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Captain Eddy and the Cult of the Kraken's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Creativity | #147 | 4.405 | 4.405 |
| Enjoyment | #557 | 3.905 | 3.905 |
| Artwork | #575 | 4.176 | 4.176 |
| Audio | #660 | 3.676 | 3.676 |
| Narrative | #1105 | 3.230 | 3.230 |
Ranked from 74 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the theme?
Captain Eddy is stuck in a whirlpool and keeps looping around the Kraken.
(Optional) What would you like to be called if GMTK features your game?
Rampart Games
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Comments
This is fantastic! It reminds me of being trapped in the kraken whirlpools in Wind Waker.
oof this is a hard game ^^' The theme is very cleverly applied here and i love the feeling of going around. I see you have made it kinda difficult to control on purpose and i agree it makes the game feel a lot better! although the camera could be a little more confortable to move around .
Couple of problems: the last part where the kraken attacks you is a little too hard for me ^^' i can't dodge fast enough and heal at the same time... Also sometimes you get stuck on a rock and drains your hp super fast.
But this is a game jam so don't worry, this is a really good entry. This might be the entry i played the most time so that must be good!
Glad it had you hooked to enough to play it for a while!
For the kraken fight I'd definitely reccomend having the sails down for most of the fight, putting them up only when you need to quickly manoeuvre out of the way of some incoming tentacles. But I've probably played that fight more than anyone at this point, so I've worked out a few tips and tricks! :P
The collisions in general, especially with the rocks, is something we wish we had more time to clean up, for now we justify it as forcing you to make sure you're keeping an eye on your heading and properly balancing steering with the other mechanics on the ship, but it can definitely be a little more punishing than intended at times!
I really like how the controls don't perfectly listen to you, and for things like aiming and steering you have to intentionally think ahead, while I assume that wasn't the intent, it did make it feel like a swashbuckling battle of wits, trying to outthink everyone else on the sea to become king of the pirates. This was a lot of fun, very great work putting it all together!
That's good to hear!
The lack of precision controls for the tasks on the boat is something we planned from the start. For the steering it's intended to be something you hop on and off as you go, adjusting to the situation in the moment. For the cannon aiming the indicator does a lot of heavy lifting, it's a case of learning how much to lead your shots!
Imagine how much less piratey it'd feel if the boat controlled like a go-kart and the cannons were hitscan, bleh!
I'm glad the swashbuckling vibe came across, we were hoping the game would feel like a frantic battle to keep the ship alive :D
Very cool concept with the giant whirlpool setting.
Visually fantastic as well.
Took me a few tries to really get the hang of the controls and switching between the various ship mechanics, but the difficulty really adds to the epic feel of fighting back against both the Kraken and the whirlpool.
Thanks! I'm so impressed by the kraken fight too, we had the rest of the game done and I was playing it like "yeah, this is just about a game I guess, could be fun" and then when our programmer finished getting the boss fight in I was blow away, it really was a game at that point!
Glad you appreciate the difficulty, that's exactly what I was going for! The rest of the dev team keeps telling me I made it too hard, they're just casuals clearly 🙄
Fellow whirlpool themed dev, you game is lovely, the only tricky part is swap between the different modes of "moving the captain" to "moving the ship" to "shooting".
This could be incredible in multiplayer with different players taking different roles on the ship.
Love the kraken model 🦑
- Sim
Pure Entertaining Chaos <3
~Wah
Shocker, Pixel Tentacles loved the pixelated tentacles of the Kraken model! ;)
Glad you enjoyed it! So surprised that each and every idea we discussed at the beginning of the jam, despite how quirky and unique it was has been done by so many people! It can be really hard to get used to switching and when to switch but I found it super rewarding once it all finally clicks. We've definitely considered how it would work as a multiplayer game :)
I admire people and teams capable of pulling off a 3D game, especially for a game jam! The gameplay (and literal) loop is fun, and managing all the different aspects (shooting, repairing, steering) at the same time adds back the tension that is lacking in the naturally slow pace of the ship. Well done !
Thank you so much! I'm glad everything fit together for you!
Wicked game! I was going to give up after two tries, but after I read that you can shoot the crates I had a much easier time and finished it. I really liked the swapping between driving and cannon-firing, and going around a whirlpool was a great use of the loop theme. The cannon firing trajectory felt great and rewarding to land, and the bots felt well implemented too. I laughed the first couple of times I saw the bots drive into each other or smash into the rocks (which also helped add some extra crates to pick up). I might have liked to control my camera while repairing the ship so I could stop and make an emergency change in direction, but other than that, awesome job devs!
Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it! I wish we had time to implement something that communicates that you can pick up the crates by shooting them. Whilst it's a fun mechanic to discover it's definitely not the most intuitive and I'd hate for people to not enjoy the game because they didn't discover it.
The camera locking while you repair was an intentional choice so that you still have to take time out to check your heading and make sure you're not about to crash, but we also definitely could have communicated that better and made it feel smoother too with more time.
Excited that you made it to the end, the kraken fight is certainly something!
There is a very, VERY good idea here that I'd be very interested in seeing fleshed out. As is, though, the difficulty feels very overtuned- getting even a few boxes can be pretty hard, let alone eight, and controlling the ship is far from smooth. Aiming the cannon is really difficult too, and the entire time, you have to worry about bumping into a rock at a weird angle and getting your health shredded. Very well put-together though. I'd love to see it expanded upon.
Hi there! Thanks for playing!
The difficulty has been a point of contention amongst the dev team haha. Mostly in relation to the amount of crates needed to level the cannons; adding to this you can actually shoot the boxes with the cannons to collect them (although we didn't telegraph this very well) but we do find it speeds up their collection a lot! Ironically we nerfed the first cannon somewhat to make it feel weaker so that the next tier of cannon felt more like a substantial upgrade, once you get there though we think that fighting back and using the cannons feels much more intuitive.
The movement itself is meant to feel somewhat floaty, what with being hurled around a whirlpool. We had nerfed the speed a lot with the sails down to give people a safety net for recovering and also lowered the amount people get dragged into the whirlpool's center. But overall crashing into rocks is a consequence of being too focused on one aspect of the ship for too long instead of balancing the tasks. Admittedly there is a learning curve to it, and the short play session times jams encourage don't really lend themselves to learning the intricacies of the sailing.
Glad to hear you think it's well put together though and liked the idea! Personally I'd love to expand upon it with some further tweaks to the cameras, controls and balancing. Because we have had a lot of feedback about those areas specifically haha.
Out of curiosity, how far through the fight did you manage to get?
I must confess that I never did get past the boxes. Being able to collect them using cannons helps but eight still feels like it'd be a tall order- let alone what game may lie past it. Perhaps I'll come back to it after the jam to try and make it through fully.
No problem, useful information to know. (personally I'm on the side of 8 being too many crates, so I can use this info as leverage haha)
This is great :D Very fun, like 3D Pirate FTL! The art is also amazing for the time you had!
There was just one thing that was confusing me at the beginning - I was trying to pickup boxes on the ship to "power up my cannons" :D Maybe make the drop glow purple or differentiate some other way?
Thanks for playing! The crates actually do have a bright white outline on them! They're not on your boat, they drop from enemies that are defeated around the whirlpool, and then you have to collect them by running them over with the ship, or by shooting them with your cannons! :D
This is really awesome, and the art is fantastic! but when I using the cannon, I often didn’t notice the ship was about to hit obstacle.It could be nice if there is a warning UI (like a yellow exclamation mark) popping up during use cannon. Regardless, is a really amazing game! I like it so much :D
yeah the cameras can be a little tricky to get used to. Initially we were going to have the cannons need reloading, which would have made people leave them and see where they were heading, but we ran short on time. Glad you enjoyed it though and that you liked the art style! Means a lot! :D thanks for playing
Very impressive, great work! It felt very complete and I enjoyed the overall game loop. However, I wish you could always look in any direction (even if it meant pausing a repair, limiting cannon direction, etc.) since at times it was hard to maintain spatial awareness. Often when my ship broke, it was because I didn't see the obstacle or enemy ship until it was too late to take full countermeasures. In any case, awesome game!
Glad you enjoyed it! Locking the camera was an intentional choice made to make the player be more careful of where the ship is going, and how fast it's going when they do things. Since you can slow the ship quite a lot by raising the sails, it ends up giving you enough time to do things like repair or check your surroundings. With repairing, if you press the interact button again, it will stop the repairing and let you go back to the free camera, so it can already be paused. It's definitely still a challenge to balance all the task whilst progressing, but that's part of the intended experience! Thanks for playing <3
Super awesome game! The whirlpool lead to some really fun interactions, and landing the early cannon shots was very satisfying.
