Experience a day in the life of Squidboy, an everyday business squid. His boss is breathing down his neck to get some reports faxed to Smith before the end of the day. Avoid Loan Sharks and other fishy businessmen while faxing papers.
Controls:
WASD or Arrow Keys to move
Press ENTER to start the game
Press SPACE to pause the game
+ and - to adjust volume.
How To Play:
Collect papers and fax them. Goal is to fax as many papers as you can before you lose all your health. Avoid sharks to keep your health up. Collect coffee mugs to increase your health.
One of those games you can't win! :P Would be nice with some highscores here, or medals (I got 56, for the record) as the current Game Over screen doesn't feel the most rewarding. I like the idea, the controls, the progressive difficulty, the neat graphics and music though. IOW: good game!
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Thanks for the feedback! I totally agree. I'm considering doing an updated version of this in the future since people have been leaving all sorts of fantastic feedback with good ideas to make it more enjoyable. I'm glad you enjoyed what is there though!
Not bad, not bad at all !
The idea for the game was weird enough to be funny and rather original. The 8-bit "old-school" feeling is there, thanks to the sound & graphics of the game.
The major problem of this otherwise neat little game is that there is no goal to reach at all. If you fax 1 or 100 papers - it doesn't matter in the end.
So I would suggest to add some medals (for 20, 50, 100 papers faxed or 4,5,6 hearts at the same time) or at least a highscore board so players can compare & compete.
Yeah, a lack of goal has been a common criticism about the game. I'm going to look into integrating medals at least. Thanks for the feedback and I'm glad you enjoyed it!
I enjoyed this simple game, it reminds me a lot of fishy and other such games where you eat other fish to grow, but in this one you added a unique spin where you have to grab an item and stay in place to score with it, but it gets harder and harder to stay where you need to. I managed to get a score of 90 before I was overwhelmed (it required every cup of Joe I saw). I like how you also used the colors to differentiate the sharks' speeds, with yellow being significantly faster. To improve on what you already have here, I would say to put the pickups on the top layer because as there get to be too many sharks, you can't see them underneath and it's harder to get around to them then because it's harder to keep track of where they are and not take damage at the same time. It would be a good idea to add some other powerups too, like an autoscan that will automatically scan the papers you pick up for a limited amount of time even when you are nowhere near the fax machine, invincibility, bundles of paper that just pick up more than one at once, and a super bomb that wipes all enemies off the screen for a time. The changes that heinz23 suggested would also make for a better experience. All in all, it was a unique and original idea, but it could have used a wee bit more.
Thank you! I can definitely change which layer the pickups appear on pretty quickly. A very common criticism has been that it needs a bit more to it, which I totally agree. I might make an updated version of the game in the future with a number of new mechanics to support better replay and some sense of progression. This is my second game and I was making for One Game a Month, so I was trying to keep it very simple. Thank you again for the feedback!
The general gameplay and pixel sprites are not bad, the same with the soothing music... but I think you really need to add more features if you want your game to become popular here on Newgrounds.
Just a few possible changes:
a) a timer
b) goals for each stage (like "fax 20 papers before time runs out")
c) maybe some cut-scenes and a simple story (think of "Papers, Please")
Thanks for leaving feedback! Those are some good ideas that I may try in the future.
a simple yet calming game
I'm glad you enjoyed it! :D