levelwater
clicker -- can you keep the water level in 'levelwater'?
NOTE: There may be an issue if you have screen scaling on: There are supposed to be buttons in the bottom of the screen!
Keep the water level to earn funds (the more level … closer to 0, the more funds are gained), to keep the water level. Watch out for toxic goop! It'll drain your funds (starting from 4). Luckily you can clean that stuff.
-- buttons --
What do they all do? (Note that if you press a button, it'll also put this action on the lowest line of text … So that line doesn't tell you what to do, you tell it what to do. Well unless some other even happens.)
- '^^^': Hide the audio controls.
- Drain: The water will rise, then you'll have to drain. A little or a lot? Well, it'll cost you! Removes water from the pond, for a cost.
- Pump: Not planning to swim? You better pump. A bit or a barrel? You'll have to pay. Adds water to the pond, for a cost.
- Clean: Toxic goop galore. The funds'll run out this way! A bit of cleaning doesn't hurt… except in your wallet. But better now than later! Cleans up some of the purple stuff (not the fishes) that occasionally turns up after rising or falling. This goop wil eventually reduce the amount of 'c' you'll accrue if you let it pile up to much.
- '||': Pauses the game, but not the audio.
-- camera --
As an extra treat, you can move the camera anywhere you want (non-euclidean space exempt from this offer).
- w,s,a,d: Controls as normal (sort of). If shift is pressed, controls the pitch/yaw instead.
- r,f: Up/down. If shift is enabled, it rolls just like in the game over screen.
Lastly, sometimes updates this description to make it clearer depending on what the comments tell me … So you don't have to wonder about people not reading the description … They likely did and it wasn't updated yet to make it clear!
Comments (18)
One improvement i would make is to make the text more legible, maybe with an outline.
Text are a bit hard to read to.
Sorry about that! The changeing sky color was implemented in the last few hours … I knew it was going to be a problem but I ran out of time!
An outline's a good idea I think!
sometimes when pumping the water level rise
I can see how it's confusing (and should've been better worded!), but the idea is that pumping increases the water level (as you pump water into the lake), and draining decreases it.
the text is actually unreadable, and due to the lo-fi graphics really necessary. I made a
screenshot.
this is too bad, because it takes away from an otherwise very fine game.
Thanks all for playing :-)
@TimTips The lower text is mostly the event that just happened (which includes user actions -- so what the player just did), it wasn't really mant to tell you what to do. I can definitely see how it would cause confusion though!
@maartene Yes, the text wasa big oversight. Just to be sure I'd also like to ask if the sky is at least changeing color for you? (So you'd be able to at least read it intermittently?)
An interesting graphics style! Did you build a raytracer during the jam, or did you use an existing one?
I found gameplay to be a bit uninteresting after I'd figured it out. Water level rising? Drain. Rising fast? Drain harder. And vice versa. Just not a lot of interesting decisions to be made for the player.
@thomastc I had most of the raytracer code already written (a somewhat significant part just before the jam started even), but I definitely needed at least the Friday evening of the jam-start to finish up of the needed improvements. So I did both I guess?
This is also the underlying reason for your second observation: I wanted to play around with my primitive, hard to actually use, raytracing 'engine' and on top of that was using a language I wasn't that familiar with: I knew I needed something very simple as the actual game. I'd hoped the 'toxic goop' mechanic would make it a little more palatable for people that get easily bored of such things.
I'm not feeling it, the theme nor the fun!
Fine, (kind of) positives (kind of) first. I do appreciate the crude, low-fi 3D graphics (with splendid reflections!) and MIDI'ish music. They establish a strange mood. The concept is somewhat original too.
Clickers (in their many forms) are not original though, and not welcome in my yard! What a waste of toxic waste to merely manage an ever increasing number. There doesn't seem to be any scaling to the difficulty either, so running out of money is out of the question. I could have keep going forever, but even three minutes was a stretch of my patience.
The immediate problem is how immediate every action is. There should be delays and cooldowns to each action so that every choice would require actual thinking. For instance, having to build pumps and power generators, with maintenance fees, to speed up some actions or to make them available at all. More (visual?) information on the weather and season could give a hint on how the water level is going to behave in the near future.
The thematic connection is very slim. It is the height of the water surface which matters here, not the depth of the pond as drying out doesn't seem to trigger the end condition. An extra point for allowing the camera to move under ground/water which is where the real depth lies. It looks pretty cool down there!
Using custom tech is neato, but it doesn't translate to interesting interactivity. Getting the tools right before the jam is preferable (if you have the time for it, which might not be the case unfortunately).
Overall: Below Average (4.0)
Graphics: Above Average (6.0)
Audio: Above Average (6.0)
Gameplay: Terrible (2.0)
Originality: Above Average (6.0)
Theme: Terrible (2.0)
@HuuvaKoodia Thanks for your thoroughness and honesty! (Though: 'not welcome in my yard' … Oof, that hit hard, and I'm not even a big clicker-fan myself!)
As you probably already suspect, you caught me out, and this was mostly just an attempt/proof-of-concept/tech-demo to see if I could make a playable game at all with my fledgeling 'engine'. I reached that goal and am happy with it, but I can definitely see that as an actual game it leaves something to be desired.
Note that you can hit the 'dried up' condition, but since my concept of the game had to do with the ground-water-level (receding into well, the depths of the earth, as it where), you don't hit it as soon as the pond is dried up, but when it's some meters below. I should have made that a lot clearer though … but (due to time-constraints) I completely forgot about actually 'drying up' the nature surrounding the pond as well. I thought I still hit the theme since it now is (visually!) about managing the depth of the pond, but well, then you do run into the thematic problems you mentioned.
One last point of possible interest: Writing out my reply this way has actually helped me understand why you think my implementation of the theme is bad, and I now can al least agree a bit instead of be confused about it.
What a beautifully weird little game. The gameplay is very basic but the visuals are super cool. The soundtrack is weird but didn't overly interest nor offend. I frequently found the text hard to read and would have preferred to be able to see everything within the game world (like how the water level was represented, but funds were not). I really enjoy strange games like this and hope you feel like making more in the future
Was confused as first but it's pretty intuitive after a while, and strangely relaxing too… I loved the pixel graphics and the music. My biggest issue I had after a while was how there was little warning that you were close to the water max, but that's probabily just due to my lack of awareness… Overall nice little experience.
Links
Author
Details
High scores Submit score
| # | User | Time | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | @HuvaaKoodia | 3'10"180 | |
| 2 | @thomastc | 1'53"180 | |
| 3 | @TimTips | 1'09"089 | |
| 4 | @TomBuston | 1'06"019 | View all 4 scores |
Interesting game. Had a little trouble getting into it at first but then it turned out to be due to screen scaling. Couldn't actually see the controls because of this. After figuring this out, I was a draining, pumping, cleaning machine! Great job!