Thanks! It's always a great feeling when you line up shots to hit with the first tier of cannon. Makes you feel like a real pro ;D
I loved this game, had so much fun. I really felt like a true captain haha! Great work!
Glad you enjoyed it and feel like you mastered being a ship captain! Thanks for playing! :)
Nice. Looked, good, sounded good. I love the aspect of having to move around the ship to micromanage each aspect. Was a little difficult to aim. Perhaps higher shot speed? (or perhaps I just need to git gud :P)
Thank you!
The first cannon level is somewhat unweildy, but can be upgraded with the resources that drop. By the time you get to the third upgrade the fire speed and aiming is much easier!
The visuals are soooo good, the ship felt nice to control, and the theme is really well implemented. Idk if im bad, but i really took so long ot get all 8 boxes, but was fun while doing it! Great team guys ^^
Glad you enjoyed the visuals and the game! :D It can sometimes take a while to get the boxes, did you try shooting them?... ;)
Excellent game! I had so much fun with it. The cannon ball speeds and arcs were just right to get that arcade-y feel. I loved the enemies crashing into each other too, that was hilarious.
I'd love a bit more camera freedom when locked in to the helm and repair stuff, but I appreciate that that's a tradeoff I need to make as a player. Maybe a minigame suits the repairing? Even something as simple as "look at the mast" but allow complete camera control. That way, the player still has control of the camera but they are still forced to look down if they want to actually get more HP, keeping that awareness trade you've got in the current game.
Thank you so much! I was worried we'd made the initial cannon too weak, but I think it really makes the upgrades feel powerful! I had many runs start with an enemy spawning and driving into a rock - I liked to think of it as a tutorial showing the danger of obstacles ;)
The camera locking when you repair was intended to balance the mechanic, but I do agree having a little camera freedom would make that more obviously intentional and feel better than just being locked into doing nothing while repairing
I was blown away by the art and the low poly. Such a top tier game for 96 hours! It takes a long time for a jam though.
Our art team absolutely smashed it for real. What's extra cool is how the compression on the web build makes everything look really ps2 era. Super fun. We also had problems with gameplay length last year (though that's always a problem with tower defense games in jams though haha), but we're hoping that we can at least get most of the enjoyment across, even if people don't always make it to the kraken fight/beating the kraken. Thanks for playing!
Ngl this game is kinda stressful lmao, reminds me of Sea of Thieves (in a good way for both of these statements)
Well done idea and execution! These are some criticisms I have, although most of them are more nitpicks than serious concerns:
The low-poly aesthetic adds a lot of charm to this game, and I am very impressed by the music and sound design. This is a contender for at least an honorable mention in Mark's video in my opinion.
This is some great praise! Thank you for the detailed feedback!
When we were brainstorming at the start of the jam we wanted to hit a sorta busy overcooked styled frantic feeling, which it sounds like we managed to do, very happy to hear that :D
For the steering & healing camera interactions I quite like the increased tension with the forced low-visibility camera. If a player is confident they are safe they can bunker down and heal a lot. Otherwise, it's a game of switching in and out of the mode to check for any needed readjustments. If a player had full control over the camera that tension would evaporate.
The ship steering bits are totally fair. We needed to put in some indicator of what heading the ship will end up at. It's doable to pick up a feel for that without one but it's not something that should be expected of players, especially in a jam setting!
The cultist population is a funny topic. We have some rudimentary AI in place so they avoid (mostly) smashing into the rocks while away from the player, but nothing in place to make them aware of other cultists. This leads to a kind of self-regulating population where the more boats are around, the more collisions will occur. We judged it felt good enough for the rapidly approaching deadline, unfortunately how these things go.
We did get into last years video as a bit of b-roll so if we could upgrade to an honourable mention that'd be amazing! The team really put their all into it this year!
I really like the whirlpool interpretation of the theme! It felt a bit long without a pause button (I had to scuttle away while repairing to get a drink lol) but the progression felt well designed otherwise. the power trip I had with max level cannons followed immediately by having to dodge kraken attacks felt great!
I had a friend literally a couple of hours ago mention that they wished it had a pause because they had to go shopping haha. It never crossed our minds but we also know it can take a while sometimes depending on ship spawns. That said I'm impressed you managed to scuttle away safely for long enough to get a drink! Glad you enjoyed the OP cannons too!