplay wise, there could be a bit added to the rotating mechanics.

oparisy
  • 6 years ago • 

Thanks @HuvaaKoodia and @euske for your feedbacks. I appreciate you noticed my work on visuals and camera. I indeed chose to lock the camera during pinging to priorize picking fishes above moving the camera at this time. Retrospectively using the right mouse button seems easier on the player indeed :)

Thanks for the "platform" field hint, I had not noticed it.

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oparisy

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