Secrets of the Waves: Behind the Scenes

A few behind the scenes shots from the Global Game Jam 2017, where I made...

"Secrets of the Waves"

You can download the game here.

"Secrets of the Waves" - Global Game Jam 2017

I'm really happy with my Global Game Jam effort for 2017!  

Here's a teaser video that show the first 7 minutes or so.  The full journey goes for about 20 minutes.  




I made the game entirely on my own, and I got a nice little sailing exploring game finished!

It's was a bit inspired by the music of Secret Exploration Society, a band/album I made with my friend Jim Batt... four of those tracks make up the soundtrack for this game. The album itself was very much about exploring and sailing, and I made this thinking of it as a sort of music-video for the album.  :D

The game features numerous things...

• An ever changing sky / fog color, as the weather and time of day turns.
• Quite a nice feeling sailing mechanic.
• Nice camera controls that are mostly smooth and cinematic.
• A compass that shows the direction you are facing at the top of the compass.
• Some OK little islands and environments.

Things that didn't make it in, but that I want to get in are...

• I aimed to get an actual storm into the game, but I didn't get time. 
• I wanted a better cloth-sim sail, and a little person in the boat with a cloth-sim cloak.  That would look cool in accompaniment of a decent wind system in the game!
• Better sailing physics.
• An ocean that also grows and swells, waves become huge in the storm, then calm down again.
• More detailed and pretty little environments.  Trees, grass, stones, more finesse.
• Improvements to the way the sky color and fog colors work, to prevent distant lands popping in and out on the horizon clipping plane.
• Finish off the narrative better.  Currently there's no clear ending.
• Add sea foam around objects emerging from the ocean.
• Add more other islands and objects of interest in the ocean.
• And maybe being able to get out of the boat and walk around!?  :)

- Murray