The big pond - a chill sailing game (alpha available)

Hey all!

I've been working on a small sailing game that I couldn't get out of my head over the past week.

I wanted to capture the peaceful feeling of sailing an RC sailboat in a pond.

The physics model is attempting to model how a sailboat would behave, eg. the wind forces like lift and drag are calculated on the fly along with the drag of the boat's hull in the water. To reach optimal speed you need to control the angle of the boat and the angle of the boom in relation to the wind.

Controls are left/right to steer and the crank to crank in the sail or to loosen it up.

I've just used the 3d example C rendering library that comes with the SDK to draw the game for now.

sail_29082022

I'm sure it runs pretty badly on an actual Playdate at the moment, I'm getting my hands on one soon :crossed_fingers: and then I can test it out. I'll post a demo when I get it to work!

Btw still working on the Myst game, it just got a bit out of hand for now.

Update
Download here: the big pond by okacat

Alpha version is now up on itch.io! Let me know if you have any feedback. I know it runs pretty slowly, so that's the first thing I'll be working on.

sail_alpha01

23 Likes

chill feeling well captured, I'd say!

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Love the minimalist beauty. As the dude on the TV says in Robocop: "I'd buy THAT for a dollar!"

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On on the same team as Joe, I really like this super simple look!

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I really love this concept and cant wait to see how it keeps evolving. I love the perspective you've chosen and the scale, it does give a nice feeling of calm.
I wonder if there's a gentle way to showcase the wind to give the player a feeling of flowing with it?

3 Likes

How's the game coming along?

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It's going alright, thanks! Finally got a Playdate, and to my surprise, it runs at close to 30 fps. There's some GC hiccups but those can be solved. The big question now is what kind of a game this will be hehe.

Yeah, I'm looking for ways to show the wind direction at the moment, and also trying to put together a small demo I can share, hoping it won't take too long!

4 Likes

What about a few drifting pixel "bugs"/"debris"/"who knows what" to show wind direction? Even if not 3D, a 2D moving overlay (like the stars in a space game) might be enough?

2 Likes

Finally managed to get around to releasing a preview version (the big pond by okacat). See more info on how to play on the itch page.

Ended up being a lot more work to get to this stage than I imagined. Classic time optimism :cowboy_hat_face:

The plan now is to make it run better, add more levels, and make it more user-friendly and polished in general.

2 Likes